Author: Emily Dolloff

  • How To Enter Emoji On Your Mac

    I remember the first day I got a new computer, ok a new-to-me computer. It was a hand-me-down PC of sorts. I think…

  • What to do when your Mac is frozen

    It’s probably happened to you at least once and it’s worse than the spinning beach ball. It’s the scary black screen with multiple languages alerting you to restart your computer. I’ve seen it countless times on customer machines over the years and once or twice on my own computers. Most users come in with concern and fear on their faces; what just happened to their computer?

    This black screen is often referred to as a kernel panic and I like to describe it as the computers equivalent to your car’s check engine light. It’s a very generic error that can means something has gone horribly wrong or your computer just simply needs to restart. Generally the only way to know if your kernel panic was the result of a serious problem is running diagnostics, typically performed by a technician. I once experienced this with a 15in MacBook Pro of mine. I was sitting in my living room looking up something on the internet and BAM kernel panic. I was stuck with a machine that was completely unresponsive, locked up and displayed a scary black screen. My computer had never before indicated any kind of performance issues and was working perfectly fine until it locked up on me without warning.

    If you should find yourself in the unlucky position of having your Mac lock up on you due to a kernel panic you will need to restart your computer. How you might ask? When your computer is locked up and unresponsive to your keyboard, mouse, trackpad, etc the only way to restart your computer is to hold down the power button for about five seconds. This will force your computer to turn off and it will shut down. I would suggest letting your computer sit for about thirty seconds and then turn the computer back on again. With the new Touch Bar MacBook Pros you will need to press down on the blank touch ID button until you feel and hear a click.

    It’s never advisable to shutdown and restart your computer by just holding down on the power button and you should only do this in situations where you have no other choice. Forcing your computer to shut down by holding the power button can cause corruption and loss of data among other things. However, when your Mac is frozen there is no other option. In many cases this lock up is a one time deal, as was the case with my MacBook Pro. The machine only ever locked up the one time. Like your cars check engine like, the kernel panic can be caused by any number of benign issues from a bad memory chip to a logic board issue. Certainly it’s recommended that if your machine locks up again you should have it looked it, but more than likely it’s just an isolated event.

  • Customer Returns

    During the holidays we saw an increase in returns (this is normal) and as a result we also some more errors on customer returns. Please remember the following information when taking back a product return, these are our general rules. There are some exceptions and some products can not be returned. Below is a shortened version of our policy, a highlight reel of things to pay attention to.

    Was the item purchased within 15 days?
    Does it have all the accessories and packaging?
    Is the item “defective”?
    Have you identified the original invoice?
    Did you note WHY the item is being returned?
    If they want a refund does the product qualify?
    Are you refunding in the original form of payment?

    Common errors we have seen:

    Refunds going back to a wrong credit card
    No notes on invoice saying why it was returned
    Verifying the original form of payment
    Failing to turn off find my iPad

    Computers and iPads that come back to us with a problem, we need to help the customer to work with the service department. These products need to be processed as a repair and once there is a diagnosis we’ll work to find the best resolution. 99% of the time these issues are handled by the service department via warranty repair service.

    Please take a few minutes on every return, managers and sales staff alike, to double check the proper return policy procedures are followed. Our return policy can be seen online here.

  • Earned Sick Time

    Effective January 1, 2017 all staff of Small Dog Electronics are eligible for paid sick time. Previous to January 1, 2017 only full time employees earned paid time off in the form of CTO time. Full time staff will continue to earn CTO time, there are no changes to benefits for full time employees as CTO covers the new law changes.

    Part time employees will now earn 1 hour of time for every 52 hours worked and can earn up to 24 hours in a year. You can view I complete policy and updates on our wiki under benefits of being a Small Dog Employee. Please remember that you do need to be on the Small Dog private network to view this wiki documentation.

  • Celebrate Diversity

    Small Dog Electronics is celebrating the diversity of those around us and the diversity of the products that we sell. As a company we are not just about selling Apple computers, there’s a whole lot more to us! As many of you know we’ve been working hard to get the word out about home automation offerings, so these next two weeks we’ll be focusing on the diversity of the products we sell with a primary focus on the following products:

    iPad
    Apple TV
    Lutron
    Kevo BT locks
    Home Kit
    Incipio Command Kit
    Elgato Eve weather stations
    August Lock

    These next two weeks or so we want to bring attention to the diversity of the products we sell and will be offering 10% off all consulting services with the purchase of any home automation products. We are not offering discounts on the products themselves. All retail stores should do their best to create a focused display in their stores featuring home automation products that they have available in their stores. On our website we have a homepage banner and landing page set up to feature the diversity campaign and the products we are highlighting.

