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Our most popular refurbished MacBook Pro is the 15-inch MacBook Pro 2.4GHz i5 4GB/320GB.
For a total of $1199.99, you’ll also get a free sleeve from Tucano, a Small Dog Keyboard Shortcuts mousepad, and a Microfiber Cleaning Cloth ($30 value)!
For all of you looking for something to do tomorrow in the southern New Hampshire area, our friends at Stonyfield will be hosting their annual 5K race and Earth Day Fair.
bq. “Celebrate Spring and Earth Day in this morning-long festival featuring a walk/run 5K followed by a FREE Earth Day Fair on Saturday, April 20th. Bring the family, as there will be booths and activities for all ages.”
We’re a proud sponsor of this year’s event, and we will have a tent and table set up, so come see us and get some free stuff. We’ll also hold a few giveaways during the event!
In addition, the first 1,250 registrants will receive a ticket to a Fisher Cats game on April 23, 2013 from Stonyfield and the first 1,500 runners to register will receive a special Life is good/Stonyfield t-shirt.
The race Start/Finish, Celebration and Sustainability Fair will all take place at the Stonyfield Farm Yogurt Works, located at 10 Burton Drive in Londonderry, New Hampshire 03053.
If you want to run and haven’t yet registered, or if you want to find out more about the event, “*visit their website here.*”:http://stonyfield5k.com
As reliable as they are, Macs are not immune to slowing down. Here are some tips that will help speed up your Mac.
This first is a fix for many problems that arise in the computer business: *restart your machine!* It is super simple and simply powering down can cause any apps running in the background to turn off to free up your valuable and finite system resources.
The next is to *monitor your system resources.* Simply launch *Activity Monitor* from *Applications > Utilities* and keep an eye on your CPU usage, System Memory and Disk Activity when you notice things getting slow. It might just tell you who the culprit is.
The next is just as simple as the first: *quit any apps you aren’t using.* It’s like how my mom always told me to turn the lights off when I left the room. With fewer apps running your computer, there are more resources to delegate to what you are working on.
The next few solutions, unfortunately, are not free ones, but it’s the least expensive: *upgrade your RAM.* The prices for memory have significantly dropped for Macs in recent years, and going from a measly 2GB to 8 or 16GB (if your computer can take it) will do the trick.
The next may be two-fold: *upgrade your hard drive.* If you upgrade from a standard hard drive (with spinning platters) to a solid state drive, you’ll see a few speed improvements. Alternatively, if you have run out of room on your hard drive, increasing its capacity can give you machine the wiggle room it needs.
The final tip is a whopper: *buy a new computer.* Technology advances so quickly these days that the moment you buy a computer, something better comes along. If you are the kind of person who can afford to drop the big bucks on new tech all the time, we’re jealous! For everybody else, sticking to a 3-5 year upgrade plan seems to work.
These are just a few of many tips out there that could potentially lead to your machine running faster. I encourage everyone reading this to send me your tips on how you like to speed things up.
It has been just over a year and a half since Steve Jobs passed away, and in that time, books and documentaries have been released that delve into the life and legacy of Jobs. This week, a short-ish film written and directed by Ryan Perez gives us a different take at the man behind Apple. In this parody biopic dubbed “iSteve”, some familiar faces like Justin Long (Jeepers Creepers, Dodgeball, and all those Apple commercials) and Jorge Garcia (Lost) take aim and has fun with the life of Jobs.
I have to admit, I made it about half way through this before I had to take a break. It really wasn’t capturing my attention, and the humor was minimal. In fact, the beginning half really just made me feel bad for Woz. The lack of over-the-top funny stuff made me wonder if the inaccuracies were intentional or just ignorance.
In any case, I paused it and read some comments to see what others were saying. Most agreed that the movie was lackluster, while a small number of others really enjoyed the flick. One comment mentioned this movie was written in 3 days and shot in 5. I cannot confirm or deny this statement, but I figured that I’d watch the rest for that reason alone!
I am glad I did.
The second half that I watched really picked up in terms of the comedic elements and had much less Woz bashing (thank goodness). I felt compelled to keep watching so I could see what crazy things they would do next. Without giving anything huge away I loved when Justin playing Jobs basically discovers himself (being played by Anthony Gioe) as an actor, and directs “Justin” in an Apple commercial.
I don’t expect everyone to like this one, and in fact, most reviews have confirmed this. That said, I would watch it again. It definitely isn’t for the younger audience (at least my mom wouldn’t have let me watch it) and borders somewhere between PG-13 and R, so consider yourself warned before showing it to your little ones.
If you’re looking for a funny history lesson that you should take with many grains of salt, check out iSteve. At worst, it’s only 80 minutes of your life, anyway!
You can find iSteve on Funny or Die’s website or check out the movie directly “*here.*”:http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/d2e0f617e3/isteve
_Dear Friends,_
We were all shocked and dismayed to learn of the bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday. I hope I am never “conditioned” to reports of senseless violence like this. To see innocent people killed and maimed by a berserker with or without a political agenda is truly terrifying. Our thoughts go out to the victims and their families but also to the brave first responders and ordinary citizens, that in the face of danger, rushed to help the victims.
I was able to get my motorcycle out this week and took the long circuit to visit both Burlington and Rutland. Our Rutland store is getting close and we are putting the finishing touches on it in preparation for our Grand Opening on May 4th. One of the nice features of the new store is a beautiful classroom to do trainings and seminars.
Sometimes the Mac operating system is so intuitive that people just get to work and start using their Macs without learning some of the basics of the operating system. I know that was the case early in my career. I found that when I put a Mac on an employee’s desk, they produced useful work at the end of the day. On the other hand, if I put a PC on an employee’s desk, it would take a week.
