Kibbles & Bytes Blog

Apple news, tech tips, and more…

KB Dog

  • _Dear Friends,_

    It was zero on my way to work this morning and my car was out of spritzer fluid, so it really seemed like the depth of winter. I had to stop and grab some snow to wipe on my windshield to see better. At one point on the East Warren road, I had to slow down to let a rafter of wild turkeys cross the road, happy that Thanksgiving was over and that they made it!

    Meanwhile, when I check the cameras in our Key West store, I see customers in shorts and swimsuits, but the holiday season is clearly in full swing as many customers are coming into our stores to check out the latest iPads, Macs and the great bargains we have on headphones, speakers and other accessories. This year we are devoting 1% of our sales at retail to charitable organizations, the *Vermont Food Bank* here in Vermont, and animal rescue organizations in Manchester and Key West. I am very moved by the positive reactions we have gotten from our choice to give back rather than overly discount.

    We have a fairly extensive collection of headphones and earbuds at each of our stores and online, with offerings from Beats, Urbanears, Sennheiser and JVC. With a wide selection of colors and styles, we hope to be the go-to store for headphones. We also have a big selection of speakers, and if you haven’t checked out our own Chill Box or the Chill Pill Speakers by Chill Pill Audio, I urge you to come in and listen.

    As you look at Apple products like iPads and Macs, remember that AppleCare is a vital addition to that purchase. With a Mac, AppleCare Protection extends the hardware warranty from 1-year to 3-years and free technical support from Apple from 90-days to 3 years. The cost of AppleCare is less that almost any potential out-of-warranty repair so it is a great value. With iPads and iPhones, AppleCare Plus extends the 1-year warranty to 2 years and free technical support from 90-days to 2 years, but __also__ adds accidental damage coverage so if you drop that iPad and it is run over by that snowplow behind you, as long as you have the pieces (for a low deductible), Apple will replace that unit!

    *Of course, through 12/31, you’ll get a $50 gift card with any Mac and AppleCare purchase,* with some additional discounts in-store as well. See our best and brightest holiday specials at “*Smalldog.com/holiday!*”:http://www.smalldog.com/holiday?utm_medium=email&utm_source=blast&utm_campaign=Kibbles

  • Editor's Note: Mavericks Installation Options

    In “*our last issue,*”:http://blog.smalldog.com/techtails/tt894/ we incorrectly listed the author of Mavericks Installation Options. The article was written instead by Taylor Amon. (Sorry, Taylor!)

  • Storage Too Full

    MacBook Air, by its physical nature, has less data storage capacity than its traditional HDD-utilizing brethren. While read/write speed is remarkably better, those professionals who own Airs or Pro Retinas and have enormous libraries of music, photos, and/or videos will discover they require external hard drives for their complete collections.

    Then there are those of us who know that we don’t have thousands of large media files. Even the surest among us can, however, get choked in the storage department and I speak as the (usually) happy owner of a MacBook Air housing a meager 64GB SSD.

    I’m never too surprised to have customers with the same machine come in with the same system warnings — that their startup disk is almost full. My latest Air check-in had this issue and, though her user directory clearly indicated the culprit was somewhere within, it was not in the obvious places: photos, music, and movies. Holding the option key, I clicked “Go” in the toolbar to access the Library directory (this user had 10.7) and discovered a large directory in Application Support called iLifeAssetManagement, taking up almost 20GB — quite a substantial amount on a 64GB drive.

    Upon a quick foray into Google, I learned the iLifeAssetManagement directory is where OS X stores Photo Stream data; that is, if you’ve configured iCloud. See, if you’re manually adding photos to the iPhoto library from your iOS device (or using Aperture or even Image Capture), Photo Stream is going to be duplicating whatever you’re copying unless you’re super diligent about trimming what’s in there: most of us aren’t, and besides, Photo Stream is one of the most reliable and easy ways to cloud-back up your photos.

