Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • _Hello Fellow Technophiles,_

    If you have never been to Vermont during foliage season, you are missing out on something very special. This year has been particularly beautiful and in many parts of Vermont, we are still at peak foliage, so there is still time to get in the car and get here. If you do come up and plan on going off of the beaten path, which I highly recommend, then you should know that cell phone coverage can be spotty. When I head out into the wild, I always pre-download Google Maps maps to my phone so I can use them in offline mode. “*Click here to see more details about this great feature.*”:https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838?co=GENIE.Platform%3DiOS&hl=en

    October also means post-season baseball and since my Boston Red Sox are out, I can join “*Small Dog CEO Don Mayer*”:http://blog.smalldog.com/authors/don and root wholeheartedly for the Cubs. I have always been sympathetic to the Cubs due to their many similarities to the BoSox such as a very old stadium, a famous curse, and a long drought without a World Series championship. Living on the north side of Chicago within biking distance of Wrigley for five years cemented my loyalty and means that I have been to way more games there than I have to Fenway. “*Click here to follow all of the action with the official MLB app.*”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mlb.com-at-bat/id493619333?mt=8&at=11lb7k

    And finally, in other October news, our next issue of Tech Tails will come out one day after Halloween, so I wanted to get opinions on a potential costume. See the picture at the left and let me know how I look!

    Thanks for reading!

    Mike
    “*michaeld@@smalldog.com*”:mailto:michaeld@smalldog.com

  • Hey Siri! Now on Your Mac

    Have you upgraded to Mac OS X Sierra yet? I know that some people wait awhile to upgrade but I have been running Sierra for some time and you will want to upgrade. It is a rock-solid upgrade, it is free and it brings a lot of new features to the Mac. In the words of one big loser, “what do you have to lose?”

    Okay, political commentary aside, one of the most exciting and useful features of Sierra is that Siri, finally, has come to the Mac! You know I have been playing around with Amazon’s Echo and I can definitively tell you that Siri is way smarter than Alexa. I still like Alexa but she pretty much is good for telling me dog and pirate jokes.

    You can access Siri by clicking on the menu bar icon in the upper right-hand corner of your Mac’s screen or by clicking on the Siri icon in the dock. If you do not see those, you might not have Siri activated so go to System Preferences > Siri and check the box to “Enable Siri”. There you will find the check box to “show Siri in menu bar” which you can toggle on and off as well as options to choose Siri’s language and voice. You can also choose a keyboard shortcut if you would like, F7 is the default.

    But, don’t you want to just say “Hey Siri”? That doesn’t necessarily work out of the box but you can make it work! Make sure you activate enhanced dictation in the keyboard system preference. Then, you can go to System Preferences > Accessibility > Dictation to set up the voice command that will activate Siri with a “Hey Siri”.

    So, what can ask Siri to do for you? Well, start out by asking her what she can do. You will get a nice long list of things. You can ask Siri to launch apps, tell you the weather, get the Cubs score, FaceTme a friend, get directions to your meeting and so much more. I have been using Siri to find particular files, launch my apps and most of all to settle trivia bets.

    Remember PDAs? Not public displays of affection, the other PDA – Personal Desktop Assistant. Well, Siri finally has made that a reality on your Mac. Use Siri to manage your calendar, remind you of appointments or bills to pay, play music for you or just a huge range of tasks. Here’s one huge list of Siri commands.

    One of my favorites is searching mail. I can say “find me emails from Hapy” and Siri will give me those almost instantly. Better yet, I can ask Siri to email someone about that Kibbles & Bytes special or set a calendar appointment for the meeting with my service team. I think you are going to like Siri on the Mac!

  • What’s Coming to the Big Screen and the Little Screen

    Despite the focus on iOS 10 and macOS 10.12 Sierra, Apple isn’t forgetting about its other hardware lines, the living room-focused Apple TV and the wrist-based Apple Watch. For those who own a fourth-generation Apple TV, tvOS 10 is here now, and all Apple Watch owners who are running iOS 10 on their iPhones can install the radically revised watchOS 3.

    Although Apple jumped the gun on tvOS 10 by releasing the new Siri-savvy Apple TV Remote app for the iPhone, tvOS 10 brings plenty of enhancements to the Apple TV itself. Siri gets smarter, enabling you to search for shows or movies by topic or theme. It will also find YouTube videos and find live TV playing in supported apps, like ESPN.

