Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • iPad Users: Come Join the Fun!

    Small Dog Electronics’ “*Waitsfield location*”:http://www.smalldog.com/waitsfield/at_kb will be holding a *free* iPad Social on *Thursday, September 22 at 6pm.*

    Bring your iPad, your favorite apps, your iPad questions and any friends who want to tag along!

    Join us for a special after-hours event and enjoy drinks, food and fun while chatting about your favorite Apple device.

    Please RSVP by email to Waitsfield Store Manager Emily Kenyon if you plan to attend.

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

  • Upcoming Apple Seminars for Business

    We’re offering several *free* Apple seminars this month focused on integrating Apple solutions to boost your business!

    *Your Business on a Mac*

    Tuesday, September 13 at our “*South Burlington, VT retail store*”:http://www.google.com/maps?q=100%2BDorset%2BSt,%2BSouth%2BBurlington,%2BVermont%2B05403&ie=UTF8&om=1&z=16&iwloc=addr

    Wednesday, September 14 at our “*Waitsfield, VT retail store*”:http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Small+Dog+Electronics,+Inc.,+Main+Street,+Waitsfield,+VT&aq=0&sll=44.21817,-72.791709&sspn=0.006713,0.010772&g=1673+Main+Street,+Waitsfield,+VT&ie=UTF8&hq=Small+Dog+Electronics,+Inc.,&hnear=Main+St,+Waitsfield,+Vermont&z=14

    Topics will include:
    * The Mac Advantage for Business. Learn how to introduce Mac into your business environment and get the most from your technology investment.
    * Marketing with Style. With iLife and iWork, marketing and promoting your business through self-created materials has never been easier.
    * Apple Solutions for Business. Learn how you can integrate iPhone and iPad into your business environment to help you work smarter and more efficiently.

    *iPad in Business*

    Tuesday, September 20 at the “*Highlander Inn and Conference Center in Manchester, NH*”:http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=2+Highlander+Way,+Manchester,+NH+03103&aq=&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=61.19447,88.242187&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=54+Hanover+St,+Manchester,+Hillsborough,+New+Hampshire+03101&z=17

    Topics will include:
    * Intro to iPad and iOS 4, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system
    * Deploying iOS 4
    * Integration & Security
    * Apps for Business
    * App Development
    * Wireless App Distribution
    * Mobile Device Management demonstration

    *Plus, a guided tour and demonstration of all iPad’s features and functions.*

    Preregistration is required to attend these seminars. For more information and to register, “*please visit the events page on our website.*”:http://www.smalldog.com/events/at_kb

  • MAC TREAT #164: Hidden Nuggets in Finder

    Before upgrading to Lion, I was most excited for the improvements to Finder, and they haven’t disappointed. To help you get the most out of Finder in 10.7, here are five notable new features of the happy Mac face we all know and love.

    # *You can arrange your files.*
    There’s an Arrange button in the Finder’s toolbar in Lion, and it lets you do just that: you may now group files and folders by name, size, label or date, among others. So nice!

    # *You can resize a window from any location.*
    This is a favorite feature of mine because I often find myself with dozens of windows open, and the lower righthand corner isn’t always immediately visible. In Lion, you can now resize from any part of the window–top, bottom, left, right and anywhere in between. So simple, yet so gratifying.

    # *You can search using file types.*
    Yay! As tidy as I try to keep my files and folders, sometimes I am too -lazy- busy to name a file as I’d like it to be permanently. This feature is much like what you can already do in a Google search: Type *kind: JPG (or whatever you need to find)* into the search bar in a Finder window. Once you select a file type from the menu, your results will be limited to those.

    # *You can edit and arrange your System Preferences menu.* __(OK, so that may not be technically a part of Finder, but it’s a system feature that goes hand-in-hand.)__
    Are there some things in System Preferences that you never use or would rather not see? Just select *System Preferences (under the Apple) > View > Customize* and uncheck what you want to hide. You can always go back and change those settings again, so nothing’s set in stone. It’s as satisfying as spring cleaning to me!

    # *You can get your colored icons back.*
    This requires a third-party software download and some commands in Terminal, but it’s pretty simple if you’ve been hankering for a bit more color in your life after Lion left your Finder windows monochromatic! (I’ll have to make sure Don sees this one, as he was lamenting the all-grey look when he first upgraded.)
    “*Read how to do it here.*”:http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/25/get-color-sidebar-icons-back-in-mac-os-x-10-7-lion-finder-windows/

  • *Back Cover*
    _Cost: $12 MSRP: $19.99_ “_»Learn More_”:http://vendor.hammerheadcase.com/pricelists/SS_backcover_dealer.pdf

    *Hard Shell Case*
    _Cost: $24 MSRP: $39.99_ “_»Learn More_”:http://vendor.hammerheadcase.com/pricelists/SS_hardshell_dealer.pdf

    *Leather Folio Case*
    _Cost: $33 MSRP: $59.99_ “_»Learn More_”:http://vendor.hammerheadcase.com/pricelists/SS_lfolio_dealer.pdf

    *Bluetooth Keyboard Case*
    _Cost: $54 MSRP: $89.99_ “_»Learn More_”:http://vendor.hammerheadcase.com/pricelists/SS_bluetooth_dealer.pdf

  • _Dear Friends,_

    It’s Jan writing for Don again this week as he and Grace are still motorcycling in Europe. Believe it or not, the leaves are beginning to change color here in Vermont! On my way home yesterday, I noticed the edges of two large maples had a hint of orange. Is summer really over!? Although I hate to see summer wane, fall in Vermont is second to none–the expansive rolling hills filled with intense reds, oranges and yellows for as far as the eye can see is simply breathtaking. Coming from Minnesota, I thought we had the market on spectacular foliage, but having experienced four foliage seasons here, Vermont takes the prize. If you have the opportunity, a weekend in Vermont in the fall is an incredible getaway.

