SPECIAL | Dads & Grads

Our lovely Product Management department was kind enough to provide me with a unique case to test for my iPhone 5. In a few short weeks (late June), we’ll have the newest line of Brenthaven iPhone 5 cases that are pretty cool!

The EXO case for iPhone 5 is a highly protective case that combines their unique BX2 foam protection system that they introduced in their high-end camera case line. (“*Read more about Brenthaven and their legendary warranty here.*”:http://www.brenthaven.com/why-brenthaven) The main reason I like it (and why many others may as well) is because it’s a very minimal case. The iPhone is a beautiful creature, so why would you want to cover that pretty little thing up with some bulky case? I know, I know — because some of us are clumsy and drop our beloved phone occasionally.

But what if you could find a case that was both protective __and__ minimal? Whoa, what? That’s the EXO!

Another neat feature is the cool little “kickstand” that pops out of the back to help prop up your phone horizontally or vertically. You can also use it to clip the phone to your pocket (Very 2000’s-esque…maybe some people still rock the cell phone belt clip, though, I don’t know.)

I think the best part of this case is the sweet video Brenthaven made to promote the case. Check it out “*here.*”:http://youtu.be/Yj6Ko0nEhuI Apparently you can drop it from an airplane and it will still be ok. Hmmm…I wouldn’t test that, though.

Enjoy!

Our Famous Garage Sale is still going, with new things added almost daily. Items start at just $1 — and you’re sure to find some gems in there with a little digging.

New this week of note? Some fun stuff — and part of what makes our Garage Sale so unique (and hence, so famous)!

Some of the stuff to look for this afternoon:

* Original Think Different Posters: $50 each: (1) Martha Graham, (1) Francis Ford Coppola, (1) Dr. Jane Goodall, (1) Miles Davis, (1) Luci & Dezi

* (1) Lunch for 2 with Hapy and Don Mayer – anywhere in Vermont – proceeds to Planned Parenthood of Northern VT – $100

* (2) Ride with Spawn of the Devil Motorcycle club (on your bike or back of one of ours) – Beautiful tour of the Green Mountains. This day trip will visit some of the twisty roads in the Green Mountains and will include lunch. Proceeds to PuppyMill Rescue- $100/ea

(2) Golf with the worst golfers in the world at Sugarbush Golf course. Hapy and Don will dust off the clubs and treat you to a round of golf at the beautiful Sugarbush Golf course. Proceeds to National Disaster Search Dog Foundation- $100/ea

(1) Quart of Grace’s homemade Applesauce – proceeds to PPNE – $10

(1) 30-min massage by Rebecca – your choice of Therapeutic, Deep Tissue, Pregnancy, Sports massage along with Lomilomi and Reiki – $35

With all the technology around us on a day-to-day basis, Pong thought it would be a good idea to reduce the amount of radiation given off by your iPhone. So, they made a case to do exactly that!

Grab the newsletter exclusive this week: *Save $15 on any Pong case for your iPhone, and we’ll also include a Pong stylus (a $20 value)!* These styluses are in short supply and high demand, so grab yours before they’re all gone.

Has your desktop ever become so cluttered that you had to condense things into folders or even worse — delete things? Well, this Mac Treat could potentially help solve your problem by shrinking the size of the text and icons littered about your desktop.

To start, we need to open the view options. Do this by selecting *View > Show View Options* while on your desktop. Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut *command+J*. Make sure your menu bar says *Finder* and you are on the desktop, not a Finder window or some other application because you won’t be looking at the same view options (if any at all).

With the View Options showing, you can now use the slider for *Icon Size* to adjust how big or small you would like your icons to be. Directly below that is a slider to change the spacing between the icons. Finally, below that is a dropdown menu for the text size of the icon label.

If you’d like the smallest amount of screen real-estate taken up by your icons, I would suggest dropping the sliders all the way down and setting the text size to 10. Just be prepared to bust out your eagle eye vision because these things can get tiny.

If you are curious how I run my desktop, my current settings are:
* Icon Size: 32×32
* Grid Spacing: 4th tick
* Text Size: 10
* Label Position: Right

Play around with each of these settings to make the most of your desktop. Have fun with this and try out different combinations. Unfortunately, I cannot find a “restore to default setting” in OS X Lion (10.7). I recommend taking note of the settings before changing them just in case you want to change them back.

Grace drove down to Long Island to pick up the revised motor for my electric motorcycle. We added an additional motor to the side car and also added active cooling to the whole system. We hope this will provide additional power, range and reliability to the eHippo.

Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

Your Kibbles & Bytes team,
_Don, Kali, Stephanie & Mike_

_Dear Friends,_

I was going to ride over to Lake George, NY today for the annual Americade Motorcycle rally, but the weather is cold, rainy and brisk so I am wimping out on that and will make my way over to the rally in Laconia, NH this weekend instead.

Apple’s big developer’s conference launches on Monday. “*WWDC, the WorldWide Developer’s Conference,*”:https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/ is the biggest Apple event of the year, and we can expect a peek at what we are likely to see from Apple over the next year or so. I am sure we will see previews of the new Mac and iOS operating systems, and of course, the rumor mills are buzzing with speculation about new products.

We will have a complete run-down for you in the next issue of Kibbles & Bytes, but keep an eye on our “*blog, Barkings!,*”:http://blog.smalldog.com our “*Twitter feed,*”:http://twitter.com/hellosmalldog and our “*Facebook page*”:https://www.facebook.com/smalldogelectronics for up-to-the-minute news and announcements as they happen throughout the week.

Now is a great time to buy that new Mac or iPad with the great financing program that is being offered in our retail stores. You can get 0% interest for 6, 12, or 18 months depending upon the value of your invoice. We launched this program this past weekend and customers are finding the application process to be fast and easy to manage.

I want to give a shout-out to David Boyd who will be leaving Small Dog in a couple weeks. David has been with the company for nearly 7 years and is one of those employees that really epitomizes our operating principle of “do it all with enthusiasm and joy”. David started out as a salesperson in our S. Burlington store when it first opened, rapidly moved to our tech department and really found his place as a full time consultant, solving customer problems, teaching classes and helping our business customers with sophisticated installations. We are going to miss David and wish him the best in his future endeavors.