Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • MAC TREAT #192: Forgotten Your Login Password?

    Have you ever forgotten a password? I know that I have. With all of the increased security measures that go into making a password these days like upper/lower case letters, numbers and now symbols it is getting harder to remember it all. Luckily for you, I am going to talk about how to reset your login password on your *Mac running OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion).*

    __A word of caution: this method requires you to use Terminal and write a small amount in sudo. If you do not feel comfortable doing that, don’t proceed. Using Terminal can quickly damage your machine faster than fixing it if you don’t know what you are doing. Please use this method at your own risk; Small Dog is not accountable for any damage done by following these steps. You can always bring your machine to any of our retail locations where we have certified Apple Technicians who are trained to reset passwords.__

    With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s get into the nitty gritty and reset your password.

    *Step 1: Reseting The Machine*
    The easiest way to accomplish this is to press and hold the power button for about 10 seconds until your computer shuts down — this is sometimes known as a hard boot or reset. I don’t recommend using this method to shut your computer down all the time. In fact, it is always best to let the operating system shut the computer down if that option is available to you.

    *Step 2: Booting Into Recovery Partition*
    Before powering up press and hold the *command* and *R* keys. Then with your other hand press the power button to turn the machine on. I recommend doing this in that order because if you aren’t fast enough you will miss the small window of time when the computer recognizes these key combinations and you will have to start over again.

    *Step 3: Accessing Terminal*
    Go to the *Utilities* drop down menu and select *Terminal*. This will open up a new Terminal window for you to begin typing in — but don’t type anything yet.

    *Step 4: Accessing Reset Password Utility*
    In the Terminal window type “resetpassword” without the quotation marks and hit enter. This will bring up the *Reset Password* utility in a new window. That little bit of sudo is all you need to type in Terminal. I told you it was a small amount, but if you go on using Terminal as a text editor to write your next term paper (don’t do it) you can seriously mess up your machine.

    *Step 5: Resetting The Password*
    We are now in the home stretch.
    * Select which Volume Hard Drive you need to change the password for. Most people will have just one hard drive to select from. If you have more than one then you should know why because you probably did it.
    * Select the user whose password you want change from the drop down menu.
    * Enter a new password for that user.
    * Reenter the new password for that user.
    * If you want you can enter a hint for that password but it is not required.
    * Hit the *Save* button in the bottom right of the window.
    * A new window will pop up confirming the password change.

    *Step 6: Finishing Up*
    At this point your password has been reset. Now we just need to reset the computer to boot back into the operating system. To do this, go to the *Apple* drop down menu in the top left of the screen and select *Restart*. Your computer will restart itself and you can enter your new password at the login screen. Ta-Da; password reset success!

  • _Dear Friends,_

    There is snow on the ground at my house, and I have had to get the winter coats out. However, a warm spell is coming this weekend, so I’ll probably get one last ride in before the long winter.

    I stayed up late on Tuesday to watch the election returns and hear President Obama’s speech. It was one of the best speeches I have heard, and I was very proud of our country and the millions of people who voted in the election.

    I am giving the keynote presentation at the Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility on Wednesday, and have been thinking a lot about what to talk about. My friend Ken Squire, who owns our local radio station, WDEV, wants to carry the presentation live, and I told him that will be a guarantee that I will screw it up somehow.

    As I look back on my business career of over 40 years, the one thread that has been consistent has been that I am motivated by corporate responsibility. When a business “incorporates” — if you look at the Latin base for that word — it means that you “create a body.” A business is a body in society and it has a much greater footprint than any individual. It has buildings, it creates waste, it hires workers, it provides useful products and services. With that greater footprint comes a greater responsibility, and that is the basis upon which I see socially responsible business. Businesses can be enormous agents of positive change and have such a vital impact upon workers that this responsibility is an essential part of our approach to business.

    Fortunately, I have a great team of people here at Small Dog Electronics, starting with Hapy, my son and partner, who also ascribe to this philosophy of measuring our success in equal measure by People, Planet and Profit. At our weekly management meetings, each of the managers has an opportunity to make suggestions on how we can do better with our commitment to people and planet and we have adopted many of the ideas presented. As a business that operates on razor thin margins (the new iPad mini, as an example, carries a 7% margin), it is vital that profit is also one of our measures, because without profit it is impossible to fulfill our obligations to people and planet.  

