Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • iPhone Photo Management

    iPhones are pretty awesome cameras and they are pretty awesome displays for photos as well. They’re actually such awesome cameras that almost everyone fills them up with pictures, and then you’re out of space and can’t take any more photos. To see what’s taking up space on your iPhone, you can navigate to a breakdown of what’s taking up space and how much.

    Go to *Settings (the gray gears) > General > Storage & iCloud Usage*. Under the heading of *Storage* you’ll see *Used* (what’s actually taken up on your phone) and *Available* (how much free space you have). There is another option, *Manage Storage*, which gives you a breakdown of how much space each app is taking up as well as the option to remove that app and its data right from there.

    Photos & Camera is the number one culprit for taking up space on most of the phones I see. It’s just so easy to take photos like crazy and run out of space. The biggest culprit is videos; a short video can take up more space than a few dozen photos, or maybe even a hundred or more, depending on the length of the video.

    There are a number of different solutions. A common one is to move them onto your computer and remove them from your iPhone. Another one is to upload them to an online service and there are a lot of options here. Facebook, for example, is where many of my best photos can be found. But for the real bulk of my photos I don’t really want to share them with the world, I just want to hold on to them. For this I use *iCloud Photo Library*. I do need to pay for extra iCloud storage space, but $0.99 per month gets me 50GB. It can take hours or even days to upload an entire Photo Library, depending on the size and the upload speed, but it’s really great when it all gets uploaded. There are two options: Optimize iPhone Storage, meaning you get a low resolution thumbnail on the device and a full version available to download in iCloud, and when you try to view that photo it will download for your viewing. The other is Download and Keep Originals. I do that on my Mac, where I have a ton of available space, but not on my phone.

  • Finding With Terminal Instead of Finder

    There are many Terminal commands that one can use to expand control over OS X. We are all aware of Spotlight and Finder, but many find that the Terminal offers a wider range of options than the GUI. Today I will talk about the *find* command and how to use it.

    The syntax for the find command is as follows:

    *find ~/ -name testing.rtf*

    The first word will always be *find*, the second will be the directory or folder you would like find to search, the third will alway be *-name* and the last is the file you need find to search for. As you can see I used the master level of the home folder to start the search by using the *~* symbol. This ensures I will not miss the file I am looking for. Please see the example below.

    !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4648.png!

    Find also allows you to search for a file type instead of a specific file. Just replace the file with the file type and include an asterisk, which is Terminal’s wild card symbol, in front of it. See the example below.

    !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4649.png!

  • Staying Safe Online

    Using the Internet can be very dangerous. There are many individuals who are constantly attempting to infiltrate the computers of unsuspecting Internet users to steal money or personal information. There are many different commercial antivirus software packages available to prevent these attacks, and they are widely used. A huge number of the computers that are brought to me have some kind of antivirus software installed on them by the user.

    The popular perception is that once an antivirus software is installed on a computer, the user can freely browse the internet and download any file at all, and the antivirus software will protect them. This could not be further from the truth.

    Installing antivirus software on your computer is similar to wearing a bulletproof vest every day. The bulletproof vest will protect you against some types of attacks, but not all. Similarly, antivirus software is constantly being updated to protect against the newest virus attacks, and will never detect every kind of virus. There are simply too many different types of viruses being created every day for antivirus software programmers to keep up with.

    It is true that a bulletproof vest does offer some protection against physical attacks. However, if a person enjoys wandering down dark alleys in a major city late at night, it will only be a matter of time before something bad happens to them, even with a bulletproof vest. The same principle applies to avoiding virus attacks. The only near-guaranteed way to stay virus-free is to avoid shady websites and downloads

  • _Hello Fellow Technophiles,_

    Regular readers will notice that I have not used a picture of myself as the main image for this week’s Tech Tails. While I am definitely the eye candy that really sells this newsletter, I thought that I would share a picture of some of the team members that work behind the scenes here at Small Dog Electronics answering our tech support line and repairing computers.

    As you can see, the vintage white iMac comes in three sizes and so do our technicians. I have put their articles in order this week from tallest to shortest. Ben helps you stay safe on the internet, Kevin explains a useful Terminal command for finding lost files, and Erich talks about managing your photos on your iPhone.

    Thanks for reading Tech Tails!

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

  • Keep Your Passwords!

    You have a password for the online banking, one for your Apple ID, one to log into your retirement amount. Your password for your bank has to have have at least one numeric number, but can’t start with a number and it can’t have any more than two of the same characters found in your username. Your retirement account must include at least 3 numbers and one special character but they can’t be consecutive.

