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Dr. Dre isn’t the only rapper with his own line of great sounding headphones — 50 cent has them, too!
The wired over-ear headphones feature a detachable cord for tangle-free street wear and transport, plus enhanced bass. The earbuds have a professionally tuned 11 mm driver and are ergonomically designed for comfort on top of crystal clear sound.
__Note: Very limited quantities. No rain checks.__
The Matias keyboard and mouse are perfect accessories for people who hate being tied down by messy USB cables. Small, portable and compact, this combo will surely please with a price that won’t disappoint!
Some issues on your Mac can be resolved by reinstalling the operating system. In the past, all Mac desktops and portables came with a dedicated recovery disc for that machine, but Macs shipping with 10.7 (OS X Lion) or later do not come with recovery discs.
These newer machines have the recovery files on a separate partition on the hard drive. Knowing these steps can come in handy if you ever need to reinstall the operating system to resolve a software problem or upgrade to a larger drive. It is also useful if you want to wipe your data and install a clean version of the Mac OS before selling or giving away your machine.
There are two types of installs. You can do a clean install, which will format the hard drive and erase all data, and then install a clean version of the OS. The other option is an OS reinstall which installs just the important OS files and leaves the user data intact.
__*Before doing either of these, it is important to back up all important data due to the possibility of failure during the installation process that can compromise your data.*__
These steps only apply to machines running 10.7 (OS X Lion) or 10.8 (OS X Mountain Lion), and require a high-speed internet connection. The actual OS files are located on Apple’s servers, and are downloaded every time you install.
*Warning*: Make sure all important data is backed up before proceeding.
1. While the machine is shut down, power the machine on and hold down the *Option* key. Then select *Recovery HD.*
2. After selecting the*Recovery HD* it will boot to the Mac OS Utilities window.
* If you want to Install the OS and keep the user data intact, select *Reinstall Mac OS X.*
* If you want to reinstall the OS and erase all data, select *Disk Utility.* Then select the hard drive in the left hand column. Select *erase* from the second tab, and then *erase* at the bottom right to confirm wipe. Then close Disk Utility and select *Reinstall Mac OS X.*
3. After the installation completes the machine will reboot.
Stay tuned for part two next week on how to create a bootable Lion or Mountain Lion USB flash drive.
It’s useful to know, as a Mountain Lion user, what private data specific applications are accessing, and how to set/reset that. This can be achieved in the *Security & Privacy* preference pane within System Preferences, but changes can also be made within Terminal.
Using the @tccutil@ command, the user can reset all access to different segments of the privacy database, such as Address Book or Location Services. This is helpful if you are comfortable in Terminal, and need to quickly remove all application’s access to this data. The command is simple.
Open a Terminal window, and type:
@tccutil reset [service name]@
You will replace [service name] with the name that Terminal associates with the specific privacy data. For Address Book, the service name is simply *AddressBook*, and for Location Services, it’s *CoreLocationAgent*.
Then input:
@tccutil reset AddressBook@
It will remove all access any applications currently have to your Address Book. From there, when you open an application that would like access to the Address Book, it will prompt you for permission. The same goes for Location Services.
If you are not comfortable with using Terminal, the same task can be accomplished within the Security & Privacy preference pane (with a much prettier interface).
For those of you innovators out there looking for your next project, here’s something recently brought to my attention: the do-it-yourself Raspberry Pi. Developers out there have been able to take the modern day computer and make it even smaller. Imagine taking a Mac mini and sticking it in a case the size of an Altoids tin.
The Raspberry Pi is a small computer with an SD card slot that you can load an OS (preferably Linux) on. Once you have the OS on an SD card, connect that so it acts as your hard drive, attach an LCD display (with the proper know-how) and a power supply, and you’ll have a working Linux-based computer capable of normal everyday tasks and basic gaming — all on a machine the size of a credit card.
It’s an open source platform that you can pick up for about $35 and create whatever you want. The creativity that some people put into using the Raspberry Pi is really amazing — some have even gone so far as to create their own version of the Google Glass project, a miniature arcade, and a briefcase laptop!