    During my talk on Wednesday, I want to talk about how it is easy to be socially responsible if your company is very profitable, but that the real challenge is how to maintain that commitment to People and Planet when profit margins are slim. I think that the socially responsible business movement will never reach its full potential unless traditionally low-margin businesses like the corner store can see how their business can also act in a socially responsible manner.   

    We have a great selection of Apple Certified Reconditioned (refurbished) MacBook Pros with both 17-inch and 15-inch models in stock right now. These models all carry the same 1-year Apple Warranty as new Macs and they are eligible for AppleCare Protection Plan as well.  If you are looking for a new laptop, these MacBook Pros can save you some change!  

    View the “*15-inch model*”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/81983/macbook-pro-15in-2-8ghz-i7-4gb-500gb-5400rpm-hi-res-antiglare/at_kb here and the “*17-inch models here.*”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/Apple/MacBook_Pro/17in

  • Worms, Viruses, and Trojans, Oh My!

    You have probably heard the terms “viruses, trojans and worms,” which are all under the umbrella term for malicious software called malware. These…

  • Hello All,

    We are very excited to announce the new *Hammerhead Folio Case for iPad mini!* These will be available to ship *November 14th*, so order now to make sure you have cases your customers will love in stock for their new iPad minis.

    The Hammerhead Folio Case for iPad mini is both simple and elegant. It is available in top-grain genuine leather or durable leather-like material made from polyurethane. The case automatically wakes and sleeps the iPad display when opened and closed, converts to both portrait and landscape viewing to provide optimal angles for typing and reading, and has cutouts that offer easy access to all ports, switches, and cameras.

    Here are the SKUs:

    *3/HAM11639: Folio Case for iPad mini – Genuine Leather – Black*
    *3/HAM11592: Folio Case for iPad mini – Polyurethane Leather – Black*
    *3/HAM11608: Folio Case for iPad mini – Polyurethane Leather – Red*
    *3/HAM11622: Folio Case for iPad mini – Polyurethane Leather – Suede Gray*

    Please see the sell sheet “here.”:http://vendor.hammerheadcase.com/pricelists/SS_ipad-mini-folio.pdf

    Please see pricing and MSRP “here.”:http://vendor.hammerheadcase.com/pricelists/Hammerhead%20Reseller%20Price%20List%2011:2:2012.xls

    We are also excited to announce the new *Bluetooth Chill Pill Mobile Speakers!* This product ships on *November 15th*.

    This product features amazing sound with expandable bass, a retractable USB cable for convenient charging, up to 6 hours of play time on a single charge, and a magnetic locking mechanism for easy travel. Best of all, these speakers have Bluetooth connectivity so they can connect wirelessly with all of your Bluetooth capable devices.

    This product makes a great gift or stocking stuffer, so order now to have plenty in stock for the holidays!

    Here are the SKUs:

    *1/CHI11509: Bluetooth Chill Pill Mobile Speaker – Black*
    *1/CHI11516: Bluetooth Chill Pill Mobile Speaker – Red*

    Please see the sell sheet “here.”:http://vendor.hammerheadcase.com/pricelists/SS_CP-BT-speaker.pdf

    And don’t forget about our original Chill Pill speaker! It is available in a wide variety of colors and is sure to be a hit with your customers this holiday season.

    Please see the sell sheet “here.”:http://vendor.hammerheadcase.com/pricelists/SS_chill_pill.pdf

    We would also like to let you know about our ability to *customize our pen styluses* for you:

    * Put your company name (or anything else you choose) on the pen stylus
    * This is very powerful promotional item for Black Friday and during the holiday season
    * Or use as a high margin add-on to iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch sales

    For more information, please call or email me.

    For prices and information on all our products, “*click here to check out our latest price list.*”:http://vendor.hammerheadcase.com/pricelists/SS_dealer-pricelist_11.12.pdf

    Thanks for reading!

    Tony

  • Meet the Small Dogger: Chris Barosky

    Chris was adopted from Ciudad Quesada, Costa Rica at birth. He lived in New Canaan, CT with his parents until they decided to move…

  • TT SPECIAL | FREE AppleTV

    Get a FREE Apple TV when you purchase an Apple Refurbished 17-inch MacBook Pro featuring a 2.8GHz i7, 4GB of memory, 500GB hard drive and an antiglare screen. Plus we tossed in the HDMI cable you will need to connect your AppleTV to your HD TV. That’s over $100 in savings.