    In most users’ cases, this situation won’t come up though it has come up enough for the lovely people at OS X Daily to write an article about it. The solution for a majority of Tech Tails readers is obvious: choose how you want to get your photos onto your Mac and just use that method. If you want to make sure to do this correctly, check out the OS X Daily article for detailed steps and screenshots.

    A final word of advice: from time to time, investigate your startup disk and see what’s taking up space (highlight a directory and hold Command+I to Get Info) and, if you see something abnormally large, make it a learning opportunity.

  • Cross-Platform Diagnostic Software

    Apple provides some excellent diagnostic tools, particularly for newer hardware. But memory and hard disks often require third party utilities to troubleshoot thoroughly. The Mac operating system also supports many fantastic third-party utilities. However, as Apple computers fully support most other operating systems and software, this allows us to use a wide range of software tools. Two utilities we use often are pieces of Windows software.

    The primary disk scanning software we rely on is Victoria. Victoria is a hard disk surface scan software that runs under Windows, and provides a low-level scan of the entire disk for either SATA or IDE drives. It reports on each individual block, and sorts them into categories based on health. We use a bootable utility disk named “*Hiren’s BootCD*”:http://www.hirensbootcd.org for running it. This is a free download for a bootable CD with a lightweight Windows XP installation. It contains many utilities, some of which will be relevant to Mac troubleshooting, and some not. Unfortunately the current version, 15.2, does not support the keyboards on Apple computers, which renders it useless (so we use the older 15.0).

    “*MemTest86*”:http://www.memtest86.com is an incredibly lightweight (several-hundred kilobytes) utility, which similar to Hiren’s BootCD, is burned to a CD and booted off of. MemTest86 thoroughly tests all Random Access Memory in the computer it runs on, with virtually no overhead. Whereas running memory tools in a standard operating system prevents the test from finding errors in the sections of RAM actively used by the operating system. While it looks like a Windows bluescreen error, it will give an obvious red highlight if an error is found. MemTest86 is also available on the Hiren’s BootCD.

    If you are so inclined as to give these a try, some research into using these tools effectively is definitely recommended before diving in. With the BootCD in particular, we definitely recommend caution, as there are many tools on the disc for erasing drives and other such activities. We are not responsible for any issues caused by using these!

  • How to Create a Recent App Stack

    If you have been using Macs for a while, you may have noticed in 10.5 Apple introduced a new feature called Stacks. Stacks are shortcuts to the contents of folders right on your dock. Here is a Terminal trick that will allow you to create a stack that will show the most recently used applications. All you need to do is open up the Terminal application and enter the following:

    *defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add ‘{ “tile-data” = { “list-type” = 1; }; “tile-type” = “recents-tile”; }’*

    After that you should see a new line appear, enter:

    *killall Dock*

    This will restart the dock, and you will see a Stack called *”recent applications.”*

  • So it happened.

    Mother Nature finally gave out and snow hit the grass here in New Hampshire. Vermont probably got hit a little earlier than we did, especially up in the northern part of the state. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, though. I was able to clear off my car in no time and the roads were clear, as if nothing ever happened. I wish winter would always be like that and maybe I wouldn’t despise it most of the time…

    The holiday season is here and if you’re buying a gift for Christmas, there’s no better way to prepare than to come into Small Dog and learn about the hottest gifts we have. Find out what makes that new MacBook, iMac or iOS device — that’s why we’re here. Of course, when you purchase any Mac and AppleCare, you get a $50 Small Dog gift card to give to someone else (or keep for yourself). There’s no expiration date! We also have really great discounts on other hot brands and products, so come check out our selection of headphones, speakers, and more.

    Without any further ado, I bring you Tech Tails!

    Have a great week everyone!

    Barry
    “*barry@smalldog.com*”:mailto:barry@smalldog.com

  • With MOTO TC Monster, your house becomes a (virtual) smoke-filled, mud-spattered arena as your iPhone puts you behind the wheel of a monster…

  • Still adjusting to the change in climate, but I found my winter boots and clothes and am searching for snow tires for my new rig. My Infiniti comes with Infiniti “personal assistant” that I got to test on my way back from Key West.

