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Just like the regular Chill Pill Mobile Speaker — but with Bluetooth! Compact, expandable and rechargeable. Buy one Bluetooth Chill Pill and we’ll throw in another for *free.* Start listening now!
Designed for people who enjoy listening to music out loud and on the go! Meet the Chill Pill — a pocket-sized, self-contained capsule that transforms into two powered speakers. And now, when you buy one Chill Pill, get another set for *free*! How cool is that?
There’s still time to shop our specials, while giving back at the same time! Charitable giving is an integral part of our business, and we believe that helping our community is especially important during the holidays. **A percentage of every sale in each of our retail stores goes toward helping non-profits in our community until December 31st!**
We’re thrilled to partner with the “*Vermont Foodbank,*”:http://www.vtfoodbank.org “*Manchester Animal Shelter,*”:http://www.manchesteranimalshelter.org and “*Florida Keys SPCA*”:http://www.fkspca.org to ensure that they do what they do best –Help those in need. (And isn’t that what the holiday season is really all about?)
Get a gift card or some extra cash for Christmas? Shop at Small Dog, and give back to the community while also getting some great gifts for your friends and family.
I will do my annual review of predictions and events of the year next week in our New Year’s edition of Kibbles & Bytes,but this week I want to take a few moments to review the highlights of Apple’s 2013.
In the past, the new year was always the time when Apple would attend the big MacWorld Expo in San Francisco and reveal new products. Well, that has certainly changed and the artificial date pushing new products has been replaced by a more strategic approach to new product introductions. While vastly better than years ago, product introductions this year also saw some significant supply shortages especially in the independent retail channel.
The first announcement was in January, nevertheless, and with little fanfare, Apple released a new model of the iPad with 128GB of storage.
*WWDC 2013*
This year, Apple held its fire until the “*Worldwide Developers Conference*”:https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/ in June where both the mobile device operating system, iOS7 was revealed and the Mac OS “*Mavericks*”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/84566/apple-os-x-mavericks-for-mac-app was also introduced. The conference itself sold out in a record 71 seconds with the audience anxious to hear Tim Cook updates. The first staggering statistic was that there had been over 50 BILLION app downloads with over 575 million accounts in the iTunes store which is the most customers of just about any store on the net (I don’t know Amazon’s numbers). All those downloads mean some profit for Apple but also that over $10 billion has been paid to developers which is the fuel for a creative eco-structure.
This conference saw the introduction of new MacBook Airs with faster processors, faster graphics and vastly increased battery life. And I can attest to that improved battery life as I have recently switched to 13-inch MacBook Air and I am amazed by it. Calling it an “all-day battery” is no boast; it actually will last all day with my 13-inch claiming 12-hour life and the 11-inch up to 9 hours.
Continuing in the hardware introductions in June, Apple introduced new sleek looking “*AirPort Extreme Base Stations*”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/83575/apple-airport-extreme-2013 and “*Time Capsules*”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/83573/apple-airport-time-capsule-2tb-2013 with the new 802-11ac WiFi which was also incorporated into the new MacBook Airs.
Then came the big announcement that was at least 3 years in the making and long overdue. A new “*Mac Pro*”:http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/. The sneak peak at this new professional level Mac left everyone in awe of the small size, beautiful design and versatile power. It was not that big clunky tower anymore, but a glossy black cylinder with the fastest Intel Xeon Processors and standard with dual GPUs (graphic processor units). The best line from this introduction which will be part of Apple-lore for some time came from Phil Schiller as he introduced the Mac Pro and casually commented “Can’t innovate anymore, my ass!” Tim Cook also announced that the new Mac Pro would be manufactured right here in the USA. Apple said deliveries would start before the end of the year and kept their promise with the first units arriving in customer’s hands this week. The Mac Pro is likely to be highly constrained throughout the winter but it was a huge announcement.
The other announcement that was of significance at the WWDC was “*iTunes Radio*”:http://www.apple.com/itunes/itunes-radio/ which we often use here in our offices.
*Apple by the Numbers*
Financially, 2013 was a good news/bad news situation. Investors in Apple saw the stock fall from its high of $700 in 2012 to under $400 a share in April. Perhaps in reaction to Phil Schiller’s comment, but more likely in reaction to actual performance and new products and opportunities, Apple stock has recovered some of that and is hovering around $565 today. That’s the bad news for investors, which is full of promise for recovery. Apple continued to put up some very strong numbers for their fiscal year with over $170.9 billion in sales (which was record revenue), $37 Billion in profit and about $146 billion in cash. In other words, the company is incredibly strong financially and well positioned for future gains.