The Google Glass replication really caught my attention and sparked my imagination. Among the tools used: a set of MyVu crystal video glasses designed for iOS devices, a portable cell phone charger, and a Bluetooth keyboard/trackpad combo. With a Linux operating system and a USB Air-card from your local wireless store, you literally have a wearable computer with a constant connection to the internet (depending on your wireless coverage area).
Now, due to the resources available to open-source platforms like this, a wearable computer has almost endless and certainly exciting possibilities. For instance, connect a webcam to the MyVu glasses and you can stream everything you are doing directly to the internet.
What you create doesn’t have to be a wearable computer. Maybe you miss the Super Nintendo; someone used a Raspberry Pi to rebuild one of those with original Super Nintendo controllers. One guy even created a system to open his garage door using Siri.
The possibilities are endless — what will you create? Below is a link to an article that shows some great Raspberry Pi projects.
“10 Great Raspberry Pi Projects.”:http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/12/10-raspberry-pi-creations-that-show-how-amazing-the-tiny-pc-can-be/3/
Hello all,
I know I said that I liked the end result of DST last week, but this weekend brought home the reality of just how miserable the transition can be. Last night while making dinner, I looked out the window and saw that I had enough light to see every yard project that I didn’t do last fall and then colorfully thanked every dog owner who decided to let their little buddies offline (so to speak) during winter.
On the bright side, the early spring forecast (somehow made) by a groundhog in Pennsylvania may indeed be approaching. It’s been pretty mild here and earlier than usual — we are seeing yet again that Burlington, VT is frankly, a pretty ugly place after the snow disappears and before it gets green.
If winter does come back, Kyle has a project to keep away the winter blues — he’s written an article about it this week. As always, thanks for reading.
Thanks for reading,
Liam
“*liam@smalldog.com*”:mailto:liam@smalldog.com
Each Apple-refurbished 15-inch MacBook Pro has dropped by $100, and the bundled value will save you over $135: Buy any refurbished 15-inch MacBook…
It is Daylight Savings Time switchover this Sunday, so don’t forget to spring forward an hour. It will be nice to have some daylight in the evenings at home. That is a __sure__ sign of spring!
Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!
Your Kibbles & Bytes team,
_Don, Kali, Stephanie & Mike_
Yep, 50 Cent has his own line of headphones, too: STREET by 50.
The wired over-ear headphones feature a detachable cord for tangle-free street-wear and transport, plus enhanced bass. The earbuds have a professionally tuned 11 mm driver and are ergonomically designed for crystal clear sound and pure comfort.
Note: Very limited quantities. No rain checks.
EOL stands for End of Life, but don’t worry, it’s just the industry term for last year’s model. These machines are brand spankin’ new and ready to perform right out of the box.
Grab yours before they are gone!
Google released the first major app update to Google Maps for iPhone on Tuesday, as part of their goal to make the app more comprehensive, accurate and useful.
I think that the coolest new feature by far is the option to quickly search for local places by simply tapping one of four icons: fork and knife (restaurants), coffee cup (cafes), martini glass (drinks), or gas pump (gas station). There’s also a drop down menu that contains more categories, but let’s face it, those four things are usually the most important!
Once you click on a category, it quickly takes you to a map filled with little red dots that indicate the locations of what you want. Swipe through all of your options at the bottom of the screen and you will see the distance, Google reviews, and ratings. Honestly, this feature wouldn’t be super useful for me around here, but I can totally see myself using this the next time I venture to a city like Boston or NYC.
Another notable new feature is that you can now search for your Google contacts (i.e., anyone who has a Gmail account). Note that in order for the contact to appear in the results, the contact must have a physical address linked to the name, and you’ll need to log in to your Google account. If you’d rather include all contacts from your iOS device instead, you will need to export your contacts and then use CardDAV to sync them.
Some other updates to this version include the ability to switch from kilometers or miles and the new version is now available in seven new countries: Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
I’ve already had pretty good luck using Google Maps. However, I was using Apple’s Maps before Google came out with their version and have to say, it never got me lost until I tried to find a friends house right here in Waitsfield. That one mix up was enough for me to ditch Maps and just stick with the trusty Google Maps. How about you? Which do you prefer? “*Email me!*”:mailto:steph@smalldog.com
Now if you’ll excuse me, I must start scoping out my happy hour options. Happy Friday!