    It was getting late, and we needed to find a place to hole up that allowed dogs. So, I pushed the button and was connected to my assistant, who found a place nearby, made the reservation — and here’s the part that impressed me — she was able to send turn-by-turn directions right to the GPS in my car. Gotta love technology!

    Thanks for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes team,
    _Don, Kali & Stephanie_

  • SPECIAL | Get $10 off Urbanear Plattan + Get Free Coloud In-Ear Headphones

    Urbanear headphones are the best! Coming in tons of fun colors, they are sure to be a hit for yourself or a gift for a loved one. For the Holidays, we’re offering *$10 off* Urbanears Plattan over-ear headphones as well as throwing in a *free* pair of Coloud in-ear headphones. That’s a serious deal for the serious music lover!

  • Start This Holiday Season Off Right!

    We’re kicking off December with this year’s hottest gifts, and we’re making it easier than ever to check everything off your list. *#Shopsmalldog* this season at “*Smalldog.com/holiday*”:http://www.smalldog.com/holiday?utm_medium=email&utm_source=blast&utm_campaign=GC or in any of “*our retail stores.*”:http://www.smalldog.com/retail?utm_medium=email&utm_source=blast&utm_campaign=GC

    iPad mini starts at just *$299.99,* our newest speaker, “*Chill Box,*”:http://www.smalldog.com/search?search=chill+box is in stock in three sweet colors and priced for everyone on your list, and you’ll get a *$50 Small Dog gift card when you purchase any Mac and AppleCare* (plus a whole lot more).

    !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/3708.png!:http://www.smalldog.com/holiday?utm_medium=email&utm_source=blast&utm_campaign=GC

    p<>. *Save up to $40 on all iPad and iPhone cases.*

    !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/3710.png!:http://www.smalldog.com/holiday?utm_medium=email&utm_source=blast&utm_campaign=GC

    p<>. *Free shipping on Urbanears headphones.*

    !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/3709.png!:http://www.smalldog.com/holiday?utm_medium=email&utm_source=blast&utm_campaign=GC

    p<>. *Buy one Chill Pill, get one free!*

  • Send Holiday Cards Right from Your iOS Device

    The holidays are a time for sending cards, right? I don’t receive many cards throughout the year, but December is a different story. The cards seem to roll in and my fridge becomes covered with my friends’ and family’s cute cards.

    These days, there are numerous online card sites for creating and ordering your own cards that makes it easier than ever. The holiday season is also insanely busy for a lot of people (especially those who work in retail!), so if you’d like to send out a card but feel as if you won’t have time to stuff, address and mail numerous envelopes, consider sending them from you iOS device — saving you time and money!

    Here are some great Holiday card apps that are worth taking a look at:

    “*Martha Stewart CraftStudio*”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/martha-stewart-craftstudio/id524409493?mt=8&at=11lb7k&ct=Kibbles – *Free* — Of course she has a card app…she’s Martha after all! Create cards for any occasion and then share them digitally, print out or send to Snapfish to be printed.

    “*Red Stamp*”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/redstamp/id414561551?mt=8&at=11lb7k&ct=Kibbles – *Free* — This is the app I use for sending cards and it is easy-peasy! Great templates to choose from with great fonts and colors to make your card look highly professional. Again, you can send digitally or have it sent to be printed.

    “*Vintage Christmas Cards*”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vintage-christmas-cards/id342059039?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo=4&at=11lb7k&ct=Kibbles – *$1.99* — For those of you who celebrate Christmas and prefer a more traditional, vintage looking Christmas card, this is just the app for you. With over 100 different cards pulled from the Victorian Era to Post-War America, you’ll have some great cards to choose from.

    “*Lifecards*”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lifecards-postcards/id304401787?mt=8&at=11lb7k&ct=Kibbles – *$1.99* — If you’re more into the postcard style of sending a card, this is a great app. Scroll through all those photos on your phone and create a great photo collage to send to you friends and family!