Author: Emily Dolloff

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    The deals keep on coming during Back to School at Small Dog Electronics! For four days only, August 5th through August 8th, get a **FREE 1TB external USB hard drive** with the purchase of any computer. Get even more deals with you buy AppleCare with your new computer! Get a **$50** Small Dog gift card when you buy any Mac with AppleCare.

    When your visiting any Small Dog Electronics store this weekend don’t forget to “**sign up for our $100 Gift Card giveaway**.”:http://www.smalldog.com/win-waitsfield One lucky winner will be chosen from each retail store for a $100 Small Dog gift card.

    If a computer isn’t on your list, “**save $25 instantly**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002280/back-to-school with the purchase of any iPad Air 2 plus get a $25 Small Dog gift card if you buy Applecare+ for iPad. Want an iPad Pro? Not to worry, any iPad purchased with Applecare+ will get a **$25** Small Dog gift card.

    “!http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4766.png!”:http://www.smalldog.com/win-waitsfield

  • **We’re launching another four day sale this weekend**! At any Small Dog Electronics location, “**save 30% on all headphones between July 29th and August 1st.**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002286/summer-sale

    This weekend only we’ll be offering “30% off all headphones”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002286/summer-sale from **Beats,** **Urbanears,** **Outdoor Tech** and more. In addition to the great deals on our selection of headphones, our great “**Back to School**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002280/back-to-school bundles are also available. Get a **$50** Small Dog gift card with the purchase of any Mac with AppleCare or a **$25** Small Dog gift card with the purchase of any iPad with AppleCare+. Save even more with an iPad Air 2 with **$25 off instantly and a $25 Small Dog gift card** with any iPad Air 2 with AppleCare+

    When you visit our retail stores, don’t forget to “**sign up**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002286/summer-sale for our weekly giveaway: a pair of Beats Solo2 Wireless Bluetooth Headphones. Each week now through August 21st visit our stores and sign up for our weekly giveaways. Everyone who enters our weekly giveaways is automatically entered to win our **Grand Prize Giveaway** where one lucky winner will go home with a **13in MacBook Pro with Retina.**

    “!http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4766.png!”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002286/summer-sale

  • Extend The Battery Life on your iPhone

    With Summer in full swing and countless reasons for me to be using my iPhone I am finding that my battery is running down much faster than it normally does. Some of my decline in battery is simply because I’ve had the phone for almost two years now ( I’m holding out for the 7 ) but another factor is the increased demand on my phone.

    In my travels this summer I’ve been using navigation more, taking tons of pictures and using my phone to keep up with happenings at home and in the office. I find that by the end of some days I’m down to 10% or less battery power. In addition to using more battery power, I’m also using more data. We get spoiled with our iPhones and auto switching to wifi whenever it’s around. Fortunately most of us have wifi at home and in the office.

    There are several small steps you can take to extend the life of your battery when you know you will have longer periods of time between charges. Music streaming, just like movie streaming, is a big suck on your battery. If your using Apple Music I recommend that you create playlists so you can listen to your tunes offline. I’m a fan of turning my phone to airplane mode when listening to locally stored music, it significantly increases my battery life and it’s nice to know you can really relax for a bit knowing you won’t get any calls or text messages!

    Location services are another huge suck on your battery. If you are using a navigation app to get to a destination consider turning location services off for that app once you get there. Unless you’re able to keep your phone plugged into a power source, navigation apps are some of the biggest drains on your battery so it’s advisable to turn those off as soon as you can. The same goes for notifications. It’s great to know that Bobby just posted a new picture to your Facebook wall, but it’s another background operation on your phone that can leave you with a dead phone in a hurry.

    Another quick ways to help increase your battery life is to simply turn down your screen brightness. This is a really small step that can make a huge difference. You can also set your phone to auto adjust based on light conditions around you. Simply go to **Settings > Display & Brightness** and adjust it to make these changes automatically. Lastly, enabling low power mode can really help to give you some much needed time before you really need to charge your phone. In iOS 9, to enable Low Power Mode, go to **Settings > Battery, flip the switch for Low Power Mode** to tell your iPhone to use less power for a variety of background activities and visual effects. iOS automatically prompts you to turn Low Power Mode on when the battery drops to 20%; it’s best to accept that suggestion.

    Summer adventures should be about more fun and less worry, hopefully these tips help you to capture and enjoy all these is to see and do this Summer while still staying connected.

  • _Dear Friends,_

    I was honored to speak at a press conference with Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin this week. The Governor signed an executive order that gives preference in state contracting to those companies that have implemented steps to protect the environment and combat climate change. Basically, the order states that all other factors being equal, the company that has the strong environmental record will be awarded the contract. The press conference was held outside of our South Burlington store and we got some great press for the event.

