Kibbles & Bytes Blog

Our New Hampshire eWaste Recycling Event is happening on Saturday, October 8th from 9AM to 2PM in the Mall of New Hampshire’s food court parking lot in Manchester. Visit our website to view a “**list of acceptable materials to recycle.**”:http://www.smalldog.com/ewaste

Our partners at “**WeRecycle**”:http://www.werecycle.com/ are fast and professional, and they pledge to safely and responsibly recycle all materials collected, while securely destroying all electronic data. They insure that any harmful chemicals such as cadmium, chromium and mercury are kept out of landfills so they do not leach into the soil and contaminate our groundwater.

As October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we’ll be offering a special promotion on “**pink Chill Pill Mobile Speakers**”:http://chillpillaudio.com/page4/mobile-speakers/pink-mobile-speakers.html at this event, with part of the proceeds going toward breast cancer research.

For more information on our New Hampshire eWaste event, “**click here.**”:http://www.smalldog.com/ewastenh

The Mac App Store is an amazing resource that I think has to date been underused by many users. Apple released the Mac App Store on January 6th with over 1000 apps for your Mac. With new apps being added every day, this is a great tool available on all Macs running OS 10.6.6 or higher.

Just open up the App Store, click in the search field and type in a term for what you’re looking for, such as “DJ” if you’re looking for DJing apps or “racing” if you’re looking for a racing game. You can sort the apps that come up by relevance to your search, most popular, release date and customer ratings. You will find a wide variety of software at a wide range of prices, with many apps available for free. The Mac App Store is a great go-to resource for quite a bit of your software needs.

One of the best features of the App Store is the customer rating system. The App Store will not allow you to put a rating on an app that you have not purchased, so there are only true users actually giving the ratings, which makes for a more accurate ratings system. You can see what people like or dislike about apps, see if the current version of that app has any bugs and find out what works and what doesn’t.

Not only has the App Store changed the way customers purchase software, it has become the number-one personal computer software market, as Apple announced on June 6th at the World Wide Developers Conference. Because there is such a wide market for the App Store, developers are often able to offer software at lower prices as downloads than in retail packaging. For example, “**Aperture**,”:http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=19XpSnZWhPI&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fapp%2Faperture%2Fid408981426%3Fmt%3D12%2526uo%253D6%2526partnerId%253D30 Apple’s pro-level photography application, sells for $79.99 in the App Store compared to $199.99 in a retail package.

All in all, Apple has once again revolutionized yet another market with their innovation. With the incredible organization and ease of use of the App Store, you are able to find great apps and download them quickly. Most apps only take a matter of minutes to download over a high-speed Internet connection. In the first 24hrs of the Mac App Store being open, users downloaded over 90,000 apps. This is truly amazing as prior to the Mac App Store, there had never been a place to get software so quickly and from so many different sources.

Yes, it’s true that the fancy new MacBook Pro you just brought home didn’t come with a manual.

When talking to customers in our retail stores, we typically end most conversations with, “Do you have any more questions or concerns?” Here many customers respond, “Well it comes with a manual, right?” This questions is usually followed by their utter shock and dismay at hearing that there are no instructions on how to use the computer, iPad, iPod or iPhone in that fancy new box.

There might not be a manual in the box, but don’t fear, your resources are all at your fingertips! Apple has made all of their manuals, user guides and how-to instructions available through a number of resources. iPad users are often delighted to know that there’s a free iPad user guide available through the iBookstore. Once you download the “**iBooks App**,”:http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=19XpSnZWhPI&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fapp%2Fibooks%2Fid364709193%3Fmt%3D8%2526uo%253D6%2526partnerId%253D30 simply search for “iPad user guide” in the iBookstore. The Apple website itself contains a wealth of knowledge: you can easily download “**manuals**”:http://support.apple.com/manuals/ for all of your Apple products, from iMac to MacBook Pro to iPod touch.

Information about how to use your new computer or device isn’t limited to just manuals, either. Video tutorials are available as well, and many links to these are located directly within the program you’re using. If you’re using Pages, for example, click on the **Help** option located in the toolbar at the top of your screen. Once you click on **Help**, select “**Video Tutorials**”:http://www.apple.com/iwork/tutorials/#pages-hero from the drop-down menu. Apple’s video tutorials show you everything from getting started to sharing documents with Microsoft Word.

We know digital downloads aren’t always the best way for some customers to get the most our of their device or software. Because of this, we sell a huge selection of books as well in our retail stores. So if you’re feeling like you’ve ingested enough technology in the purchase alone, feel confident knowing you can still hold a book in your hands to help you through!

We are just a few days into fall and the mountains are already bursting with color. I spent this past weekend cleaning up lawn furniture, packing away my pool supplies and decorating my porch with fall mums and pumpkins, a sure sign summer has said goodbye! My favorite part of fall is the smells in the air–it has this sweet, crisp smell that you only enjoy this time of year.

I have some great walking areas right around my house, and between fall projects I took my kids for a walk to enjoy some of the beautiful sights. I know the changing of the leaves means the cold and snow are soon to come, and perhaps that’s why I make a greater effort to get outside and leave some projects for another time. I will be the first to admit, the snow doesn’t thrill me, but I tolerate it when it comes. Anyone else feel the same way?

Make sure to come into our stores or log onto our website on Monday, October 31st: We take Halloween __VERY__ seriously around here! Staff will be decorating our stores for this special occasion as well as dressing up in costume. It’s tons of fun, so don’t miss out; you’re sure to be entertained!

Thanks for reading,
Emily, Taylor and Tyler

“emily@smalldog.com”:mailto:emily@smalldog.com