Kibbles & Bytes Blog

We’re still running some great specials ideal for the recent graduate or favorite dad in your life. For example, if you buy any Mac, you can save up to $75 on an associated bundle of useful stuff, such as a stylus, case, mousepad and more. If you’re near a store, we have some featured iPad specials as well!

“*Check out our page dedicated to the best of the best here!*”:http://www.smalldog.com/grad

I’m a font lover. There, I said it. Don calls me “font girl,” actually, though it sounds like I should have some sort of superpower with a name like that. Well, maybe this is it: I’ve found 10,000 fonts that are available or both personal AND commercial use for just $19.99!

You probably won’t use all of them (that would be pretty hard, actually, even for me), but you’re still getting a varied collection of high-quality fonts for under $20. All fonts are in True- or Open-Type format, and are royalty-free for installation on one computer.

“*Download them here!*”:http://www.ultimatefontdownload.com/index.htm?hop=omacstore

June is here, and your overstuffed garage and basements will thank you when you decide to recycle your old electronics at one of our two eWaste Recycling Events.

If you’re in or around the Manchester, NH area, come out to the Mall of NH on Saturday, June 16 from 9-3pm. Check out our event page on Facebook here.

If you’re in or around the Rutland, VT area (new location this year!), come out to Rutland High School on Saturday, June 30 from 9-3pm. Check out our event page on Facebook here.

More details are available on our website as well:
http://www.smalldog.com/ewaste2012

If your dad ever offered the advice “a penny saved is a penny earned” then these free apps will be right up his alley.

“*Pampers Hello Baby Pregnancy Calendar*”:http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pampers-hello-baby-pregnancy/id364683781?mt=8

This one is for all the fathers-to-be out there. This app has a three dimensional rendering of the baby as it appears each week. It also includes health information and great advice like: “You may notice that everyone, from your mother-in-law to complete strangers, feels compelled to offer advice…try to take them in stride, and don’t feel the need to explain your decisions.” Take my advice and download this app if you want to know what is going on inside the mom-to-be in your life.

“*MLB.com At Bat*”:http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mlb.com-at-bat/id493619333?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

If you have kids, you are not going to be able to watch every baseball game that you want to. This app gives you all the scores and stats for every game so you can keep up with the guys (and Kali; go O’s!) around the water cooler.

“*How To Tie a Tie*”:http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/how-to-tie-a-tie-free/id378478530?mt=8

If I have a son, and we are not all wearing shiny unisex spacesuits in the future, then I will need to learn how to tie a tie so I can pass this information on. I have downloaded this app and have begun practicing my Half-Windsor and Plattsburgh knots.

“*8,500+ Drink & Cocktail Recipes*”:http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/8-500+-drink-cocktail-recipes/id297650041?mt=8

Whether your father is drinking with you or because of you, there is a cocktail in here that is perfect for the occasion. You can select the ingredients you have on hand to find options, or peruse the massive selection to help you make your shopping list for your next trip to the liquor store. This app also has a feature that allows you to shake your iDevice to get a random drink. Don’t try this after you have already had a couple; if you do Small Dog can “repair your cracked screen.”:http://www.smalldog.com/services

Cheers to all the Dads out there!

This tip has proved to be a really popular one around here–I mean, how many times do you just want to take a snapshot of what’s on your screen in the moment without much fuss?

This excerpt was originally featured in “*Kibbles & Bytes issue #569*”:http://www.smalldog.com/kibbles/563 by Ed!

* To take a screenshot of your Mac’s entire desktop, hold down Command-Shift-3 all at the same time. This records the entire desktop at full resolution.

* To capture only a part of your desktop, hold down Command-Shift-4. The cursor will turn into a trigger. Drag the trigger across the part of the screen you want to record and then release the mouse. If your Mac’s sound is on, you will hear a snapshot sound.

* To take a screenshot of an individual application window (say an individual Safari window, or a single email, or single Preview image), hold down Command-Shift-4-spacebar. A camera icon will suddenly appear. You can rotate through application windows with this camera, until you land on the application window you wish to record.

* To take a timed screenshot, browse to your Applications folder, then browse to the Utilities folder contained within. Open the Grab application, then click “Capture” in the menu bar. At the bottom of the list is the option for “Timed Screen.” The Timed Screen grab gives you a 10 second count-down to taking a screenshot.

__Extra credit:__ Instead of saving files to your desktop, you can save a screenshot to your Mac’s clipboard, to be pasted into an application such as Photoshop, Word, or an email. To do this, hold down Command-Control-Shift-3 to take a screenshot of the screen and save it to the clipboard. Hold down Command-Control-Shift-4, then
select an area, to take a screenshot of that area and save it to the clipboard. Hold down Command-Control-Shift-4, then space, then click a window to take a screenshot of a specific window and save it to the clipboard.

Two customers walked in to our store (no, this isn’t the start of a joke) and asked how to burn a video from iMovie onto a DVD. The “Miss Smartypants” that I am said, “that’s easy, just go to the Share menu and choose iDVD!” An even smarter person chimed in with, “but iDVD doesn’t come with iLife ’11.” I retorted in a somewhat smart-a$$ way, “well it will be in the Share menu, so just have them choose the menu that has DVD in it.”

A day later, when I actually had time to look more deeply, I searched for iLife ’11 burn to DVD. And found “*Apple’s support page*”:http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2119 that instructed the user to select Share > iDVD. So I was right! (or so I thought). iDVD is definitely __not__ included with iLife ’11 so I needed to dig even more.

I went down to the store to look at one of the 10.7 Lion demo computers that had iLife ’11 installed (therefore iDVD wasn’t already on the computer), and opened an iMovie project. I went to Share > iDVD which was one of my menu choices and wouldn’t you know, I got an error window–“Unable to find iDVD.” Miss Smartypants was completely wrong (and so was Apple, I might add, so I’m in good company).

So what do you do if you have iLife ’11 and want to burn a DVD? If you upgraded to iLife, you may still have a copy of iDVD and will be a-OK. There are other options if you don’t have iDVD.

The first is Sonic Solutions Roxio Toast v.11.0 which is a incredible piece of software that will solve just about any media burning issue you might have. (I’ve put Toast on special below!) A second option would be DVD Creator which is similar to iDVD and available on the “*App Store here.*”:http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=19XpSnZWhPI&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dvd-creator/id428417852?mt=12%26uo%3D6%26partnerId%3D30 The third option is to use an open source solution like “*Burn*”:http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/Pages/English/home.html

I admit it, I was wrong.

So two customers walk in to our store…I forget the rest.