Green Mountain Software Can Write an App for That

If the sadness and shock of the terrorist attacks in Paris were not enough, I was in shock this week as Islamaphobia and fear overwhelmed politicians and citizens. Some politicians were tripping over themselves to stoke the flames of fear by turning on the Syrian refugees. I don’t know about you but if I lived in Syria and there was a war in my neighborhood with madmen from both sides going berserk, I’d be a refugee, too. Oh, by the way, did you know that Steve Jobs father was a Syrian refugee?

This was seemingly fueled by what turns out to be a very sketchy report that one of the terrorists posed as a refugee. That has since been discredited but the conclusion jumping was already in full swing. Some politicians tried even to separate their distain for refugees by religion but there is no religion that makes terrorism its creed and there have been terrorist from many religions. It is when hypocritical fanatics of any religion feel that they can impose their will upon others that conflicts arise.

Way back when the USA was young, our friends in France sent us a gift. The Statue of Liberty proudly stands by our shores with the inscription that defines who we are as a nation:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to be free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

When we succumb to the fear the terrorists win. When we change who we are, the terrorists have won. When we let prejudice trump common sense, the terrorists have won. We must lead by example and the example of shunning refugees is the wrong one. In the height of the worst terror since WWII, President Hollande of France recommitted to taking Syrian refugees saying “We have to reinforce our borders while remaining true to our values.”

We cannot change who we are – unless you are a native American, you are a descendant of refugees and immigrants. This anti-immigrant, anti-Islam, anti-refugee wave of fear is unAmerican and is born of ignorance and hate.

How do you feel about this trend towards exclusion of refugees and immigrants? Share your opinion at our blog – blog.smalldog.com

End Soapbox

When I saw that we had started to carry the Fody Tempus Pro Bluetooth weather station, I was immediately interested. At my apartment, I had a really old, pretty cheap, wireless thermometer I was using to help me figure out how to dress myself for the conditions outside. You know, t-shirt, sweater, jacket, full Antarctica-grade parka…it is Vermont after all. The problem I always had with it was that the remote sensor couldn’t get wet, and there just weren’t many places I could put it. Last year I got a slightly better thermometer base station that used a wired thermocouple that could easily be passed out a closed window. The thermocouple is sealed and can get as wet as you want. That worked a lot better, but the base station features weren’t as good. I didn’t like the way it recorded min/max temperature.

So when I saw the Tempus Pro, I thought it might be able to solve all of my problems. In addition to indoor/outdoor temperature and indoor humidity, it also records outdoor humidity, rainfall, barometric pressure, windspeed and wind direction. Instead of all that data going to a limited base station, it goes to my iPad, where I can quickly see trends, share it with friends on Twitter or Facebook or just email myself the raw data.

I had a few concerns such as whether or not the radiation shield on the outdoor temperature sensor would work. You have to install the Tempus Pro in an open location so that wind and rain can be recorded, but this most likely means it’ll be in the sun too, which would completely mess up the temperature reading. The radiation shield actually does an amazing job at preventing that. I haven’t seen any excessively high temperatures recorded even when the station was baking in the sun.

Setup was very easy for a device that’s actually doing a lot of complicated things. The outdoor station transmits its data to the indoor base station that is plugged into the wall for power. This transmission is probably very basic radio since the range is quite a bit more than is possible with Bluetooth and the outdoor station only uses three included AA batteries. The indoor station uses low-energy Bluetooth to relay indoor and outdoor sensor data with your iOS or Android device.

Once everything is paired and running (which is easy to do if you follow the order indicated by the instructions), you will see real-time data being displayed on your iOS or Android device via the Fody app. It also builds graphs of historical data so you can watch trends. One of the things I liked most about the app was the alerts feature. I can set high/low alert thresholds for any of the sensors. I set up an alert for when the outdoor temperature falls below freezing. A few times this past week, I was sitting on my couch and heard my iPad chime. It was an alert letting me know it had fallen below freezing outside. Very cool! You could also set other useful alerts for things like excessive rain, or high winds.

Overall I think the Tempus Pro is a pretty neat device and the simple use and setup belies the actual complexity of having your own personal weather station. If you’ve ever been curious about setting up a personal weather station at home, or just want something a bit more than temperature readings like I did, you won’t be disappointed with the Fody Tempus Pro.

