Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • _Dear Friends,_

    We drove up to Miami on Monday to see the Celtics beat the Heat. It is a long drive up the Florida Keys but a beautiful drive with ocean and gulf surrounding you as you travel up the island chain to the mainland. Then we entered a whole new world but got to see a great basketball game. I ran into Cedric Maxwell, former Celtic and radio announcer in the aisle and he sorta looked at me like he know me but we had only met once before in the picture here when I went down to Boston for a Celtic experience with former Small Dogger Katie Wilhite.

    Hanukkah is early this year and starts this Sunday. I will give you my top 8 Hanukkah gifts this year below that will work for all the holidays this season.

    It has been hard to watch the news these days with all the senseless shootings. It seems like it is an everyday occurrence and it is almost inevitable that we will become numb to it. You know I am an avid science fiction reader and today seems so much like some author’s dark vision of the future whether it is 1984 or the Berserkers of Fred Saberhagen’s space opera. We cannot let ourselves make this the new normal.

    This week’s Kibbles & Bytes special brings back the popular “**Chill Pill six-pack offer**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002096. 2 red, 2 black, 2 white Chill Pills for one low price of $29.99! These will make a great stocking stuffer!

  • Yum, yum, gobble, gobble – see you next week!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Dean, Scott & Emily_

  • Photographer on Your List?

    Got a photographer on your list? Someone who is always taking selfies, or looking to step up their Instagram or YouTube presence? Check out our specials on iPhone photography accessories and video cameras below. We have the Olloclip 4-in-1 lens which includes a Fish-eye, Wide Angle, and two Macro lenses both 10x and 15x. We also have their new Active Lens kit which has a 2x Telephoto lens for those close ups and an ultra wide to ensure you capture the whole moment. Sick of blurry photos and shaky videos? Check out the Joby Gorilla tripods. Lastly, for those action seekers on your list, we have the Sony Action Camera, available in 1080p and 4K, these cameras are sure to capture all the excitement this winter season.

  • Scooter's Storage Solution Suggestions

    Do you know someone who needs more hard drive storage space? Too many pictures, movies, games, etc? Maybe you know someone who isn’t backing up their data very well. No matter what your data storage conundrum, we have solutions that will fit the need.

    For the more technically inclined out there, I recommend picking up a few of the Seagate Backup Plus Slim Portable USB 3.0 drives. They come in either 1TB or 2TB and can easily be purchased in a set of two or three or as many as you want! Why more than one? These disks make __excellent__ RAID arrays. I have two of the 1TB drives in a RAID 1 (mirrored) configuration. If one drive fails, I can simply swap in another one and be back up and running again. The Seagate drives are small, USB bus-powered, and inexpensive. A RAID 1 array makes for an awesome Time Machine backup destination.

    Not as technically inclined, or simply prefer a portable, rugged, super-quick storage option? The LaCie Rugged line of drives is your answer. Available in 1TB or 2TB options, the LaCie Rugged drives also add the option of Thunderbolt. I use a 2TB Thunderbolt LaCie Rugged as my main storage for all my video files and iMove libraries. These are really quick drives and with either Thunderbolt or a USB 3.0 connection, they can be almost indistinguishable from an onboard drive when doing things like video editing or photo editing. They are also truly rugged as their name implies. The cases are very sturdy, and they come wrapped in a nice rubber cushion as well. They’re the perfect solution for storage on the go.

    This is only a small taste of what storage options we have available. Check out what we have either “**in store**”:http://www.smalldog.com/retail/visit-us-in-store-at-any-of-our-locations or “**online**”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/Storage_and_Backup.

  • Emily's Gift Recommendations for under $100

    The “**Misfit shine**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002019 is my favorite gift for **$54.99**, it’s a small gift that has a lot to offer! While I am a huge fan of my Apple Watch, there are a few draw back to it that the Shine can offer. The Shine does not need to be charged, it’s water proof , it can track your sleep habits plus all the other great fitness features like heart rate, steps and miles walked. Another great feature to the Misfit Shine is the great color selections available, in addition to being extremely lightweight. I hardly noticed the shine when using it and like the Apple Watch it will automatically sync to its fitness App on the phone whenever it’s near your phone.

