Kibbles & Bytes Blog

Grace and I are heading down to Key West for a bit and hope to miss mud season here in Vermont. My car will thank me. I have already seen the sap buckets hanging on the maple trees as the occasional sunny day and cold night combines to make the sap flow. I remember fondly the days when I would tap trees up in North Wolcott and gather the sap in big buckets. We’d pour them into a big tank on a sled that was pulled by my workhorse, Sativa, and then off to the sugarhouse.

Thank you so much for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

Your Kibbles & Bytes team,
_Don, Kali & Stephanie_

We’ve got March Madness fever over here (but don’t tell the lawyers that…they may have trademarked it), so we’ve decided to do a promo in-store and online throughout the month of March. We’ll be running weekly specials that you’ll see in Kibbles & Bytes first, as well as in-store deals for those close to our store locations.

Plus, starting on 3/17, we’re hosting a “Half-Ass Bracket” contest for you to pick your final four (also trademarked…sorry about that) and subsequent winners of those last three games. We’ll have more details for you next week, but suffice it to say, there will be great prizes involved and sweet deals that will save you some green.

Ready for some Mayhem? Or should I say “Mayerhem”? We could trademark that one, but I may just be too pun-happy (or should I say “pun-hapy”). Oy. “*Check out the page here*”:http://www.smalldog.com/marchmayhem and the deals below. Slam dunk!

Otherwise known as “Clumsy Ninja: A Virtual Friend With So Much Charm That Resistance is Futile.” I don’t think I really expected to enjoy “*Clumsy Ninja*”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/clumsy-ninja/id561416817?mt=8&at=11lb7k&ct=Kibbs as much as I have. I’m not really into virtual being simulators; I’ve tried games like Nintendogs on the Nintendo DS, and I didn’t really understand the appeal.

Clumsy Ninja really changed the way I thought about these types of games, and most importantly, I’m having a really fun experience with it. There can be moments where the game can be a little slow and repetitive, but nevertheless, if you take your time with the game and play it in short bursts, the experience stays fresh and fun. The game also does a very nice job pulling you back in, even if you don’t play it every day. You can allow notifications to remind you to check up on your ninja if you haven’t checked in for awhile. In my experience, the ninja has the tendency to start flying away when I’m not looking.

In Clumsy Ninja, you’re creating a ninja from scratch. He doesn’t really have any talent or coordination when you’re first introduced; it’s up to you to help train him so that he can rescue his friend that had been kidnapped. You teach the ninja to fight, jump from rooftop to rooftop, and use ninja weapons among other exercises. When you teach the ninja new skills or complete a training exercise, you’ll gain experience and currency, which can be used to purchase training items or to repair them after you’ve used them for awhile.

While the core gameplay mechanic of creating a character and training them from scratch has been used a lot over the years, one of the things that really amazes me about this game is the responsiveness and the fluidity of movement of your character. This adds a certain charm to the game that I don’t think would be as impressive if the character had stiff, unresponsive movements. When you finish a training exercise and the Ninja wants you to give him a high-five, you’ll see what I mean.

While the game is very simple, there was some difficulty trying to see what could possibly hold the game back. Sure, this is a “freemium” game, so of course there are plenty of in-app purchases that can be made, but gaining currency and gems happens regularly just by playing the game, so that doesn’t affect the experience as a whole. Integration with Facebook and Twitter has been built in, so that you can share your experiences with friends and invite them to play too.

It’s difficult to describe this type of gameplay experience, though — I feel it’s meant to be a little more social. It’s an experience you would talk to people about and have interesting stories to share. I think this is a game that people will be talking about for a very long time.

I don’t quite remember when I first saw an iPod. It was probably when I was a freshman in high school around 2002. Music was in kind of a weird spot at that time. CDs were still mostly on top, tapes were mostly out, vinyl was on life support in its DJ niche and there was this thing called the internet and MP3s that was just barreling onto the scene. Obviously we all know how that turned out. Digital music has become absolutely ubiquitous and with increased storage and processing power, early compression quality problems are now relics of a more barbaric age.

It makes sense then when you hear that since around 2005, physical media sales have been falling faster than an actual lead zeppelin. Even CDs, once the darling child of pure, crystal clear quality have toppled from their place as dominant media type in the mid-2000s. Surprisingly though, from the ashes of digital music’s takeover green shoots of an unlikely variety have started to rise. Vinyl, basically in free fall since the late 1970s, has actually seen a pronounced uptick in recent years, especially among younger people.

Back in the summer of 2005, I decided to undertake the big project of digitizing the bulk of my parents’ record collection. I don’t remember if USB turntables existed at the time, but I bought a regular turntable and connected it to a 1977 Pioneer SA-8500 integrated amplifier. From there, I ran the output to my computer’s sound card and using a program called “Audacity”:http://audacity.sourceforge.net/, proceeded to digitize album after album. It took a long time. I basically had to sit there listening to every album to monitor the input levels (listening to tons of great albums? Must’ve been torture!).

