Author: Emily Dolloff

  • Are you looking for deal on a new computer, iPad or Apple Watch?

    Here at Small Dog Electronics, we’ve been able to arrange some great deals on both new and recently discontinued products with less than perfect packaging. We have personally inspected the units and have made them ready for sale at a HUGE discount to our customers. Most of these units are brand new but with damaged boxes, some are completely factory sealed. If you are an Apple fan who can look past the box, these are some great deals for you! Many of these deals have limited inventory, so once they are gone, they are gone!

    We have redesigned our website, launched a new clearance section as well as a deal of the day. If you haven’t visited our website recently take a look at what we have to offer! We are still working on a few minor changes and adjustments to our site so please let us know if you have any trouble using our new site. You can e-mail sales@smalldog.com for any questions on the items we have for sale and if you are having any trouble with our website.

    Below is just a sampling of our deals, more deals can be found on smalldog.com

    iPad Mini 4, 16gb with Cellular $399.99

    iPad Pro 9.7in 32gb Wifi, Rose Gold $495.99

    iPad Air 2, 32gb Wifi Gold – Opened box but new condition $349.99

    MacBook Pro 13in w/Touch Bar 3.1GHz i5 DC 8GB/256GB – Dented Box $1699.99

    MacBook Pro 15in w/Touch Bar 2.8GHz i7 QC 16GB/256GB/2GB – Dented Box $2299.99

    Apple Watch Nike+ Series 2 42mm Space Gray Aluminum Case with Black Nike Sport $299.99

    Mac Pro 3.0GHz 8-Core 32GB/1TB Flash/D500, Factory Sealed 3999.99

    iMac 27in Retina 5K 3.8GHz i5 8GB/2TB Fusion/RP580 8GB – Foot Scratched $2099.99

    iMac 27in Retina 5K 3.8GHz i5 8GB/2TB Fusion/RP580 8GB – Dented Carton $2199.99

  • Are you ready for APFS?

    A major change in the MacOS 10.13 High Sierra is the switch to Apple’s new Apple File system, or APFS. This was covered pretty heavily in the announcements earlier this year but many of us might have let it slip our minds. With any luck, you’ll barely notice the change, just as almost no one did earlier this year when Apple updated millions of iOS devices to APFS with iOS 10.3. But let’s unpack what APFS is, why you should care, and what gotchas you might encounter.

    A file system is a mechanism for storing files on a hard disk or SSD– it keeps track of where on the drive the pieces that make up each file are located, along with metadata about each file, such as its name, size, creation and modification dates, and so on. You see all this information in the Finder, but since the file system is a level below the Finder, you won’t have to learn anything new when Apple starts using APFS.

    Why is Apple making this switch? In 1985, Apple first developed the Hierarchical File System (HFS) for Mac, later replacing it with HFS+ in 1998. Although HFS+, now called Mac OS Extended in Disk Utility, has received numerous updates in the last two decades, it wasn’t designed to deal with terabyte-sized drives, solid-state drives based on flash storage, full-disk encryption, or supercomputer-class Macs.

    That’s where APFS comes in. Being a modern file system, it’s vastly faster than HFS+. For instance, have you ever used File > Get Info to see how much disk space a folder uses? For a folder containing thousands of files, it can take minutes before you see that number. But with APFS, calculating folder sizes becomes nearly instantaneous, as does duplicating a file that’s gigabytes in size. Saving files should also be faster.

    APFS is also more resistant to data loss or file corruption due to application crashes, and it keeps your data more secure with advanced backup and encryption capabilities. If you use FileVault to encrypt your drive, APFS will change the underlying encryption mechanism during the upgrade, but everything will look and work just as always has.

    When you install High Sierra on a Mac with an SSD or Flash Storage, which includes all recent Mac Notebooks and many desktop Macs, your drive will be converted to APFS automatically. You cannot opt out of the conversions, and the installation will take a bit longer. However, if your Mac has a hard disk drive for Fusion Drive, it can’t be converted to APFS at this time. (If you’re not sure what sort of storage your Mac has, choose About This Mac from the Apple menu and click the Storage tab) This is one of those gotcha’s I mentioned, there are others. However, most won’t affect you. Here are some things to be aware of that you might notice.

