Author: Mike Moffit

Director of IT

  • Weekly Apple News Recap | 03.15.13

    *Apple Announces VESA Mount Option for iMac*
    As Don mentioned above, Apple has announced a VESA mount for the current iMacs — a fantastic option if you’d like to use your iMac on the wall. Cost: $40, and it doesn’t come with a stand.

    “*Read more…*”:http://9to5mac.com/2013/03/14/apple-introduces-imac-with-built-in-vesa-wall-mount-adapter-for-additional-40/

    *Apple Wins Top Rating from Laptop Magazine*
    Laptop Magazine’s Best Brands feature has Apple in the top spot for the fourth year in a row. Special kudos: The 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display — editors praised the screen, performance, battery life, and design.

    “*Read more…*”:http://blog.laptopmag.com/apple-brand-rating

  • MAC TREAT #201.2: Screen Shots On A Mac

    Apparently, last week’s Mac Treat about taking a screen shot was a big hit among all of our readers. If you missed it, you can check it out “*here.*”:http://blog.smalldog.com/kibbles/kb818/

    A lot of readers emailed me with their methods for capturing screenshots, and I wanted to share some of their ideas.

    The first idea was an addition to the keyboard shortcuts I described last week. Sometimes, you may not want to save a file to your desktop and would rather copy it to your clipboard for immediate use. Holding down the *Control* key in addition to the other keys will copy your screen shot rather then saving it. All of these shortcuts can be a bit tricky because they involve so many keys, but doable if you have two hands to use! Also, the last two shortcuts only involve the mouse after you have pressed all of the keys.

    * *Command + Control + Shift + 3* – Copies the entire desktop to the clipboard.
    * *Command + Control + Shift + 4* – Copies a selection of the screen to the clipboard.
    * *Command + Control + Shift + 4, then Space Bar* – Copies a selected window to the clipboard.

    Another method for capturing the screen is to use Apple’s built-in utility called *Grab*. This lil’ gem is tucked far away in *Applications > Utilities* folder. It gives you similar options to the shortcuts I mentioned earlier.

    * *Selection* – Creates a crosshair for you to drag a box around to capture.
    * *Window* – Captures a selected window.
    * *Screen* – Captures the entire screen.
    * *Timed Screen* – Initiates a 10-second delay before it captures the entire screen.

    The last option of *Timed Screen* is a new one that allows you to prepare the screen to look the way you want. In some cases, you might need to open up certain menus that would be otherwise difficult or impossible to do by using the other methods of screen capturing.

    One final thing to note about the Grab utility is that it allows you to show or hide the mouse cursor depending on the reason for capturing a screenshot.

    I hope this addendum to last week’s Mac Treat will round out all of the standard options you have for capturing a screenshot on your Mac. I encourage readers to contact me if you have any problems using these commands or the Grab Utility at “*michaelb@smalldog.com.*”:mailto:michaelb@smalldog.com

  • _Dear Friends,_

    It is one of Vermont’s famous “shoulder” seasons, and the one I hate the most: Mud Season! I have about two miles of dirt road to traverse and as the temperatures rise and the dirt road thaws, water and dirt combine to make a mud bog. Fortunately, I have a 4-wheel drive pickup truck that I use this time of year, but some people just have to park their cars and walk up the hill. Today it is cold again, snowy, and the road is re-frozen just waiting for the next thaw.

    We attended the Rutland Business Expo this week and I had an opportunity to meet a lot of the Rutland businesses and potential customers. I was very pleased to see all the folks welcoming us to the area as we work on the new store. Jen and I interviewed a bunch of candidates for this new store and I think we have found a great crew. They will start training at our current facility in preparation for opening the store this spring. Construction is going well and appears to be mostly on schedule.

    Apple announced this week that the new iMacs can now be special-ordered with VESA mounts. If you opt for this $40 option, you do not get a stand. We configured a new iMac for our long-time customer, Dr. James Begun, with a 3rd party VESA mount that uses the stand. He reported that having that configuration gave him a convenient spot to store the keyboard.

  • SPECIAL | Amplify Your iMac

    Purchase a top-of-the-line 27-inch iMac and you will get a FREE set of the Altec Lansing BXR1321 2.1 Speakers!

    The BXR1321 has two 2″ satellite speakers and a 4″ subwoofer. Altec Lansing’s patented Audio Alignment technology guarantees that these speakers are balanced for optimum sound.

    This iMac comes equipped with a 3.2GHz i5 processor, 8GB of memory, 1TB of storage and nVidia 657MX graphics.

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    Dr. Dre isn’t the only rapper with his own line of great sounding headphones — 50 cent has them, too!

    The wired over-ear headphones feature a detachable cord for tangle-free street wear and transport, plus enhanced bass. The earbuds have a professionally tuned 11 mm driver and are ergonomically designed for comfort on top of crystal clear sound.

    __Note: Very limited quantities. No rain checks.__

  • SPECIAL | Free Yourself From Wires

    The Matias keyboard and mouse are perfect accessories for people who hate being tied down by messy USB cables. Small, portable and compact, this combo will surely please with a price that won’t disappoint!

  • A Fresh Start

    Some issues on your Mac can be resolved by reinstalling the operating system. In the past, all Mac desktops and portables came with a dedicated recovery disc for that machine, but Macs shipping with 10.7 (OS X Lion) or later do not come with recovery discs.

    These newer machines have the recovery files on a separate partition on the hard drive. Knowing these steps can come in handy if you ever need to reinstall the operating system to resolve a software problem or upgrade to a larger drive. It is also useful if you want to wipe your data and install a clean version of the Mac OS before selling or giving away your machine.

