Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • iPad mini – From $329

    The rumors were right and everyone can breathe again. Apple announced its latest addition to the iPad line — the iPad mini. Smaller and more portable, but just as powerful as the iPad 2, this is sure to be a big hit.

    The iPad mini has a 7.9″ (diagonal) LED-backlight Multi-Touch display with a resolution of 1024 x 768 at 163 pixels per inch. That is the same quality display as the full-size iPad packed into 7.9 inches (down from 9.7 inches). It is powered by Apple’s Dual-core A5 chip, giving the mini plenty of power. Thankfully, Apple used their technology from the 3rd Gen iPad for the mini’s camera system giving it a 1.2MP front camera and a whopping 5MP rear camera with fancy things like Autofocus, Face detection, a Five-element lens and much more.

    The mini, like its big brothers will come in both Wi-Fi and Cellular versions and it will sport the brand new Lightning port for syncing and charging. Of course, what good is an iPad if its battery is dead? Well don’t fear, because the iPad mini has up to 10 hours of battery life. Apple is starting the iPad mini at $329 for the Wi-Fi only versions and $429 for the Wi-Fi + Cellular versions with the capacities ranging from 16GB to 64GB.

    So far, we know that Apple retail stores will start stocking them on November 2nd. My recommendation — give us a call and see what the scoop is at our retail stores, or sit tight for more info on Small Dog Electronics availability.

  • The Amazingly Thin iMac

    Apple officially announced a long-awaited update to their iMac line of desktop computers. I know a handful of customers who have been waiting patiently for these machines, and I, for one, can say that Apple did not disappoint.

    The new iMac is now 40% smaller in volume than its previous version and a significant amount lighter for both the 21.5 and 27 inch sizes. To account for this reduction in size, Apple had to remove the optical drive and redesign how they assemble the iMac screen. These innovations make the iMac at its thinnest – 5mm.

    As you move to center mass, the iMac bows out, allowing room for a 2.7 GHz Intel i5 processor, 8GB of memory a NVIDIA graphics processor and a traditional hard drive. Some of you might be thinking — traditional hard drive, really Apple? Well, Apple also gives customers the option of buying flash storage on their iMac or this thing Apple has dubbed “Fusion Drive.”

    Without going into crazy detail about what a Fusion Drive actually is, it simply combines a solid state drive with a hard drive. This gives users a balance of speed and capacity at a reasonable price. Seagate has a hybrid drive, which at first glance, looks similar to the Fusion Drive, but the support for optimal use of the hybrid drive with Apple seems to have been lacking. We can rest assured that Apple will have full support for their Fusion Drive.

    So it’s thinner, it’s lighter (not that you’ll be carrying it any farther than from your car to your home), it’s more powerful and it’s faster. After analyzing almost every component of the new iMac, you’ll see how everything has been changed for the better — I guess everything except for the price.

    I suppose that in order to pay for that new technique of fusing the screen together, Apple had to up the starting price of the iMac to $1,299. That isn’t a huge jump — only $100 from the old version — but I’d be reluctant to say that it is an improvement. Regardless, I like what Apple has done here. The new iMac looks sleek and has a number of much needed upgrades. I would need to think long and hard about what else I could have asked for in an iMac update!

    Apple says that the 21.5-inch iMac will be available in November and the 27-inch will be available in December. I know we will be working as hard as we can to get these iMacs into our retail stores for you to see in person. Once we have the skus to list them on our website, we’ll let you know.

    Be sure to check “*our blog, Barkings!,*”:http://blog.smalldog.com for the most up-to-date info on the new products.

  • _Dear Friends,_

    Busy, busy week for Apple as they refreshed their product line, introduced the much-anticipated iPad mini, a new 4th Generation iPad, a 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display, a new Mac mini and new iMacs. They also introduced a new version of the iBooks app that enhances the use of the iPad as a reader. If that wasn’t enough for one week, Apple also announced their 4th Quarter earnings and posted a record quarter for both earnings and profit.

    Apple posted quarterly revenues of $36 billion, up from $28.3 billion a year ago. Net profit was $8.2 billion (or $8.67 per diluted share), up from $6.6 billion (or $7.05 per diluted share) last year.

    Apple sold 26.9 million iPhones, which indicates a 58 percent growth over the same quarter last year. The company sold 14 million iPads during the quarter, up 26 percent over the previous year. 4.9 million Macs were sold, representing a 1 percent increase over last year’s quarter. Apple finishes the fiscal year with revenues of over $150 billion! I distinctly remember the Apple resellers conference where the stated objective was for Apple to hit $5 billion in revenue for the year — what an amazing accomplishment in a very short time.

    Apple’s board of directors declared a $2.65 dividend for the quarter, and Apple projected sales of $52 billion and profit of $11.75 per share for the next quarter (which is the holiday quarter). These results were pretty much in line with analysts’ expectations, but they’re never satisfied unless Apple clobbers their expectations.

    Apple has just refreshed their product line with some of the most exciting and innovative products on the market — congratulations to the entire Apple team for another great quarter!

    I think I’ll be moving to the iPad mini from my iPad (3rd Gen), if only to gain more experience with this latest iOS 6 device. However, I’m going to stick with my 15-inch MacBook Pro Retina. We are thinking that while the iPad mini may cannibalize some full-size iPad sales, the price point and features will draw in some new customers to the iPad platform, too!