    -Mac’s running OS X 10.11 El Capitan and earlier cannot mount or read volumes formatted as APFS. So don’t format external hard disks or USB flash drives as APFS if you might need to use them with older Macs. However, Macs running High Sierra from APFS-formatted drives work fine with external hard disks still formatted as HFS+

    -Although the High Sierra installed can convert a volume from HFS+ to APFS during installation, you cannot convert an APFS volume back to HFS+without first erasing it. You’ll have to back up any data on it, format as APFS and then restore the data.

    -I recommend against using old disk repair and recovery software that hasn’t been updated for High Sierra on an APFS-formatted volume.

    -Apple’s Book Camp, which lets you run Windows on your Mac doesn’t support read/write to APFS-formatted Mac Volumes

    -Volumes formatted as APFS can’t offer share points over the network using AFP and must instead use SMB or NFS.

    Apart from the problem of APFS-formatted USB flash drives not being readable by older Macs most people shouldn’t run into any problems with APFS. The changes are all under the hood and will just result in a faster Mac, a more reliable machine and one that is more secure. It’s unlikely that most users will even notice these changes, so back up your Mac and install High Sierra!

  • High Sierra and iOS 11

    The release dates are here for some major updates to Mac OS, iOS 11 and watchOS 4. I have been playing with these…

  • Apple Watch Series 3, available for pre-order today from Small Dog Electronics! Apple Watch Series 3 is here! Series 3 includes all the…

  • Pick A Color

    Have you found yourself wanting to add more color or make an image stand out better? Maybe you’re touching up a photo, or want to find a shade of red that reminds you of Dorthy’s ruby red slippers in the Wizard of Oz. Did you know you can do this on your Mac without the need for specialized programs like Photoshop? Well if you didn’t, you’re about to learn how.

    You likely have found the color window on your Mac already. It’s commonly used to change the color of font or change a spreadsheet cell to a specific color. Like many longer-standing elements of the Mac experience, most people have seen and used it for these basic purposes, but it can do so much more. How you bring up the Colors window varies depending on what app you’re using, but it usually entails clicking a color button associated with styles or formats. The Colors window has three sections: button for the color pickers at the top, their individual controls in the middle, and the color wells at the bottom. Click the buttons at the top to switch between these pickers:

    Color Wheel: This picker is useful for exploring a wide range of colors. Don’t forget the brightness slider at the bottom, this changes the colors in the wheel above.

    Color Sliders: Use these sliders to replicate specific gray scale brightnesses or RGB, CMYK, or HSB color by number. Or, you can find a color with another picker and then look up its exact values. If you have used Photoshop you’ve likely done this, but perhaps didn’t know your Mac can do it by default as well. When matching colors with outside sources, click the gear button to choose the appropriate standard color pallet before picking a color.

    Color Palettes: This picker shows color swatches from different customer pallets. Use the gear button to make, add, rename, and delete palettes. ( Find them in /Libray/Colors ) The utility of these palettes is that you can share your own color collections, enabling co-workers to use identical colors easily. This is also very helpful if you have a file created by someone else and you want to match the color easily.

    Image Palettes: Click the gear here to load a new image, after which you can select any color in that image by clicking it.

    Pencils: Do you remember when they looked like crayons? Well it’s the same thing, just now they are colored pencils.

    Within each color picker, it’s usually obvious how to select different colors. Click the wheel, move the sliders, enter cyan-magenta-yellow-black percentages and so on. The selected color, which will be applied to your drawing or text, appears in the large square color well at the bottom left. However, there is one other extremely useful way to select a color: the eyedropper. Find it in the bottom portion of the Color window, and click it to see a circular loupe that magnifies anything under it. Move the loupe until the single pixel in the middle is over the color you want, and then click. If you press the Space bar while the loupe is showing, the loupe displays the RGB values of that pixel.

    What are those little squares to the right of the eye dropper? That area is called the swatch drawer, and it’s where you store particular color swatches that you want to use repeatedly. Just drag the color from the color well to the left into a swatch square. You can even pick a color swatch up and move it around, so you can arrange your swatches in a way that you’ll remember. Swatches you store here become available in all Mac apps, so it’s a great way to ensure you’re using the same colors everywhere. To remove a swatch, drag it to the right of the swatch squares and let go just inside the right edge of the Colors window. If this doesn’t work, try to expand the window to the right as much as possible.

    Now you can use colors in your everyday work and even turn out images and work that look like a professional photo editor created!

  • Markup!

