Kibbles & Bytes Blog

Apple news, tech tips, and more…

KB Dog

  • It is going to be a quiet Christmas for Grace and me. We have reservations for Christmas eve dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant, Floating Thai, and then we got tickets to see the new Star Wars movie. Then right after Christmas we get a treat when my daughter Autumn comes to visit and another daughter (she lived with us for a year so I consider her my daughter) Kim Blodgett comes as well. With those two in town we probably will not have as quiet a new year celebration.

    All of us at Small Dog Electronics want to take this opportunity to send our most sincere and warm wishes from our families to yours for a very Merry Christmas!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Dean, Scott, Emily_

  • Back up for the Holidays

    The Holidays are here and I am sure many of your are busy making memories, thinking about others and capturing as many picture-perfect moments that you can. While you’re busy bustling around, are you taking the time to think about these memories? What would happen if you couldn’t go back and look up those moments? Perhaps now is the time to think about a gift for yourself and taking the time to ensure that all of the perfect moments you are capturing on video and in pictures are being safely stored on your computer.

    I know we talk about this all the time, but it’s surprising how many of us out there keep putting this important step of backing up to the side! The Holidays are the time with some of the best memories, and so many of us are capturing once in a lifetime moments. The last thing anyone wants is to have something happen to those photos. There are so many options for backing up your computer and your important files it can be a little overwhelming. There is iCloud, cloud-based storage solutions from countless companies, traditional external hard drives for back up and more! My preferred backup solutions are a combination of cloud backup and physical hard drives. It might seem a little redundant, but better to be safe than sorry when it comes to important documents and memories.

    For me, iCloud and an external hard drive are my preferred options for backing up. I use my iCloud account to keep my daily life in order, contacts and calendars most importantly. I also use iCloud for storing some of my most important memories and files, select baby photos of my kids and some important documents. The kind of things that should the worst case happen and I lost my computer or drives due to theft or fire I still have copies in the cloud. My preference for my backups is using Time Machine and my “**Seagate**”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/85305/seagate-backup-plus-slim-portable-drive-usb-3-0-2tb-blue hard drives. I keep a different drive for each of my computers and perform fairly regular backups, I am not perfect, so sometimes they are not as regular as I would like. But utilizing these drives allows me to ensure that I have entire backups of my files and data readily available. Before I started to use iCloud I would also have back ups drives of my Time Machine back up, yes, I was and am that paranoid about loosing photos of my kids. I still have a small 20gb drive that contains my oldest daughter’s first year of photos, even though I know all the photos are on my computer and backed up I still won’t delete that drive.

    In the last year we have seen a rise in alternative cloud storage and mobile storage solutions. Many companies like “*Seagate*”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/?mmfg%5B0%5D=Seagate and “*LaCie*”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/?mmfg%5B0%5D=LaCie have portable drives that allow users to access information wirelessly while on the go. This is a great solution for families with large media libraries for movies. The “**Lacie Fuel**”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/85520/lacie-fuel-wireless-battery-powered-mobile-hd-wifi-usb-3-0-1tb is great for just this. Have a long road trip? Load up the drive and the family can access the files from their iPhones or iPads quickly and easily without taking up storage on their devices. Another and perhaps more practical solution is the “**Seagate Personal Cloud**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002041/mac-the-halls-save-20-on-seagate-personal-cloud-home-media-storage-3tb. This drive allows you to back up everything on your computer and access it from anywhere! No need to carry that back up drive along with you, and with tons of storage options little worry about not having enough space. So this holiday season remember, backing up is just as important as capturing those memories.

  • Apple, the Year in Review

    2015 was a pretty amazing year for Apple. Most of the products in Apple’s line were updated and some new products were rolled out. The Apple Watch was perhaps the most notable as Apple Watches began shipping in very limited quantities and prices on eBay skyrocketed and then as supply caught up with demand, the Apple Watch now has more points of distribution and companies like Best Buy and Walmart are using the Apple Watch as loss-leaders. Nevertheless, the Apple Watch was a big success considering it was a completely new product category. I am still wearing and using mine so it has withstood a bit of a test of time.

