Author: Mike Moffit

Director of IT

  • Help Is Just a Tap Away

    Long time Kibbles readers and other Small Dog aficionados know that our slogan is “Always By Your Side.” This is, of course, a metaphor that describes our commitment to customer service, not a threat that we are going to follow you around wherever you go. However, now we can literally be “Always In Your Pocket” thanks to our new Consulting app for iOS.

    “*Consulting by Small Dog Electronics*”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/consulting-by-small-dog-electronics/id796998322?mt=8&at=11lb7k is a free app that gives you an easy way to request assistance on the go. If you are having trouble with your email, can’t figure out how to sync your devices, are experiencing the spinning beach ball of doom, or have any other problem or question help is just a couple of taps away.

    When you open the app, you will be asked to describe what we can help you with. Tap “Next” and you will be taken to a page to provide your contact information. We have made this as easy as possible by allowing you to choose a contact card from your Contacts to auto-fill the form or fill in the information manually. Choose whether you would like an emailed copy of your request and tap “Submit.” You can then sit back and relax because a member of our customer service team will be in touch ASAP to help you find the best solution to your problem.

    This app is compatible with any iDevice running iOS 6 or later. The current release is Version 1.0, so please let us know if you have any suggestions for improvements or additional features.

  • Watts Up?

    One of my longtime hobbies has been building mini power generation systems. Usually these are based on solar, but I’ve also experimented with thermoelectric power generation. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my projects, it’s that power, and specifically electricity, is actually rather difficult to make.

    Normally, we plug stuff into the wall and it just works. We might notice that our MacBook charger is rated to 85 watts, or our iPad needs 10 watts, but what does that mean? Obviously the MacBook requires about 8 times more power than the iPad, but it’s hard for us to conceptually understand how much 85 watts really is.

    First, I’ll “science” a little bit and say that a watt is defined as volts x amps. So your typical home wall outlet, supplying 120 volts, would need to draw roughly 0.7 amps to power your 85 watt MacBook. This explains the MacBook’s 85 watts mathematically, but we still don’t really know how hard it is to generate 120 volts, or how the 0.7 amps factors in. Getting a feel for that is difficult because we typically only experience the consumption of power, not the generation of it.

    To make things easier, I’ll round up our MacBook to 100 watts. This could also be expressed as 0.1 kilowatts. What would generating that power look like? Well, most people have seen solar panels, so a 100 watt solar panel would be roughly 0.5 square meters of surface area using the densest, most efficient panel available. A 100 watt wind turbine would have blades about 0.5 meters long and would require a sustained wind of about 20mph to produce the full 100 watts.

    Hopefully, that helps get you started thinking about what generating 100 watts looks like. It’s not easy. In terms of things we use, 100 watts is a bit on the low side. Things like microwaves, electric stoves, hair dryers, and air conditioners, all easily draw over 1000 watts on average. Lighter appliances like fans, refrigerators, televisions and large desktop computers fall in the 100-750 watt range, while personal electronics including laptops, cell phones, and anything battery-powered fall in the sub-100 watt range.

    For what they do, computers (including smartphones and tablets) are actually extremely power efficient. When running on limited battery supplies, they have to be. The most inefficient part tends to be converting the 120 volt AC power from the wall to the 12 volt DC internal components tend to require. The Mac mini is still one of the most power efficient desktops you can buy. The “*newest models consume roughly 10 watts at idle*”:https://www.apple.com/environment/reports/docs/macmini_server_oct2012.pdf, and when power requirements burst, they’re able to ramp up the power quickly and then bring it back down just as quickly. Even my 2007 model only draws 15-20 watts.

    If you want to know more about power consumption of devices at home, I highly recommend “*P3 International’s Kill-A-Watt meter*”:http://www.p3international.com/products/p4400.html. In addition to being a watt and watt-hour meter, it can also measure amps, voltage, power factor and more. It’s definitely helped me get a better understanding of how much power my Mac mini consumes, and if I ever want to build a bigger power generation system, I’ll have an idea of exactly how much I’ll need.

  • _Dear Friends,_

    As a Nor’easter works its way up the coast, Vermonters are hoping for a big dump (probably unlike most of our friends to the east and south). Roger Hill, a meteorologist from WDEV, has coined the term “Nor’incher” to describe this year’s snow falls so far. We have not had much snow up here, and while the ski areas have had great snowmaking conditions, natural snow is way better. “If it’s gonna be winter, it would be nice to have some snow” is a sentence I hear a lot these days.