    This short campaign is running from Monday January 16th through Saturday January 28th.

  • How to Enter Emoji on the Mac

    I remember the first day I got a new computer, ok a new-to-me computer. It was a hand-me-down PC of sorts. I think it ran some DOS operating system and the screen was always orange. AOL had just come out and I loved nothing more than the sound of my modem and the eventual entry into a chat room where I learned things like 🙂 was a smiley face and 😛 meant I was sticking my tongue out.

    Fast-forward many years and my basic AOL symbols are now referred to as emojis. I admit the basic smile is probably still my most commonly used one, but there’s a world of emojis out there and they can make everyday conversations just a little bit more fun.

    I use emojis frequently on my iPhone and iPad, but it’s just as easy to use emojis on your Mac once you know where to find them. On your Mac it might not be as obvious where you might find these because you can’t just pull them up from your keyboard (unless you know the shortcut). If you want to insert a smiley face in a post with Messages or a note in Mail, you need to use the characters viewer. To bring up the Character viewer in most Mac apps, choose edit > emoji & symbols or use the keyboard shortcut: Command-Control-Space. When the characters viewer opens you can insert an emoji from a few different ways, you might need to play around and see which method works best depending on which app you are using.

    *While the curser is active in a text area, double-click a character in the viewer.
    *Drag a character out of the viewer and into a text area.
    *Drag a character out of the viewer to the Desktop to create a text clipping with it. Then drag that text clipping anywhere you can type.

    Once you insert a character or emoji, it will appear in the frequently used category. You can feel free to add your most commonly used emojis to your favorites category. You’ll find all the same emojis on your Mac as you do on iPhone, making your conversations on your Mac now just as fun as those on your iPhone or iPad.

  • Baby Steps Into Home Automation

    Home automation is a big topic right now. The technology has been out for several years, but for many users as well as manufacturers it’s just now starting to really take off. There seems to be an almost endless list of options popping up and they range from simple DIY installations to more complex professional installations. I’ve talked to many users in the last few weeks who want to begin using some home automation products but don’t know where to start so I thought I’d start to share some of the things I’m doing in my own home. I have several products running now, but the first place I started was with simple smart outlets and installing a few apps on my phone.

    Taking advantage of home automation doesn’t have to be complicated and you can do it in baby steps. In my own house I started by adding some smart outlets from Incipio. The “*Incipio CommandKit Smart Outlet with Metering*”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/88015/incipio-commandkit-smart-outlet-with-metering was very simple to set up and took me just 5-10 minutes to pair it to my phone via their free “*app.*”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/incipio-commandkit/id1049393966?mt=8 Now from my phone I can control multiple devices within my home via this app and I can see the amount of power those items are using. Because the smart outlets work off your home wifi, you can easily move them around the house and connect them to different products around your house.

    I’ve been astounded with the difference in power consumption with some lights around my house. We all know LED products use less power, but it’s remarkable to see first hand just how much of a difference there is! Thanks to my smart outlets I’ve discovered little things like the tiny lightbulb in my bedroom lamp used almost as much power as my TV, cable box and speakers combined. I quickly changed out that bulb to an LED. Before getting these outlets it never crossed my mind to change bulbs in my smaller lamps.

    Through my phone I can now turn devices on and off, see how much power they are using, and program when specific devices might need to turn on or off. I can also do fun things like like use Siri (you do need to set up HomeKit for this) to turn lights on when you come into a room and don’t want to open the app. As you get more comfortable with basic home automation tools like outlets, you can expand to light bulbs, speaker systems and even start replacing physical wall switches.

    My one piece of advice to someone starting off with home automation is to look at the product lines you are considering to make sure the products you are buying are compatible with HomeKit. Not all home automation products work with HomeKit so you want to pay attention to what you’re buying. Little details like this can really reduce headaches and detract from the value and fun of these devices!