I’ve never used one of the USB turntables to digitize, so I can’t speak to how they work, but digitizing by just running into the sound card is pretty easy. Just make sure you have some way to see and adjust the input levels so the waveforms don’t get clipped. If you don’t have, or don’t want an amplifier though, a USB turntable is your best bet for digitization.

It’s been almost a decade since my Great Digitization, but the funny thing is, I hardly ever listen to music (other than streaming radio) on my computer nowadays. I’ve basically moved fully to vinyl. Surprisingly, you can get just about any new album on vinyl, and most releases come with a free digital download. This is great because you can get the album, including all the liner notes and artwork, but still have a digital copy as well.

So dust off those turntables, flip through milk crates of records, and bask in the warm sounds of analog music bliss.

__Otherwise known as “‘Bout time! Patch those OS’s, people!”__ Last Friday, Apple released an update for iOS 7, and then followed with an update for OS 10.9 Mavericks this week. Both address critical vulnerabilities that the operating systems had, not the least of which included the potential for hackers to access encrypted data (meaning they could potentially grab usernames, passwords, location data and more).

*iOS 7.0.6 Update*
It was largely kept under wraps, but many have speculated that the security flaw in iOS 7 was one of the largest in Apple history. iPod touch, iPad and iPhone users were vulnerable to hacking via the installed mobile browser(s) — Safari et al. However, as these issues became known, Apple acted quickly, and the release fixes the outlying problem.

*If you’re running iOS 7 and you haven’t updated yet, please do so now.*

Either plug in your device and update via iTunes, or navigate to your Settings app (you may have noticed that red number badge — don’t ignore that bad boy!) and tap Software Update. Click “Download to Install”, agree to the Terms, and start downloading. Note: I recommend plugging in as a preferred method so that you can back up your data before updating!

*OS 10.9.2 Mavericks Update*
Mavericks was found to have the same security flaws, as well as bugs within Mail and Calendar that Apple wanted to address. The update primarily “prevents the validation of encryption certificates from supposedly secure servers” so you’ll want to make sure you update immediately. Additionally, the security fixes affect Mail, Calendar, iCloud and other apps on your Mac.

*If you’re running Mavericks, do this update immediately after you run a backup!*

Among other things, this update:

* Adds the ability to make FaceTime audio calls
* Fixes and issue that may cause VPN to disconnect
* Improves Autofill compatibility
* Resolves a Mail issue that prevented new messages from certain providers
* Improves accuracy of unread counts in Mail

For the whole list, “*click here.*”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6114
For detailed info about the security content, “*click here.*”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

It’s important to note that this update is fairly substantial in size and what it covers, so definitely back up your important data first. Mail will re-index once the update is installed, but that should finish quickly enough (I have a loooot of mail — tens of thousands across seven accounts — and it indexed in about 3 minutes, so it’s not too bad).

On both my Macs, I had to manually run Software Update — it didn’t appear in the list right away. Under the Apple menu, select Software Update, and it should then pop up in the list of available updates. There is also an iTunes update available that you’ll want to run that fixes app crashing problems.

Additional Sources: “*NY Times*”:http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/apple-issues-fix-for-security-problem-on-macs/, “*Engadget*”:http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/25/os-x-update-10-9-2/

_Dear Friends,_

Thank you for all of the feedback that you have sent regarding Kibbles. It is really helpful to know what you are thinking about the newsletter. While we are always looking at each part of our operations, I have no intention of stopping Kibbles & Bytes. I want to make sure it is meeting the needs of the readers and also serves to add to the company in both tangible and intangible ways. I think that the most compelling comment I heard is that while you may not buy frequently __yourself,__ many of you tell your friends and neighbors about Small Dog Electronics, and that is our most valuable form of advertising, so thank you so much!

We’re back into the deep freeze this week, but I’ll be heading down to our Key West store just in time to miss it. Next week is Town Meeting Day in Vermont, and this tradition in democracy is when towns, big and small, have a public meeting and vote for town officials and budgets and address other business and resolutions. In my town of Warren, Vermont, there is also a pot-luck lunch in the middle of the meeting. I have not been able to attend the meetings because of work lately, but have always been amazed and proud of this grassroots democracy. While some towns have “Australian” ballots where people can come in and vote, many towns prefer the in-person voting by a raise of hands, voice or sometimes, little slips of paper passed forward. We do give our employees the time off to attend town meeting.

Have you checked out “*our blog, Barkings?*”:http://blog.smalldog.com I have been posting all month in honor of Black History Month, but we always have some articles, tidbits, news and fun stuff that you might find interesting, so check it out!

Need to upgrade your network? We have a great bargain on the Apple AirPort Extreme Base Stations. These are Apple factory refurbished units with a 1-year Apple warranty and support 802.11n and Gigabit Ethernet. I am going to bundle this Base Station this week with a Seagate 1 TB Backup Plus Slim drive. This will give you the option of connecting the drive right to the AirPort Extreme Base Station and having wireless automatic backups via Time Machine. Kibbles & Bytes readers can buy this “*special bundle for only $169.99!*”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900001288

As one of my colleagues in this business says as his signature, “May you have 1000 back-ups and never need one.”