Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • Everyone Loves Accents

    I try to be as accurate as possible when writing things in blogs and forums online. One of the problems I’ve always had has been typing accented letters correctly. English doesn’t really have any accented letters, but there are plenty of words you can use in an English sentence that do. Think words like “cliché”, “fiancé”, “français”, and “el niño”. Lots of people don’t bother figuring out how to type those characters and will just write “cliche” without the accent. Normally it doesn’t matter, and it sure is faster to just ignore it, but I really like to be as correct and accurate as possible.

    The first time I remember learning how to actually get a computer to type those characters was back in high school French class. We were using some French teaching software and if you didn’t type the word in spelled correctly including the accent, it wouldn’t accept it. Back then, at least on Windows, the best way to do it across any program was to hold the “alt” key and then type in the number of the accent you wanted. I don’t know if those numbers were unicode (I don’t think they were), but this was a really arcane process. I still remember getting an “é” required holding “alt” and pressing “1” “3” “0”.

    The good news is that Apple has your back if you want to be cool like me and type accented letters correctly. I knew that in iOS you could hold down a letter on the onscreen keyboard and any accented variations would pop up above the letter. Want an “é”? Just tap and hold the “e” key and you’ll get all the different possible accented “e” characters. That’s really easy, but I’m not typically doing a lot of typing on my iPad. I’m also pretty sure that my brother isn’t going to notice or care that I accurately spelled “cliché” in Messages.

    In OSX the only way to type these accented characters used to be using a method that was similar to the arcane Windows method. Up until Mountain Lion you had to hold down “option” while pressing a letter indicating the type of accent you wanted and then typing the letter to be accented. So if you wanted “é” you would hold “option”+”e”, release both keys and press “e”. Gross! Fret no more though. If you have Mountain Lion or newer, you can simply hold down the “e” key just like on your iOS device. A little popup will show up with all of the available accented letters. While still holding the “e” key, press the number of the one you want! So easy!

    !{display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;}http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4453.png!

    Now when I want to tell someone that I’m listening to a new band called “**Moodoïd**”:http://moodoid.com I can show off my sophistication by spelling it correctly with ease. Sadly, if you want to be even cooler and write foreign words using a different alphabet entirely, you have to add an international keyboard layout in System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources. Even that isn’t too hard though: маленькая собака электроника

  • Cut Across Shorty, Cut Across

    Keyboard shortcuts are handy ways of using simple keyboard commands to handle tasks that might require multiple clicks of your mouse or trackpad. Sometimes using these shortcuts can save time and make your work flow easier. As an example, from time to time I grab screen shots to include in Kibbles or to send to customers. I can launch the Grab app to capture these screen shots but I can also hit ⇧⌘3 (shift/command/3) to capture the screen. Easier yet, if I frequently use that key combination I can customize the keys I use or make one of my function keys do the screen grab. Here’s how you would do that:

    # Choose System Preferences -> Keyboard->Shortcuts
    # You will see a bunch of shortcuts that are already there
    # Select Screen Shots
    # Pick the one you want – i.e. Save Picture of screen as a file and select it
    # Click on the existing key combination until it is highlighted
    # Enter your new key combination

    !{display: block;margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto;}http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4451.png!

    You will get a warning triangle if you choose a key combination (or function key) that is already in use.

    You can also add key combination shortcuts that are specific to an App. Selecting the App Shortcuts will take you there. Unless you have already set up some shortcuts, you will see only the key combination for “Show Help Menu” for all applications. To add a new shortcut to your favorite application you hit the + sign and a dialog box will pop up to allow you to select an app. From there you can set up the new shortcut:

    # Choose your App – or select all Apps if you want to set the key combination for the same menu command that appears in many Apps.
    # Type in the menu command for which you want to create a shortcut. VERY IMPORTANT – You must type the command exactly as it appears in the Application menu, including ellipses and any other punctuation. To type an ellipse, use three periods without spaces.
    # Click in the Keyboard Shortcut box and type the key combination or function key you wish to use and click “Add”.
    # Quit and restart any Apps that are open for the new keyboard command to take effect.

    !{display: block;margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto;}http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4452.png!

    If you assign a shortcut that already exists for another command or another App, your new shortcut will not work and you will have to find the menu command that is using that shortcut and change it.