    We smile as our southern neighbors get in a tizzy over a few inches of snow, but we know well just how treacherous driving can be in winter conditions. We have the gear to handle it up here, but even in the north country we have learned to be safe rather than sorry.

    Speaking of our favorite radio station WDEV here in central Vermont, you should check out our weekly call-in show, Small Dog Speaks. Emily and I are the regular hosts of the 1-hour show on Thursdays at 1PM where we talk about Macs, iPhones, iPads, Apple, PCs, dogs, the weather and just about anything. We are billed by the station as “progressive” radio, so every now and then, I might jump up on the soapbox, too (You Kibbles readers should be used to that!).

    Lately, we have had our senior tech and service manager in S. Burlington, Steven Brooks, joining us, too. You can listen live each Thursday by tuning into WDEV in Vermont on FM96.1 or anywhere in the world(!) via the “*online stream here.*”:http://icecast.stretchinternet.com:8000/wdev Give us a call with your questions or comments at (toll-free) 877.291.8255. Previous shows are “*archived here*”:http://www.smalldog.com/sdspeaks-archive/ so you can catch up on what you’ve missed! We also have at least one trivia question giveaway during each show.

    Happy Valentine’s Day to all you lovers out there in Kibbles & Bytes land!

    *****

    *Here’s my exclusive Kibbles & Bytes Red Lovers’ special — this week only.*

    This is a red for Valentine’s bundle that includes three great products. First is the
    Seagate 1TB USB 3.0 Portable Backup Drive so you will always have those pictures backed up. Then, we add a pair of original red Beats by Dr. Dre Studio Headphones (with noise canceling features) for when you want to listen alone, and cap off the bundle with a pair of Chill Pill Speakers also in red! All three products in red for one low price.

    Regular price would $390, but for this week you can grab this *Valentine’s Day bundle for only $299.99!*

    “*Buy Don’s Red Lovers’ Special Bundle here.*”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900001267/don-s-red-lovers-special

  • SPECIAL | Free Shipping on Kingston USB DataTraveler

    Kingston’s DataTraveler GE9 USB Flash drive is a stylish, ultra-thin drive with a 24-carat gold-plated casing. Its ultra-thin form factor lets you easily use several drives side-by-side in USB ports. At $16.99 with *free shipping* this is the most attractive and affordable flash drive around!

  • Valentine's Day: One Week Away!

    The big ol’ Valentine’s Day is just one week away! If you are looking for something to give other than flowers or chocolates, fear not — we’ve got you covered!

    We had our super knowledgeable product experts gather the “*best list*”:http://www.smalldog.com/valentine/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=kibbles&utm_campaign=vday of things to give on V day. There’s even a nice coupon in there to use during checkout!

    If you are interested in even deeper discounts (so amazing we can’t show them on the web!), stop by any of our “*retail*”:http://www.smalldog.com/retail/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=kibbles&utm_campaign=vday locations and check out what we have to offer.

    Share the love, everybody!

  • FOLLOW UP | Beats Music vs. Spotify: The Showdown

    A few weeks ago, I wrote about the newly-debuted “*Beats Music.*”:https://beatsmusic.com Beats joined the streaming music team offering allowing you to stream music through your iOS or Android device with a paid subscription of $9.95/month.

    I signed up for a free week to test it out and see if I wanted to make the switch from “*Spotify*”:https://www.spotify.com/us/ (my favorite “*app*”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spotify/id324684580?mt=8&uo=4&at=11lb7k&ct=Blog ever). However, I didn’t feel like I got a good enough feel for it in just a week.

    The fact that you aren’t able to stream music via your computer was a huge downside for me. I sit in front of a computer for 8-9 hours a day, and even though I have my phone right next to me most of the time, I find it kind of a pain to listen to music via my phone when I’m doing everything else on my computer. That said, I mostly listened to it during my commute or while in the kitchen cooking. If we pretend we’re keeping score, I’ll go ahead and give this point to Spotify.

    ??*Spotify 1, Beats 0*??

    If you’re an AT&T customer, you’re able to try Beats Music out for 3 months for free (however you do need to provide your credit card information, unlike the 1-week trial). Because of this, I was able to try Beats out for a bit longer to get a better feel for it. The one thing I do really enjoy about the app is their Beats Playlists. For most artists, Beats has created themed playlists for that artist. For instance, if you like Jay Z, you can click on him as an artist and then browse the number of playlists that Beats has put together. If I feel like listening to some old school Jay, I might try out Jay Z: the 1990s. I’ll give Beats this point.

