Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • Don't Destroy Your Creativity

    I’ve written in Kibbles before about all kinds of different data storage mechanisms. Maybe it seems like I’m a little bit obsessed with it, but I like to keep my data around. We always talk up backups here in Kibbles and I sometimes wonder what people are backing up. Photos? Work documents? Financial stuff? Personally I do a lot of creative work on my computer. This is stuff that’s absolutely irreplaceable. I’m willing to bet the most common creative thing people have on their computers is photos. Surprisingly, I don’t have that many photos, but I do ??a lot?? of writing on my computer and I’d be devastated if I lost it. I also shoot a lot of video, compose music and have the occasional software project lying around.

    The thing about creative pursuits like these is that there tends to be a lot of stuff and only a little bit of it ever makes it into the final project. For every ten musical compositions I start working on, maybe only one or two will get fully flushed out into a finished product. Video is even worse. I’ve worked on video projects forever, and one thing I’ve learned is that cutting and editing footage is easy. Reshooting footage is difficult or impossible. Writing follows a similar pattern.

    What all this means is that I tend to have a lot of raw data (video, music, text, etc) that I have to deal with. When I’m actively working on something, it’s not too big of a deal. I have a good 2TB external drive, and a 1TB hosted RAID. Once I’m done with a project however, what should I do with all this data? It feels very wrong to me to delete footage I shot, especially if I used it in a project. What if I want to recut it later? What it something comes up and I decide I want to use some footage that missed the final cut in some project?

    Back in the days when I worked at a public access TV station, we had two massive shelves absolutely filled with VHS tapes. Most of it was raw footage that was available to be reused, recut or just rebroadcast. The principle was the same though; we were holding on to all that footage. If you can afford it, hard drives are great for storing lots of footage or creative projects. They also have the advantage of being rewritable. For me though, I tend to prefer burning things off to DVDs, especially when it comes to raw footage. They’re cheaper and will potentially last a lot longer than a hard drive (good quality discs anyway).

    It’s sad that Apple has all but given up on disc drives at this point, but you’re not completely out of luck. They make a very slick USB-powered “**SuperDrive**”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/87099/apple-usb-superdrive that you can plug into any computer and burn discs or read them. I use “**Taiyo-Yuden**”:http://www.supermediastore.com/brand/show/taiyo+yuden DVDs any time I’m saving important data.

  • iCloud Photo Sharing Makes Sharing Easy

    I took a bunch of photos on my recent trip and while I shared a few publicly on Facebook, others I want to share with a more select group of family and friends. Thanks to the iPhone, more people are taking pictures than ever, and with an iPhone you always have your camera!

    While you probably don’t want to share all of them, friends and relatives might like to see a “Best Of” collection. Or you might wish to share the photos of your new puppy with your dog friends or pictures of your new city with friends back home.

    With iCloud, it’s easy to create a shared album, invite other iCloud users to subscribe to it (handy for viewing on an iOS device or Apple TV, in particular), and to create a public web page of the photos that anyone can see, even if they don’t use any Apple devices.

    Let’s set it up:

    On an iOS device, go to Settings > iCloud > Photos and turn on the iCloud Photo Sharing switch.

    On a Mac, open System Preferences > iCloud, click the Options button next to Photos, select iCloud Photo Sharing, and click the Done button.

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4776.png!

    Next, follow these steps, which are similar regardless of the device you’re using:

    # In the Photos app, select some photos or videos. In iOS, that involves tapping Select before tapping the items to select; on the Mac, just Command-click the items you want, or drag a selection rectangle around them.

    # Hit the Share button , and then pick iCloud Photo Sharing.

    # Select an existing album or create a new shared album.

    # For a new album, provide a name, enter the names or email addresses of any iCloud users with whom you want to share the album, and add an optional comment.

    # When you’re done, tap Post in iOS or click Create on the Mac.

    To add more photos, repeat those steps to select photos and then add them to a shared album. Alternatively, start with the shared album, though the steps vary slightly between iOS and the Mac:

    * In Photos for iOS, if necessary, back out of the view until you see the Shared button in the toolbar. Tap Shared and select the shared album. Then tap the + button, select the items to add, tap Done, enter an optional comment, and tap Post.

    * In Photos for the Mac, in the sidebar, select the shared album in the Shared category. Then click “Add photos and videos,” select the items to add, and click the Add button.

    It’s easy to tweak the options for your shared album or to create a public Web page for it. The process is again similar in both operating systems:

    * In Photos for iOS, tap Shared in the toolbar and select the shared album. Tap People to bring up a screen where you can share the album with more people, control whether subscribers can post their own photos, create a public web page, enable notifications, and delete the album entirely. To share the URL to the public web page, tap Share Link and select a sharing method.

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4775.jpg!