    We particularly like tvOS’s new Photos app, which provides a big-screen experience for viewing Memories slideshows or the new albums for People and Places. Those who find the Apple TV’s main screen too bright in a dark room will appreciate the new “dark mode.” A new option to download apps automatically ensures that you get any Apple TV apps associated with your iOS apps without additional effort. And, finally, a new single sign-on feature should make it a lot easier to log in to those apps that require a paid cable or satellite subscription. If only we’d had that for the Olympics!

    These tvOS changes are welcome but not earth-shattering. With watchOS 3, however, Apple rethought how you interact with the Apple Watch, throwing away both glances and the Friends screen and giving the side button an entirely new function. When you add in significantly faster app launches, additional watch faces (including Minnie Mouse!) with more complications, and a simplified way of replying to messages, watchOS 3 essentially gives you a whole new Apple Watch.

    Taking a cue from iOS, swiping up on the Apple Watch screen now displays Control Center for quick management of common settings. And, instead of showing the Friends screen, pressing the side button displays the Dock, to which you can add your most used apps. Swipe left and right in it to navigate between apps, which are kept up to date and launch instantly, making for a far better experience than poring over the app cloud. You can also swipe left and right on watch faces to switch between them, which makes it easier to choose the face that best matches your mood.

    New apps include Reminders and Find My Friends, which let you glance at your wrist instead of pulling out your iPhone to check to-dos and the location of your friends. Entirely new is Breathe, which guides you through deep breathing sessions to reduce stress. For those who find social pressure motivating, the Activity app now lets you share workout and activity information with friends and family. Activity also now supports wheelchair users, encouraging them with “time to roll” instead of “time to stand” reminders, and providing wheelchair-specific workouts and wheelchair-aware calorie tracking.

    To increase peace of mind, a new SOS feature will call emergency services when you press and hold the side button (set it up in the Apple Watch app on the iPhone). Then it notifies your emergency contacts, providing them with a map of your location. The Apple Watch can also display your Medical ID (set that up in the Health app on the iPhone), which provides information about allergies and medical conditions.
    Last, but far from least, after some setup, wearing your Apple Watch will be all that’s necessary to unlock recent Macs running macOS 10.12 Sierra. It might be worth getting an Apple Watch just to avoid having to type that login password multiple times per day!

  • New GoPro Is Here!

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    The all-new GoPro HERO5 Session and HERO5 Black are here and in stock just in time to capture the last few moments of fall and get ready for some great wintertime shots. Featuring 10MP and 12MP cameras, 4K video, Waterproof to 33ft without a housing, voice control, video stabilization and more! These “new cameras from GoPro”:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgRIOcIZI1w allow your creativity to shine. The best part? You don’t have to travel far to get them!

    Small Dog Electronics is very excited to announce we are partnering with Technology for Tomorrow again and are offering another “**FREE SEMINAR**”:https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tech-talk-20-tickets-27133478966 on Saturday November 5th at the South Burlington Middle School from 9am to 12pm. Our own “Nate Poirier”:http://blog.smalldog.com/authors/nathanpoirier will lead a short seminar on understanding and using iCloud. There will also be presentations from **Technology for Tomorrow** on password management, **AT&T Wireless** on finding the right smartphone for you, and **AARP Vermont** on internet safety and fraud watch. We are very excited to be a part of this event and we hope you will join us.

    p{text-align: center;}. “!http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4850.png!”:https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tech-talk-20-tickets-27133478966

  • iPhone 7 Plus

    I was fortunate enough to get my hands on and receive the new iPhone 7 Plus on release day. I skipped the iPhone 6s when it came around so when the 7 was announced I jumped at the chance to upgrade and I haven’t regretted it once. Despite the suggestions from my co-workers I’ve yet to drop my phone into a glass of water…perhaps that review will come in a future issue. For now, I’ll still be playing it a bit safe!

    Like many of you, I’ve read some of the reviews out there and some reviewers are less than impressed with the phone, especially the camera. Coming from an iPhone 6, and after a few blunders with my first few photos, I can say it’s clear that there are significant improvements in the quality of the photos. I am not a professional photographer by any means but I enjoy taking photos and I take a lot of them. For the first few photos that I took with the phone it appeared that the phone was struggling to focus on the object I was trying to take a photo of. Once the camera focused, there hasn’t been a single hiccup with my photos, but briefly, I did wondered if I’d gotten a defective phone. This past weekend I took my phone to the local fair and became truly impressed with the camera. In showing the photos to friends and co-workers we can clearly see the difference in the quality. I’m most impressed with the fact that it seems no matter the lighting, the pictures come out clear and crisp. Inside, outside, the photos are just as great. My biggest surprise has been that I’ve had little need to use my flash, even when taking nighttime photos.