    Does this sound familiar? In the perfect world we would only need one password, but unfortunately for security purposes and as hackers get better at what they do password strength has become critical and part of our everyday lives. The hassle with this is that most sites have their own sets of rules for password strength leaving many of us to peck away at our keyboards or devices in a sometimes endless game of “remember how you manipulated your favorite password 16 different ways and can’t remember if your banking site used the password with the capitalization or the one with the ampersand”.

    For a very long time I will admit my method of keeping track of my usernames and passwords was the stickies program on my Mac, much to the dismay of our IT manager! While stickies are easily accessed they are not secure and I do not recommend this method. Where you should keep them is in your keychain. You can access your keychain through applications and then utilities. Once you are in your keychain you can manually add preferred sites, accounts and passwords you wish to store. Another huge benefit is secure notes. Secure notes allow you store additional confidential information. Keychain is safe and secure because in order to view any of the passwords stored there you need to enter your administrator password. Within keychain you can make sure to safely and securely keep your passwords, and when you forget if you needed that capitalization or ampersand in your password you can simply open keychain and enter into the search field the website for which you need to confirm the password.

    Now what if you don’t have a mac? The loss of passwords, and most often your Apple ID password is a huge concern with users of iOS devices only. Luckily there is an easy solution for that, iCloud and iCloud keychain. Simply go to settings, iCloud and then select keychain. Your iOS device will begin to store your logins and websites. Additionally you can add specific websites and passwords manually to your phone or iPad under safari and then selecting passwords. This is also where you would look if you can’t remember login information.

    Recording safely your logins and passwords is an often overlooked step, especially when users of iOS devices accidentally have the device damaged or lost. Saving your passwords safely and using iCloud keychain can avert your being logged out of accounts.

  • My sister and her partner are coming to visit this week so I hope the sun comes out. It has been sort of cool and rainy here for this week. It is hard to believe that we are already in the middle of January and the Iowa caucuses are only a couple of weeks away.

    I know you will join me in congratulating (or consoling) Emily for her most recent promotion. A frequent contributor to Kibbles & Bytes, Emily has done just about every job at Small Dog, starting out in the shipping department way back when, when the computers were heavy. Emily is now the General Manager of Small Dog Electronics to reflect her pivotal role at the company.

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes and for all of the support for Small Dog Electronics. We know it is you, our loyal customers, that sustain us and we appreciate you!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Dean, Scott & Emily_

  • Keep Your Passwords!

    You have a password for the online banking, one for your Apple ID, one to log into your retirement amount. Your password for your bank has to have have at least one numeric number, but can’t start with a number and it can’t have any more than two of the same characters found in your username. Your retirement account must include at least 3 numbers and one special character but they can’t be consecutive.

    Does this sound familiar? In the perfect world we would only need one password, but unfortunately for security purposes and as hackers get better at what they do password strength has become critical and part of our everyday lives. The hassle with this is that most sites have their own sets of rules for password strength leaving many of us to peck away at our keyboards or devices in a sometimes endless game of “remember how you manipulated your favorite password 16 different ways and can’t remember if your banking site used the password with the capitalization or the one with the ampersand”.

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4644.jpg!

    For a very long time I will admit my method of keeping track of my usernames and passwords was the stickies program on my Mac, much to the dismay of our IT manager! While stickies are easily accessed they are not secure and I do not recommend this method. Where you should keep them is in your keychain. You can access your keychain through applications and then utilities. Once you are in your keychain you can manually add preferred sites, accounts and passwords you wish to store. Another huge benefit is secure notes. Secure notes allow you store additional confidential information. Keychain is safe and secure because in order to view any of the passwords stored there you need to enter your administrator password. Within keychain you can make sure to safely and securely keep your passwords, and when you forget if you needed that capitalization or ampersand in your password you can simply open keychain and enter into the search field the website for which you need to confirm the password.

    Now what if you don’t have a mac? The loss of passwords, and most often your Apple ID password is a huge concern with users of iOS devices only. Luckily there is an easy solution for that, iCloud and “iCloud keychain.”:https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204085 Simply go to settings, iCloud and then select keychain. Your iOS device will begin to store your logins and websites. Additionally you can add specific websites and passwords manually to your phone or iPad under **safari** and then selecting **passwords**. This is also where you would look if you can’t remember login information.

    Recording safely your logins and passwords is an often overlooked step, especially when users of iOS devices accidentally have the device damaged or lost. Saving your passwords safely and using iCloud keychain can avert your being logged out of accounts.

  • CES Random Thoughts

    I talked a bit about the big Consumer Electronics Show last week and it is rapidly fading in the rearview mirror. I have gone to this show every year for the past decade or more. We actually exhibited our Chill Pill speakers and Hammerhead products at one CES but mostly I have come as a “buyer” to look for new products and trends.

