Author: Mike Moffit

Director of IT

  • Rumor Mill: New Apple TV This Spring?

    After being slightly disappointed by the lack of update for the Apple TV in October, hope is in the air again. Apple recently revamped their website bringing the Apple TV into a full product section rather than residing in its previous subcategory in the iPod section. What this means is that Apple is graduating this device…but to what, we have yet to find out.

    Luckily for us, there are rumors!*

    The most popular rumored Apple TV redesign is the addition of a game or app store. We’re unclear as to how intensive the app store will be, but signs look good with the company recently streamlining the development of Apple TV apps. In addition, it’s rumored that Game Center will be integrated with your current iOS devices while also allowing you to use those existing devices as game controllers. Many people believe that these will use a similar configuration as the MFi controllers that were released earlier in the year.

    Additional rumors for the Apple TV are talks of integrating the AirPort Express into the device. This would eliminate connectivity problems with the Apple TV and simplify the home experience significantly. Last but not least, there are rumors of a built-in TV tuner component for the Apple TV. This would allow users to control their existing stations using an overlaid Apple interface. Overall, it sounds like Apple is ready to revamp the Apple TV into the main face of your TV, rather than being just another great addition.

    __*Rumor disclaimer: We don’t know anything before you do, so speculating on any new devices is just that — speculation. We’ll let you know as soon as something new is announced so you can come in and grab it!__

  • The House of Tomorrow…is Today

    A few years ago, a “smart” home was something of a concept that was more practical in sci fi movies and old cartoons than in real life. Over the past two or so years, a new wave of smart home devices have been flooding the market to great success. What’s awesome about this influx of smart home technology is that it can be applied at pretty much any budget or level of integration at this point.

    On one end of the spectrum, we have whole home systems that can go so far as to light the pathway that you walk down at night, to the more budget- and apartment-friendly options that just turn your living room light on before you get home.

    For consumer-level options, we have the Belkin’s Wemo home automation line which either automates a light switch or a wall outlet. These devices, and anything they are attached to, can be controlled from your phone or set on a timer. Another consumer-friendly product line is by a company called Nest that has created smart thermostats and fire alarms that integrate with your phone, giving appliances that have typically been ignored a makeover both conceptually and physically.

    Making its debut at the 2014 CES trade show was the Canary, billed as “the world’s first smart home security device for everyone.” The Canary sits in an optimal position in your house or apartment and takes diagnostics which you can view from your phone. It tracks motion with an HD camera that can save or stream video to cloud storage. It will notify you in the case of drastic change in temperature, humidity, and excessive movement or noise when you are not home. You can even track air quality trends or watch your pets at home. Advertised at $200, it is certainly one of the most affordable smart home security options available at this time.

    Smart home devices are unquestionably one of the next big things for technology. Nest was originally crowdfunded and has been since purchased by Google for 3.2 billion dollars. Not only are the technology giants getting in on the trend, but average people are now invested in making their lives and homes more connected and efficient.

    Grab a WeMo on special this month and get automated!

  • What is a Fusion Drive Anyways?

    During their event on October 23, 2012, Apple announced the Fusion Drive as a new form of data storage available for the iMacs and Mac minis. Fusion Drives are composed of one part hard disk and one part solid-state drive. Combining the two drives gives the computer and the user the best features of both storage technologies.

    The hard disk provides a large capacity of storage while the solid-state provides the fastest speeds; all at a fraction of the cost of a fully solid-state drive of the same capacity.

    The software of the operating system also plays a role in utilizing the most speed out of your Fusion Drive. The OS recognizes frequently used data, files, and applications and stores them in the solid state portion of the Fusion drive. The items that are accessed less frequently are stored in the larger capacity RPM hard disk drive. During times where the machine is in idle mode, the data is moved to and from the solid state portion so users only notice the fastest speeds from their machines.