    We have launched our “Back to School”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002280/back-to-school promotions and have some great values for you when you buy a Mac or an iPad. Additionally, if you come in to visit our stores, you can sign up for a “**weekly prize drawing**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002286/summer-sale with prizes being given away at each of our stores.

    I’ll be on the road next week riding out to Chicago to see the Cubs but Apple will release their quarterly financials on Tuesday so I will try to do our quarterly Kibbles & Bytes update from a hotel room somewhere in the midwest. Hadley and Amy will be at the reins of Kibbles next week as both Emily and I will be on vacation. We seem to accidentally schedule our vacations for the same time year after year but it does give Rob Amon, our VP of sales, some time to be boss.

    This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive is Don’s “Road Trip” bundle. Let’s see, what do you need when you hit the road? Tunes, video and power, of course. I am bundling the Urbanears Plattan ADV Bluetooth headphones in bright red “tomato” color with an Outdoor Tech Kodiak Mini Rugged Powerbank that has 2600 mAh of capacity to charge your devices and because I know you are going on an amazing adventure we will also include the GoPro Session 4 durable and waterproof camera to record your experiences on land or in the water. “**The Road Trip bundle**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002327/ would sell for $324.97 if bought separately. This week for Kibbles & Bytes readers you can save $45 and buy this bundle for “**$278.99!**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002327

  • “!http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4766.png!”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002286/summer-sale

    **Small Dog Electronics’ four-day sale starts tomorrow!** Visit any of our retail locations between Friday, July 22nd and Monday, July 25th for great deals on all the gear you need to get the most out of your outdoor adventures.

    For the outdoor enthusiast we have **$20 off** on the Outdoor Tech Buckshot PRO Rugged portable speaker that also features a flashlight and a small power bank. Everyone loves music while on the go, and the **BoomSwimmer** portable Bluetooth Speaker is great for around the lake, pool or even on your bike while cruising through town.

    Do you enjoy taking great photos while out on summer adventures? Check out our selection of **Joby** stands and tripods along with lens solutions from **Olloclip.**

    What’s the best part about shopping with and visiting Small Dog Electronics this weekend? “**Visit any of our retail stores and enter to win**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002286/summer-sale our Outdoor Tech weekend bundle giveaway! Each retail location will give away to one lucky winner **a gift bundle worth $189** and all entries will be entered to win our grand prize giveaway, a 13in Macbook Pro with Retina Display, on Tuesday August 24th.

    Visit Small Dog Electronics this weekend for these deals and more, plus don’t forget about our great “**Back to School Bundles**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002280/back-to-school

    “!http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4764.png!”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002280/back-to-school

  • “!http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4764.png!”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002280/back-to-school

    Back to School season is here! We know you do not want to think about the coming fall or even about the piles of work ahead, so we are making shopping and thinking about school as easy as we can!

    Now through September 5th, buy any Mac with AppleCare and get a “**$50 Small Dog gift card.**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002280/back-to-school Use the gift card for additional items on your shopping list or save it for later. Gift cards don’t expire. Are you thinking that a new Mac isn’t what you need? Buy any iPad with Applecare+ and get a “**$25 Small Dog gift card**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002280/back-to-school and for an even sweeter deal **save $25 instantly and get a $25 Small Dog gift card** with the purchase of any iPad Air 2 with Applecare+

    What’s the best part about our deals? Our deals are available to everyone who shops with us both in-store and online! No one wants to interrupt summer to think about going back to school so we wanted to make it as easy as possible for you take advantage of our deals no matter where your travels this summer are taking you. In addition to our Mac and iPad deals we’ll also be launching **four weeks of in-store giveaways and special sales beginning Friday July 22th**. Keep an eye on our website and newsletters for more information on these upcoming deals.

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  • Don’t Leave Your iPhone in the Heat

    iPhones and other electronic devices are not meant to be kept in extreme temperatures. As the summer temperatures rise it’s important to remember that our iPhones can’t perform well in extreme temperatures. iPhones have ideal operating temperatures and work best between 32 and 95 degree Fahrenheit. Leaving your iPhone in your car on a hot day or in direct sunlight can cause your phone to overheat. In addition to being in direct sunlight or in a car on a hot day, your phone can also overheat on warm days if it’s running something graphically intense or using GPS.

    If your phone is overheating you will likely notice anomalies in its performance or even an alert on the phone itself. In extreme heat your phone may stop charging, it could have a very dim display or any number of other performance issues. When you’re using an app such as navigation you might even experience that the phone goes to a black screen and seems unresponsive yet the directions are still audible as you drive along.

