Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • Emily Wins April

    A few weeks ago, “**I wrote an article about a fitness challenge I had started with Emily**”:http://blog.smalldog.com/kibbles/kb979/. Well, April 30th has come and gone. The month is over. How did our results turn out? Let’s just say I’m pretty much focused on May right now. I didn’t get the amount of biking in that I wanted. My monthly total was 135,000 steps. It was…insufficient to beat Emily’s 235,000 steps.

    So on to May. Actually, compared to last year’s longer winter, I’m already up 100 miles on my personal riding record. I know from experience that any time I can start riding in March, it’ll be a good season. Hopefully as we get some warmer mornings I’ll be able to start riding my bike into work. That’ll really help get my step count up! Watch out, Emily!

    I started riding seriously in 2008. My parents moved, so when I went home from college for the summer, I wasn’t with any old friends and I needed something to do. I had fixed up an old mid-80s Raleigh in high school, so I started riding that. At first, I didn’t do anything to track my rides. It was just fun. I’d ride a few miles every day after work. Eventually I found an old mechanical odometer that I mounted to the Raleigh. I have no idea if it was even accurate, but I really enjoyed tracking my distance, so I went out and got a well-reviewed Sigma bike computer. That **was** accurate.

    Once I graduated from college I decided to get a new, modern bike since I’d put so many miles on the heavy Raleigh. I ended up with a nice Cannondale aluminum-frame road bike. That’s still what I ride today, and I still use my Sigma bike computer. Sometimes people ask why I don’t just use my iPhone and GPS to track my rides. After all, there are cool social apps like Strava that let you compete with friends on challenges. I do track some rides, but I’ve found it’s a hassle to get my phone out, start the app, make sure it’s recording, then stuff it into my pocket and go. The bike computer just clips onto the handlebars and is done.

    These days I track my rides in Numbers. It has a great template for tracking running that I modified to use for riding. I track date, ride time, distance, pace, average speed, max speed, miles-to-date, and whether or not any of my ride offset a trip I normally would’ve driven. So if I ride to and from work, that tends to be a 21-mile offset for the round trip. It’s nice because I can save the file in iCloud and access it on any device no matter where I am.

    I like to take the winters off from riding and stay in shape with XC-skiing. I’ve found that when I start riding again, it takes about 100-150 miles before I feel confident to ride pretty much anywhere and any distance. I’ve pretty much already hit that distance earlier in April, so I’m optimistic that I’ll really be able to stack on some miles and maybe beat Emily in May!

  • Google Apps

    I’ll be honest, Google Apps, Gmail, Google Drive and anything associated with Google beyond a web search was very foreign to me. For over a decade my only resource for e-mail was Mac Mail, my preferred web browser was Safari and I only knew of Google as the place to go to search for whatever I wanted on the web. When Small Dog switched over to Google Apps for Business for many of our services, I was a hold out and avoided the change as long as I could.

    It’s been a long road (only due to my resistance) but I have learned to truly enjoy and utilize the benefits of Gmail, Google Apps and Google Drive. I still use Mac Mail as my primary mail program, and I keep all my contacts in my address book and iCloud, but I use other Google-based features on a daily basis. Prior to using Google, when I looked at e-mails on the road from my phone, I had to wait until I was back at my computer to file them away in their respective folders. Now I can quickly file away e-mails when I am done with them. I can do this from either the Mail app on my mobile devices, or via the Gmail app. I do admit I still prefer the Mail app, but the Gmail interface is growing on me.

    In the past year, if it wasn’t for “**Google Apps**,”:https://apps.google.com I would have found completing some tasks incredibly difficult and time consuming. No matter where I am, no matter what device I am using I can access my e-mail, my files, share files with others, my calendars and more! I’ve needed to work with outside consultants and designers for work and have been able to quickly and easily share files. I’ve had staff need me to share spreadsheets and documents. Thanks to Google Drive I can uploaded and download files much larger than those I might be able to share via e-mail.

