Everyone is buzzing about the “2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics”:http://www.vancouver2010.com/ starting tonight. Some people love to watch Alpine Skiing, Figure Skating or the Luge. This year the Olympic Games are being held right in our own backyard, plus we have a lot of contenders, so it’s especially exciting.

“Cowbell2010”:http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cowbell2010/id349213072?mt=8 is your perfect new app for the iPhone or iPod touch. This new app is created by “Rage Digital”:http://www.ragedigitalinc.com/ and it allows you to cheer for your home country while watching this year’s Winter Olympics.

Cowbell2010 also lets you follow hundreds of tweets from athletes all over the world. It has a real-time medal counter and even a “Live Wall” so you can share photos and text your experiences with all of your Facebook and other Cowbell2010 friends.

At only .99 cents, it’s a cool and affordable app to keep track of all of the Olympic excitement!

Speaking of iCal… this Sunday marks the start of the Chinese New Year–the Year of the Tiger. The Chinese New Year changes every year, so if you don’t want to miss it in the future, subscribe to it via iCal.

“Download the Chinese Holiday Calendar for iCal here.”:http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/calendars/chinesepublicholidaycalendar_appleinc.html

“See all of Apple’s iCal Calendars here.”:http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/calendars/

__So, what are “Tigers” like, anyway?__

bq.The Tiger is said to be lucky vivid, lively and engaging. Another attribute of the Tiger is his incredible bravery, evidenced in his willingness to engage in battle or his undying courage. Maybe he’s so brave because he is so lucky. But the Chinese say a Tiger having a Tiger in the house is the very best protection against the evils of fire, burglary.

(Small Doggers Katie, Ed, Jaime and Grace are Tigers… fitting?)

“Source”:http://www.usbridalguide.com/special/chinesehoroscopes/Tiger.htm

__Thinking about Valentine’s Day instead?__ “Download our iMix from the iTunes Store!”:http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewIMix?id=305467955&s=143441

This week, Apple announced Aperture 3, the long-awaited updated to its prosumer photo editing and management application. There are over 200 new features, many of which borrow from and expand on features found in iPhoto ’09.

It’s been two years since the release of Aperture 2, and this new version is a sleek balance between evolution and revolution. Aperture 3 combines powerful performance with iPhoto simplicity to help you refine images, showcase your photography, and manage massive libraries on your Mac.

The 200 new features and enhancement will help take your photography to the next level. Edge-aware, nondestructive brushes will help apply or remove adjustments; adjustment presets will give your images a custom look or emulate a variety of camera types and processing styles; advanced slidewhows will help create beautiful slideshows that weave together photos and HD video clips; full-screen browsing takes advantage of every last pixel on beautiful Apple displays; and upgraders from iPhoto will appreciate that Faces, Places, and all metadata will be preserved when importing an iPhoto library.

“Download a 30-day trial of Aperture 3 here.”:http://www.apple.com/aperture/trial/

This week we refreshed our coupon page with some great new coupons. For example:

* Use coupon code “clearance” to get 10% off any “clearance items”:http://www.smalldog.com/specials.

* Get free shipping on all “AppleCare”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/x/Apple|AppleCare on top of our already low AppleCare prices ($20 – $100 lower than Apple’s prices) with coupon code “applecare.”

* Use coupon code “chillpillcoupon” to get $5 off any “Chill Pill Mobile Speakers.”:http://www.smalldog.com/chill-pill-audio

* 10% Off all Apple Software – use coupon code “softserve10”

See all coupons on our “coupon page!”:http://www.smalldog.com/mac-coupons

To use any of these coupons, simply add the qualifying item to your shopping cart and then enter the coupon code in the coupon text field. You can also use these coupons on the telephone. Unless otherwise noted, coupons can’t be combined with other offers, but usually can be used multiple times until they expire.

I have to admit, this has been an ongoing problem for me that I have really been too lazy to figure out. Every time I went to send someone an iCal invitation by right clicking on the event and hitting “Mail Event”, the email would show up with “(null) invites you to…” and the person on the receiving end would not be able to open up that iCal invite.

I basically thought, “Well, I did send the invite; they can just add it to their own calendar!” No one really said anything… until Kali spoke up! She was telling me she couldn’t add my events and had to add them on her own, just an extra step for everyone.

I was playing around in my Address Book today and noticed that my “Personal Card” in Address Book did not show my email address. I then added my email address to my personal card and randomly sent another iCal event. It was like magic–Kali could open it and it no longer said “null” it read “Katie invites you to…”!

Moral of the story is that if you are seeing (null) in the subject line when you are sending iCal events, add your email address!

Sometimes these SIMPLE things can really throw you for a loop. I __guess__ have to start showing up for meetings now!