Along with the new iMacs Apple also introduced the Magic Mouse 2, Magic Keyboard and the Magic Trackpad 2. The Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Keyboard 2 come standard with the iMac.

The first thing you might notice about these new input devices is that they no longer require disposable batteries, but rather have built-in lithium-ion batteries and a lightning port to charge your device. It will require a little change in habits because you don’t want to be right in the middle of important work and find that your battery is dead. Fortunately, they charge up fast and will give you plenty of warning with the battery is low. As an example, a two-hour charge on the Magic Keyboard will last about a month.

The other important thing to note about these new input devices is that they REQUIRE OS X 10.11 El Capitan.

Magic Keyboard

With the same technology used in the MacBook’s keyboard the new Magic Keyboard features a lower profile design that delivers full sized keyboard function while taking up 13% less space. The back of the keyboard features a Lightning port, and on/off switch and the Bluetooth antenna window. The Magic Keyboard and all of these new input devices feature “automatic pairing”. Basically this means that you plug in the included lightning cable to the USB port on your Mac and you are paired. No more typing codes or putting the device in discoverable mode.

You can charge the Magic Keyboard by plugging it into your Mac and continue to use the keyboard as a wired keyboard until it is charged, too. Unplug it and it automatically switches over to Bluetooth.

The Magic Keyboard is $99.

Magic Mouse 2

The major improvement to the Magic Mouse is the built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery. There is now a lightning port on the bottom of the mouse to charge the Magic Mouse 2. Fortunately, the Magic Mouse 2 fully charges in about 2 hours but if you are in a bind you can plug it in for just 2 minutes or so and get a full day’s use from the Magic Mouse 2.

There are numerous internal improvements with fewer moving parts. The newly shaped feet should give the Magic Mouse 2 superior gliding and tracking.

The Magic Mouse 2 sells for $79

Magic Trackpad 2

The Magic Trackpad 2 has had the most changes of these input devices. It also features a built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery that fully charges in about 2 hours and will provide about a month of typical use. It features a 29% larger surface area than the original Magic Trackpad.

Most importantly, Force Touch is now available! Force sensors detect how hard you press and then tell your Mac what to do based upon these subtle differences in pressure. The Magic Trackpad 2 incorporates the Taptic Engine that provides you with tactile feedback when you activate Force Touch. Force Touch also lets you click anywhere on the trackpad with equal sensitivity.

Force Touch is being supported by more and more Apps and you can use it to find word definitions, Force click on a date in email or messages and Calendar will pop up so you can create a new event. Force click on an address in that same email and up pops Maps to show you how to get there.

The back of the Magic Trackpad 2 has an on/off switch, Lightning port and Bluetooth antenna window.

I am really looking forward to giving this new Magic Trackpad a work out and will report back to Kibbles & Bytes readers.

The Magic Trackpad 2 sells for $129

Erich Sullivan – South Burlington Service Writer

The new Apple TV is what really has my attention, I’m already sold on the $200.00 64GB version.
I don’t know what has me most sold, Siri? The App Store and what that will mean? I know that anything we’re thinking today will be dramatically upset with what will come from it. A simple unified search that lets me know if it’s in showtime, HBO, netflix or Hulu or in iTunes is going to be unreal. No more painfully typing in on that arcade style grid keyboard several times to find out no one has it. More time watching TV, less time struggling with an interface and search limitations.

The App Store intends to turn the Apple TV into a casual gaming console, and the new remote gives it a change of being a decent experience.The new remote is exciting, the lightning connector for charging has me pondering things. They could have made it charge through micro USB, or run off batteries, or inductively charge on the top of the Apple TV box, but they went with lighting. It comes with the Lightning Cable to charge your remote, or your other Apple devices with a lightning port.

Another interesting decision was the USB type C on the back of the new Apple TV for restores. Very forward thinking, and just another display that Apple is really pushing for USB type C to be the next ubiquitous connector.

I have said many more things about the new Apple TV, but in short, I’m already sold.