    I think my two favorite features of “**Google Apps**”:https://apps.google.com are quickly filing e-mails and being able to have multiple users view and edit documents at the same time even while in different locations. The ability to view and share documents for multiple users to view, edit and share has honestly been invaluable. You can easily set up files as read-only or read and edit. One thing that I have discovered is that when you are using mobile devices such as iPhones or iPads, you do need to make sure you download the correct application and not just Google Drive in order for all users to not only view your documents, but edit them as well. Recently I was sharing a document with my husband. He had downloaded Google Drive and I shared my Google spreadsheet with him. He could see the document, but he was not able to see any changes that I was making without closing the file and re-opening it. He was not able to make edits either even though I gave him editing rights. It took a few minutes, but I discovered he needed to download Google Sheets in order to have full access to the file. This was one part of the Google interface that I did find to be not as intuitive as I would have liked. When you’re using your computer to create the files, you can access everything (for the most part) via Google Drive. On mobile devices you need to access some files via its specific app.

    It’s taken some time, but I’ve come to see the benefits and features of Google Apps. Many folks have been using these features for years and I know I am a little late to the game on this. Change isn’t always easy when it comes to computers, interfaces, operating systems and the like no matter your age and comfort level with computers! Are you interested in Google Apps for Business for your business? Small Dog Electronics has consulting services that have plenty of “**experience setting up Google Apps**”:http://www.smalldog.com/b2b-googleapps for businesses large and small.

  • _Dear Friends_,

    Don made it back to the Green Mountains over the weekend, but he wasn’t able to enjoy the cold weather for too long! Don’s in Houston this week at the ASMC conference, he’ll back back in charge of Kibbles next week. I think he was just looking for an excuse to get back to some warmer weather as fast as he could.

    As Apple specialists and as an Apple authorized reseller we are held to pretty high standards, not only by ourselves but by Apple as well. All of our retail staff upon hire and annually thereafter take a series of online training courses that provide in depth knowledge about Apple products and cloud services. Each year we also have the opportunity to send retail staff to Apple instructed training camps to help staff brush up on their Apple customer experience skills. These training sessions are not only designed for retail staff, but for our service staff as well. All of technicians, like our retail staff, take annual exams and participate in assorted training and exams sessions on a yearly basis to ensure that they are up to speed with current repairs processes and techniques.

    Over the past decade or so our sales have sifted more to our retail stores and less in the area of online sales, but for us the online competition still remains tough. Why? It’s simple, we live in a world where just about anything we want can be found with the tap of your finger or the tap of your mouse. What you can’t get with this instant gratification is the one-on-one interaction with a sales associate or service member who works daily with the products and that is why we spend so much time working with and training our staff.

    This week’s “**Kibbles & Bytes exclusive bundle**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002216 is the perfect gift for the grad on your list this year. Whether they are graduating from college or high school, this MacBook Pro 15in with Retina, 2.5Ghz i7, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB hard drive has all the power and storage they will need for their next adventures in life. I am bundling this with free shipping and AppleCare to ensure there is service and support for the next three years. Normally this bundle would cost $2430.97, but this week only you can get it for “**$2275.98**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002216

  • Purchase an TV and get an Apple Wireless Keyboard for 50% Off

  • Storm Season Is Here! Free Shipping On APC 15A 1U Power Strip

  • Go Cellular for the Price of Wifi

  • Terminal Tidbits: The pwd Command

    The *print working directory* command is a useful tool for navigating inside of the *Terminal* command window. It helps locate where you are in the current state of the directory. It is very easy when you are navigating through files and directories too quickly to lose your spot…kinda like your bookmark fe;l out and you can’t find the right page.

    When in Terminal if at any time you get lost, just type *pwd* and press *enter.* It will respond with the “present working directory.” So, when you are moving files *pwd* is a great way to double-check your copy and move locations.