  • _Dear Friends,_

    The big Warren, VT 4th of July parade was a huge success and once again the Prickly Mountain float was the hit of the parade. It was a gigantic Bernie puppet rocking the SS. Status Quo. We had our traditional strawberry daiquiri party and my hands were stained red from cutting berries. It was great to see family and friends celebrating the birthday of the USA.

    I am beginning to like Apple Music a lot. I might be the only one at the office that isn’t that impressed with Beats 1 but I do like the new paradigm of dealing with music. I have access to Apple’s entire library and get some pretty good suggestions for new music and playlists the match my tastes. I think that I will make out fine with the $14.99 family plan because I tend to buy more than that each month in music and now I can just download whatever I want. It will broaden my musical experience, too, as I will try a lot more music if it doesn’t have a dollar sign next to it. Now that the 3rd beta of iOS 9 is out I can enjoy it on my iPhone, too.

    The latest beta versions of El Capitan and iOS 9 were released this week and aside from the normal bug fixes the first two things I have noticed is that this latest version of iOS 9 includes the News app which allows you to customize your news feed. I started playing around with that and can see how that will easily become one of my most used apps. Also, this version activates Apple Music for iOS, too. There is a new setting in Settings that allows Apple Music to stream high quality over cellular – but watch your data plan if you activate this!

    This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive is a home automation special. I use Kevo Bluetooth locks on my homes and I love them. Opening and locking the door is as easy as touching the lock. No more fumbling for keys. As long as you have your iPhone on you the lock will open and close when you touch it. Installation is simple, especially if you already have a deadbolt lock on your door. Better yet, you have electronic keys that you can send via email. You can send an eKey to anyone and enable or disable that key remotely. You can also pre-set when that key is going to work and when it stops working so if you have someone that needs to get in to your house to fix something, you can send them an eKey to let them in and when they leave that key is no longer active. The Kwikset Kevo also works in conjunction with the Nest thermostat for even greater home automation it senses when you come home and asks if you want to adjust the thermostat. Normally $219.99, these locks come in polished brass, satin nickel or Venetian bronze. This week for Kibbles & Bytes readers you can “**get this simple and versatile lock**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900001889 for only $189.99!

  • I am looking forward to the sun and the 4th of July coming up this weekend. I’m ready to toast the USA and celebrate our independence!

    Grace and our friend Deborah and I are riding out to Sturgis, SD for the 75th annual bike rally at the end of the month so we are preparing our route and trying to figure out just what we will pack for the 2-weeks on the bikes. Should be a good time and hopefully some great weather out by Mt. Rushmore.

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Dean, Scott & Bronson_

  • Electrostatic Discharge

    Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) is the sudden flow of electricity between to charged objects(i.e. your hand and that new RAM chip you just bought). Most electronic devices can be damage by ESD.

    Try to think back when you would run around in your socks as a kid and the second you touch the door knob…ZAP!!! The same thing happens with electronics except that the door knob is a a cheap piece of metal compared to a complicated, expensive RAM chip. Think of it as tiny lighting that travels through the electronic component looking for the shortest path to ground. Ecmweb did a study on this and found in a recent investigation that “the human body and its clothing is capable of storing between 500V and 2,500V during the normal workday. This is far above the level that damages circuits yet below the human perception threshold”. This means you could shock and destroy your Macbook without knowing anything occurred. That is why ESD safety precautions like grounded anti-static mats and ESD wrist straps are used when working on computers or other sensitive electronics. For more info visit “http://www.nfpa.org/”:http://www.nfpa.org/codes-and-standards/document-information-pages?mode=code&code=77

  • iOS 8.4

    iOS 8.4 came out last week and I want to share with you some quick thoughts with you.

    Apple Music: One of the biggest reason to download iOS 8.4 is to get access to Apple Music. I plan to write an article all about Apple Music soon but I will not lie, it was the reason I updated my iOS devices. Some quick things you should know about Apple Music is you can try it free for 3 months. A selection of 30+ million songs on your devices is pretty awesome. I recommend giving it a shot.

    iBooks Update: iBooks saw a few touch ups including:
    * The ability to listen to audiobooks within the app itself
    * Some new setting option including turn off Auto-Night theme in your library and being able to pre order books in a series from you library
    * New Chinese font

    There is off course the traditional bug fixes that each iOS update has. The only warning I have to give you is if you use Home Sharing you will not want to update. iOS 8.4 has disabled Home Sharing and this is not a bug but a deliberate choice made by Apple.

