Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • 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.

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4851.png!

    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.

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4847.jpg!

    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.

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4848.jpg!

    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

  • See the world through an Olloclip

    Taking pictures is a daily occurrence for me. For years, I have enjoyed taking my DSLR camera for a walk to see what I could find. Seeing the world through my camera’s viewfinder always makes things simpler. I wanted a way to get this experience, but in a way that was more portable. I looked at one of the products we sell, called Olloclip, and wondered how well it worked. I talked to Will, our purchasing Manager who has an Olloclip, and I decided to try it out. I am so happy with my decision. The reason I was searching was because my husband and I were headed on an Alaskan cruise. I didn’t want to lug my big camera around and knew there had to be a better option. The Olloclip is amazing. I have an iPhone 6S Plus and the clip was so easy to use. I got those once-in-a-lifetime pictures I wanted and didn’t have to carry around a huge camera. My favorite lens is the wide angle. I use it for everything from selfies to panoramas and landscapes. The trip was great and by using the Olloclip I got details I would have missed without it.

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4841.png!

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4842.png!

  • I am taking a drive to southern Vermont on Sunday to deliver some winter tires I am selling since I won’t be needing those. I’ll try to find the roads that the leaf peepers can’t find or it might take me a lot longer than usual. We’ll probably have to stop at our favorite burger joint on the way in S. Royalton, Worthy Burger.

    With just a couple weeks before we head south, we have a ton of chores to do. I think I’ll be busy this weekend but if the remnants of Matthew avoid Vermont I will have to get out for a ride, too.

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Emily, Hadley & Amy_

  • Electromagnetic Buddy Cops

    Was last week’s electricity safety article enough of a break? Hopefully it was because I think my topic this week might break even me. The study of electricity falls under the immensely broad scientific category of physics. When we talk about it though, we usually refer to it as electromagnetism which is itself part of the “**four fundamental forces**”:http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/forces/funfor.html. These include the “strong” force (also called the nuclear force), the “weak electric” force (think subatomic particles), the gravitation force (what’s holding you to the earth right now), and finally the electromagnetic forces, which are of interest to us here. So far I’ve focused almost exclusively on the “electro” part of that topic but not so much on the “magnetism” part.

    Electricity and magnetism are like two buddy cops in the best buddy cop movie ever. You might have noticed that I haven’t really discussed exactly how electricity is generated yet aside from a few hints about it, and that’s because it depends entirely on concepts within magnetism. I’m sure we all know about magnets. They’re just as relatable as electricity in many ways. There are magnets holding my car keys to my refrigerator as I write this. Magnets have a north pole and a south pole. Opposite poles attract and like poles repel. Nope, nothing about electricity yet.

    So where do magnets come in? Well, surrounding every magnet there is a magnetic field. You might remember this being demonstrated in school with iron filings grouping themselves in a very specific pattern around a magnet. The filings group themselves along the magnetic field lines. When talking about these field lines in the context of interacting with them on any given plane, they will often be called lines of flux or magnetic flux. This is the key. These lines are what you need to generate electricity.

    Imagine I have a simple rectangular bar magnet suspended on its center. I take a copper wire connected to am ammeter (a device for measuring current) and I pass the wire straight past the end of the magnet (north pole or south pole, it doesn’t matter). The ammeter needle will briefly wiggle indicating that a current was present. The current in this test is very small, and it only occurs for a brief moment, but it is there. How did this happen? When a conductor cuts through a line of magnetic flux, the electrons in the atoms of the conductor are compelled to move. How exactly are the electrons compelled to move? At that level, you’ll have to read up on it yourself as it’s totally beyond a short article here, but it is covered under the field of “**quantum electrodynamics**”:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_electrodynamics. Have you ever heard of Richard Feynman? Quantum electrodynamics was his playground (one of many actually).

    Ok, so if we abstract away how exactly the electrons are compelled to move and just accept that they do, we arrive at the conclusion that cutting through lines of magnetic flux with a conductor creates a current. In my example, we used one magnet and a single copper wire. To generate more current, you need to cut through more lines of flux. You can do this by adding more magnets (to increase the flux), more conductors, or both, which is what we generally do. This whole theory of cutting lines of magnetic flux is the operating principle behind every generator (direct current) and alternator (alternating current).

    In a basic alternator (yes, just like the one in your car) there is a circular casing that holds coils of conducting wire. Why coils? Again, more wires, more lines of flux cut. Coils also help to concentrate the lines of magnetic flux. Basically the purpose of every single design element is to ensure that the most lines of magnetic flux are cut for a given area. The fixed outer area with the coils is called the stator. The inner area that rotates is called the rotor, and in our example here, it simply contains spinning magnets. Each time a pole of the spinning magnet passes one of the many coils in the stator, a current is generated. By having enough coils covering all radial angles, the alternator will be generating a current during pretty much it’s entire rotational cycle, though the current will be alternating. Typical alternators don’t use permanent magnets on their rotors. They actually use electromagnets, but the theory of operation is exactly the same.

    Once again, I’m out of space to continue about all of this here. The reason I went into this topic was so that in subsequent weeks I’ll have a foundation to talk about electromagnets, multiphase power, induction motors, and some other high-level interesting stuff that just won’t make sense if you don’t have an understanding of the fundamental interactions between electricity and magnetism.