    The Las Vegas convention center is a gigantic venue and the CES show spills out into the parking lot in front but also into some of the surrounding hotels and resorts. The Sands convention center was the second largest and housed some of the more interesting booths. This was the location for 3D printing, health care, fitness, home automation, robots and drones. There were sophisticated baby monitors, constant reporting thermometers, implanted blood glucose monitors and even a company that sold wireless sensors that monitor your soil’s nutrients and moisture. Home automation was huge with several competing standards vying to challenge Apple’s HomeKit. This year more companies were showing HomeKit compatible products so I think that Apple’s vision of your interconnected home is not far off.

    There are lots of ways to move from the Sands over to the LVCC but the best way is the free buses offered by CES. Cabs and the monorail are possible but the buses seem to be the fastest and they are free and comfortable. For me it was a great way to rest my weary feet for a few minutes before going to the other venue to continue walking through the crowds. At the convention center there are three main halls and the international pavilion over at the Westgate (formerly, Hilton). The Center hall is dominated by the big guys with gigantic booths for Samsung, Intel, LG and others. Those booths are usually mobbed so I quickly walked through to check out the TVs and moved on. The North Hall is where the iLounge was born and products for iPad and iPhone dominate that section. The biggest part of the North Hall, however, was the Auto section with concept cars being shown my several manufacturers including Ford, Audi, Mercedes and new electric car upstart Faraday.

    In the past several years the iLounge area and the international area were dominated by all sorts of cases for iPhones and iPads. This year there were a few in each section but cases were definitely not the dominate category. Over at the international pavilion there were lots of hover boards but unlike previous years, demos of the scooters were restricted to the booth area. Nevertheless, all sorts of scooters were being shown. I searched for interesting USB-C products and found some hubs that were not quite ready for prime time and a bunch of cables. I did see the USB-C displays that incorporate a hub and that could be the real solution for the office set-up for the USB-C equipped MacBook.

    I never seem to be able to coordinate my meetings by hall. It seems that I’ll have one meeting in the North Hall, the next in the South Hall and then another back at the hotel. I rode the buses a lot and got to see the whole show floor that way.

    I did find some interesting products that we may add to our offerings, and had some great meetings so it was worthwhile to visit this show that is a window on future technology.

  • _Dear Friends_,

    Well I didn’t win the Powerball so I guess I have to stick with my day job a bit longer. Vermont finally got some winter weather and more snow is in the forecast. It has even gotten a bit cooler down here in the Keys where when it dips below 70° F the down coats and shoes come out.

    I am still struggling a bit with tropical gardening. A large caterpillar ate the leaves off one of my tomato plants overnight and for some reason I cannot get my citrus trees to blossom. I keep feeding and watering them in the hopes that my Key Limes, Myers lemon and Naval oranges will blossom but they seem to just make greenery. We did discover that bananas love coffee grounds and since Grace and I produce a lot of coffee grounds those plants are doing well.

    I upgraded myself from the original iPad mini to the iPad mini 4 before I went to Las Vegas and the differences are remarkable. Not only is it thinner and lighter but the screen is much better, the speed is a lot faster and I simply love the Touch ID. I had been trying to activate my old iPad mini with my finger after being used to that with my iPhone so it is a welcome addition for my primary reading device. I prefer the iPad mini to the full-size iPad or the iPad Pro because of the size. It feels like a paperback book in my hand and even on a crowded airplane it is comfortable to use.

    Do you know about tethering? I don’t know how many people I have talked out of buying a cellular iPad by explaining tethering. I guess that is a bit against my interests as you pay an extra $130 for cellular versions of the iPad. If you buy that cellular version you also need a cell contract which might be another $30 a month. Tethering is a much better idea. Tethering is where you share the cellular connection from your iPhone with your iPad. You activate Personal Hot Spot and boom you have your own private wireless network over cellular. The other day Comcast had an outage here in the Keys and I used tethering with my Mac to work all day. Most carriers will charge you a little more for tethering but it is less than the $30. With my iPad, I simply choose “donphone” from the wireless setup and I am connected with the same speed as if I had the cellular version of the iPad.