    * In Photos for the Mac, select the shared album in the sidebar, and then click the People button in the toolbar. From the popover that appears, you can do the same things as in iOS, although sharing the link is best done by either clicking it to visit it in a web browser and then copying from there or Control-clicking it and choosing Copy Link from the contextual menu.

    After practicing these steps a few times, you’ll be able to create shared albums in a flash, and share them easily.

  • _Dear Friends,_

    I had an awesome trip out to my home town of Chicago. Grace and I met there and actually got married at city hall in Chicago. I realized as we were at Wrigley Field, watching the Cubbies beat the White Sox, that I had taken Grace on a date to Wrigley 50 years ago. We had a hot dog and a Goose Island to celebrate.

    It was a very hot motorcycle ride to the midwest but we managed to miss all the rain and thunderstorms. We were drinking gallons of water to stay hydrated as we tooled through the corn and soybean fields of Ohio and Indiana. We got home to blueberry bushes loaded with berries.

    The day after we got home, we headed down to the NBA Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA to pick up Pirate, our new bulldog puppy. Fortunately, the breeder was able to meet us halfway and the Hall of Fame was a good central spot. Pirate is a handful and is already hanging out at the office with me. Now if he would just quit untying my shoelaces.

    I have been participating in the 3rd annual Vermont Road Pitch. Each year some 20-30 entrepreneurs, educators, business leaders and venture capitalists hop onto their motorcycles and ride from town to town in Vermont to listen to business pitches. I met up with the crew in Barre to hear some pitches and then onto Randolph for some more. Great new business ideas but the best ideas I thought were from the non-judged high school students. One was making sunglasses from recycled plastic harvested from the ocean–very cool.
    Friday I head to Hyde Park and Grand Isle, Vermont for more pitches. It is great fun and good to hook up with other business men and women who share a passion for motorcycles, too.

    This week’s “**Kibbles & Bytes special**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002329/ features the Apple Factory Reconditioned 21.5 inch iMac. This iMac carries the same 1-year Apple warranty as a new machine and has been reconditioned by Apple to be as-new. We are bundling it with the AppleCare protection plan which takes that 1-year warranty and makes it 3 years and takes the 90 days of free Apple tech support and makes it 3 years as well. Here’s a great opportunity to add a sleek and powerful desktop Mac at an unbeatable price. This iMac features a 2.9GHz Intel i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 1TB drive. We are also bundling a 1TB backup drive with this special. So you get the iMac, AppleCare and the 1TB Seagate backup drive for only “**$1299.99!**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002329/

  • !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/3036.gif!

    The deals keep on coming during Back to School at Small Dog Electronics! For four days only, August 5th through August 8th, get a **FREE 1TB external USB hard drive** with the purchase of any computer. Get even more deals with you buy AppleCare with your new computer! Get a **$50** Small Dog gift card when you buy any Mac with AppleCare.

    When your visiting any Small Dog Electronics store this weekend don’t forget to “**sign up for our $100 Gift Card giveaway**.”:http://www.smalldog.com/win-waitsfield One lucky winner will be chosen from each retail store for a $100 Small Dog gift card.

    If a computer isn’t on your list, “**save $25 instantly**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002280/back-to-school with the purchase of any iPad Air 2 plus get a $25 Small Dog gift card if you buy Applecare+ for iPad. Want an iPad Pro? Not to worry, any iPad purchased with Applecare+ will get a **$25** Small Dog gift card.

    “!http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4766.png!”:http://www.smalldog.com/win-waitsfield

  • I’m trying to think of something fun to do this weekend. I should probably do something that helps make me feel like I’m making good use of the remaining summer. Alternatively, I could just stay home and relax in the sun. My deck used to get oppressively hot in the summers. It’s nice and has a great view, but it’s not shaded at all. This year I decided to try to fix it by getting a sun shade sail. They generally come in triangle shapes (either equilateral or right) and after I spent an hour measuring and doing the trigonometry, a custom-sized sail was on its way to me. It does a great job of reducing the temperature, and now I can sit out on my deck and read and get some fresh air.

    Don and Emily will be back in action at the Kibbles helm next week. Thanks for reading!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Emily, Amy & Hadley_

  • Apple One-Ups the Street

    I’m in Tiffin, Ohio heading back to Vermont and I promised Emily that I would write about Apple’s financial results for Kibbles & Bytes. We have had an awesome trip so far and it was even better on Tuesday when I saw Apple’s quarterly results.

    The analysts were pretty much gloom and doom and expected Apple to struggle to even meet their guidance for the quarter. But Apple once again beat the street by posting revenue of $42.4 billion and net quarterly profit of $7.8 billion, or $1.42 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $49.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $10.7 billion, or $1.85 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Although the drop in revenues was expected and predicted by Apple, Apple posted both top line and bottom line revenues that exceeded their guidance and analysts’ expectations.