    I am a huge fan of camping and being in the outdoors, my phone goes everywhere with me and I often discover that I am running low on power with no easy means of charging my phone. The “**Kodiak Mini Rugged Powerbank**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002017 for **$14.99** is a perfect gift for anyone who uses their phone where power might not be readily available. It’s small, lightweight and gives you the added juice you need. Even if you’re not someone who’s using it in the outdoors, it’s perfect for business trips or just long shopping adventures! It’s a small but thoughtful gift that’s sure to make you a lifesaver!

  • _Dear Friends,_

    All of us at Small Dog Electronics wish you and your family a very Happy Thanksgiving. As we reflect upon all that we are thankful for and eat a huge meal, it is also the time to think about and help those less fortunate and give thanks for our ability to help. As we enter the holiday season which is important to us as a company that sells products, we are also aware that this is a time for family, peace and goodwill.

    At Small Dog Electronics we are thankful for you, our customers new and old. For twenty years, we have strived to serve your needs and show how a company can be a responsible member of our community as well. We are thankful for the opportunities that you have given us. We are thankful for our relationship with Apple. We have grown up with Apple from the time Apple was days away from bankruptcy to now, when Apple is the largest, most successful business on the planet. We are thankful for Vermont, a business-friendly state where entrepreneurial dreams can turn into reality. I am thankful for all of the Small Dog employees from employee #1, Art Hendrickson, to our newest hire. But most of all I am thankful for the community of customers, non-customers, employees and friends that have supported and nurtured the company.

    Happy Thanksgiving to all the Kibbles & Bytes readers!

  • Clean Screen Advice

    I work on quite a few iMacs here at Small Dog and there is nothing more annoying then having a piece of hair, bug, dust, etc. in between your LCD screen and your eyes. In this article I will be discussing iMacs released between 2007 and 2012. Before and after those years a different construction technique was used which does not cause dust interference.

    For those that don’t know, the iMac consists of a thin glass sheet that covers the LCD. Because of this there is a thin air pocket about half an inch or so between the glass panel and LCD display. If there is dust in-between your iMac glass and LCD you have 3 choices: learn to live with it, bring it into Small Dog for us to clean it, or try and tackle it yourself.

    If you choose to do this yourself you will need a few things:

    * Strong suction cups
    * Microfiber cloth and glass cleaner
    * A roller with sticky pads (see picture below)

    !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4591.jpg!

    If you can source these parts, then the first thing to do is stick the suction cups to the glass and slowly pull towards you (refer to the main article image). *WARNING*: Do not do this if you are not OK with potentially cracking the glass. Although this may be easy for me, if it is your first time I would be very careful. The glass is attached to the casing by magnets and only needs a slight pull. Now clean both the LCD and the inside of the glass really well with a microfiber cloth, and some cleaning spray. Next take the sticky sheet and peel back the top, roll the roller on it to get off any dust, and then start rolling it both on the LCD and the inside of the glass. After you are done quickly seal everything back up. Now clean the outside of the glass with a microfiber cloth and spray. Now inspect your work and note any foreign material inside. If there is, repeat the previous steps. If not your now dust free and can enjoy your iMac!

  • Backup 103: Redundancy

    In a recent Tech Tails article I prattled on at length about my backup strategy, but I didn’t mention everything that I do. What I personally do isn’t limited to just having a Time Machine backup on an external HDD that I unplug and leave in a desk drawer most of the time, and another Time Machine backup to a Time Capsule, and some of the more important stuff on a flash drive here and there. After working at Small Dog for a few years and getting scared by the constant horror stories I’m exposed to every day, I’ve come to lose faith in the reliability of my storage devices. Computers fail, or have bad things happen to them (loss, theft, gravity, liquid, etc.) and I’ve seen many permutations of these. While I don’t mean to scare you, I do intend to set realistic expectations that sometimes unfortunate things happen. If your backup drive fails at the same time as your computer fails, or your house gets struck by lightning and it fries your Time Capsule and everything else plugged into the wall, you might find yourself in the same place as having never bothered to do a backup. Other bad things can happen, like local disasters, house fires, giant death ray lasers from some angry alien spaceship that just wipes out an entire neighborhood. So I take a few extra steps.