    I’ve noticed a significant increase in speed with with 7, especially with the fingerprint recognition. The speed is so fast when I put my thumb on my phone I actually thought I forgot to set the passcode protection. There is almost no delay when I go to unlock my phone and I’m instantly at my home screen. The larger screen of the plus now also means that I can utilize landscape mode in multiple applications. This isn’t new to the 7 but is a feature of the plus that I’ve been missing out on! I love that I can look at my e-mail in landscape and easily toggle through my inbox. The dual speakers have also made for a much clearer listening experience. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the same experience as with the iPad Pro but it’s a significant improvement.

    Lastly I’ve not missed the lack of of a headphone jack. Early rumors and reports had me wondering, but with most speakers systems and headphones running wirelessly it’s far less of a obstacle than originally feared.

  • It is time to put the Sprite and the motorcycles away for the winter. It has been a mild fall and we would probably still get some riding in if we were not heading down I-95 late next week on our way to Key West. We have a lot of buttoning up to do before we leave but the plan is to leave next Thursday and celebrate our 49th anniversary somewhere on the road. Grace and I decided to get each other kayaks for the occasion so any suggestions for some old fogies first kayak will be appreciated. Then, of course, I have to figure out how to haul them to the ocean on the Volt.

    Thanks for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Emily, Hadley & Amy_

  • Electric Locomotion

    My article last week was heavy on theory, but now that we have the theory down we can talk about some cool practical applications. All of the most interesting electrical stuff comes from combining the properties of electricity with the properties of magnetism. Electromagnets, motors, sensors and more all rely on the fundamental interactions between electricity and magnetism.

    One of the most difficult things to understand are AC induction motors. DC motors are actually pretty straightforward. Even with the basic understanding a 12 year old has, I was able to repair a few DC motors when I was a kid. I would salvage them from electronics and use them to drive fans for projects like a model hovercraft and a model submarine. I tended to wear them out by driving too much power through them (and by submerging them), so I would often have to open them and repair them.

    In a DC motor, the current is always flowing in the same direction. The motor itself is composed of two main pieces: the stator and the rotor. The stator is the outer shell of the motor and in DC motors, it houses fixed permanent magnets that encircle the rotor that spins inside. The rotor is composed of a shaft with electromagnets that face outwards to the permanent magnets on the stator. When current is passed through the electromagnets on the rotor, they repel the permanent magnets and rotate. Eventually though, the rotation will stop because the poles of the electromagnets and permanent magnets match up. To keep the motor spinning, we have to continuously adjust which coils are engaged. We do this with brushes that contact the rotor shaft as it spins. When it reaches a certain angle, the brushes contact a different surface and the electromagnets on the rotor are engaged one after another to keep rotation going. DC motors are inherently self-starting, meaning that the initial repulsion created will “kick” the motor into motion. That’s basically all you need to know about DC motors. Simple stuff.

    AC induction motors are far more complicated, but more elegant and reliable. As we know, AC power is a constantly changing current. Standard household power is single-phase AC, meaning that there is one sine wave of voltage/current going up and down. Induction motors are actually easier to understand initially if we consider industrial 3-phase AC power. This type of power is composed of three separate AC waveforms on top of each other. Each wave is 120 degrees apart from the others.

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    So if phase-1 peaks at time zero, phase-2 will peak 120 degrees later and phase-3 will peak 120 degrees after that. The stator of an AC induction motor is composed not of permanent magnets, but electromagnetic coils. In the simplest form, there will be three separate coils each connected to one of the three phases of the 3-phase power. The coils are physically placed 120 degrees apart from each other in the stator. Three of these complete the 360 degrees of a circle. As each coil is energized, it creates a magnetic field, and because they are arranged in a circle that is identical to the phase shift in the original power, what we have done is created a rotating magnetic field with no moving parts!

