Kibbles & Bytes Blog

We’re happy to announce that next month, we’ll again be hosting *two FREE eWaste Recycling Events!* We will be having one in Manchester, NH at the Mall of New Hampshire, and the other in a completely new location: Rutland, VT.

What is ewaste? As you may know, we use a lot of electronics in our daily lives, and unfortunately, many of them contain hazardous materials such as mercury or lead. In the last few years, Apple has manufactured devices and machines free of toxic materials, but chances are, you may have older “electronic waste” around the house that you need to get rid of responsibly. Well, here’s your chance!

*The Details:*

* Saturday, June 16, 2012
* Manchester, NH at the Mall of New Hampshire (Food Court parking lot)
* 9am – 3pm

* Saturday, June 30, 2012
* Rutland, VT at Rutland High School
* 9am – 3pm

“*Click here to read more about our annual eWaste Recycling Events.*”:http://www.smalldog.com/ewaste
“*Click here for more information about our June 2012 events.*”:http://www.smalldog.com/ewaste2012
“*Read more about Apple’s commitment to the environment here.*”:http://www.apple.com/environment/

Small Dog Electronics is hosting a local event as part of the global hackathon, Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK). It is being held at UVM, thanks to the generosity of the UVM Summer University. This is a great event that brings those with technical skills together with those who might need help.

Picture a classroom of geek-y types (you know who you are!) all putting their brains and coding power together to solve problems!

Small Dog is looking for anyone who might want to help with the cause, even if you’re not a “up-all-night-strung-out-on-mountain-dew” software developer! We need volunteers of all kinds, especially if you just want to help come up with ideas. We also need organizations with problems.

We’re also on the hunt for problem submissions for hackers to solve! Non-profits, NGOs and individuals are encouraged to post their problem directly to the “*RHoK website.*”:http://www.rhok.org/problems Any solutions created will be open-source and free to the public.

Know all about RHoK and ready to sign up? “*Do it here.*”:http://www.rhok.org/event/burlington-vt-usa Need more info? Read on below.

—

Join us for Small Dog Electronics’s very first Burlington, VT Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) event. This event is part of RHoK Global, which hosts simultaneous hackathons all around the world on June 2nd-3rd. Meet like-minded programmers, create new and exciting apps, and win prizes and hack for humanity!

RHoK’s mission is to make the world a better place through a global community of innovation developing practical open technology. In this two-day event you’ll have the opportunity to help find solutions to submitted “*problems*”:http://www.rhok.org/problems from all over the world. Work with local subject matter experts on problem submissions from within our community, or choose from hundreds of global problems. This is a phenomenal opportunity to find technological solutions to solve local and global issues.

*Quick FAQs:*
*When:* June 2nd-3rd
*Where:* UVM – courtesy of UVM Summer University
*Cost:* FREE! We’ll even feed you!

Who’s invited? Whether you program a little or a lot you’re welcome to attend. This can be a great chance to stretch your skills and learn new ones. Community members who feel they can contribute, even if they don’t code, are also welcome.

How does it work? On Saturday morning, after an introduction to some of the local problems, you’ll break up into groups, choose a problem and work together to find a solution. Solutions need to be kept open source and you have the option to continue working on them after the hackathon. Sunday afternoon you’ll have a chance to present your solution to the group and a few lucky groups will go home with some pretty sweet prizes.

Need Housing? Hotel deals TBD. Want an even cheaper solution? Try “*CouchSurfing.*”:http://www.couchsurfing.org/

Sign me up! For more information and to register check out our event page at “*RHoK*”:http://www.rhok.org/event/burlington-vt-usa

Any Questions? Contact Rebecca Kraemer, Director of IT for Small Dog Electronics, at 802.496.7171 x643 or “*rhok@smalldog.com.*”:mailto:rhok@smalldog.com

*The Problem*
So OS 10.7 Lion has been out for some time now, and I know for a fact that I am not the only one who is up in arms with Apple’s designers–specifically those who decided to “think outside of the box” and thought a textured leather iCal look would be a great idea.

Sure, those who are new to Apple computers probably think it looks great–perhaps reminiscent of a desktop calendar. But for those of us who have been using Macs prior to Lion know what we’re missing: the sleek, subtle and stylish aluminum texture of iCal. My biggest issue with this leather look is that it isn’t consistent. If you open any other preinstalled app on your Apple computer, they all have an aluminum “skin” with the exception of iCal and Address Book.

*The Solution*
So if you’d like to lose the leather, what can you do? There are several options to replace the leather graphics with aluminum, though several may be dicey for the novice user. The one that I ended up using makes the process much easier and safer.

Rather than making the user dig around in the iCal package contents and possibly moving, renaming, or deleting something which in turn might cause iCal to not function properly, this method comes to you as an installer. The only thing you should do before running the installer is to back up the iCal app.

*Word of Warning:* A word of caution before proceeding. This installer does take care of the legwork so you don’t need to fuddle around; however, you will be changing the files of a preinstalled Apple app. If you do not make a backup and something goes wrong you will need to reinstall. By doing this you assume all responsibility if you lose any data, need to reinstall iCal or purchase any software or services to fix it.