    This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive is a “**fully configured 13-inch MacBook Air.**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002125/special-save-50-on-apple-refurbished-macbook-air-and-free-hammerhead-case This Apple factory reconditioned MacBook Air carries the same 1-year Apple warranty as new Macs and we are bundling it with AppleCare so you actually get 3-years of warranty protection and 3-years of free Apple technical support instead of the normal 90-days. This MacBook Air is the same as the one I use and love. It features a 1.7GHz i7 processor, 8GB of ram and a big 512GB SSD drive. I am going to take $50 off and include a free Hammerhead neoprene case for this MacBook Air. Regular price is $1639.97 but for Kibbles & Bytes readers this week only (while supplies last) the price for this bundle is “**$1559.98.**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002125/special-save-50-on-apple-refurbished-macbook-air-and-free-hammerhead-case

  • On a plane today and back home to Key West which is only a little more laid back. It is like being in a time machine leaving Las Vegas in the morning and back in the Keys by dinner.

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    _Don,Emily, Dean and Scott_

  • Scooter's Internet Service Favorites

    I tend to think a lot about how far technology and the Internet has come. I know I’ve written about some of it here. One of the biggest surprises to me has been how much better web-based services and software have become. Don’t forget, even a popular powerhouse like YouTube was launched initially in 2005. It’s so easy to upload video online these days and share with your friends. It really wasn’t that long ago that such a task would’ve been difficult or impossible. When you add in the fact that mobile computing has completely blown up in terms of processing power and data throughput, it’s enough to make one’s head spin.

    So for this Kibbles and Bytes article, I wanted to talk about a few of my favorite internet-based services and software.

    * “**Vimeo**”:https://vimeo.com/ – YouTube’s smaller, less popular brother? Maybe, but I really like Vimeo. They were always geared more towards higher production quality videos and I love that it’s more about the video itself than the social aspect (as on YouTube). I actually pay for a pro account because I tend to shoot a lot of video and the pro account allows for more upload bandwidth and faster video processing times. Possibly trivial, but I’ve always loved the styling of Vimeo’s site. It’s cute, fun, colorful and simple. It makes using the site a pleasure and helps compliment the great videos and films people post there.

    * “**GitHub**”:https://github.com/ – Yes, this is an obligatory nerd choice. GitHub has exploded as *the* destination for developers to post their code, collaborate with others, download and distribute open source software, manage projects and more. It’s what we use here in the Small Dog IT department for all our software development and distribution. What you may not know is that GitHub doesn’t have to just be for software. Almost anything that you want to collaborate on with others can be set up on GitHub. A few years ago, I experimented with using it as a versioned repository for a story I was writing. It actually worked really well. The versioning works best for flat text files, but technically it can be used for anything.

    * “**Gravatar**”:https://en.gravatar.com/ – Gravatar is a really cool service that allows you to manage all of your online avatars in a single place. Each avatar can be linked to an email address. If you sign up on a 3rd party website with that email address, and the site implements Gravatar’s API (which the vast majority do these days), it’ll automatically pull in your avatar. Want to change your avatar on all the sites you use? Just log into Gravatar and change it! I love this service because it helps keep my online presence consistent and if I feel like changing the image, it’s super easy. It also keeps a library of previous avatars so if you want to go back to a previous avatar, you can do so easily.

    So for this Kibbles and Bytes article, I wanted to talk about a few of my favorite internet-based services and software.

    * “**Vimeo**”:https://vimeo.com/ – YouTube’s smaller, less popular brother? Maybe, but I really like Vimeo. They were always geared more towards higher production quality videos and I love that it’s more about the video itself than the social aspect (as on YouTube). I actually pay for a pro account because I tend to shoot a lot of video and the pro account allows for more upload bandwidth and faster video processing times. Possibly trivial, but I’ve always loved the styling of Vimeo’s site. It’s cute, fun, colorful and simple. It makes using the site a pleasure and helps compliment the great videos and films people post there.

    * “**GitHub**”:https://github.com/ – Yes, this is an obligatory nerd choice. GitHub has exploded as *the* destination for developers to post their code, collaborate with others, download and distribute open source software, manage projects and more. It’s what we use here in the Small Dog IT department for all our software development and distribution. What you may not know is that GitHub doesn’t have to just be for software. Almost anything that you want to collaborate on with others can be set up on GitHub. A few years ago, I experimented with using it as a versioned repository for a story I was writing. It actually worked really well. The versioning works best for flat text files, but technically it can be used for anything.

    * “**Gravatar**”:https://en.gravatar.com/ – Gravatar is a really cool service that allows you to manage all of your online avatars in a single place. Each avatar can be linked to an email address. If you sign up on a 3rd party website with that email address, and the site implements Gravatar’s API (which the vast majority do these days), it’ll automatically pull in your avatar. Want to change your avatar on all the sites you use? Just log into Gravatar and change it! I love this service because it helps keep my online presence consistent and if I feel like changing the image, it’s super easy. It also keeps a library of previous avatars so if you want to go back to a previous avatar, you can do so easily.