  • TT SPECIAL | FREE 8GB RAM Upgrade with AppleCare

    Receive a FREE 8GB RAM upgrade when you purchase AppleCare with your Apple Refurbished 15-inch MacBook Pro 2.8GHz i7 featuring a 500GB@5400rpm hard drive and a high resolution antiglare screen.

  • The End is Nigh (For Your Optical Drive, at Least)

    Apple recently updated their iMac line with new insanely thin models that now lack an optical drive just like their newer laptops. I think we’re now witnessing the beginning of the end of a very old technology. It’s about time, in my opinion.

    Optical discs are easily damaged and do not store as much data as modern flash drives can. Most software manufacturers now offer download options for nearly everything, and we’re seeing a rise in savvy vendors making use of legal bit torrent sharing to speed the download of their software so you don’t spend all day getting your new programs.

    Many of us still have programs that are on physical media that will no longer work on the newer operating systems released by Apple. However, what if you are planning on upgrading your computer but don’t want to lose access to those programs that still actually do work? If these applications won’t transfer with Migration Assistant, you have some obvious options: Let go of the older software, purchase an external optical drive, or use Disc Sharing to hijack the optical drive of another Mac load the software into your new machine.

    Another lesser-known option is to convert your physical media to the the ubiquitous modern software delivery tool called a disk image which can be easily moved, mounted, and accessed on any machine.

    Step 1) Insert the optical disc into your Mac.

    Step 2) Go to your Utilities folder and open Disk Utility.

    Step 3) You’ll see the disc listed on the left hand side of the window; select it and then click on the New Image button

    Step 4) Select a location where you’d like the disk image to be saved. I recommend a place that would be included in your backup. The one downside to this process is that the image is as vulnerable as any other information stored on your hard drive. The eventual loss of optical drives from computers should stress the importance of doing backups on a regular basis.

    Step 5) Wait until the image is created then eject your disc. Double click the image file created by Disk Utility to verify that it opens.

    Step 6) Move your copy of Asteroids for OS 9 to your new Mountain Lion-equipped iMac and… (well, of course that’s not going to work, but you get the point.)

    You can keep a big software library in a relatively small space this way, and no need for an optical drive for any of it.

    __On a side note, just to avoid emails saying I’m spelling disc inconsistently as disk, or vise versa, a disc refers to optical media such as a CD or DVD. Disk refers to magnetic media like your hard drive or a floppy disk (everyone remember those?). Some people refer to flash drives as disks as well, though they aren’t magnetic and the word chip would be more accurate.__

  • Worms, Viruses, and Trojans, Oh My!

    You have probably heard the terms “viruses, trojans and worms,” which are all under the umbrella term for malicious software called malware. These items are usually thought of as interchangeable or the same thing. Although they are similar in that they are created with malicious intent, if you understand the differences, you will better be able to better understand the threat so you can protect your Mac.

    Like a virus that infects people, a computer virus seeks to replicate itself and spread to another host to repeat the process. Since they need execute and write permissions for this, viruses attach themselves to programs (sometimes legitimate) so that when you open the host program the virus is also activated. There are a couple of subclasses of viruses, but they have the same basic characteristics.

    A worm is very similar to a virus, but it can travel between other computers or devices without interaction from any user. Also unlike a virus, a worm does not need to attach itself to an existing program. One of the most famous worms was Stuxnet. Stuxnet was created by a unknown source and its main target was a nuclear power facility in Iran. It could spread from a computer to a flash drive and then to a phone and back to a computer (and so on) until it found its target. Even though this is the most advanced worm to date, a common malicious computer worm can do the same traveling to infect machines.

    The word trojan rises from the way this type of malware works. Similar to Greek mythology, the user is tricked into installing the trojan horse which is often disguised as friendly software. The effect of a trojan horse can vary, depending on the creator’s intention. The most recent well-known trojan for the Mac is “Flashback,” which disguised itself as an Adobe Flash Player update. Once installed, it would be able to collect user data and passwords and make them accessible to the creator of the trojan. It could also set up a BotNet which is a network of computers to attack other machines and services.

