Kibbles & Bytes Blog

I really welcomed the end of daylight saving time. I believe a Native American once said, “Only the white man would think that if you cut a foot off of a blanket and sew it onto the other end of the blanket that the blanket is longer.”

Thank a veteran today for his or her service and sacrifice!

Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

Your Kibbles & Bytes team,

_Don, Kali & Stephanie_

Small Dog staffers swill plenty of coffee out of our “*stainless steel travel mug*”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/77979 featuring the Small Dog Electronics logo in eye-catching orange. Each mug holds 16 oz. of your beverage of choice and is outfitted with a snazzy blue grip to make sure it stays securely in your hand.

These mugs are a popular favorite with staff and customers alike–especially during the holiday season–and this week we’re offering free shipping when you order one or more mugs and use code *kbtravel* in the cart.

*The Small Dog Electronics Logo Travel Mug*–just $9.99 + free shipping with code *kbtravel* in the cart!

The musicPower Quartet 4-Port USB AC Charger allows you to charge up to four USB-powered devices at once, including iPod and iPhone, using just one outlet!

Regularly $10.99, the musicPower Quartet 4-Port USB AC Charger is $3 off this week exclusively for Kibbles & Bytes readers. Save space and travel light with this handy adapter!

*The musicPower Quartet 4-Port USB AC Charger–just $7.99 + $4.99 shipping!*

“*Click here to order yours!*”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag20762/at_kb

We salute our veterans and honor their service and sacrifice today, Veterans Day.

“Either war is obsolete or men are.” –Buckminster Fuller
“There never was a good war or a bad peace.” –Benjamin Franklin

No one hates war more than the soldiers who fight in them. A close friend of mine asked on Facebook, “What is the one thing you would change in the world if you could?” I did not have to think: It was NO MORE WAR.

It is such a shame that we continue to send our strongest and brightest youth to fight in wars, wars that usually do not solve any of the underlying issues that caused the conflict to begin with.

“How important is it for us to recognize our heroes and she-roes!” –Maya Angelou

Thank you to all who have served!

As Don mentioned, we’re celebrating our South Burlington store’s 5th anniversary and our Manchester store’s 1st anniversary next week. In addition to a number of in-store specials that will run from Wednesday the 16th to Sunday the 20th, we’re featuring a new major deal each day in all three of our “*retail locations*”:http://www.smalldog.com/retail:

*Wednesday, November 16th*
Get a *FREE 4 GB RAM upgrade* with any iMac purchase, up to 8GB total. *A $59.99 value!*

*Thursday, November 17th*
Purchase any MacBook Air and get *AppleCare for $99.99–a $100 savings*!

And, for every MacBook Air purchased, Small Dog will donate a Thanksgiving turkey to the New Hampshire or Vermont Food Bank.

*Friday, November 18th*
*Save $200 on a 13″ 2.3GHz MacBook Pro.* Closeout model–new in box.

Plus, *save $50* on any other Mac laptop!

*Saturday, November 19th*
Get a *FREE Hammerhead Hard Shell Case* with the purchase of any iPad. *A $39.99 value!*

*Save $50 on any AT&T iPad* when you sign up for service in-store at time of purchase.

*Sunday, November 20th*
Get a *FREE Maxx Alarm Clock/Dock* with iPod touch purchase–a *$39.99 value*!

*Save $10 on all Urbanears Headphones* in stock.

These money-saving deals are too good to miss out on, and we’re excited to celebrate our store anniversaries with these specials for you. See you next week!

*My Photos Won’t Sync!*
I upgraded to the iPhone 4S, and with the higher capacity, I figured that I could put more music and photos on my phone. While my gigantic music library fit nicely, no matter what I did, I could not get my photos from iPhoto to sync. Only a handful of my thousands of photos were copied over. I tried all my normal tricks–turning syncing on and off, selecting albums, etc.–but after searching around a bit, I found the solution.

There is a folder called iPod Photo Cache that you can find when you view the package contents of your iPhoto library. To view the contents of a package, simply right click your mouse and choose Show Package Contents, or you can press the Control key and click. Once you see that iPod Photo Cache file, if you drag it to the trash and then re-sync your photos, you will find that all the photos that fit will be moved to your phone. A new fresh iPod Photo Cache file is created when you do this.

*Siri As a Safety Device*
While most states have banned texting while driving, I think that there remains a lot of texting going on. In fact, as I was riding my motorcycle, I noticed that perhaps one in five cars I passed had a driver looking at his or her phone. Siri is part of the solution, I think, to mitigating the risk of distracted drivers due to texting.

This week, I activated Siri in my car by lifting my phone to my mouth and ear and discovered that because my iPhone was connected to the audio system in my car via Bluetooth, Siri also worked with Bluetooth. I was able to say “Text Grace that I am running late,” and automatically a text message was sent. Very cool and very sci-fi.

*Siri As Threat to Google*
My iPhone is with me nearly 24/7. Back in my days (when the dinosaurs ruled the earth) when I wanted to research something, I would get on the “L,” travel to the Chicago Public Library (usually meeting Grace there) and be wowed by the enormous amount of reference material to do my research. Hours later, I would have my answer. That same research can now be done anywhere I have 3G or WiFi signal with the help of Siri. I just have to ask!

In the more recent past, I would launch my Safari browser and Google whatever I was looking for, but Siri is so fast and so accurate that I truly see it replacing much of my Googling. Siri has to be tried to believe it, but yes, I think that the search engines are now a bit obsolete, especially as their business model emphasizes advertising revenue over information.

“*Last week,*”:http://www.loopinsight.com/2011/11/02/apple-confirms-battery-life-issues-in-ios-5/ Apple acknowledged the battery drain issue in the iPhone 4S, citing bugs in iOS 5 in addition to user preferences within it.

I mentioned some of the preferences one could change in “*last Friday’s issue of Kibbles & Bytes*”:http://blog.smalldog.com/kibbles/kb748/, and it looks as though there are more settings that Apple recommends changing. Via a little research and a call to AppleCare, I’ve found the following have substantially improved the battery of the iPhone 4S:

# *Settings > General > Slide Bluetooth to OFF*
# *Settings > General > Set Auto-Lock to 1 Minute*
# *Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data > Set to Hourly or Manually (you can leave Push ON, but turning off would likely save even more battery life)*

Just how much more battery life have I experienced? The battery would last about 3/4 of the day (approx. 4 p.m.) before the “10% battery” message would pop up, and now that message appears either by 10 p.m. or the following morning (though I end up charging the phone every night anyway).

The AppleCare representative also reiterated that the iOS 5.0.1 update should be out “momentarily,” and sure enough, it was released yesterday. To update to iOS 5.0.1, simply *plug your device into iTunes and click “Update”* or *update wirelessly within your device’s Settings panel.* This update marks the first available for wireless syncing.

In addition to battery bug fixes, iOS 5.0.1:

* Adds Multitasking Gestures for original iPad
* Resolves bugs with Documents in the Cloud
* Improves voice recognition for Australian users using dictation

Combined with the preference changes, the iPhone 4S battery is back from the brink!

You may have noticed that certain parts of a message in Mail can be highlighted when you hover over them, such as dates, times and addresses. For a while now, users have been able to select this information and add it to either Address Book or iCal without leaving the Mail application.

In Lion, there is now added iCal functionality that allows the user to edit the event that has just been created–all within Mail. Along the same lines, one can now preview webpages without having to open a separate browser! In either case, there is an option to then open the application separately, but having this added integration makes workflow a lot more seamless.