Recently, I have been working with a friend who was accustomed to using PCs, and when I convinced her to buy a Mac, she just got to work. However, since she never really took the time to learn the Finder and its features, there has been some confusion. I figure that I will start at the beginning and go through all the features of the Finder and the System Preferences, since they are so powerful!
Our Hammerhead Case division just got the Capo case for the iPad mini in stock. This form-fitting hard plastic case is built to protect your iPad mini. We made several improvements from the larger Capo case for the full-size iPad including beefing up the hinge and latch and installing thicker inner material. We also had our manufacturer perform drop testing. They did 100 drops from 4 feet without damage to the case. I think you will find this to be a great case for your iPad mini. I have been using one on mine for the last several months (but haven’t done any drop testing yet!).
It is amazing how Apple can produce a product that holds up through so much daily abuse. The MacBook, while no longer in production, is still alive and kicking and we have some!
We are offering $100 off the early 2009 white MacBook 2.0GHz (used). Just $449.99!
So what if it is 1D short of being a 3D printer? HP still makes a great product when it comes to their line of printers.
The OfficeJet is a wonderful addition to any Mac environment due to its AirPrint capabilities.
This week, we are offering a $20 savings on the HP OfficeJet 6600 H711G Multifunction Wireless Inkjet Printer.
3D Printers have really gone down the road towards one of the neatest pieces of Star Trek tech (in my opinion) known as the replicator. This device can basically make anything, and I mean anything, appear in a briefcase-sized opening in any wall on any ship in the Star Trek universe.
Would you like a cup of tea, Earl Grey, hot? No problem. New gun? No sweat. That is pretty nifty if you ask me.
I’ve always found it interesting that the replicator’s capabilities varied based on the needs of the plot. For example, it often for some reason could not produce the single thing people needed to solve their problems, forcing Kirk or Riker to romance some alien to save the day instead. Alas, that is Hollywood.
Anyway, at this point there is a device called a 3D printer that can make increasingly sophisticated things by printing very thin layers of plastic one on top of another. I hadn’t realized how sophisticated the process had become until I heard that somebody had printed out a working lower receiver for an AR-15 assault rifle and had fired rounds from it…holy moly.
After that, I heard a much less depressing story about something called self-sculpting sand. Basically this stuff is small, magnetized cubes roughly 10mm per side with microprocessors inside that can as a group map a 3D object and then recreate that object by linking together.
At some point, I’m expecting nano-tech to be able to make them incredibly tiny. Imagine needing a part for a machine, dumping it in a bag of dust, and an hour or so later, pulling a perfect replica out.
You can view the original article I found about this self-sculpting sand “*here.*”:http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/smart-robotic-sand-0402.html
Have you ever worried about what’s going to happen to your digital life when you die? I haven’t, but Google has. They have released a new service for Google users that allows you to plan your digital estate called Inactive Account Manager.
Here’s what you do: Set your Google account to be either deleted after three, six, nine or twelve months of inactivity, or have all your data and login information sent to a trusted family member or friend. Data sent to a trusted contact can be set to some or all Google services: Google+, Blogger, Contacts, Google Voice, Circles, Drive, Gmail, Picasa and YouTube.
To set up your digital afterlife, go to your Google account page by clicking your user name, then *Account* in the top right hand corner. On the main page, click *Learn more and go to setup* under Inactive Account Manager in Account Management.
Once at the setup screen, you can determine how you would like your account managed. I know that this isn’t particularly technical, but I find it interesting as an example of a place that I’m sure none of us thought we’d be ten years ago.
Here is a link to a more in-depth article:
“*http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2013/04/plan-your-digital-afterlife-with.html*”:http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2013/04/plan-your-digital-afterlife-with.html
Kings of industrial design, Apple utilizes every last bit of available space in their machines. Often overlooked is a very functional piece of the notebook computer, in that it allows it to fold. But the hinge also handles a lot more you may not have known about.
In modern unibody MacBook Pros, that black plastic covers many important pieces other than just hinge hardware.
On the left side is the cable that handles all the video sent to the display. It twists through the hinge assembly before running into the LCD.
On the right, it’s more varied. You have the internal USB cable for the camera and LED. The antenna cables run through here for the Wi-Fi card. The Wi-Fi card resides inside the hinge on many models — it’s quite small. The cable that powers the display backlight (which causes the LCD to illuminate) also runs through the right side.
These cables are protected against abrasion with special covers. They get twisted back and forth all the time as the display is moved.
This assembly stands up to a lot of abuse, day in and day out. But the hinges do loosen, and cables can pinch. Liquid spilled on the hinge area can cause issues, as with most elsewhere in the machine.
The most avoidable hinge problem is loose hinges caused by lifting the machine by the display, or knocking the display from side-to-side. Too much weight on the display, like some snap-on cases, may also cause the hinges to loosen. Overall, the hinge is robust and engineered well. Even on old and heavily used machines, they remain very smooth and reliable.
Hello readers,
Looks like spring may be springing here finally, after one last seemingly spiteful snowstorm that took out any number of fresh green sprouts. I don’t care as long as I can work outside. Although being outside in winter gear in April certainly feels like a defeat. I usually tough it out just to be able to say I’ve put away my winter clothes, but not this year.
In other news, we have taken another step toward a real version of the Star Trek replicator. I wrote a little article about it below. Hope you enjoy that and this week’s other offerings.
Thanks for reading,
Liam
“*liam@smalldog.com*”:mailto:liam@smalldog.com