    The new Apple TV has re-booted Apple’s “hobby” product into a whole new paradigm with the Apple TV App store, a fantastic new remote with Siri and some awesome new Apps. If I can ever stop playing Crossy Road maybe I can check some of them out.

    iPhones continued to be Apple’s bread and butter representing the lion’s share of Apple’s revenue, profit and growth. Apple did not disappoint this year with the new iPhone 6s and 6s+. While new iPhones were expected, continued record iPhone sales were astounding with Apple selling almost 50 million iPhones in the last quarter of 2015!

    iPads have been suffering a decline in sales perhaps due to an over-saturated market but let’s be clear, iPads are everywhere and are really the only tablet worth considering. You see them in restaurants as menus, you see them in the cockpits of airplanes and you see them in the Vermont legislature, too. This year Apple updated my favorite iPad, the iPad mini with the iPad mini 4 and introduced the iPad Pro with the new keyboard and pencil. These are just starting to ship with some regularity and those that have purchased them are giving them rave reviews.

    Macs were not left out of the excitement this year with Apple posting record Mac sales at a time when most PC sales are in the dumps. We got the new exciting MacBooks featuring state-of-the-art laptop technology in a diminutive package. MacBook Pros, Mac minis and even the iMac received updates this year. Only the Mac Pro stayed the same but there is always next year.

    Apple Music was launched and as of this week is available on Sonos systems, too, so I have been listening to Apple Music instead of Pandora as I go to sleep each night. With 15 million subscribers or more, Apple Music has to be considered a big win for Apple.

    I am not gonna talk about the Apple car rumors because unless you count their staffing and secret testing grounds there is nothing here for you to see. Or as Obi Wan Kenobi would say “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for…”

    Check out Apple’s Best of 2015 lists here:

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4625.png!

    “*Best of TV*”:https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewFeature?id=1058901289&ls=1&mt=4&at=11lb7k

    “*Best of Movies*”:https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewFeature?id=1058907408&ls=1&mt=6&at=11lb7k

    “*Best of Books*”:https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewFeature?id=1058887327&ls=1&mt=11&at=11lb7k

    “*Best of Podcasts*”:https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewFeature?id=1058890791&ls=1&mt=2&at=11lb7k

    “*Best of Music*”:https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewFeature?id=1058922578&ls=1&app=itunes&at=11lb7k

    “*Best of Apps (iPhone)*”:https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewFeature?id=1060103010&ls=1&mt=8&at=11lb7k

    “*Best of Apps (iPad)*”:https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewFeature?id=1060102587&ls=1&mt=8&at=11lb7k

    “*Best of Apple Music*”:https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewMultiRoom?fcId=1057403067&ls=1&app=music&at=11lb7k

  • _Dear Friends,_

    One week until Christmas and there is no snow in the forecast for Vermont. Down here in Key West there are lights in palm trees and some fairly extravagant lighting displays. Our stores are busy helping with last minute Christmas shopping and Apple laptops, iPads and the new Apple TV seem to be on the top of a lot of folks’ lists this year.

    We have refreshed our supply of Apple Certified Reconditioned iMacs and MacBook Airs. These are brought back to “as-new” condition by Apple and have the same 1-year Apple warranty as new Macs. They qualify for AppleCare as well which we strongly recommend for all of your Mac purchases. AppleCare is a great value for not only does it extend the warranty on your Mac and associated Apple peripherals such as AirPort base stations or displays from 1-year to 3-years but it extends the free Apple tech support from 90-days to 3-years as well. This comes in handy when you run into an annoying little problem and you need a solution for your Mac.

    I had one of those dilemmas with my Apple Watch. I have never been able to answer phone calls with the watch and I was getting jealous of Grace acting like Dick Tracy all the time. So, I decided to chat Apple Support. The first guy I was chatting with was patient but actually didn’t seem like he knew the Apple Watch all that well. He had me reset, restart, wipe and set-up the Apple Watch as a new Apple Watch and still the problem persisted. Fortunately, I was accidentally disconnected from chat and when the new guy took over he told me it was a tap vs. push problem. Sure enough I was trying to push the answer button rather than tapping it and when I did tap it I got to fulfill my Dick Tracy fantasy, too. Now, if I could only get the calls answered on my Apple Watch to stream directly to my hearing aids.