Morgan – Waitsfield IT

I wasn’t all that thrilled about the  Watch additions (I’m still on the fence as to how useful I’d find the watch to be), but the iPad Pro announcement was cool. I know a lot of customers have been eagerly awaiting a larger iPad and—as a heavy iPad user myself—I know how useful they can be for work & play, so with iOS 9’s side-by-side apps support, it’ll be great. It’ll be especially useful for artists with the  Pencil (which itself is a great improvement since stylus support is pretty poor on the iPad) and may turn out to be a strong competitor to the expensive Wacom Cintiq line of drawing tablets with built-in displays. And, can I say one thing about the four speakers on the iPad Pro… FINALLY!

The new  TV looks great & fun, but doesn’t seem entirely groundbreaking, just exactly what the next step of its evolution needed to be. That’s not to say I don’t want one, it definitely looks like a great product, just that it’s what I’d expect a new  TV to be. The remote looks very useful and fun for games, and I think that supporting iPhones & iPod touches as additional controllers is an absolutely brilliant idea.

As usual, the iPhone 6S & 6S+ look like excellent upgrades to an already great phone. Bringing Force Touch to the iPhone will be a nice addition and I can’t help but geeking out about how they implemented it (Apple is really becoming quite ingenious on their technical solutions to difficult problems which actually make a bigger difference than most people think). And, they just keep making an excellent camera even better (the Live Photos are neat, esp. if they really don’t increase the photo size by much).

Jim Overman – Waitsfield Phone Sales

Siri On The Apple TV!

There are many new exciting features to the Apple TV which make me think that it is time for an upgrade, but my favorite has to be the addition of Siri. In fact, the whole remote is pretty darn cool. It features a new glass touch surface remote that allows for easy maneuvering around the screen, just like an an iPhone or iPad. Back to Siri though, Siri is now able to do universal searches across iTunes, Netflix, Hulu and more for you favorite actor, director or genre. My very favorite part though is that if you ask Siri ‘What did they say?’, the Apple TV will automatically scroll back fifteen seconds and turn on closed captioning. I am particulary excited because when I watch Doctor Who I am doing this manually myself at least six or seven times per episode. No joke. It will be nice to just be able to ‘ask and receive’ as they say. The new Apple TV will actually come with two sizes of built-in storage, there will be a 32GB model for $149.99 and a 64GB for $199.99. Apple plans to start shipping in late October. I would say it is going to be on my holiday wish list but I am not sure I can I hold out that long!

Joe Lytton – Key West Store Manager

Just as we expected, Apple announced the next versions of its best-selling smartphones, the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus at its annual launch event in San Francisco. Also as we expected, the iPhone 6S looks identical to last year’s 4.7-inch iPhone 6S, reserving its most important changes for the hardware interior.
True, there is a new color now, called rose gold (it basically looks like a blush pink, same as the new Apple Watch color option that the company announced). But as far as looks go, this extra shade is the extent of the the changes you’ll be able to visually detect between this year’s and last year’s phones.

Apple says that its phone may look the same as last year’s model, but its iPhone 6S duo has achieved more inner strength. This time it uses a different grade of aluminum for its chassis, one that’s also used in the aerospace industry. They call it Series 7,000, and it’s the same aluminum alloy Apple puts into its Apple Watch Sport.
A new type of chemically strengthened glass also tops the iPhone 6S, though the company hasn’t confirmed if this is cover material from Corning’s Gorilla Glass line or not.

Apple has included a variation of Force Touch, which you find in different capacities on the Apple Watch and on some Mac trackpads. Called 3D Touch here, the iPhone 6S phones will adopt the same pressure-sensitive capability that calls up secondary menus and actions when you press and hold the screen. Press down and you can pull up context-sensitive menus, switch apps, or examine photos. But it’s a subtle riff on what already exists on iPhones: tapping and holding. Another use is to access shortcuts from the home screen for your most frequent actions, say messaging a friend. And if you’re in your email inbox, applying fingertip pressure to an element in the message will surface more information, like maybe the flight number on an emailed travel itinerary, for instance. (Apple called this concept “peeking in” during the live demo.) Pressing harder on an app will likewise generate more options, like viewing all the photos of a contact’s Instagram photo stream. In the context of a game, pressing harder could zoom you in to get closer to the action.

A 12-megapixel camera is a huge jump for Apple, which has been holding onto its 8-megapixel sensors in its iPhone for years. Autofocus will pick up the pace, according to Apple, and color accuracy is a point of pride.