    So what does this mean for us as Mac users? It has long been one of the points in the Windows/Mac debate that Macs are immune to viruses and malware. It would be more true to say that there are currently no virus threats to Macs. As far as other forms of malware, we have all seen that certainly any machine can be a victim. Certainly though, as Mac users we only deal with a small fraction of the headaches that Windows users have with this problem.

    The bottom line is to both be careful and pragmatic — as time goes on, the number of threats is guaranteed to rise. Use a malware program — either one of the paid options, such as Norton or MacAfee, or one of the free utilities out there that performs well and seems to have minimal impact on system performance such as Sophos and Clam XAV.

  • What is Virtual Memory?

    Virtual Memory is a system of memory management that divides up the contents of physical RAM, manages these contents in memory, and stores them in either physical RAM or in secondary storage, such as the computers hard disk.

    When the System and applications’ thirst for memory address space outstrips the available physical RAM, or RAM fragmentation results in inadequate amounts of free RAM in consecutive blocks, portions of the RAM’s contents are managed by Virtual Memory system and are written to the hard drive. A portion of the contents of the physical RAM are divided into pages and page frames, which are small segments of memory sized between 1k to 4k in size.

    A Page Table is developed to track these page frames and their location. When the data in RAM exceeds the capacity of the physical RAM, some of the pages are written to swap space on secondary storage — usually the computer’s internal hard drive. When the processor needs data stored in a page, it uses the Page Table to find the page. If it is found still residing on in the physical RAM, it is considered a page hit. If the page is not found in the physical memory of the machine, it is called a Page Fault. With a Page Fault, the system must retrieve the page from the swap space on the hard disk.

    For increased machine performance, the system tries to predict what data is least likely to be needed. The pages the system considers as having the least value are called Victims. Victims are the pages that the system has determined are the least frequently used or oldest pages still in memory. The page frames are often moved to secondary storage as the system likely will not need to use them as soon as other contents of the RAM.

    The issues related to Virtual Memory management are two-fold, though. There is overhead required to track the changes of the location of the pages and update the Page Table. The second issue results when the system has a Page Fault and has to access information written to the swap space on the hard disk. The time to access these pages frames is slower due to the fact it is in secondary storage. The system must make a call to the hard drive, the hard drive must find the page in the swap space, read it into the drives buffer, and then transport the frame across the system bus, into physical memory. Only after these steps have occurred can it then be accessed by the processor and the thread it is needed for.

    The Virtual RAM swap space for a Mac is held within the directory /private/var/vm. There are often several different swap space directories and also the directory of the sleepimage. This directory, private/var/vm/sleepimage, is where the entire contents of the machines RAM is written, as an encrypted disk image, when the computer sleeps long enough to go into hibernation.

    __Editor’s note:__ Virtual RAM needs can be significant and your machine will use every bit of free disk it has for this function. My workstation at Small Dog currently has about 225GB of free space. According to Activity Monitor, every scrap of that free space is allocated to virtual RAM. The general rule used to be to keep 10% or so of your hard drive free for virtual RAM. For a 200GB drive, that means roughly 20GB. I’m not sure what the cutoff is at this point, but the bottom line is that as your drive gets closer to filling up, you will notice performance dropping to the point where the machine may barely work at all.

  • Hello all,

    It was snowing when I left my house this morning…and I think those few flakes already surpass last year’s total in the Champlain Valley. According to the Farmer’s Almanac, it is going to be cold and snowy here this year. We’ll have to wait and see! I find it a bit disconcerting to think about having children who grow up barely remembering snow, but I certainly did not mind not shoveling a single scoop of snow last year.

    Also on the wait-and-see list is the iPad mini. It will be the battle to see whether the nifty form factor and lower price outweigh the lack of Retina display and that seemingly every person in the known universe seems to own an iPad already.

    In other news, we are seeing the effects of last week’s storm in the form of delayed parts deliveries. Most of our parts come from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and after getting almost nothing all week, we received about fifty parts in two days from alternate locations around the country. When they speak of losses due to the storm, things like this certainly are included.

    I can’t imagine the human hours and added expense just to make adjustments for this one small slice of the economy, much less any industry directly affected in the storm’s damage area. I am off to pitch in and start bailing — not water, but parts our customers have been waiting for.

    Liam
    “*liam@smalldog.com*”:mailto:liam@smalldog.com