  • Apple Music

    Recently Apple announced its new music streaming service called Apple Music. Apple Music is the “new iTunes” according to some, while others just see it as an extension of iTunes. Either way, Apple Music gives you access to stream any song from the iTunes Store, at any time, any number of times. Apple Music doesn’t only give you the best streaming flexibility, but it also gives you access to Beats 1 Radio, the only Radio Station that is on 24/7 all around the world. With DJs located in LA, NYC, and London, there is always someone there either interviewing artists, taking calls from listeners, and most importantly, playing some of the world’s greatest music.

    Apple has always been knee deep in the music industry for years, but they are taking the plunge with Apple Music. Apple has always sold music from the iTunes Store and has supported iTunes Radio, a radio service very similar to Pandora and Songza, however they have always steered away from streaming services such as those similar to Spotify and Google Play Music. With today’s technology people are buying devices with less and less internal storage capacity, and more and more data to support their devices, so a music streaming service is not only key if you want to have access to all of your music, but also the most convenient option if you are always connected to wifi or a data network. I have been a Spotify user for several years now, and it has always been my favorite way to stream music simply because of the convenience and the availability of different and new music. However, with the release of Apple Music I have discovered that it is both more convenient and has a greater selection of music and radio stations.

    The main thing that sold me on Apple Music was the interface, and how seamless it is on all my devices. As you probably know, all of my devices are Apple devices. Therefore I have iTunes on EVERYTHING, whereas Spotify is something that I have to install on everything. Even then, there are some devices, such as the Apple TV, that don’t support Spotify. So the fact that I can effortlessly have all my favorite music on all of my devices is simply AWESOME! I can simply add music to my iTunes library directly from Apple Music, and it will show up with all my other music that I have purchased in the past, thus allowing me to sync my iPhone or iPad and have access to all the new music offline if need be (ideal for long road trips and for those flights that don’t have wifi). All in all, Apple has once again had a major influence on the music industry!

  • Aging iOS Devices

    iOS 9 is on it’s way and I’m super excited! There are all sorts of really great things coming. Of all the features of this upcoming release, I’m most excited about “under the hood refinements”.

    I am still using an iPhone 4S and I get a lot of blowback on this from everyone that knows me and all the cutting edge gizmos I have. My iPhone is definitely my most significant and most used device and while I’ve thought a lot about going for a brand new iPhone 6 plus 64GB and adding AppleCare+ to the mix, the price tag has scared me away (I buy my phones outright leaving me free from 2 year contracts and early termination fees). It’s a beautiful device and the speed improvements would be something I feel many times throughout the day.

    My poor iPhone 4S 64GB is pushed much harder than most. I’ve got dozens of push notifications coming in every day, sometimes dozens in an hour, on top of that I have several really awesome notification center widgets. This old iPhone from 2011 is a technological marvel. I remember when it was being announced in October of 2011, Steve Jobs was on his deathbed. The iPhone 4S was and remains a truly beautiful device. It’s well built, but its dated hardware struggles (sometimes limping, flailing, or crawling) through every task that I throw at it. I also love the physical size.

    The 3.5 inch display was actually a very carefully thought out design decision because it would allow the average human thumb to reach every part of the screen without needing the grip to be repositioned. There’s a feature on the iPhone 6 that addresses that issue. A double tap on the home button (not actually mechanically pushing down on the home button causing it to click) will cause the display, or at least the image on it, to slide down a bit and make it much closer reach. While one handed operation has never been something I’ve needed on my iPad, it doesn’t make sense to me to have a phone that can’t always be used with just one hand.