    Their guidance for the 4th quarter (July to September) was also stronger than expected with revenue between $45.5 billion and $47.5 billion and gross margin between 37.5 percent and 38 percent. In addition, the Apple board of directors declared a cash dividend of $0.57 per share of Apple’s common stock.

    While iPhone and Mac sales continued to slump, mostly due to the lack of new models, iPhone sales were strong, with the iPhone 5se leading the way. iPad revenue took a positive turn up 7% driven by the iPad Pro although unit sales were down. Services revenue was the highest ever and a bright star in the report at just about $6 billion which is up 19% year over year. Services revenue is growing and Tim Cook said he expected services revenue alone to be the size of a Fortune 100 company. Caterpillar, Coca-Cola and Archer Daniels Midland are all at the bottom of that list and if Apple sustains the pace at $6 billion a quarter they will easily make it.

    Apple invested $1 billion in Didi Chuxing during the quarter and has cash on-hand of $231.5 billion. The market reacted favorably and pushed Apple up by 7% and they closed today over $104 a share. It was a great quarter for Apple that really shut down the doomsayers. Yesterday, Tim Cook announced that Apple had shipped its 1 Billionth iPhone – an accomplishment that is simply astounding. How many other products can you think of that have sold a billion? I did a little research and well it isn’t even close. The iPhone is the best selling product of all time!

    Congratulations to the Apple team for a great quarter!

  • Tips and Tricks for Taking Screenshots on a Mac and iOS Device

    Did you ever want to capture what’s on your screen, or at least a part of it? Screenshots aren’t just for technical writers trying to document app behavior–you might also use them to provide feedback on a photo, to document an error message for someone who helps you with your Mac, or to record a particularly funny auto-correct fail in Messages on your iPhone.

    OS X and iOS have both long included built-in screenshot features that make it easy to take a high-resolution picture of what you see onscreen. You can, of course, use a camera to take a photo of your screen, but that will never look as good.

    Taking a screenshot in iOS is super simple, and it works the same on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. Just press the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons simultaneously. You’ll see the screen flash, and iOS saves the screenshot to your Photos app–look at the bottom of the Camera Roll or, if you’ve turned on iCloud Photo Library, the All Photos album. The same technique works on the Apple Watch, where you press both the digital crown and the side button simultaneously. Accidental presses of those buttons explains why random Apple Watch screenshots might appear in Photos.

    On the Mac, you can take your pick from three built-in methods of taking screenshots: (If you take a lot of screenshots, consider memorizing OS X’s keyboard shortcuts.)

    # For a full-screen screenshot, press Command-Shift-3.
    # For a screenshot of an arbitrary size, press Command-Shift-4 and drag out a rectangle.
    # To capture just an object like a window, press Command-Shift-4, hover the pointer over the window, press the Space bar to show the camera cursor over the highlighted object, and then click to take the screenshot. (The Command-Shift-4 shortcut is the only way to capture a menu. All screenshots are saved as PNG files on your Desktop and automatically named with the date.)

    If that sounds geeky and hard to remember, try Apple’s Grab app, which is hidden away in the Utilities folder inside your Applications folder. It’s a simple app, but it can take full-screen, window, and selection screenshots, and it walks you through the process. You can also use Grab to capture a full-screen screenshot with a timer, which is handy if what you want to record appears only while you’re dragging an icon or other object, for instance. Captured screenshots appear in Grab as Untitled TIFF documents that you can close, copy, save, or print.

    Whatever method you choose, remember that a picture is worth a thousand words, and the right screenshot can be even more valuable.

  • Park Smart

    When I used to visit my brother at the University of Vermont in Burlington, I’d always pride myself on knowing where the good cheap (or free) parking was in the city. There isn’t much, and most of it necessitates kind of a long walk. It’s not that I’m trying to save the 2-3 dollars on parking. It’s just inconvenient to have to have that much change in my car and then to remember how much time is left on the meter. When I finished college, I remember cleaning out my car and finding over $40 worth of change scattered in all the compartments (a graduation gift to myself?). I’m far neater these days, and don’t have that much change lying around in my car.

    A few months ago, I was in Burlington for a doctor appointment and noticed a sticker on the meter where I had parked. It was a number and a little bit of information about an app, “**Parkmobile**”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/parkmobile-paid-parking-made/id365399299?mt=8. I was a little skeptical at first but figured I’d give it a try. Here’s how it works…

    Once you download the app, you’ll need to make a quick account. This is so you can have a payment method on file. You can use a credit card or PayPal. You’ll also need to enter your car’s plate number. At this point, all you have to do is enter the number on the meter, and choose how much time you’d like to add to your parking session in the app. The numbers on the meters aren’t individual, they represent a parking “zone”. If a meter attendant comes by, they’ll look up to see if your car’s plate number is registered in the app to be parked in that zone, and how much time you have.