    Ok, so do we put in permanent magnets on the rotor and call it a day? No need. The rotor is actually designed as something called a squirrel cage. It essentially looks like two disks held together by metal slats on the outside. Remember that because the AC power is always fluctuating, the strength of each magnetic field is fluctuating. When we place the squirrel cage inside this rotating magnetic field, the changing magnetic field ??induces?? current in the slats. This current isn’t going anywhere, it’s just trapped in the slats but like any current, it too creates a magnetic field. This magnetic field opposes the one created by the electromagnets on the stator and a force is delivered to the rotor causing it to spin. The mathematics and physics of these forces are really cool and worth checking out on your own. It’s called the Lorentz Force.

    A 3-phase induction motor is inherently self-starting because regardless of the initial position of the rotor the outer magnetic field will be rotating. The power in your house is not 3-phase though, so how do those induction motors work? The principle is pretty much the same, you just have only one magnetic field to work with instead of three. Single-phase induction motors always have some way to shift the phase of the power coming in to make it off balance during startup so the motor can start. Without this the rotor would just vibrate in place. There are several ways to do this, but the most common is a starting capacitor and a secondary stator winding. This special circuit can be disengaged by a centrifugal switch once the motor spins up.

    Because of their simplicity and lack of wear parts (brushes wear out on DC motors) AC induction motors are often chosen even when AC power isn’t immediately available, like in the case of modern electric cars. Their batteries provide DC power only but because AC induction motors are so advantageous, engineers actually go through the trouble of inverting the DC power to AC power. All modern diesel-electric locomotives use AC traction motors as well.

    Once again, this is a difficult concept to compress, but hopefully I’ve done a bit to demystify AC motors. These kinds of motors were one of the most confusing things to me for such a long time. This was an interesting article to write, and I’m unsure what my topic will be next week. I’m thinking maybe something about inductive heating, but if any readers have any questions or suggestions, let me know!

  • Revert to iOS 9 Home Button Behavior

    Ever since upgrading to iOS 10 and getting my iPhone 7 Plus I have been amazed with how fast the fingerprint recognition works. I must admit, however, that I was a little thrown off with having to press the Home button before unlocking my phone.

    iOS 10 changes how you use the Home button to unlock your iOS device from the lock screen. Previously, you could unlock it by merely resting your finger on the Home button when the lock screen is showing. In iOS 10, however, you must press the Home button and then use Touch ID to unlock the device. With newer iPad and iPhone models, Touch ID reads your fingerprint so quickly that you can usually press the Home Button instead of just resting your finger on it.

    If you’re like me and find this to be more of a hassle than convenience and prefer to skip the requirement to press the Home button I’ve got good news for you. You can change it! To revert to the previous, and one could argue faster, behavior go to **Settings>General>Accessibility>Home Button** and enable “Rest Finger to Open.”

  • Working Together

    In a direct challenge to Google Docs, Apple has introduced collaboration to the iWork suite of apps. Pages, Numbers and Keynote now support collaboration through iCloud.

    You can use iWork collaboration with these devices:

    * A Mac with macOS Sierra and Pages 6.0, Numbers 4.0, or Keynote 7.0 or later
    * An iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 10 and Pages 3.0, Numbers 3.0, or Keynote 3.0 or later
    * A Mac with Safari 6.0.3 or later, or Google Chrome 27.0.1 or later
    * A Windows PC with Internet Explorer 11 or later, or Google Chrome 27.0.1 or later

    If you find collaboration is not available to you, make sure that you have the latest versions of the iWork apps. I have run into this issue a few times here at Small Dog. I am always a bit ahead of the rest of the team in terms of running Apple software so if I send a Pages 6.0 document sometimes I get push back from those that haven’t upgraded. I do recommend that you update to the latest versions in order to take advantage of the new features, especially collaboration.

    To invite others to collaborate on your document in Pages, Numbers or Keynote you must be signed into iCloud and have iCloud Drive turned on. I was struggling a bit as we were testing this because collaboration is very dependent upon iCloud addresses. You need to use the iCloud email address to invite someone or it may get stuck in the “verification link cannot be sent” bug.

    Keep in mind that the title of the document will be included in the link that you send so if it is confidential- like “www.icloud.com/pages/09aMdbLCQ5naCrMpHaqAfxUoQ#firingemily” you might want to tell the recipient to not forward that link.

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    You can invite people to collaborate on your Mac, iOS device or from iCloud. To invite from the Mac simply click on the handy “collaborate” button in the menu bar. By default, people that you invite can edit your document. You can change share options and limit who can access it. If you set Who Can Access to “Anyone with the link”, and you want to add a password, click Add Password. Type your password and hint. You and other participants need this password to open the document.