  • Ransomware

    Over the last few years I have noticed an increase in customers being affected by “ransomware.” Ransomware is a type of malware that locks you out of a function of your computer by encrypting it or by locking up your browser. The ransomware offers the option to pay a fee to remove the lock. On a Mac we commonly see this when a user has been locked out of a web browser as the built-in security protocols generally prevent malicious encryption of your data.

    The image at the right and below are two examples of the type of pop up that you may see:

    !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4718.png!

    As you can see one pop up tries to convince you that there’s a threat and claims to be Apple support. It also provides a number for you to call and get support. The other one relies on including the FBI name in the web address to make it seem genuine. The FBI ransomware relies on a threat to get you to pay them to unlock it.

    Most of the time you can simply avoid ransomware by avoiding sketchy websites and 3rd party software downloads. Thankfully on a Mac it is generally very easy to remove ransomware. The file usually hides in the internet files and can be purged by emptying your recent history. If you are not able to clean it out yourself you can always bring the affected machine to us and we can remove it for you. We provide adware/malware/ransomware removal for $65 and the process usually takes less than a day.

  • It Is Now Safe To Turn Off Your Computer

    No one likes being asked to reboot their computer. When I’m working with someone over the phone to figure out why their computer or mobile device isn’t working, more often than not I hear a groan when I ask them to close their open applications, power the device off completely, and then turn it on again. Yes, this will cause all of the open applications and files to quit. However, this is a crucial step in the troubleshooting process and can completely solve a huge number of software-related issues.

    I can’t count the number of times someone has brought me a computer that had slowed to a crawl, and upon opening it up there are dozens of different applications and files open at once. When I ask about the last time the computer was turned off, often the user can’t remember.

    More often than not, turning the computer off and on again without the “Reopen windows when logging back in” option selected will solve issues like this, along with many odd software glitches. I like to illustrate this by using an analogy: Your computer is like an orchestra, with millions of different instruments playing together at once. As time goes on, the likelihood of any one musician making a mistake increases, and as soon as one musician is playing out of time the rest are soon to follow. When several musicians are out of time with the rest of the orchestra, it will be much easier for the entire orchestra to stop and start again together than for the few musicians to individually struggle to get back in time.

    I would highly recommend rebooting periodically even if your computer is not acting up, to prevent issues from occurring in the future. I typically turn my personal computer off every night. Be aware, closing the lid of your laptop simply puts it to sleep (assuming you haven’t configured your settings otherwise). To fully turn your Mac off, click the Apple logo in the top left corner of the screen, then “Shut Down”. If that fails, or your computer is non-responsive, you can force a shutdown by holding the power button down until the machine powers off.

  • _Hello Fellow Technophiles,_

    As a father of a precocious 3.5 year old, I find myself explaining anything and everything on a daily basis. This gets me thinking more critically about the grammar and the content of the things I say. For example, I realized recently that my kids will likely never actually “dial” a phone even though I still call it dialing. They can input a number, or more likely just tap on someone’s name, but there is no physical dial. Not that those were common even in my day as touch-tone telephone service was first offered in 1963. They will also likely never “tune in” to a TV show with an actual tuner. Again, not something I did often either as cable TV was introduced in 1949 and into my house circa 1984. These linguistic quirks will probably hang on for some time after no one is left who actually used these technologies in their original forms.

    That all being said, I am not nostalgic for the older technology. I can’t imagine going without a cellular telephone. Then, when you consider all of the apps, internet connectivity, built-in camera and microphone, and geo-location services on my iPhone it is truly an amazing and indispensable device (which Apple and I still refer to as a phone). I also do not miss having to watch TV shows when they were aired. I can get almost every show I want between all of the streaming services out there. And thanks to a $4 add on to my Hulu subscription and the “*AdBlock Plus*”:https://adblockplus.org Safari extension I don’t even have to watch commercials anymore. We have a great deal on an Apple TV below, so if you are still tuning in, you should take a look at it and leap into the future.

    I hope you enjoy this “newsletter” that I “typed” and e-“mailed” to you!

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