    Should your phone stop working because it’s overheating, it’s also likely to be very warm to the touch as well. What your phone needs it to simply cool down. I have overheated my phones in warm weather a few times, and just like in extreme cold, when your phone shuts down due to extreme operating temperatures it’s simply a matter of time before it comes back to life. This process could be just a few minutes or it might take an hour, but your phone should come back to life. If your phone does not come back on after some period of time a hard “**reset**”:https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201559 of your phone might be necessary to help jumpstart your phone back to its previous performance level.

  • So Many Options!

    There is a mountain of information out there about cloud storage verses cloud backups verses physical drives. In order to be able to selct the right solution you need to have a basic understanding of what the differences are between the options. There is iCloud, Google drive, wireless drives like the Lacie Fuel, Seagate Personal Cloud, tradition plug in USB drives. What makes learning about and weighing options even harder is that each option available, depending on what you’re reading, makes it sound as though that particular backup option is superior to all other solutions out there. 

    To try and make it a little easier on yourself, here’s a general outline of the pros and cons of the different solutions out there. It is very important that as you read through information and consider different options that you think about what best suites your needs. Some of us at Small Dog swear by wireless back up solutions and others of us stick to good old physical drives and Time Machine.

    iCloud is free for all users, but it’s only free for the first 5GB, so if you are looking to utilize iCloud for backing up an iPad, iPhone or documents from your computer you may want to purchase additional storage. It’s just $0.99/month for 50GB of storage (you can get up to 1TB) so I strongly encourage upgrading to a higher storage option even if it’s just for secondary backup of your photos. When using iCloud it’s important to log into your iCloud account from time to time to make sure that the information you want backed up is being backed up, especially the photos. I have talked with several customers over the years who thought they were backing up photos to the cloud and because they never logged into their online account, never knew the backup was not happening correctly. It’s also important to know that iCloud is not backing up programs, it’s just the files. Thankfully with Apple purchased apps you can easily download anything you might have purchased through your iTunes account in the app store, but this will not help you for third party programs. Finally, it’s also important to know that you will need to continue to pay for the service, if you stop paying for it, you will lose files. 

    There are tons of other online backup and cloud storage options, it’s crucial note that some “cloud storage” options are not actual backups. They’re just a place to store things, so restoring a machine from a cloud backup service is often not possible unless you are paying for that kind of service. Think of many cloud storage solutions as nothing different than just dropping and dragging files to a physical drive. You will have to piece back together your information if you have a complete loss of your data on your computer. For many folks this is absolutely OK. 

    Physical hard drives and using Time Machine often provide a greater sense of security simply because it’s a physical piece of equipment and you can see your information on the drive. If you’re using software like Time Machine, you will have a complete copy of your data along with programs and can, in most cases, quickly restore  data to your computer. A downside is that external drives can and do fail. This would be an example of where a cloud-based option offers some increased security. It’s unlikely data would and could be compromised using cloud services provided you continue to pay for the service. Physical drives have the advantage of a one time fee. When you buy the drive and it’s unlikely that a user would need to pay for anything additional after the initial set up. 

    Lastly are the personal cloud drive and wireless drives. Personal cloud drives like the Seagate Personal Cloud allow you to create your own cloud storage solution and support it completely on your own. This cloud solution works very similarly to other services and allows you to access information from anywhere and anytime just like traditional cloud services. The draw back to personal cloud type setups is they are often for advanced users because they can be more complicated to set up and to maintain. Wireless hard drives like the Lacie Fuel often require that you are within range of that drive and will not work with Time Machine. The benefit to these drives is they allow multiple users to access information and are perfect for sharing media, but like personal cloud type drives they could require a slightly higher level of understanding when it comes to drives and data sharing. 

    Ultimately I am not sure there is one perfect solution and combining wireless with wired options is often a good compromise. I have used iCloud for years for my calendars, my contacts, and I love iCloud keychain. I even have my favorites synced in Safari via the cloud. However, I still utilize a physical hard drive and Time Machine backup on all of my machines.

  • tvOS

    Last week at WWDC a new version of tvOS was announced which is set to come out sometime this fall. Apple has been promoting the app experience heavily since the latest Apple TV hit the shelves last fall and many of the upgrades to tvOS make it even easier to enjoy those apps. Here are some of the updates to look forward to in the Fall.

    **Siri** will now specifically look for content in a specific app. You have been able to search content generically using Siri and it automatically does a general search. I will say my one complaint is that it does seem to prefer pulling content from the iTunes store. I was excited to see that you can now specify, for example, Netflix or YouTube when you’re looking for content with Siri. I’ll be excited to see how well Siri will be able to search specific apps for the content that I am looking for. Overall I have found that the Siri function on the Apple TV works extremely well.

    **App badging** is finally coming to Apple TV, but what is it? Those little red dots that appear next to your apps on your iPad or iPhone letting you know there is something is new about the app will now appear next to the app. Additionally **automatic app downloads** are also going to be available with the new tvOS. When you download a universal app or game on your iPhone or iPad, it will automatically send it to your Apple TV.

