Kibbles & Bytes Blog

It has been hotter and more humid here in Vermont than in Key West this past week but it looks like it is going to cool off a bit this weekend; at least at night where sleeping temperatures will get down to the low 50’s again.

I was showering this morning and glanced out the window that overlooks my backyard garden and spotted some critter eating Grace’s lettuce. It seemed too big for a rabbit but sure enough when it lifted its head it was an enormous rabbit having breakfast in the garden. Gotta love this country living!

I hope you have a great weekend!

Thanks for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

Don & Emily

If you’ve ever photographed a sheet of paper or some other rectangular object, the image may have come out skewed because you inadvertently…

When Apple first announced macOS 10.13 High Sierra and iOS 11, one of the promised features was Messages in iCloud, a way of syncing your conversations in Messages via your iCloud account. Despite the fact that Messages already tries to sync its conversations between your devices, this feature proved difficult for Apple to deliver, and it didn’t appear until the recently released macOS 10.3.5 and iOS 11.4.

The idea behind Messages in iCloud is that it, as the name suggests, stores your conversations and their attachments in your iCloud account, rather than on each device individually. That’s a win because it can offload non-trivial amounts of data to iCloud, freeing up more space on that 16 GB iPhone.

Because the primary source of Messages data is in iCloud, the conversations should also sync perfectly and more quickly than in the past, something that was often frustrating when conversations didn’t quite match up across device. (iOS 11.4 also fixes a bug that could cause some messages to appear out of order.) Even better, deleting a conversation or attachment on one of your devices deletes it from all of them.

The main thing to be aware of before enabling Messages in iCloud is that it does count against your iCloud storage space. That said, if you back up your iOS devices to iCloud, removing Messages data from each device—such as your iPad and iPhone—and storing a single copy in iCloud should result in less overall iCloud usage. (And, realistically, if Messages in iCloud would make you need a higher tier of iCloud storage, you were probably going to need to upgrade soon for other reasons anyway.)

I have been testing Mojave Mac OS 11.4 (and my apologies for the mis-spellings last week. It really is Mojave not Mohave!) and one frustration that I have is that Apple seems to have eliminated support for Jabber in this version of messages. I am hoping that it gets added back in later beta versions but I now have to run another Jabber client and have settled upon Astrachat.

Enabling Messages in iCloud is simple.

On the Mac, open Messages > Preferences > Accounts and select the Enable Messages in iCloud checkbox.

In iOS, go to Settings > Your Name > iCloud, and turn on Messages.

There are three quirks to be aware of:

*You won’t be able to enable Messages in iCloud unless you’ve enabled two-factor authentication for the Apple ID associated with your iCloud account. It’s a good idea for security reasons anyway!

*On the Mac, in the Messages account preferences, there’s a Sync Now button you can click if, for some reason, Messages hasn’t synced automatically. We don’t yet know if or when that will be necessary.

*When you first enable Messages in iCloud in iOS, you may see a note at the bottom of the screen saying that uploading to iCloud requires the device to be plugged in and connected to Wi-Fi. That’s necessary only for the first big upload.

Should you wish to turn off Messages in iCloud, be aware that it may take some time for each device to download all the messages.

For most people, Messages in iCloud is a no-brainer. Its syncing works the way you’d expect, complete with quick updates and universal removal of deleted conversations. The main reason you might not want to enable the feature is if you have only the free 5 GB of iCloud storage and aren’t interested in paying for more space.

Dear Friends,

I hope you had a great Independence Day! As usual I helped to push the Prickly Mountain float in the Warren parade. This year it was a gigantic (and beautiful) 32 ft tall Statue of Liberty that folded down into a giant collapsible box with a “repossessed” label. It was handy that it folded down as this was our tallest float ever and we had to maneuver under the power lines. I was pushing the box which had our 10 or 12 coolers of liquid refreshments as well as tools, backpacks, etc. Since the temp was almost 90°, it got quite hot when we collapsed the box and about 20 people had to fill the small space. It was a spectacular float! We even had a kid’s float following behind with a giant crane to help disassemble the statue. We had four generations of float helpers this year! After our float got to the end of the line, we were able to see the myriad of other floats passing by. Turns out we have a very creative community. The Warren parade is truly amazing.

We had a great party at my house afterwards. My favorite part of the 4th is the time in between the parade and the start of my annual party — also known as nap time. I may have set a new record for the number of strawberry adult beverages served. A lot of people showed up and since all the strawberries and the food got eaten, Grace and I declared it a success. It was so good to see all our friends and neighbors together.

This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive features the Apple Certified Refurbished 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. It is the 2.8GHz i7 with 16GB of ram and 256GB SSD drive and 2GB of video ram. It is silver and comes with an Apple 1-Year warranty. We are bundling it this week with AppleCare + which extends that warranty to 3-years and extensors the 90-days of free Apple technical support also to 3—years. I only have 5 available so it is first come, first served. This is our lowest price yet on this bundle at $1999.99!