    ??*Spotify 1, Beats 1*??

    I talked a little bit about the design of Beats in my last article. While I do like the overall look and feel of it, I find it a bit more complicated to use. I find the app to be pretty in depth with a lot of options and features. This could be a plus for some, but to me, it’s a bit overwhelming.

    “The sentence” is a pretty cool feature, though — you put in your mood, who you’re with, and what you feel like listening to and it generates a “radio station” for you. You also have the artist playlists like I mentioned earlier, as well as genres, activities, and curators that contain hundreds of playlists ready for you. All great features of the app for the music lover who wants to explore new music.

    Again, I think if they had this as an app for my computer, I’d be more inclined to peruse the playlists to play while I work throughout the day. Gonna have to give another point to Spotify here.

    ??*Spotify 2, Beats 1*??

    The Beats Music app is still in the early stages, so there are a few bugs that they need to work out. I’ve had it crash on me a few times and be ??verrrrry?? slow to start playing what I ask of it. However, there have been multiple updates to it since it’s come out, so they’re working on it. Still, my point is going to go with my main squeeze, Spotify.

    ??*Spotify 3, Beats 1*??

    And my winner is…Spotify (shocking)! I’ve created a Calendar reminder to cancel my subscription to Beats Music come April. I’ll keep it for the 3 months I have it for free, but don’t think I’ll pay for it. I’m used to Spotify, have created a couple dozen playlists that I love and having it on both my computer and my phone is the real plus. That said, I definitely think people should try out Beats Music if they are into the streaming music scene. They might find that it fits their needs better than Spotify does!

    Happy listening!

  • Power On! (Part 3)

    In this third and final article in our Kibbles and Bytes series on batteries, I’m going to discuss the one that makes all our modern portable gadgets possible: The lithium-ion battery. Without this technology, many (if not most) of our gadgets would be clunky, not last very long, and generally not be very useful. So what is it about lithium batteries that makes them so unique and successful?

    First, we should define what we’re talking about. There are two broad types of lithium batteries. The first type are the primary cells. These are not rechargeable. Examples include some camera and flashlight batteries as well as most coin-cell type watch batteries. The second type are secondary cells. These are rechargeable, and they’re the ones we’re going to focus on. They have a lot of different names, but they all operate under the same principle of lithium ions being shifted back and forth between the positive and negative electrodes. So a secondary lithium battery will almost always be referred to as a lithium-ion battery.

    You may hear lots of different names for lithium-ion batteries, like Li-NMC, LiFePO4, LMO, Li-Poly*, but these are all the same thing. The variations are simply describing a different cathode material. Different materials change the characteristics of the battery to make it longer lasting, safer, or shaped differently, but they work the same way.

    By far the number one reason lithium-ion batteries are so useful is their high specific energy. This is a measurement of how much power a battery has vs how much it weighs. Lead acid batteries have a specific energy of around 40 watt hours per kilogram. Lithium-ion on the other hand has a specific energy of around 200 watt hours per kilogram. So they’re around five times as energy dense as lead acid. A larger amount of power can be crammed into a smaller package. This is what allows your iPad Air to be so incredibly thin and light, yet still last all day.

    Another benefit of lithium-ion is their lifespan. Most types can be recharged several hundred times without any performance loss, but many variations can be recharged ??thousands?? of times. Not only does this mean your device will last longer, but it’s also better for the environment to not have to keep making new batteries.

    The only real drawback to lithium-ion batteries is their cost. They cost 4-6 times more than a lead acid battery with equivalent power. But because lithium-ion can do tasks no lead acid battery could ever do (heaviest iPhone ever?), we happily accept the additional cost. As they become more and more common though, the price has dropped considerably, and it will likely continue to do so.

    The future of lithium-ion batteries is looking brighter all the time too. Because of their high specific energy, better lithium-ion batteries are being developed for things like electric cars, battery backup systems, grid-level electricity storage and more. If you want to know more about batteries, the internet has some great resources. I like this “*wikipedia chart*”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechargeable_battery#Table_of_rechargeable_battery_types that shows an overview of a wide array of battery types.

    Thanks for following along on our sometimes technical, but hopefully informative series on batteries. Power on!