    A while back I wrote about some often forgotten features of the Notes app and the ability to sketch notes as well as create basic drawings. Hidden features are everywhere in our Macs and iOS devices, including features like Markup which can be found in your Mail program on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

    Markup allows you to add drawings, text, and signatures to PDFs and photos. If you have used some of the Markup features within preview, you’ll be right at home using it on your iOS device. To try out these features you will want to make sure your using the Mail app on your devices and ensure that you have an active e-mail account set up as well. Recently I have found the Markup feature on PDFs to be incredibly helpful. To unlock these features you’ll first need to attach a PDF or photo to an e-mail.

    1. Open Mail and tap on the square with a pencil to launch a new email
    2. Double-tap in the body of the new email, this will pull up the option to insert a photo or PDF
    3. Once you have located a PDF or photo to add simply tap choose
    4. Tap the attachment and then tap Markup
    5. Choose the tool you wish to use and tap done

    There are several options within Markup to make quick on the fly revisions, provide instructions or give a final signature approval on a document. You can use the pen tool to draw directly on an image and you can select how thick or thing you need your lines to be. You can zoom in or out of an image and you can easily enter text, you even have a few different font options to choose from. To add a signature you simply need to select the signature option within markup and just like in Preview you can enlarge or shrink your digital signature to fit the signature space.

    Markup is a great way to keep up on basic tasks and workflow from anywhere. Combine the features of Markup with iCloud drive so you can access and attach any document you need. Markup is just another way to turn your iOS device into an invaluable resource in the palm of your hand.

  • It’s hard to believe that summer is just about over. My kids return to school on Monday, my oldest is entering sixth grade and my youngest is going into the first grade. Each of my girls has her own level of excitement and denial about school starting back up. Both miss their classmates as summers are always hard to arrange get-togethers and while they won’t admit it, they miss school as well. For me back to school means coordinated search parties for lunch boxes, backpacks and library books that have been tossed aside for the last few months.

    After confirming and locating the safe return and organization of necessary school supplies I’ll be spending the rest of my weekend relaxing and enjoying some good music with friends and family. Hopefully, I’ll start of the first week of school refreshed and organized.

    Enjoy what’s left of summer!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Emily & Hadley_

  • This week I’ve had a longer than usual morning commute. As it’s the last week of my kid’s summer vacation we’ve been staying at our camp about forty minutes from work. Normally my drive is about three minutes to get to the office. In the past week, I’ve observed a handful of trees beginning to change color. I’m never sure what to think when it’s August and the leaves are starting to show hints of yellows and reds. After all, peak foliage season isn’t typically seen until early October. It’s a subtle reminder that it’s time to start thinking about all those projects we didn’t finish in the spring and that before I know it I’ll be turning in my flip flops once again for real shoes.

    This week’s “**Kibbles & Bytes exclusive special is the ultimate back to school bundle.**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002781/ This bundle covers all the essentials for whatever demands your next year has in store for you. I’ve bundled together an Apple Factory Refurbished MacBook Pro 15in w/Touch Bar 2.6GHz i7 QC 16GB/256GB with AppleCare+, a 2TB USB-C backup drive, and a sleeve to carry it around in. In addition to the savings, you’re getting with a factory refurbished computer, which has the exact same warranty as a brand new computer. You’re also saving another $200 on this bundle. “**This deal would normally cost $2459.96, but this week only (don’t tell Don) you can get it for $2259.99!**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002781/kibbles-bytes-ultimate-back-to-school-bundle? This is an incredible deal with a limited supply so you don’t want to miss out.

  • Are You Ready For iOS 11?

    Some of you might have already jumped on the “public beta”:https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/ program for “iOS 11”:https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-11-preview/. If you did, you might have discovered that some apps have stopped working for you. If you haven’t installed it yet this is a good time to get ready.

    I’ve been an iPhone user since the iPhone 3GS and I’ve been an iPad user since the original iPad came out. iOS 11 brings on some similar hiccups that have plagued macOS, most apps and applications ( if it’s on the Mac ) will carry over and run, but eventually some apps and applications will stop working and you need to either replace or update them. Here’s the run down on why and what to look for with your iOS apps.

    Through the iPhone 5, fourth-generation iPad, original iPad mini, and fifth-generation iPod touch, Apple used 32-bit processors. However, in 2013, Apple instead began putting 64-bit chips in all new iOS devices. Apple encouraged developers to make their apps run on 64-bit mode but kept iOS7 compatible with older 32-bit apps. Starting in 2015, Apple required apps to run in 64-bit mode to receive App Store approval. iOS 10 initially warned that 32-bit apps might slow down your device and later said 32-bit apps would need to be updated.

