Author: Mike Moffit

Director of IT

  • Tune In October 22 for Apple's Event

    Apple has officially announced a special event that will be held next Tuesday, October 22. Rumors have been circulating that this event will most likely feature the 5th generation iPad, an iPad mini with Retina display, a Retina MacBook Pro with better battery life and hopefully, a ship date for the new Mac Pro.

    The event will take place in San Francisco at 10am PDT (1pm EST). There should be a lot going on at this event, because as the image they released suggests, “We still have a lot to cover.” People might be most excited about the new design of 5th generation iPad, which is rumored to have a smaller bezel like the iPad mini and perhaps even a thinner and lighter housing.

    Many are also hoping that they will finally announce the release date of Mavericks, which they said originally would be sometime this fall. Well, it’s fall already, so where the heck is it?!

    Apple likes to announce all sorts of new products right before the holidays to get everyone excited. I mean, who wouldn’t want a sweet new iPad for Christmas? Be sure to tune in to our Twitter feed “*@hellosmalldog*”:https://twitter.com/hellosmalldog, where we’ll be live tweeting during the announcements, and/or check back here after the event to read all about the wrap-up.

  • Greetings, all!

    Don is on the last leg of his international travels this week, so Steph and I are holding down the Kibbles & Bytes fort. I have Halloween on the brain right now, which won’t surprise our loyal readers.

    We’re prepping for our Annual Halloween Costume Contest, and the competition looks to be especially fierce this year. Since our last contest, we have opened 2(!) stores, and our newest employees are champing at the bit to secure the grand prize — bragging rights and perhaps a new Apple toy, if you’re wondering. (FYI, I’m last year’s reigning champ, so I need to step my game up for a repeat!)

    Take a look at “*last year’s contest here!*”:http://blog.smalldog.com/article/vote-now-2012-annual-halloween-costume-contest/

    Of course, our annual contest wouldn’t be complete without a giveaway for our customers and fans — you’re the ones who keep us going over here! Be sure to tune into our “*blog, Barkings!*”:http://blog.smalldog.com on Thursday, October 31 (Halloween, duh) to vote on your favorite. You just might win something sweet!

  • Empty Trash With Terminal

    The other day, I had a customer come into the store who was having issues emptying her trash. We tried all the normal…

  • Drying Computers

    At least once a week (and sometimes, every 1-2 days!), a customer will bring a water-damaged computer into the Service department. Unfortunately, it’s generally already too late to salvage the damage by the time it gets to us.

    The components in a liquid-damaged laptop corrode rapidly, even when nearly-dry and with or without intervention. However, sometimes what ends up damaged will not inhibit the usability of the computer. Drying/cleaning may not even be strictly necessary at times, making the use of heating elements not worth the risk.

    A common misconception is that heat will dry out the components without damaging the machine. Frequently Apple laptops will find their way into ovens or beneath hair dryers. These methods are going to melt the plastics and potentially cause heat damage in the machine. It’s tempting to do because it takes a long time for moisture to evaporate without extreme heat. However, in our experience, adding heat into the equation is never a good idea.

    The best techniques, as I’m sure many of you have heard before, involve letting the hardware dry slowly, preferably in an environment where moisture will be leeched from the air, and not somewhere humid. The most common trick is to leave the laptop in a sealed plastic box or bag full of dry rice. This is also frequently used for wet iPhones and iPods.

    As always, avoiding liquid damage is preferred by all. Leave drinks away from tables with machines on them, or keep them on a different surface nearby. Try bringing a plastic bag on rainy days just in case. But if the worst does occur, try not to panic. Remove the power/battery if you are able, and get the machine in rice ASAP.

  • Empty Trash With Terminal

    The other day, I had a customer come into the store who was having issues emptying her trash. We tried all the normal prompts, did PRAM resets, and nothing would work.

    Using Terminal, there is a quick and easy way to empty the trash if you ever hit hangups while doing so. Just navigate to the Terminal app, open it up and enter the following:

    *sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/**

    Since this command uses sudo, you will be required to enter your password at this point. After that, you’ll see that your Trash can icon is satisfyingly empty — and you’ll have your hard drive space back.

    __As always, operate Terminal with care, as you can damage system folders if you enter the prompts incorrectly.__

  • Corrective article to "Mac Pro PCI Express Slots"

    __Editor’s Note: The article, “Mac Pro PCI Express Slots”, featured in the “*last issue of Tech Tails*”:, was incorrectly attributed to Kyle S. Sorry about that, folks! This week, he offers some notes and corrections to the article that ran.__

    I want to take some time to make a few corrections to last issue’s Mac Pro article that I noticed and some that several customers have emailed to me. First: Thunderbolt displays won’t work with the 2008/2010 Mac Pros. The display requires a machine with a Thunderbolt port, and the display mentioned in the article was an Apple Cinema Display, which is the predecessor to the Thunderbolt display. Cinema Displays feature Mini DisplayPort monitor. I have actually had a similar repair to the one mentioned in the article, but it’s been a while since then, and the details are probably too fuzzy to write about at this point!