  • Baby Steps Into Home Automation

    Home automation is a big topic right now. The technology has been out for several years now, but for many users as well as manufactures it’s just now starting to really take off. There seems to be an almost endless list of options popping up and they range from simple DIY installations to more complex professional installations. I’ve talked to many users in the last few weeks who want to begin using some home automation products but don’t know where to start so I thought I’d start to share some of the things I’m doing in my own home. I have several products running now, but the first place I started was with simple smart outlets and installing a few apps on my phone.

    Taking advantage of home automation doesn’t have to be complicated and you can do it in baby steps. In my own house I started by adding some smart outlets from Incipio. The “**Incipio CommandKit Smart Outlet with Metering**”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/88015/incipio-commandkit-smart-outlet-with-metering was very simple to set up and took me just 5-10 minutes to pair it to my phone via their free “**app.**”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/incipio-commandkit/id1049393966?mt=8 Now from my phone I can control multiple devices within my home via this app and I can see the amount of power those items are using. Because the smart outlets work off your home wifi, you can easily move them around the house and connect them to different products around your house. I’ve been astounded with the difference in power consumption with some lights around my house. We all know LED products use less power, but it’s remarkable to see first hand just how much of a difference there is! Thanks to my smart outlets I’ve discovered little things like the tiny lightbulb in my bedroom lamp used almost as much power as TV, cable box and speakers combined. I quickly changed out that bulb to an LED. Before getting these outlets it never crossed my mind to change bulbs in my smaller lamps.

    Through my phone I can now turn devices on and off, see how much power they are using and program when specific devices might need to turn on or off. I can also do fun things like like use Siri (you do need to set up HomeKit for this) to turn lights on when you come into a room and don’t want to open the app. As you get more comfortable with basic home automation tools like outlets, you can expand to light bulbs, speaker systems and even start replacing physical wall switches. My one piece of advice to someone starting off with home automation is pick a brand of product lines and compatibility, ensuring the products you are buying are compatible with HomeKit. Not all home automation products work with HomeKit so you want to pay attention to what you’re buying. Little details like this can really reduce headaches and detract from the value and fun of these devices!

  • ThunderUSB

    I will be getting my new MacBook Pro which will sport four Thunderbolt 3 ports and I am going to need to connect…

  • Quick Tips!

    One of the best parts of my job is how excited I still get when I learn about something new I can do with my devices. I am constantly learning and finding out about new things that I can do or as often is the case, an old tip I’ve forgotten about. Here are three favorites!

    **Read Song Lyrics in iTunes**

    How many times have you found yourself singing along to a song and just start to hum through the part you don’t know? Better yet, how many times have you had a friendly argument over what the lyrics really are in a song? Most of us know that you can simply Google the lyrics, but did you know you can get these answers right from iTunes? If you’re running iTunes 12.5 and using Apple Music you can instantly get song lyrics. You can check to see if what you just heard was what you sang by clicking the lyrics button in either the” up next” popover or the mini player window. I will say it doesn’t work for every artist. In my playing around with this feature it worked for most artists. This article took me down memory road for some forgotten artists. Little Feat’s ??Waiting for Columbus?? album was a favorite of mine in high school. The album is in Apple Music but, alas, not the lyrics.

    **Copy Phone Numbers From Incoming Calls**

    I’ve been adding contacts to Contacts from incoming text messages or even via digital address cards, but did you know you can also copy numbers via your incoming call log? This is handy if you need to redial a phone number or share it but you don’t want to keep it on file in your phone. In the phone app’s recent screen, there is a hidden workaround that lets you copy the number. Tap the ‘i’ button (it’s typically blue with a circle around it) next to the call, then press and hold the number for a second or two until the copy button appears. Tap copy and you can then paste that number into Mail, Messages, Notes etc. To paste: tap where you want the number to go and then the paste option will appear.

    **Take Screenshots**

    If you experience something weird on your Mac, iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch, you might find you’re in a situation where you need to record what’s on your screen. There are two quick ways to do this: press *command-shift-3* to take a screenshot of your entire screen or *command-shift-4* to select a specific area you wish to take a screenshot of. The image will go to your Desktop. On an iPhone or iPad, press the **Home and sleep/wake buttons** at the same time. Your image will go to your camera roll in the Photos app. On your Apple Watch, press the *digital crown and side button* simultaneously.