*The Instructions*

# First and foremost, back up your iCal app in case anything goes wrong (or you want to revert back to the ugly leather).
# Create a folder labeled “iCal_Original” and put it whereever you would like to store the backup (I put it in my Documents folder).
# Navigate to your iCal app which should be located in Finder > Applications.
# Once you see your iCal app, select it and drag it to the iCal_Original folder while holding the Alt key. You should see a green circle with a plus symbol in it next to the icon you are dragging.
# Place it in the folder and verify that the iCal app is in both your Applications folder AND the iCal_Original folder. If it is, continue to the next step. (If it is not, try the method below to duplicate* the app.)
# Download the installer “*here.*”:https://sites.google.com/site/macnixblogspot/10.7_iCal_Skin_Installer_v3.dmg?attredirects=0&d=1
# Open the .dmg file
# Run the installer. If you had iCal open when you ran the installer, simply quit iCal and relaunch it; otherwise launch iCal and behold the glory of the aluminum.

__*How to duplicate iCal:
Select iCal in your Applications folder. Select the Edit drop down menu at the top of the screen. Select Copy “iCal”. Open the iCal_Original folder. Select the Edit drop down menu again. Select Paste item. Verify that iCal is in both your Applications folder and the iCal_Original folder.)__

*The Conclusion*
As I mentioned, this is the process that I myself used to eliminate the leather, however it isn’t the only one out there and I am in no way taking credit for this. I found this installer on “*MacNix’s blog*”:http://macnix.blogspot.com/2011/07/change-mac-os-x-107-lion-ical-and.html.

I chose this one over the others because it seems to be the easiest way of going from leather to aluminum. I hope that anyone who uses this installer enjoys having the look of what iCal used to be.

If you have installed the aluminum skin and decide that it really isn’t for you, then you simply need to drag a copy of iCal from your iCal_Original folder into the Applications folder and replace the iCal app. The leather is back!

I really like Pages, and even though I have Word and InDesign installed on my Mac, Pages is the first application that I turn to when I have to create something from a blank page. I find it less cumbersome than Word for word processing and much faster than InDesign for page layout. I thought that it would be fun to do an article about creating a letterhead template that can be used over and over.

I’m going to create a document that Tony Amenta, our new sales manager for Hammerhead and Chill Pill Audio, can use when he’s writing documents. First I’ll use the two logos that are already created. I’ll add all the things that Tony will reuse each time he sends a note–name, title, address, etc. I’ll put each element in a text box so that it can be easily modified in the future. I’ll place these where I want them on the page by dragging them around.

I want one of the logos to be more like a watermark, so I’ll change the opacity of that image to be about 40%. This is done in Graphic Inspector when the image that you want to modify is selected. I’ll also make a text box for the body of the letter and put some __lorem ipsum__ text in it for Tony to modify later. I use this website to get the text: “*Lipsum.com.*”:http://www.lipsum.com/

Once I get the document the way that I want, I’ll choose “Save as Template…” under the File menu. You can save it anywhere, but it might be easiest to save to your “My Templates” folders so that it’s easy to find. To use your new template, choose it from the gallery under My Templates.

That’s it! You’ve made a template. Letterhead jumps to mind as one of the most commonly used templates, but anything that you find yourself writing over and over, just create a template!

Here are more resources to help those of you who specifically have MobileMe-related iCloud questions. I’ll be sharing my MobileMe to iCloud transition next week.

The system requirements to go to iCloud are as follows:

*Macs*

* OS X Lion 10.7.2 or later
* iTunes 10.5 or later
* iPhoto ’11 (version 9.2 or later) or Aperture 3.2 or later (for Photo Stream)*

__*recommended__

*iPhone, iPad, iPod touch*

* iOS 5 or later

Many of you have asked about your .mac/.me emails and whether or not they will still exist if you do not make the transition to iCloud. The answer here is no, unfortunately.

Apple’s explanation of the move is as follows: “The core services provided by MobileMe have been completely rewritten and are now part of iCloud. MobileMe will no longer be available after June 30th, 2012. To continue to have mail, contacts, and calendars kept up to date automatically and free of charge, and to enjoy the new services that iCloud provides, MobileMe members must move their accounts to iCloud before June 30th, 2012.”

“*Check out the specific FAQ section for MobileMe subscribers here.*”:http://www.apple.com/mobileme/transition.html

_Dear Friends,_

It’s Kali writing for Don again this week. He is currently in Minneapolis for the Apple Specialist Marketing Coop Conference (ASMC). ASMC events are a great way for Apple Specialists around the country to connect, share ideas and strategies and generally support each other. There’s a big market out there for what we sell, and we know that there’s room for all of us (as well as Apple!).

We’ve set the dates for our annual eWaste Recycling Events–June 16 and June 30–so if you’re in the New England area, read the details below and come out and join us. Bring your old TV (or computer/stereo/phone/printer/etc.).

In other internal news, the Marketing department is excited to welcome “*Mike Duplessis*”:http://www.smalldog.com/michaeld (the last “s” is silent–you’re welcome) from the Sales department as the “fourth marketeer.” You have probably read some of his articles in past Kibbles & Bytes, and he’ll be a regular contributor to future issues. Fun fact: He’s the husband to former Small Dogger/Marketeer Stephanie Reich. He’ll join us on Monday!