    Mac Pros circa 2008 have two logic boards rather than a singular main board; one is called the Backplane, and the second is called the Processor Board. The Backplane holds the hard drives, the PCI-E cards, memory and all inputs that you can connect externally. The Processor Board is exactly that, a board that connects to the Backplane that houses the processor(s) and the required heat sinks. Some models from different years vary, some have individual facing boards that house the memory apart from the Backplane, and come to think of it, I believe most have individual boards that house the memory except for a few of the oldest models.

    The Mac Pro is described as the workhorse of the Mac lineup and is due for improvement to keep up with its smaller counterparts. The new model is more cylindrical with a rounded top that flattens out, rather then conical. It is a very interesting design, completely compact in comparison to the previous model which allowed for a lot of customization and upgrades. This new model is essentially built to work. From what I can tell, you need to connect any hardware you want to add via the external connections on the machine, i.e. through the Thunderbolt port or USB ports. These will start shipping in December, and I’m excited to put them to the test.

    Have thoughts about the new Mac Pros? “*Email me*”:mailto:kyles@smalldog.com or come in to the S. Burlington location (I haven’t yet been to our Key West store!).

  • Mac Pro PCI Express Slots

    Currently, we have a 27″ Thunderbolt display in our “*Key West*”:http://www.smalldog.com/keywest/macs-ipods-iphone-gear-apple-service-in-key-west-florida service department for repair. The display will routinely shut off during video/processor-intensive applications (usually running pro software).

    I was unable to recreate the issue when it was connected to any computer in the service department, so I contacted the customer, who offered to bring in his Mac Pro and recreate it for me. Once hooked up to his Mac Pro, it happened immediately.

    My first thoughts were that it had to be a logic board, hard drive, or video card failure in the machine itself. I then ran the Storage Diagnostic tool and the hard drive failed. However, I couldn’t rule out that it wasn’t anything else in addition to that since the logic board could still be affected due to the three internal expansion slots.

    I moved the installed video card to one expansion slot, then to another, and the symptoms continued. Before calling it a day though, I needed to check the video card itself. I installed a different, known-good video card, and was unable to recreate the machine’s symptoms in any of the expansion slots.

    Diagnosis: Failed hard drive __and__ video card. I ordered and installed both parts, and the symptoms disappeared. The Mac Pro and Thunderbolt Display are now functioning properly.

    The Mac Pro is known as the work horse of the Apple computer line. The former design — the aluminum tower — is rugged, expandable, and used by professional photographers, videographers, and film makers worldwide. The parts are bigger, and thus, the tools needed to work on it are bigger and it is a much “roomier” computer to service. (A definite dichotomy to servicing laptops.)

    Apple has announced a new Mac Pro that will revolutionize “towers” with its slimmed-down, conical shape. This design is a drastic size reduction from the old model, and customers have expressed concern that expansion slots aren’t available in the newest incarnation. This means any external gear must be connected to the internal architecture via cables. However, since Thunderbolt is PCI Express, there’s no need for a dedicated PCI Express slots.

    And while Thunderbolt does not provide the fast speed of the internal expansion slots, there is more than enough bandwidth to power massive configurations of audio inputs and outputs for music, video streams for editing, and high-speed, high capacity storage. Thunderbolt is Intel technology coupled with input from Apple and it’s something I expect to see on PCs very soon.

  • We’re back!

    You may have noticed that you’re missing a Tech Tails issue from last week. In order to leave your inboxes less cluttered and make each issue better, we have decided to send Tech Tails on a bi-weekly basis (every other week, in case you’re wondering). We hope you like the updated schedule; feel free to contact me with any feedback or questions.

    I am still anxiously awaiting the final release date for OS X Mavericks. I have been using the Developer version for some time now, and the updates are substantial over 10.8 Mountain Lion. Mostly, I think that is due to the fact that it’s more targeted for tools that you use on the OS X platform (rather than iOS integration).

    Safari has a lot of great add-ons with Top Sites, a new and improved sidebar, and shared links through social sites like Twitter. Perhaps the best upgrade, though, is the new, easy-to-use Keychain application. The final Developer preview came out recently, so hopefully, it’s not far off.

    You know you’ll see it here when it’s released, and if it happens to be announced during an off-week, be sure to follow “*our blog, Barkings!*”:http://blog.smalldog.com Have a great week, everyone.

    Barry
    “*barry@smalldog.com*”:mailto:barry@smalldog.com

  • Concept: Cell Phone Made with Blocks

    An interesting video was shown to me by a coworker the other day. There’s currently a YouTube video circulating the internet that tries…