    First off, don’t worry about what 32 and 64-bit mean, all you need to know is that 32-bit apps are old and won’t run on iOS 11, and that 64-bit apps will continue to work as they always have. But how do you know which of your apps are 32-bit? For apps that you use regularly you’ve probably seen one of these warnings. But other apps you may open only occasionally. How can you figure out which of those are destined for the chopping block?

    In iOS 10.3, Apple added a feature to call out these apps. Navigate to Settings > General > About > Applications to see a list of 32-bit apps that don’t have direct updates available. Note: you do need to be running specifically iOS 10.3 for this to work. If you are on iOS 10.3 and Applications won’t let you tap it, it means you do not have any 32-bit apps. When I looked up any potential issues I found 4 of my 122 apps are 32-bit. Now what? Well there are some options for handling this.

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    **Delete the app.** If it’s an app you don’t use much or perhaps at all anymore just get rid of it! Simply press and hold the icon until you get the familiar shaking apps and tap the X.

    **Look for an update that’s a new app** It’s very possible that the developer simply released a completely new version of the app that you need to downloaded. This unfortunately might mean that you have to buy a paid app again, but if you like that app well enough it will be worth it.

    **Look for an alternative app.** Few iOS apps are truly unique, so you may be able to find an alternative that does basically the same thing.

    If you are in an unfortunate situation where it’s an app you must keep using but there is no update to 64-bit then you’ve got some options, but they may not be ideal. Just like when OS X came out and countless users were faced with costly software upgrades from OS9 to OS X, you might consider running an older iOS device exclusively for that app. You could also consider not upgrading to iOS 11 and keep your device back. Both of these options come with drawbacks and eventually you’ll need to upgrade and migrate to newer versions of the app, so this is only a bandaid. The best advice is to work to replace that older app as soon as possible.

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    You’ve still got several weeks to work out a plan and prepare for the official release of iOS 11. For myself, I’m going with the easiest option and just deleting the apps and looking for alternatives.

  • Get To Work Faster

    Some of us like to ease into the start of our work day, others might want to get things rolling as fast as you can. If you’re someone who likes to get things rolling you might find it advantageous to activate login items on your Mac.

    This feature has been in the macOS for years, and when it first came out it could sometimes affect your computer’s start up. Fast forward to macOS Sierra, SSD drives, flash memory and these concerns become issues of the past. Most of us keep programs running even when we are not using them without any performance issues with our Macs, so there’s little concern with current generation machines of delays from login items.

    If you’re not sure what I am referring to, let me take a moment to explain. You can specify through your system preferences if you do or do not want specific programs to automatically launch and run when you log in to your computer. In some cases users have programs automatically launching at login and do not know why. Microsoft Office, Skype and iTunesHelper commonly end up as login applications without users realizing it. That’s why Skype always seems to open on it’s own! In some cases it’s not an advantage to have a program start automatically, but if it’s one that you use every time you use your computer it can be very helpful. I have set as login items Mail, Safari, Calendar and Messages, the four programs I ALWAYS need when I get to the office.

    To look and see if you have any applications as login items is quick and simply. All you need to do is go to System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items.

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    You might find that you already have items in the list, they could be ones you want or perhaps ones you’ve always wondered why they auto launch for you. You should go through this list every now and then. As mentioned, on occasion applications you might not want as a login item might find its way there. You also might find you have an application as a login item that you no longer need or want to run all of the time.

    Here is what you need to know about managing your login items:

    **Add a login item.** An easy way to add an app to the Login Items list is to drag its icon from the Finder into the list. But you can also click the + button beneath the Login Items list and choose the app from the Applications folder. Or, make sure the app is running, Control-click its icon on the Dock, and then choose Options > Open at Login from the shortcut menu.

    **Remove a Login item.** To prevent an app from launching at startup in the future, select it in the Login Items list and click the – button under the Login Items list.

    **Hide a login item’s windows after startup.** Some apps, like Adobe Photoshop and InDesign, fill your screen with their windows immediately at launch. If you don’t want to use an app right after restarting your Mac, you can reduce screen clutter by selecting its Hide checkbox in the Login Items list. That’s the equivalent of launching an app and hiding its windows by Option-clicking on another app.

    So, the next time you start up your Mac, get to work faster!