    The thing I ??really?? like about the app and this system is that I can see exactly how much time remains by just opening the Parkmobile app on my phone. The app will also send you alerts if your time is getting low. The best part is that you can add time to the meter no matter where you are. I was once a few blocks away with my brother and got an alert that my time was low. I fired up the app and added another hour. Easy! I should note that because they’re using credit cards there is a 35-cent surcharge that gets added on to cover the card processing fees. For the convenience of the app though, I’m more than happy to pay it.

    So far in Vermont, Burlington is the only city that offers Parkmobile parking, but other cities in the region that offer it are Keene, NH, and a number of areas around Boston. Of course, the NYC area and cities in Connecticut offer it as well. So the next time you’re parking, don’t stress about keeping the meter fed. Give the Parkmobile app a try to help eliminate those parking tickets!

  • _Dear Friends,_

    Both Don and Emily are away on vacation this week and have left the kids in charge of the house. This is my first time ever running Kibbles and Bytes myself. If I do well, I might get extended curfew privileges!

    I put a date on something this morning and realized, “wow, it’s almost August!” I always seem to forget how fast summers fly by. I’ve been able to get a pretty good jump on Emily in our fitness challenge both in June and July though. It’s pretty easy to get points just going out for a “quick” 10-20 mile ride on my bike.

    I should’ve known that summer was well underway when I looked at my garden last weekend. Most years I just plant boxes on my deck, but this year I decided to ask my neighbor for space in one of their gardens. I planted zucchini, pickling cucumbers, sweet corn, popcorn, and heirloom black cherry tomatoes this year. Despite some early season pest attacks, everything looks amazing now. I’ve gotten a few zucchini already (including a giant one yesterday) and have some cucumbers on the way. My deck garden is doing well too. I have chamomile and peppermint for tea, turnips, and dill (for the pickles) as well as a few backup cucumber and tomato plants. I actually harvested all the turnips this past weekend. I’d never really had turnips before, but tried these a few years ago. They grow really well and taste really good, especially roasted in the oven with some olive oil.

    I asked Emily before she left if I could do one of those “boss is on vacation” specials I see sometimes at a local RV dealership. I’m not sure we could ship an RV with UPS though, and also, I was recently informed that we don’t even sell RVs. So instead, I’ll make this week’s Kibbles and Bytes special something that we ??do?? sell. This week, exclusively for Kibbles and Bytes readers, I have some “**Urbanears Hellas Active Wireless headphones**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002322. Normally these are $119.99 but this week only you can save $36 and get yours for only “**$83.99**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002322!

  • **We’re launching another four day sale this weekend**! At any Small Dog Electronics location, “**save 30% on all headphones between July 29th and August 1st.**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002286/summer-sale

    This weekend only we’ll be offering “30% off all headphones”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002286/summer-sale from **Beats,** **Urbanears,** **Outdoor Tech** and more. In addition to the great deals on our selection of headphones, our great “**Back to School**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002280/back-to-school bundles are also available. Get a **$50** Small Dog gift card with the purchase of any Mac with AppleCare or a **$25** Small Dog gift card with the purchase of any iPad with AppleCare+. Save even more with an iPad Air 2 with **$25 off instantly and a $25 Small Dog gift card** with any iPad Air 2 with AppleCare+

    When you visit our retail stores, don’t forget to “**sign up**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002286/summer-sale for our weekly giveaway: a pair of Beats Solo2 Wireless Bluetooth Headphones. Each week now through August 21st visit our stores and sign up for our weekly giveaways. Everyone who enters our weekly giveaways is automatically entered to win our **Grand Prize Giveaway** where one lucky winner will go home with a **13in MacBook Pro with Retina.**

    “!http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4766.png!”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002286/summer-sale

  • I am off next week. Grace and I are riding our motorcycles to the midwest. We will head through western New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio on the way to “Astec Seats”:http://www.astechseat.com. I am having my Indian Roadmaster seat rebuilt since I seem to get a backache after riding any distance. These guys apparently do a great job so my ride after that might be more comfortable. We are then heading to our home town of Chicago where we will go see the Cubs for two nights, first at the Chicago White Sox park on the south side and then at Wrigley field. We haven’t decided which way we will go back, yet but perhaps through Canada.

    It is funny, even though I am excited about our annual motorcycle journey, I am anxious to get back because that very next day we pick up my new pup!

    I will also be participating in the annual “Road Pitch event”:http://www.roadpitch.com here in Vermont. The event is a multi-day motorcycle trip around Vermont where a pack of motorcycle riders with investing, entrepreneurial/business and business advisory experience ride together and stop in small towns where “Local Hosts” have organized a pitch session for entrepreneurs to pitch their business ideas to the group. It is a lot of fun and I really enjoy hearing the pitches for new businesses.

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Emily, Hadley & Amy_