    There are two types of installs. You can do a clean install, which will format the hard drive and erase all data, and then install a clean version of the OS. The other option is an OS reinstall which installs just the important OS files and leaves the user data intact.

    __*Before doing either of these, it is important to back up all important data due to the possibility of failure during the installation process that can compromise your data.*__

    These steps only apply to machines running 10.7 (OS X Lion) or 10.8 (OS X Mountain Lion), and require a high-speed internet connection. The actual OS files are located on Apple’s servers, and are downloaded every time you install.

    *Warning*: Make sure all important data is backed up before proceeding.

    1. While the machine is shut down, power the machine on and hold down the *Option* key. Then select *Recovery HD.*

    2. After selecting the*Recovery HD* it will boot to the Mac OS Utilities window.
    * If you want to Install the OS and keep the user data intact, select *Reinstall Mac OS X.*
    * If you want to reinstall the OS and erase all data, select *Disk Utility.* Then select the hard drive in the left hand column. Select *erase* from the second tab, and then *erase* at the bottom right to confirm wipe. Then close Disk Utility and select *Reinstall Mac OS X.*

    3. After the installation completes the machine will reboot.

    Stay tuned for part two next week on how to create a bootable Lion or Mountain Lion USB flash drive.

  • Privatize Your Personal Data

    It’s useful to know, as a Mountain Lion user, what private data specific applications are accessing, and how to set/reset that. This can be achieved in the *Security & Privacy* preference pane within System Preferences, but changes can also be made within Terminal.

    Using the @tccutil@ command, the user can reset all access to different segments of the privacy database, such as Address Book or Location Services. This is helpful if you are comfortable in Terminal, and need to quickly remove all application’s access to this data. The command is simple.

    Open a Terminal window, and type:

    @tccutil reset [service name]@

    You will replace [service name] with the name that Terminal associates with the specific privacy data. For Address Book, the service name is simply *AddressBook*, and for Location Services, it’s *CoreLocationAgent*.

    Then input:

    @tccutil reset AddressBook@

    It will remove all access any applications currently have to your Address Book. From there, when you open an application that would like access to the Address Book, it will prompt you for permission. The same goes for Location Services.

    If you are not comfortable with using Terminal, the same task can be accomplished within the Security & Privacy preference pane (with a much prettier interface).

  • Raspberry Pi

    For those of you innovators out there looking for your next project, here’s something recently brought to my attention: the do-it-yourself Raspberry Pi. Developers out there have been able to take the modern day computer and make it even smaller. Imagine taking a Mac mini and sticking it in a case the size of an Altoids tin.

    The Raspberry Pi is a small computer with an SD card slot that you can load an OS (preferably Linux) on. Once you have the OS on an SD card, connect that so it acts as your hard drive, attach an LCD display (with the proper know-how) and a power supply, and you’ll have a working Linux-based computer capable of normal everyday tasks and basic gaming — all on a machine the size of a credit card.

    It’s an open source platform that you can pick up for about $35 and create whatever you want. The creativity that some people put into using the Raspberry Pi is really amazing — some have even gone so far as to create their own version of the Google Glass project, a miniature arcade, and a briefcase laptop!

    The Google Glass replication really caught my attention and sparked my imagination. Among the tools used: a set of MyVu crystal video glasses designed for iOS devices, a portable cell phone charger, and a Bluetooth keyboard/trackpad combo. With a Linux operating system and a USB Air-card from your local wireless store, you literally have a wearable computer with a constant connection to the internet (depending on your wireless coverage area).

    Now, due to the resources available to open-source platforms like this, a wearable computer has almost endless and certainly exciting possibilities. For instance, connect a webcam to the MyVu glasses and you can stream everything you are doing directly to the internet.

    What you create doesn’t have to be a wearable computer. Maybe you miss the Super Nintendo; someone used a Raspberry Pi to rebuild one of those with original Super Nintendo controllers. One guy even created a system to open his garage door using Siri.

    The possibilities are endless — what will you create? Below is a link to an article that shows some great Raspberry Pi projects.

    “10 Great Raspberry Pi Projects.”:http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/12/10-raspberry-pi-creations-that-show-how-amazing-the-tiny-pc-can-be/3/

  • Hello all,

    I know I said that I liked the end result of DST last week, but this weekend brought home the reality of just how miserable the transition can be. Last night while making dinner, I looked out the window and saw that I had enough light to see every yard project that I didn’t do last fall and then colorfully thanked every dog owner who decided to let their little buddies offline (so to speak) during winter.

    On the bright side, the early spring forecast (somehow made) by a groundhog in Pennsylvania may indeed be approaching. It’s been pretty mild here and earlier than usual — we are seeing yet again that Burlington, VT is frankly, a pretty ugly place after the snow disappears and before it gets green.

    If winter does come back, Kyle has a project to keep away the winter blues — he’s written an article about it this week. As always, thanks for reading.

    Thanks for reading,

    Liam
    “*liam@smalldog.com*”:mailto:liam@smalldog.com

  • Each Apple-refurbished 15-inch MacBook Pro has dropped by $100, and the bundled value will save you over $135: Buy any refurbished 15-inch MacBook…

  • It is Daylight Savings Time switchover this Sunday, so don’t forget to spring forward an hour. It will be nice to have some daylight in the evenings at home. That is a __sure__ sign of spring!

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes team,
    _Don, Kali, Stephanie & Mike_