*A Prolific Autumn*
The first big event was in September where Apple again stepped ahead of the crowd with 64-bit A7 powered iPhones and iPads. Introducing the “*iPhone 5s*”:http://www.apple.com/iphone-5s/ with fingerprint sensor, M7 motion co-processor and improved camera with a gold model joining white and black. Apple also introduced the colorful “*iPhone 5c*”:http://www.apple.com/iphone-5c/ and an upgraded iMac. These new iMacs with faster processors and graphics and the new 802.11ac WiFi protocol.
One notable personnel announcement also was made in the fall: Angela Ahrendts, the CEO of Burberry, will be joining Apple as Senior VP of Retail and Online stores in April of 2014. After being essentially leader-less for a couple of years, she is a welcome addition to Apple’s team.
In October, it was iPad day with the new “*iPad Air*”:http://www.smalldog.com/iPads/ipad/iPad_Air and “*iPad mini with Retina display*”:http://www.smalldog.com/iPads/ipad/iPad_mini being introduced. The iPad Air at only 7.5mm thick and one pound in weight also sported the 64-bit A7 processor, improved camera and M7 coprocessor. Mavericks was also released and Apple shocked the industry by offering the first *FREE* OS upgrade. Apple also introduced improved MacBook Pros with faster graphics and longer battery life at this event.
Last week, was the latest big news with Apple and China Mobile finally announcing they have completed a deal to make the iPhone available to customers of the world’s largest cell phone network.
All in all, it was a pretty amazing year for Apple with industry-leading products, immensely popular content and software services, astounding financial performance and new blood in the retail sector. This sets us up for 2014 with Tim Cook saying “We have a lot to look forward to in 2014, including some big plans that we think customers are going to love.”
_Dear Friends,_
It was a white Christmas here in Vermont although there are so many micro climates here that the snow and ice varied widely. There was a major ice storm this week, but at my house on Prickly Mountain we didn’t get any ice. When I drove up to Burlington to the store, however, it was a different story by the time I went over the Duxbury Gap to Waterbury. There, the trees were covered with ice and glistened in the sunlight. That held true all the way north to Burlington where ice encased trees and cars!
Our holiday giving program was very successful this year as we raised about $10,000 for the “*Vermont Foodbank*”:http://www.vtfoodbank.org and lesser amounts for the “*Manchester Animal Shelter*”:http://www.manchesteranimalshelter.org in Manchester, NH and the “*SPCA*”:http://www.fkspca.org down in Key West. It was definitely an iPad Christmas as we outfitted a bunch of people with new iPads, but we also see some growth in the Mac side of the business as well, with sales of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Retina display keeping the team busy. All of our “*holiday*”:http://www.smalldog.com/holiday/tis-the-season?utm_medium=email&utm_source=kibbles&utm_campaign=holiday specials run until the end of the month so there is still time to take advantage of the specials and bundles that we are offering.
It is always fun to take Hammerhead up to the store in S. Burlington. He works the floor like a pro, greeting every customer that comes in with a wag of the tail and making the kids and adults smile as he sprawls on the floor like a bulldog-skin rug. I think he might be our best sales asset as invariably customers smile and scratch his back before talking to the human sales folks.
Terminal commands can sometimes do things much more quickly than finding and adjusting settings in the graphical operating system. Terminal can be found in *Applications > Utilities.* But the easiest way to open it (or any application not on your dock) is to click Command + Spacebar which opens Spotlight; then type in the first few characters of the application’s name (e.g. “term”).
Before following any of the commands below, be sure your data is backed up. Any command requiring sudo at the beginning is asking for elevated permissions and should be handled with special care. Also note that changes are made between OS versions and not all commands (there are thousands of them and their iterations) are compatible with every version of OS X.
Some tricks in Terminal include typing “clear” (no quotes) to clear everything currently on the screen. It’s especially useful in scripts, and you can usually break (stop) running processes by either typing Control-C or Control-Z.
Showing hidden files can be useful for troubleshooting or looking for hidden Library files that need to be deleted to reset preferences for a troubled application. Note that they are hidden for a reason; if others access a computer the hidden files should be re-enabled when you are finished.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
Change the default format for screen shots from .png to .jpg or .pdf if you prefer.
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type file-extension
Replace “file-extension” with the three letter abbreviation of your desired file format, e.g. jpg or pdf.