    ??*Extra:* What’s the deal with lithium polymer? (I was confused, too.) You’ll hear this term a lot, but really a lithium polymer battery is just a regular lithium-ion battery, most likely using lithium manganese dioxide as the cathode material, but it could be anything. The “polymer” part is really referring to how these batteries are assembled. Instead of being housed in rigid casings, the cells are laminated together. This allows greater variety in shape, but also makes them even lighter. Most electronics, including the MacBook Pro and iPhone use Li-Poly batteries.??

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  • SPECIAL | Mac Pro with Great Expandability Options

    We still have limited stock of previous generation Mac Pros, so if you’ve been looking for one, you’re in luck.

    They come with some great expandability options. Load it up with up to 16TB of storage and up to 64GB of RAM. One of Apple’s most powerful machines!

  • Wi-Fi Reconnection Issues in Mavericks

    I own an 11″ 2011 MacBook Air and have never had a single problem with it, which is happily the experience of most Apple owners. Recently, however, I’ve noticed fussiness with Wi-Fi.

    See, technicians at Small Dog are tasked with not only repairing computers but also speaking on the phone with customers and potential customers who call into the support line. Most of us listen to music while we’re working, but it’s hard to have a conversation with that background sound. I usually just pause Spotify when talking to customers, and occasionally this pause can last up to a half hour. My device will then go to sleep because it’s using its battery.

    For the past couple of months, when trying to pick up where I left off on a particular song, I’ve observed that it will continue playing what has been buffered, then abruptly stops where the network connection timed out. I then have to wait several minutes for it to reconnect to our familiar repair network by turning off Wi-Fi for a moment then turning it back on.

    If this happened every once in a while, I wouldn’t care at all but it became a consistent annoyance. As a technician, I was inclined to try all sorts of crazy troubleshooting techniques but discovered a far simpler solution, one that I would have recommended to a customer calling with the same issue:

    *System Preferences > Network > Wi-Fi > Advanced*

    Then, select the Wi-Fi network normally used and click the “-” symbol to remove it from Preferred Networks. If it has a password, the next step is to open Keychain Access, select the “login” keychain, order the list by Kind, and remove all AirPort network password types.

    ??*NOTE:* Do not attempt this unless you know what your wireless router’s password is or unless you know how to manually reset it if necessary! We have no way of knowing what that is, so if you attempt this process and cannot reconnect, we won’t be able to assist you.??

    More information for your first line of troubleshooting network problems “*can be found here.*”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4628

  • Life Span of Your Mac

    When considering whether to repair their Mac or simply replace it, many customers will ask me what the average lifespan is of a Mac. This question cannot be easily answered by an average span of years.

    The answer to this question is completely conditional upon a number of factors. To me, the lifespan of a computer is when it has reached a point at which it is no longer functioning properly, and the cost to repair it is comparable to the machine’s value. At this point (in my opinion), it would be a wiser choice to invest in a new computer, rather than repair this one. This is a choice many customers have to make in their lives, and it’s never a very easy one!

    Although it ultimately comes down to your individual budget, there are a few useful references and standard questions you should ask yourself to help you make this decision. Aside from the obvious websites that can be referenced to determine the value of your machine (eBay, Amazon), one website I typically check is “*Everymac.com*”:http://everymac.com. Like the title says, they have a listing for every Mac, as well as model specifications, and an estimated current value range.

    I’ve noticed that their estimate values are generally a little higher than the specific model actually sells for, but it’s a good ballpark figure. Obviously, looking for your Mac’s model on a website like eBay will give you a good real-world value, it just may take a little more time/consideration. (Is it an auction? How much time is left?)

    One question you should ask yourself is how much this computer has cost you in the past. If you just had a major repair performed not too long ago, that’s definitely something to consider when making the decision of whether or not to continue to repair your Mac. If this is the first issue you’ve had in a few years of use, then it may very well be worth keeping it running (the same can be said for cars!).

    The most important question I believe you should ask yourself, when making this decision, is how the Mac has been working for you. When a computer reaches a certain age, it’s inevitably going to face compatibility issues. Whether it won’t work with your brand new mobile device, or certain applications cease in their ability to be updated, causing further compatibility issues with things like websites or file formats. These compatibility issues should definitely be a considered factor when making your decision.

    Your individual budget is the most important consideration, but it’s always good to take these conditions into account when making such a big decision.