  • Best in Show: February 2014

    The month of February is a brutal one in particular for us veteran Vermonters. While we like to gloat about how we can take on any sort of weather and laugh at other states freaking out about an inch of snow, by February, we’re all just about sick of it.

    Luckily, we live in 2014 and we have electronics to temporary cure our modern day cabin fevers. February is typically a slow month for exciting Apple news, although this February in particular does not fall short of interest for you technophiles (this word was in my spellcheck, haha).

    This month marks the 30th anniversary of the Apple Macintosh. The Mac line has certainly come a long way, and continues to grow into exciting new paths. Fusion Drives, in particular, are becoming increasingly popular inside said machines. Also on the Apple rumor horizon, there has been word of a new, beefed-up Apple TV around the corner, which I’d be totally stoked on if any of those rumors are true.

    Also, last month, Don, Hapy and Jason attended the 2014 CES. This year’s focal point was on the automated house. In honor of the growing interest, we’ve decided include a deal on our favorite iOS automated devices — the WeMo line from Belkin. Both the Wi-Fi-enabled Power Switch and Light Switch are **$10 off at $39.99!**

    Finally, we have some product specials this month for you and your loved one. Strut your device around in a new flashy case from Hammerhead, Kensington or Speck, some sweet new Beats headphones (on sale for a limited time!), and more. Take a look at our double issue of deals to the right!

  • Beats Music

    When I started working here in Waitsfield, I knew I’d be spending about a total of an hour and a half in the…

  • Time Capsule. Automatic wireless backup for your Mac.Time Capsule is a revolutionary backup device that works wirelessly with Time Machine in Mac OS…

  • SPECIAL | The New Mac Pro Now In Stock!

    Apple’s site says they aren’t shipping the highly anticipated new Mac Pro until February, but we have a limited supply in stock currently! So if you’ve been waiting to upgrade your old Mac Pro to the new sleek model, wait no longer. Get yours today!

  • Power On! Part One

    All the gizmos, gadgets and devices we used today are packed tight full of amazing technologies, many of which have become extremely small. The A7 chip is smaller than a postage stamp, and it’s probably one of the bigger components in your device. The fingerprint scanner sensor on the iPhone is only 170 microns thick. But all these amazing technologies are totally subservient to the true unsung heroes of the mobile digital age: batteries. If your batteries are no good, all the CPU cores and RAM in the world won’t help you. That said, batteries have come a long way even if they don’t get as much press as a new CPU or touchscreen.

    To start at the beginning, you’d have to look at probably the most popular, widely used battery of all time: the lead acid battery. Invented in the mid 1800s, we still use them for our cars, boats, battery backup systems and just about anything else that requires a tough, reliable and durable power source. They’ve even had their own share of improvements, from VRLA (Valve Regulated Lead Acid) designs that are sealed, to AGM (Absorbed Glass Mat) designs that don’t really contain any liquid electrolyte at all (it’s suspended in woven glass fibers). Despite being fairly toxic (lead, sulphuric acid, etc), they’re one of the biggest success stories in all of recycling. Upwards of 97% of the lead and other materials from lead acid batteries are recycled in the US. They truly are some of the most robust batteries too as anyone around here who’s started their car in the past few sub-zero days would attest to.

    This all makes lead acid batteries sound pretty great, right up until the big ‘gotcha’ that you’re probably already thinking about: weight. If you wanted to run your iPad Air with a lead acid battery, it would be a battery that weighed about 8.5 pounds, and because there isn’t much flexibility in designing the shape of lead acid cells, it would probably be fairly bulky too. Another drawback with lead acid batteries is their life span. Even deep cycle batteries with thick lead plates shouldn’t be routinely discharged below 50% of their capacity. This means that to get the roughly 33 watt-hours the iPad Air requires, you’d need to use a lead acid battery with double that capacity, meaning even more weight.

    Fortunately for us lovers of thin, light and robust technological gizmos like the iPad Air, we don’t need to rely on 150 year old battery technology. Check back next week when I’ll discuss the intermediate stages of battery development in the 20th century including nickel-based batteries.