    The small physical size of the iPhone 4S isn’t something that I want to give up, but the speed of the device is definitely making me long for a faster device. The device will routinely freeze up when I’m using an app and I’ll have to quit out of the app by pressing the home button, return to the home screen, quit the app and try again. Sometimes this will be so bad that I’ll have to force reboot the device by pressing the home button and the lock button at the same time until the Apple logo appears and let my poor old iPhone 4S reboot. Even rebooting has become a painful process; it takes over 2 minutes for the device to power back on. Generally this isn’t too bad, but if I’m in the middle of something (like taking a photo or video) it’s a real show stopper that’s sometimes the most frustrating part of my day.

    iOS 9 is supposedly going to address these issues with “under the hood refinements”. Copying the marketing directly from Apple’s iOS 9 preview website, these improvements will result in more responsive performance (hopefully this will be an even bigger deal on older devices), easier updates (optimized storage of only what you need for the specific device, rather than one universal app for all devices), and better battery life (more efficient programming means less work for the processor, this also ties back into the more responsive performance).

    The fact that iOS 9 is going to be compatible with older devices like the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2 means a lot to me. It makes me feel like my older devices are still current and relevant even though they’re missing a few features the newer devices get. Even with those missing features, it’s not like I bought my device with those features and they disappeared. My iPhone does more, works harder, and is more capable than it was when I bought it. Same goes for my iPad 2. I’m happy with my older iOS devices. They meet my needs and I am glad they are still able to roll with the punches.

  • Get More Out of Your Trackpad

    Click, point, drag, scroll. That’s about the extent of most trackpad users’ experience with their trackpad other than wiping it off when you touch it with sticky fingers. But the Apple Trackpad built-in to Apple laptops and available as an external device (which I use at the office) has much more to offer. And that’s not even talking about the new Force Touch trackpad on the MacBooks and MacBook Pro. I will go over those new features in a follow-up article but I do not have much 1st hand experience with that, yet.

    *Click*

    * *One*
    The one that we all know about is taking one finger and clicking on the trackpad surface. It is simple and is your primary tool for selecting content, etc. Click once to place your cursor, click twice to select and highlight a word or to launch an App, click three times to select the whole paragraph.

    * *Two*
    But there is more than one finger clicking. Two finger clicks act like the right-click of that other mouse. It brings up your contextual menu which allows you to cut, copy, paste, check your spelling, change fonts, share, etc. If you see this contextual menu popping up you are probably clicking with two fingers instead of one. Once you master the two finger click you might not only find this menu to be handy but you are ready for the more complex three-finger click.

    * *Three*
    Okay, now you can try clicking with three fingers and it activates Apple’s Look Up & Data Detectors. What are data detectors? Well, they are a little something extra that is in the Mac OS that you won’t find elsewhere. Mac programs like Mail can recognize commonly used bits of information that may appear in your text: a physical address, a phone number, a date and time, etc. You may have noticed “Look up” in the contextual menu, well, three fingers makes a shortcut to get there. A three finger click on a phone number will look it up in your contacts or allow you to make a new contact, and a three finger click on a word will open the dictionary and much more. Play around with three finger tapping!

    *Scroll*

    You use two fingers to scroll and your content follows your fingers. Swipe your two fingers to up and the content moves up, swipe left and it moves left. Flick your fingers at the end of your scroll and you will create some momentum with the scroll.

    *Zoom*

    Using two fingers you can “pinch” to zoom in and out. Or double tap with two fingers and you activate smart zoom.

    *Rotate*

    Use those same two fingers to rotate an image.

    *Swipe*

    If you swipe left or right with two fingers you can scroll between pages in Safari, for example. Or use four fingers and swipe between open full-screen Apps!

    Put those two fingers all the way right and swipe left to activate the Notification Center. Swipe up from the bottom with four fingers to activate Mission Control or swipe down with those four fingers and you activate Exposé.

    *Pinch*

    This one is a bit complex but very useful. Pinch with your thumb and three fingers and you activate Launchpad. Do you use Launchpad? This is the easy way to get there. Reverse that, i.e. spread instead of pinch, and you show the desktop, also a handy feature.

    In Safari, if you have multiple tabs open you can pinch with two fingers to show all open tabs with live content. Spread those two fingers and it is back to tabs.

  • Storage Space

    There’s a famous quote often incorrectly attributed to Bill Gates back in the early 1980s that “640KB of memory ought to be enough for anyone.” He didn’t actually say it, but the quote has been ubiquitous in computer articles and discussion. If there’s one thing I’ve learned after just over a decade of computing it’s that no amount of memory or storage space is ever enough.