  • Hello All,

    It was great to see everybody at the ASMC conference in Austin! Please see below for a special ASMC Show deal.

    It is nice to be home, though, as fall in Vermont is always beautiful. The trees still have some foliage left, but we are rapidly approaching stick season which is the time of year after the leaves are all down but we don’t have snow on the ground yet.

    Of course, stick season means that Black Friday and the holidays are right around the corner. Hammerhead is committed to helping you have a successful and profitable quarter. Please let us know what we can do to provide products for special sales or Black Friday door busters.

    “*Contact me*”:mailto:tony@hammerheadcase.com to discuss how Hammerhead can help with your holiday promotions.

    We are excited to announce the new Hammerhead 10W USB Wall Dual AC Adapter. This product is a stylish and compact way to charge all of your devices. It is compatible with the iPhone, iPad, iPod, and thousands of other products that charge via USB. Two USB ports and 10 watts of power means that you can charge multiple devices quickly. Please see the sell sheet “here.”:http://vendor.hammerheadcase.com/pricelists/SS_AC-Adapter.pdf

    In the coming weeks, we will also have leather and faux leather folio cases for the new iPad mini. We will also be carrying a Bluetooth version of our Chill Pill speakers. Please contact me if you have any questions about these products or would like to place an order.

    Now (drumroll please) the ASMC Show deal:

    *Through October 31st save 20% on all orders!*

    Please send POs directly to me and write “ASMC Show 20% Discount” on the order to take advantage of this great deal.

    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_09.12.pdf

    Thanks for reading!

    Tony

  • Amazingly Thin iMac Announced By Apple

    The wait is over folks. Apple officially announced the long awaited update to their iMac line of desktop computers. I know a handful…

  • It's What's On the Inside That Counts

    External hard drives come in many shapes and sizes. From desktop behemoths to rugged portable drives, there are as many different hard drives as there are different people.

    A fact that would surprise most is that on the inside of the fancy casings, there are only three possible options. Over two hundred companies have at one point made hard drives, but that number has been boiled down over time. Now only Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba are left in the race to hold all the world’s data.

    Seagate and Western Digital are neck-in-neck in sales at about 40% each with Toshiba holding the rest. This changes the probability of what you will get when you buy a external hard drive. Two out of five drives will either have a Seagate or Western Digital drive, which begs the question of which is better. If you are a faithful fan of certain companies, you might be biased towards a particular drive.

    Toshiba just has the experience of Fujitsu in its belt, compared to Western Digital, who can find its roots among IBM and Hitachi. Seagate, in this regard, might look like the better choice, pulling from eight different companies from DEC and Maxtor to Seagate.

    According to the market at large, Seagate is the most reliable; personally, I prefer Western Digital. Truthfully, both brands are about equal. One could measure reliability company-wide, but whether or not the hard drive you buy will last all boils down to how well that particular drive was put together. So the choice of what matters on the inside is really up to the eye of the beholder. ‘

    All that said, remember to back up your data!

  • Enabling Siri on iPad (3rd Gen)

    iOS 6 is here and that means that those of us who are on the latest version of Apple’s iPad now have access to Siri. When you update your device, you should be prompted at setup to activate Siri. However, if not, here’s how you turn it (her?) on.

    In *Settings,* select *General. *Scroll down till you find the section for Siri and move the slider from off to on. If you’re already on then you can stop reading. Alter the feedback, language and self-identification settings however you see fit. Then close out of the Settings app and you’re good to go.

    To use Siri on the device, just hold your Home button down for a couple of seconds, and this will activate Siri. (This may not be a very high-tech article but probably half of the support calls we get in Service are simple things like this that can have people pulling their hair out in frustration!)

    I’ve been using the new Siri and have to say it’s a pretty big improvement over Siri 1. Now Apple just needs to figure out a way to get Majel Barrett’s voice in there and I’ll be a very happy geek!

  • PPTX to .Mov

    An interesting question was posed this week in our support email box at “*support@smalldog.com.*”:mailto:support@smalldog.com The customer had, with previous versions of Office, been able to export PowerPoint presentations with sound track. Since moving to Office 2011, the *Save as Movie* option now stripped the audio from the .mov file.

    So, what to do? After doing some research, I think I found a solution to their problem as explained below.

    So as to not alter/damage the PowerPoint file in question, I suggest first making a copy of the file. The second step is to append the file extension on the copy to .zip. Double clicking on the new file opens it with the Archive Utility, which would show the audio package as a distinct file. Then, you can copy the audio file to the desktop from the new folder.

    Once the audio is a separate file, we can use the functionality of the application that Microsoft had already built in. Under File in the menu bar, there is an option to *Save as Movie.* In the box that pops up, we can choose a Background soundtrack for the movie file we are creating. With that drop down we would select the extracted audio file that we saved from the Zip.

    Many may suggest using Keynote instead. While this is definitely an option, I have found that Keynote also has issues with audio when exported to .mov. Your opinions are always welcome, and of course your milage may vary. Do you have a better solution? We would be happy to hear it and share with the other Tech Tails readers! (Click on the email above to let me know!)