  • Beats Music

    When I started working here in Waitsfield, I knew I’d be spending about a total of an hour and a half in the car every day for my commute and sitting in front of a computer all day. Therefore, I was going to need ??all?? the music to keep me rocking while I worked. “*Spotify*”:https://www.spotify.com/us/ has been my favorite “*app*”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spotify/id324684580?mt=8&uo=4&at=11lb7k&ct=Blog and music service for the past 2+ years. To me, to have access to millions of songs on demand is worth the $9.99 I pay every month.

    However, there hasn’t been much competition for Spotify. Sure, there’s Pandora and iTunes Radio, but these are more like glorified radio stations. Enter “*Beats Music,*”:https://beatsmusic.com a new music streaming service that launched Tuesday. The Beats Music “*app*”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/beats-music/id781817640?mt=8&at=11lb7k&ct=blog allows you to stream music with your paid subscription of $9.95/month.

    What makes this service stand out or compete with other on demand music services like Spotify? With a tagline like, “Music that’s always right for you. Just hit play.” we can only assume that Beats Music is trying to push the message that it’s “the first music service that understands you.” You’re able to tell Beats Music where you are, what you’re feeling, and who you’re with and they will find you the perfect stream of music based on all of this information. Beats has also taken the time to make sure that it has the best audio quality and will provide you with the best version of a popular song (versus a live or cover version).

    From a design standpoint, I’m loving the interface. It’s clean and simple, yet a bit more sophisticated than Spotify. Looking at some of the screen shots that they feature on their website, it also looks like there are a few more options and screens: a but more in-depth.

    The one downfall of Beats Music is the fact that there isn’t a free version. If you want it, you have to shell out the $9.95/month. However, it is priced the same as Spotify, so it will be interesting to see how it does. If you have an AT&T contract, you can also add a family plan for $14.99/month and have up to five accounts with Beats Music.

    If any readers out there have been using Beats Music, “*I’d love to hear your thoughts!*”:mailto:steph@smalldog.com Is it worth the switch?

  • MAC TREAT#223: Oh, Notes!

    To those who have read Kibbles over the years (and listen to “*Small Dog Speaks*”:http://www.smalldog.com/sdspeaks-archive), it’s no secret that I seem to have some bad luck when it comes to computer issues. I generally feel like I have good luck in life, so I’ll take some bad mojo when it comes to tech stuff just to balance it out.

    My most recent hiccup had to do with my Notes app. I sync my notes between my iPhone and two computers, and I had recently traded in my semi-broken iPhone 5 for a working version of the same model. In the iTunes backup/restoring process to the new phone, some of my iCloud settings had changed, and I found that my Notes weren’t on my phone AND ended up missing from my work MacBook Pro. (I actually found that they were missing from the MBP the day after I activated my new phone, which means that by the time they synced, all notes on my MBP had been wiped out.)

    So, what to do? Enter Time Machine. As someone who perhaps experiences computer problems more than the average human, backups are not only my friend, but my BFF and sole reason I don’t go __completely__ crazy. I wanted to just restore my Notes data, so I entered the Time Machine interface to find my last backup to restore. However, since I only wanted to back up a couple files, I had to locate what I needed.

    Here’s where you find Notes data: *[User] > Library > Containers > com.apple.Notes (folder)

    Note (ahh, the puns!) that you’ll want to restore all the files in this folder. I originally only restored the Container.plist, and it won’t bring back what you need. It stands to reason that you’d want to restore the Data folder, too, to actually get your data back…

    Once I grabbed both files/folders, I regained all the notes I had, and I made sure that they were being synced in iCloud from that point forward. Now, they sync with no problem.

  • High Dynamic Range

    High Dynamic Range (or “HDR”) brings a little professional technique to your iOS 7 photos by taking three exposures with one snap: normal,…