    In 2006 I remember the big deal was new laptops were starting to ship with 1GB of RAM. This was a big deal! Almost a decade later there are few modern operating systems that will even run with 1GB of RAM.

    Around 2004 my parents got me a new computer that had a 120GB hard drive. This wasn’t giant for the time, but it did seem like it would be hard to fill it.

    In 2011 I built a new desktop at home and opted to shift money from a bigger hard drive to a better processor. Instead of springing for 1TB I went with 500GB. Today that machine suffers from lack of disk space.

    It really does seem like a universal law that if you have the space, you will fill it. I think when all is said and done my home disk storage space adds up as follows: 500GB disk in my desktop + 120GB disk in my 2007-08 Mac mini, 1TB Seagate mirrored RAID, and the 128GB SSD in my Macbook Air. The 1TB mirrored RAID has become the real workhorse for my home storage. I could’ve built it as RAID0 and had 2TB of storage space, but I wanted mirroring since I was also using this as a destination for several backups including my Macbook Air Time Machine backup.

    I’d never had 1TB of free space before, so at first it seemed like I’d never be able to fill it. The Time Machine backup didn’t end up being that big either and it’s grown rather slowly. However, I’ve been getting back into film and sound production and I’ve quickly amassed 10s of gigabytes worth of raw HD video footage. Last time I checked, my 1TB RAID had just under 200GB remaining.

    I decided it was time yet again to expand my storage capacity. Since I already had the stable RAID, I went looking for the biggest reliable storage I could find. I was also very interested in Thunderbolt. Now that I have my Macbook Air I can take advantage of Thunderbolt storage. It should be noted that single disk, spinning drives connected via Thunderbolt will ultimately be limited by the speed of the drive itself rather than the Thunderbolt bus. Therefore it’s hard to tell whether a Thunderbolt-connected drive will actually be faster to access than the same drive over USB 3.0. Thunderbolt drives are also more expensive because the controller chipset is still much more expensive than USB 3.0 chipsets.

    That being said, I was going to be transferring things to and from my Macbook Air which has the super snappy SSD. I ended up settling on a “LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 mobile 2TB”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/85864/lacie-rugged-thunderbolt-usb-3-0-mobile-2tb drive. I’ve only had it a few days, but I **love** this drive. First, the construction is excellent. The rubberized cover helps protect it against bumps and LaCie even claims it’s water resistant (I’m not going to test that claim though!). I don’t like portable hard drives with cheap-feeling construction. I like the solid feel in my hand. Second, I do think the Thunderbolt transfer speeds especially off the Macbook to the drive are very good. Since a lot of what I’m moving onto the drive is big HD video files, this is very helpful. I also love the fact that the Thunderbolt cable is integrated into the drive case and is also long enough to be useful. Many portable drives ship with comically short USB connection cables. The Thunderbolt cable on the LaCie is at about a foot long, and tucks away in a slot around the outside of the rubberized case for safe keeping. The drive also comes with a USB 3.0 cable/connection if you want to connect it to an older Mac or PC or anything else.

    I know it’s early, but I’ve yet to even make a dent in the space on the LaCie. 2TB should be enough to handle my storage needs for at least a little while.

  • I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend! I spent the long weekend camping with my family, complete with lots of great times with friends around the campfire and out on the water. As much as I love technology and make it a point to always have the newest products from Apple, it is nice to spend time away from it all. Most of the time where my family and I camp there is no internet, much less any cell phone reception. I admit that I get a bit of a thrill out of letting the battery drain on my phone and not bothering to even plug it in again until Sunday evenings when we return home. Technology is all around us, but it’s nice at times to forget about it all and spend a few days just taking in the world around us.

    Technology is a powerful tool and often times we forget about the power that it can have as we become so accustomed to just clicking and typing away at our machines. In our service department and retail store we continue to see a rise in customer machines with invasive programs such as MacKeeper installed on their machines without their realizing how this invasive program ended up on their machines. Over the years as avid Apple users we have had little to worry about when it comes to these kinds of problems, and for the most part there is still not a lot of worry. Simply double checking before you download a file is often all that you need to do!

    Thank you for reading!

    Emily
    “emily@smalldog.com”:mailto:emily@smalldog.com