    Then choose how you want to invite others to work on your document. If you choose to email your invitation, type an email address or phone number for each person you want to invite. Add any other information, then send or post the message.

    To invite from your iOS device, tap the ***, then tap Collaborate With Others. Again, you will be given the options to limit access or add a password. Click on Add People and you have the same choices on how to inform them via email, Messages, copying the link, Twitter or Facebook.

    Inviting from iCloud in Safari is the same as doing so from within Pages on the Mac.

    You may not want everyone to be able to edit the document but do want them to be able to read it. You can set this all up when you share. When you invite others to collaborate on your document, you can set restrictions on who can view and make changes to your document.

    In the Who Can Access menu:

    * Choose “Only people you invite” if you want only specific participants to access the document. To open it, those participants must sign in to iCloud or iCloud.com with an Apple ID. If they don’t have an Apple ID, they can create an Apple ID after you share the document with them.

    * Choose “Anyone with the link” if you want anyone who has the link to the shared document to be able to open it.

    In the Permissions menu:

    * Choose “Can make changes” if you want anyone who can access the document to be able to edit and print it.
    * Choose “View only” if you want anyone who can access the document to be able to view and print, but not edit it.
    You can change share options at any time by clicking or tapping the Collaborate button, then choosing Share Options.

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    It is usually important to be able to track everyone’s edits on the document and know when changes have been made. If you click on the collaborate button you can see to whom the document is shared and who is currently viewing or editing it.

    Edits that you and others make to the document appear in real time. Look for colored cursors and colored selections of text and objects to see what others are currently editing. Tap or click the colored dot next to the person’s name in the participant list to jump to their cursor. If you don’t see a colored dot, that person has the document open, but isn’t editing.

    If you are really confident in the editors you can hide collaboration activity on your Mac by going to Choose View->Hide Collaboration Activity or View->Show Collaboration Activity. On your iPhone or iPad tap *** and turn Collaboration Activity on or off.

    You can continue to edit even if you are offline but others will not see your edits until you have re-connected.

    You should note that currently not all functions are available in collaboration mode. As an example, in Pages you cannot insert, cut, copy, paste, delete, duplicate, reorder or edit sections. You cannot adjust margins, use “replace all”, create delete or reorder styles.

    Once you have had enough of the sharing edits on the collaborated document you can turn off sharing by clicking on the collaboration button and hitting Stop Sharing. When you stop sharing it is removed from iCloud drive for all participants.

    iWork Collaboration is still in development and I expect we will see a lot of improvements before it is a real competitor to Google Docs but it is coming along. Check it out and let me know how it works for you!

  • _Dear Friends,_

    The leaves are falling and this morning when I took Pirate out for a walk he couldn’t resist diving into piles of leaves and burrowing. He was having so much fun that I just had to stand and watch him enjoy autumn. If it is October it is MLB playoffs and a couple of late nights as I watched my Cubbies beat the Giants to advance to the National League Championship series.

    I am growing my playoff beard and will not shave until the Cubs win or are eliminated. Last time I had a beard it was dark black. It seems to be a lot whiter this time around. We have a number of baseball themed specials running this month for the boys of October and boy oh boy if the Cubs should happen to win the World Series we will have to do something really special.

    Apple and Samsung are locked in a battle before the Supreme Court regarding Apple’s design patent but Apple has been enjoying some unexpected benefit from Samsung as their Galaxy Note 7 phones can’t seem to stop exploding. This will certainly increase Apple’s market share. And it should because the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7+ are really state-of-the-art handheld computers. It seems a bit inappropriate to call them phones anymore. I would say that use as a telephone is about 20% of my use of my iPhone 7+. From alarm clock to calendar, to Siri and Maps the iPhone is a digital companion more than a phone.

    This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive features an Apple Factory Certified Refurbished CTO 12-inch MacBook. This Space Gray unit has an upgraded 1.3 GHz processor, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB drive. It carries the same 1-year Apple warranty as new Apple products and we are bundling it for “**Kibbles & Bytes readers**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002406 with the AppleCare protection plan that not only extends the normal 1-year Apple warranty to 3 years but also extends the 90 days of free Apple technical support to 3 years as well. This week only for Kibbles & Bytes readers you can buy this MacBook and get AppleCare for free! Get the MacBook with AppleCare for only “**$1385.99!**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002406