Show drive labels for all mounted volumes even if they are not showing up in Finder or Disk Utility. This is useful if you have a CD/DVD, thumb drive or external drive that isn’t showing up Finder; you can at least see if the computer is recognizing the device on some level.
diskutil list
For more really useful options for diskutil, type “man diskutil” at the prompt and you can scroll through all the options. You can use “man” with any command to view all options for that command, it stands for manual pages.
Add a “Recent Applications” icon to your dock for apps that you may use but aren’t necessarily on your dock. It’s a convenient way to clean up your dock.
defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add ‘{ “tile-data” = { “list-type” = 1; }; “tile-type” = “recents-tile”; }’; killall Dock
For laptops and a little extra security, you can add your name and phone number as contacts if it’s found; for businesses you can add a message regarding your logon or security policies:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow LoginwindowText “Hi, I am Mac”
To undo it type:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow LoginwindowText “”
Again, always be sure that your data is backed up. There are many useful Terminal commands, to explore them just Google something like, “Mac useful Terminal commands.” Before long, you could be a script wizard!
As I mentioned in my previous article featured in “*Tech Tails Issue #883,*”:http://blog.smalldog.com/techtails/tt883/ Keychain Access is a very handy utility. It intuitively saves all your passwords in one location any time you log into a secure site and/or account. Appropriately, your passwords are essentially keys and OS X Keychain Access is…well, a keychain.
Forgetting your system admin password is equivalent to losing your keys, but resetting a password is very easy thanks to OS X’s new Recovery partition — steps I explain in “*article #889.*”:http://blog.smalldog.com/techtails/tt889/
However, doing this does not change the default password that you’ve forgotten. Because of this, you will be prompted to enter a keychain password each time an application requires authentication that your (old) keychain would normally provide.
There is a solution to resolving this and it requires deleting the login keychain. Though not a very intuitive process in previous versions of OS X, Mavericks makes it __much__ more clear for basic users.
If you don’t remember your original password, you’ll need to delete the keychain. Deleting a keychain also deletes all the password data saved in that keychain. This shouldn’t be a major concern, assuming that you remember all your passwords for your various accounts.
# In Keychain Access, choose Preferences from the Keychain Access menu.
# If available, click the Reset My Default Keychain button. This will remove the login keychain and create a new one with the password provided.
# If Reset My Default Keychain is not available, choose Keychain List from the Edit menu.
# Delete the “login” keychain.
The next time you log in to the account, you can save your current password in a keychain.
There seems to be an influx of customers who have forgotten the passcode on their iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad. Although this is an unfortunate frustration, the fix is relatively easy, and (hopefully) painless, provided you have your music/apps/other data backed up on your computer.
??*Warning:* This fix will erase all data on the device itself. As long as everything is backed up on your computer, you have nothing to worry about.??
Basically, you need to restore your iPod/iPhone/iPad in “recovery mode.” In order to get your device into Recovery Mode, you first need to turn off your device (hold the Sleep/Wake button until the “slide to power off” prompt can bee seen, slide it!). Now, that your device is off, make sure your USB dock connector cable is plugged into a USB port on your computer, but NOT plugged into the device. iTunes should be open during this process. While holding down the home button, plug your usb cable into the device, keep holding the home button until you see the “Connect to iTunes” screen (iTunes logo + USB cable).
You should now get an alert in iTunes that states a device in “recovery mode” has been detected. Click OK, and you are now able to restore the device, erasing the user added data, as well as the passcode.
Happy Holidays, Everyone!
Some of us just got through our holiday festivities, and some of us are just getting started. I have been to a couple holiday parties so far and while fun, they can be hectic, too. Sometimes I wish that getting ready and picking gifts to bring to these parties was as easy as operating an iPad or MacBook..
We have been seeing a lot of friendly faces over the last couple weeks as people get gifts for their loved ones and coworkers. Apple gave us a gift as well when they released the newly designed Mac Pro for sale. With its state of art design and jaw-opening specifications, it is going to be hard for people who want a Mac desktop to resist this buy, even with a starting price of $2,999.99!
Of course, we will keep you updated about when they are available in our stores! Enjoy your tech fix everyone and have a safe holiday!
Barry
“*barry@smalldog.com*”:mailto:barry@smalldog.com
There’s still a little bit of time! We have lots of gifts under $25, which make great stocking stuffers. If you still need…
Protect your MacBook Air in style with the lightweight and durable premium leather sleeve from Hammerhead. Manufactured from genuine top-grade leather, this sleeve…
All of us at Small Dog Electronics send our sincere wishes from our family to yours for a very Merry Christmas. Peace on Earth and Goodwill towards All is a message well worth celebrating!
Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!
Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,
_Don, Kali and Stephanie_