The 5-megapixel front-facing camera now brings the iPhone 6S on par with a lot of today’s competing handsets. Of course, it includes the company’s proprietary voice chat feature, FaceTime video. Here’s something wildly different, though. Instead of including a dedicated flash for the front-facing camera, which only a few phones do, Apple is using the home screen to light up instead. This is meant to increase the brightness of those selfies even in low-light situations.

A new feature you’ll see in the camera, Live Photos is a default mode that turns stills into a video or GIF, basically, images that move. It’s an automatic thing; all you have to do is take the picture like normal. When we took some shots, it seamlessly added Live Photo motion and sound. The Live Photo motion came out more like stop-motion or time lapse, however, than true video. It’s also important to note that one Live Photo is about twice the file size as a regular photo. Couple that with the 4K video capabilities (more on that later), and you’ll definitely need more storage space to accommodate.

Apple also announced 4K video recording, at 3,840×2,160-pixel resolution. You’ll be able to take 8-megapixel camera photos while recording at this ultrahigh resolution. (The immediate benefit of shooting 4K video would be watching them later on a 4K TV.) Just like last year’s phones, the iPhone 6S Plus is the only model here with optical image stabilization, which helps correct blur from shaking hands.

Under the hood, we have an upgraded, proprietary A9 processor that continues Apple’s theme of mystery when it comes to exactly what’s going on in there. Though it’s impossible to appreciate during our quick demo, what we do know is that this is Apple’s third-generation 64-bit chip. Apple claims that the A9 is 70 percent faster than last year’s A8 when it comes to the usual computing tasks (like opening an app, for example), and 90 percent faster at graphical tasks, like gaming.

Apple says it’ll have the fastest forms of LTE Advanced, if that’s supported where you live, and will also include support for the latest, greatest Wi-Fi networks.

The two new iPhones will run on iOS 9, mining all of those software enhancements, like a smarter Siri and up to three hours longer battery life, plus a new Low Power Mode. The updated operating system, which is currently in public beta, will arrive for phones on September 16.

You have a password for the online banking, one for your Apple ID, one to log into your retirement amount. Your password for your bank has to have have at least one numeric number, but can’t start with a number and it can’t have any more than two of the same characters found in your username. Your retirement account must include at least 3 numbers and one special character but they can’t be consecutive.

Does this sound familiar? In the perfect world we would only need one password, but unfortunately for security purposes and as hackers get better at what they do password strength has become critical and part of our everyday lives. The hassle with this is that most sites have their own sets of rules for password strength leaving many of us to peck away at our keyboards or devices in a sometimes endless game of “remember how you manipulated your favorite password 16 different ways and can’t remember if your banking site used the password with the capitalization or the one with the ampersand”.

For a very long time I will admit my method of keeping track of my usernames and passwords was the stickies program on my Mac, much to the dismay of our IT manager! While stickies are easily accessed they are not secure and I do not recommend this method. Where you should keep them is in your keychain. You can access your keychain through applications and then utilities. Once you are in your keychain you can manually add preferred sites, accounts and passwords you wish to store. Another huge benefit is secure notes. Secure notes allow you store additional confidential information. Keychain is safe and secure because in order to view any of the passwords stored there you need to enter your administrator password. Within keychain you can make sure to safely and securely keep your passwords, and when you forget if you needed that capitalization or ampersand in your password you can simply open keychain and enter into the search field the website for which you need to confirm the password.

Now what if you don’t have a mac? The loss of passwords, and most often your Apple ID password is a huge concern with users of iOS devices only. Luckily there is an easy solution for that, iCloud and iCloud keychain. Simply go to settings, iCloud and then select keychain. Your iOS device will begin to store your logins and websites. Additionally you can add specific websites and passwords manually to your phone or iPad under safari and then selecting passwords. This is also where you would look if you can’t remember login information.

Recording safely your logins and passwords is an often overlooked step, especially when users of iOS devices accidentally have the device damaged or lost. Saving your passwords safely and using iCloud keychain can avert your being logged out of accounts.

Parallels is offering a free of charge upgrade to Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac for all customers who purchased a qualifying upgrade version,…