    I rotate between two external HDDs that I do a Time Machine backup to, this is just in case one of those drives fails. Some of them are pretty old, and I’ve had them for a while so they are way outside of their warranty period. They’ve served me well, but they’ve also got all my important stuff on them. Because I know that drive failure is a real possibility I have redundancy (redundant meaning the same thing again) it might seem like a waste, but I’m more concerned about losing all those photos than I am about the 80 bucks or so I spent on that drive.

    I have yet another external HDD that I do a bootable backup to. This bootable backup is an exact clone of my boot volume on my Mac. What’s really awesome about a bootable volume is that I can plug in this external HDD before my Mac boots up, press and hold the option key before that gray Apple logo shows up when I power it on, and I can select this drive instead of the one in my machine! I use a couple of utilities for this: SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner. They’re both great and give me a great deal of flexibility in copying data from one drive to another.

    Cloud-based services are another really great way to back up your stuff, but I use them sparingly just like I do with my flash drives. The major limiting factor in cloud based services is the upload speed. It can take a little while to upload bigger files over the internet, but once you get them there, those big cloud services have tremendous reliability, redundancy and convenience. Dropbox is one of the most popular, and most supported, but they’re far from the only option out there. For example, Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, SpiderOak, and Apple’s very own iCloud, just to name the few that I can think of at the moment.

    Redundancy might sound silly at first, but it’s the name of the game when it comes to protecting your data.

  • Battery Myths

    Here at Small Dog, we meet a lot of people who have misconceptions about different ways to preserve the battery life of their laptop, smartphone, or tablet. You may have heard some of these myths yourself.

    Several years ago, the most common type of rechargeable batteries included in electronic devices were nickel-cadmium batteries. One of the drawbacks of these batteries was known as the memory effect. Due to the chemical composition of the batteries, they would tend to “remember” the point that they were discharged to previously, and experience a sudden drop in charge once they reached that point. For this reason, it was often recommended to allow your battery to completely discharge before charging it to 100% again.

    Almost all electronic devices manufactured within the last several years use newer lithium-ion batteries, and not the older nickel-cadmium batteries. Lithium-ion batteries use completely different chemicals and manufacturing processes from nickel-cadmium batteries. There are positives and negatives (no pun intended) to using lithium-ion batteries instead of nickel-cadmium batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are lighter and more environmentally friendly than nickel-cadmium batteries. Lithium-ion batteries have a slightly shorter lifespan than nickel-cadmium batteries, but they do not suffer from the “memory effect.”

    Modern batteries do not suffer from the memory effect, and so you can safely charge your electronic device at any capacity.

  • Happy Holidays from Small Dog Electronics!

    We know you have long lists and are short on time this Holiday season, so we want to do everything we can to help you check off that list and get some great deals at the same time. Shop locally with Small Dog Electronics this Black Friday and get some great savings to kick start your shopping season!

    Friday, *November 27th only*, take *25% off* ALL BEATS by Dre. We will have the entire product line on sale for this *one day only sale*, shop with us early for the best selection.

    !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4595.jpg!

    Get more great Black Friday only deals with *Buy one, Get one FREE* for all Chill Pill speakers. Get one for someone on your list and one for yourself! *50% off* all Hammerhead Lightning cables, make sure everyone has their own cable so that there are no more fights over who gets to charge their phone next.

    We have deals that go beyond accessories, starting Friday November 27th and running through December 31st *save $50 instantly* on a new or refurbished computer with Applecare PLUS get a *free Hammerhead sleeve* with the purchase of a laptop or a *free Chill Pill* and mousepad for all desktop purchases.

    !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4594.jpg!

    Plus great deals from *Outdoor Tech, Speck, Goal Zero* and more through December 31st.

    Shop online and see more savings at “**http://www.smalldog.com/macthehalls**”:http://www.smalldog.com/macthehalls