    This week’s Kibbles & Bytes special is the Apple Factory Reconditioned 21-inch iMac bundled with AppleCare. This will make a great Christmas present for those grandkids or anyone that has been really good this year. This iMac has the 2.7GHz i5 processor, 8GB of ram and a big 1TB drive. Our Mac the Halls special has this at $50 off and with a free set of Chill Pill Speakers for $1169.98. For Kibbles & Bytes readers until Christmas you can save an additional $25 and “*get this bundle for only $1144.98!*”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002104

  • Migrate Your Data to a New Mac

    When a customer buys a new Mac, there’s often a question of what to do about the old data. All that old data is all that stuff that made your old machine yours: it’s the settings, the pictures, saved web page bookmarks, documents, spreadsheets…all that stuff.

    Frequently a Mac-to-Mac data transfer can be done without any special equipment or advanced knowledge. The easiest way is to use Apple’s Migration Assistant which is a program built into OS X, and is on every new Mac. When setting up a new Mac (or any Mac that’s been reset to factory settings, generally from the disk being wiped and the OS being reinstalled) it’ll prompt you to make a decision.

    The top option is to transfer data from a start up disk or Time Machine backup. If you’re already doing a Time Machine backup to an external HDD this is the best option, just make sure your backup is completely up to date. If it’s behind, any changes you’ve made won’t show up on your new machine when the transfer completes. Once you’ve identified the drive you want the data to come from it goes through and calculates the sizes of everything on that older drive. You’ve got a little control of what comes over, like whether or not you want the entire Applications folder, but nothing more specific than that. It’ll also tell you how much available space will be left over, or if there’s more data on the source drive than the destination.

    I recommend using a Time Machine backup drive (any external HDD that has a Time Machine backup on it) because it’ll be useful for backups on the new machine. It’ll even see that it’s a new machine that has all the same data and ask if you want to keep using the same Time Machine backup; this is call inheriting.

    Alternatively, you can put the source machine into Target Disk Mode by pressing the T key when the machine is booting and having it connected to the destination machine through Thunderbolt or FireWire. Target disk mode only works through Thunderbolt and FireWire, don’t bother trying anything else. I’ve wasted enough time for us all: it’s not supported. If you’re transferring data from a machine with FireWire but no Thunderbolt to a new Mac that only has Thunderbolt you can get a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter, but that’ll run you $30 and you might not have another use for it after the data migration. You could also use a Thunderbolt cable, but that’ll also run you at least $30, and again, you might not have another use for it, that’s why I recommend an external HDD. If you’re not doing a backup, it’s worth the peace of mind, and simplifies data transfers.

  • Last Minute Gift Ideas from Small Dog Electronics

    We know that this can be a stressful time of year and we would like to help you relieve that stress. Beginning *Thursday, December 17th*, our *South Burlington* location will be *open until 9pm* on every night except Christmas Eve and Sunday, 12/27. We will be open from 9am – 5pm on Christmas Eve and 10am – 6pm on Sunday. From now until December 24th *save 25% on all headphones* from Beats, Urbanears, Outdoor Tech and more!

    !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4623.jpg!

    We also have tons of great *last minute gift giving ideas* for just about anyone on your shopping list. Not sure about picking out the right item? Our knowledgeable staff can guide you in the right direction and remove the stress of last minute gift shopping. For more great gifts visit “www.smalldog.com/macthehalls”:http://www.smalldog.com/macthehalls

    “!http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4622.jpg!:”http://www.smalldog.com/macthehalls

  • Devon Vila

    Family: Nina & Hector Vila, two brothers and one sister Pets: Two Dogs, Four Cats, Ten Sheep, One Cow Hobbies/Interests: Bass, Guitar, Piano,…

  • Grace was getting jealous of all the Christmas lighting on the houses in on our little island. She didn’t think that all my Bernie signs were festive enough so she put out some lights that spell out a big LOL. We have gotten some smiles for that so mission accomplished!

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Dean, Scott & Emily_