    **Single sign-on** is another new feature in the upcoming tvOS. For those with supported cable or satellite providers you’ll now just need to enter your provider’s information once and you’ll have automatic access to any supported apps. Currently you have to enter your information for each individual app you wish to use, so this feature is going to save users a lot of time and allow for faster access to content. As a bonus, this feature will also be available in iOS 10 so you’ll only have to sign on once for each of your devices.

    **Light or dark** will be a new feature to tvOS and one that I admit I think I need to see and use to gain an appreciation for it. Similar to features you can turn on in iBooks and Night Shift in iOS, you’ll be able to set your Apple TV background to light or dark depending on your viewing environment. This will allow you to optimize your view of different apps within Apple TV. This flexibility is great when using my iOS devices but I admit I can’t just yet wrap my head around the advantages when I am watching TV.

    **HomeKit** makes its Apple TV debut in the new tvOS and continues to make it even easier to access and control HomeKit compatible devices like your lights, the temperature in your house or lock the downstairs door before heading off to bed. Other improvements were also announced in Apple Music and in Photos allowing users to access their favorite media in new ways and faster than before.

    Now if only fall was here so we can all try this out! OK, I won’t rush summer; it never lasts long enough as it is.

  • iOS 10

    Earlier this week at WWDC Apple announced the latest edition of iOS for iPhone and iPad. As is typical with these announcements, the changes to iOS are one of the more exciting software announcements to many users. iPads and iPhones are often the sole device for many users. Some improvements to iOS 10 greatly improve productivity and others give us another excuse to do less. There is a huge list of improvements to iOS 10 and here are some highlights of what’s to come.

    Messages got more expressive and makes it even easier to use less words in your text messages. When sending a text in iOS 10 you will now find suggestions for autofilling emojis rather than words. That’s right, autofill for emojis! If you’re never exactly sure what that emoji is, don’t fret, emojis can be sent bigger as well as your text messages with bubbles. Do you feel that emojis just aren’t your thing and prefer a more personal approach to messages? The ability to handwrite a message has now been added to iOS 10, and offers a really cool way to add a personal touch to any message! I guess I’ll forgive Apple for making it easier to send messages without words with the added handwriting feature and lastly celebrations. Celebrations? That’s right, you’ll be able to celebrate a special moment even from afar by sending a full screen affect like balloons or fireworks, pretty cool!

    Maps received some pretty cool upgrades this time around. Now when you’re traveling around and utilizing maps you can quickly find and book a cab or even a reservation at a nearby restaurant all without leaving the Maps app. One other slightly hidden feature is the ability to instantly mark where you parked your car. Maps can automatically recognize that you have gotten off the highway and parked your car. It will automatically drop a pin for you in Maps ensuring you will never again forget where you parked your car!

    QuickType is getting some pretty incredible upgrades in iOS 10. Using Siri intelligence, your phone or iPad can predict what you might want to say to someone, suggest adding an event to your calendar or change the language with which you respond. Now if you’re having a conversation with someone about dinner reservations, QuickType will pick up on patterns found in your conversation. Easily add a dinner reservation or location right from your conversation.

    The Phone feature of your iPhone also is getting some pretty significant improvements which even include the ability to recognize a potential spam call. No longer will you have to be interrupted by a call from a number you don’t recognize only to find out it was a spam call. Your phone will now tell you if it thinks an incoming call is spam. Your phone will now also be able to better work with third-party VoIP calls such as Skype reducing the number of missed calls through apps on your phone.

    At WWDC only a small portion of the total improvements to iOS 10 can be talked about, and even this article is missing some, but I wanted to take a moment to talk about some of the improvements they didn’t highlight. In iOS 10 you will now be able to remove stock apps, yes it finally happened! Tired of seeing the Apple Watch app because you still don’t have the watch, just delete it and any other apps that come standard on the phone that have been in your way all this time. If you’re someone who says you wish and need to get on a better sleeping pattern but find each night you once again sat up too late? A bedtime tab can now be found in the alarm App, it can help you to get on a regular sleeping schedule by alerting you it’s time to go to sleep. For those who find that space is an issue on their phone with large music libraries you can now optimize your storage. Your phone can be set to hold an ideal amount of songs and will help you keep your storage in check by automatically removing songs you listen to least often. Lastly one of my favorite finds is that there is now a magnifier built into the accessibility features. It sounds silly, but it’s just made finding that tiny screw or lost pin on the floor easier!

    iOS 10 is set to be released sometime in the fall. Unfortunately this means most users still have several months until they can try it out. However, thanks to beta testers already using iOS 10 and the public beta testers in July, you should feel confident that when iOS 10 comes out for public download in the fall it should have only minimal, if any, problems.