    Fall not only brings our foliage season, but also our “*eWaste recycling events!*”:http://www.smalldog.com/ewaste It’s the perfect time to gather up computers, printers and other electronics and get them out of the attic or garage before you hunker down for winter. Our events are free–we do not charge for recycling your unwanted equipment or peripherals. Our upcoming event in *Vermont is on Saturday, September 24th at Ben & Jerry’s corporate offices in South Burlington.* Our *Manchester, New Hampshire event is Saturday, October 8th* at the Mall of New Hampshire’s food court parking lot. Both events are from 9AM to 2PM, so we hope you will make our eWaste event part of your “to-do’s” on one of those days.

    I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that our Mac to School promotion ends on September 18th, so if you still need a new Mac for that student of yours, you won’t want to miss out on this great offer: Buy any new Mac with AppleCare and we will give you a 4th year of labor coverage free, a complimentary year of membership to our Top Dog Plus Program (a $99 value) and a $50 Small Dog gift card! So, don’t miss out!

    “*For more information, click here.*”:http://www.smalldog.com/mactoschool/at_kb

    I also want to let you know that the Mad River Valley is on the mend after the floods on August 28th. The curbside piles of discarded household furnishings are starting to disappear and people are starting to rebuild their lives. Folks who are fortunate enough to have a second home in Vermont are offering those up to people who have been left homeless, and volunteers continue to stop hard-hit folks and say, “What can I do to help?” It’s clear the spirit of Vermonters is as strong as ever.

  • Two minutes = up to $36 in profit.

    Every iPad you sell should have a higher margin add-on. We have the solution for that at “Hammerheadcase.com.”:http://www.hammerheadcase.com Most customers end up buying a case for their iPad. If you don’t sell it, someone else will.

    Hammerhead iPad 2 cases bring approximately 40 points of dealer margin. Two minutes spent adding a Hammerhead case to a sale will add $8 – $36 in profit.

    The key to attaching a case is to have several choices attractively and conveniently displayed. Display at least three color choices of our popular Hammerhead iPad 2 Hard Shell Case along with the Hammerhead iPad 2 Back Cover. The majority of your customers will buy one of these, or perhaps a Hammerhead iPad 2 Folio or Hammerhead Bluetooth Keyboard Case.

    *Tech Data is the exclusive distributor for Hammerhead.*

  • Screenshot Tips

    Many of us already know of the ancient keyboard shortcut Command-Shift-3 to capture your screen to a picture file. It’s been around since…

  • Screenshot Tips

    Many of us already know of the ancient keyboard shortcut Command-Shift-3 to capture your screen to a picture file. It’s been around since System 7, and it’s still with us. We’ve made some significant progress over the years. The Command-Shift-3 trick captures a full-resolution image of your screen and places the PNG file on your desktop. From there, you can open and edit the image as you see fit.

    It’s rare, though, to need a full screenshot. For these situations, I use Command-Shift-4, which turns the mouse pointer to a crosshairs to allow for precision selection of a portion of your screen. I often find myself writing documentation for company procedures and posting the information to our company wiki (powered by Mac OS X Server), and taking screenshots is a very effective way to visually convey knowledge. I love saving the step of cropping in Preview.

    Command-Shift-4 is more powerful than it might seem, though. You can press the key combination and then press the space bar. The mouse pointer changes to a camera, and individual windows and menus are highlighted when you hover over them. Clicking the mouse yields a screen shot of just that window or menu.

    The Grab application, found in your Applications folder, allows you to take a timed screenshot by selecting “Timed Screen” from the Capture menu.

    These tips can be taken a step further by taking the screenshot and automatically copying it to your clipboard for pasting wherever you’d like. Simple add the Control key to the shortcuts above and you can paste the screenshot directly into any application.

    Snow Leopard takes this concept a bit further by allowing you to record video of your actions on screen in QuickTime Player. It records your voice and your screen by default, and it’s my new favorite tool for producing training materials.

  • Repair of the Week: SuperDrive Interconnect

    This week’s repair boggled my mind. A 2.33GHz MacBook Pro came in with the simple problem of not booting up from its internal hard drive. I usually start up holding down the Apple and S keys to get into single user mode, and use fsck (“file system consistency check”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsck) to check and attempt repair to the hard drive’s file system. If it gives an i/o (input/output) error, I can generally assume that the hard drive needs repair. If it attempts repair but fails, I move on to “DiskWarrior,”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/78364/alsoft-diskwarrior-4-v4-3-for-intel/at_tt which repairs pretty much anything. If that fails, the file system is so far gone that it needs to be erased.

    In this case, I went into single user mode and ran fsck, which stated that no problems existed. Since the machine booted past the progress bar and stopped at the same point each time, I thought the issue was software based. I threw in a trusty Leopard disc and went to do an Archive and Install, a nondestructive reinstallation of the operating system, and once the laptop began to boot from the Leopard disk, the screen went dark.

    I plugged the MacBook Pro in, thinking the battery went dead, and tried again–but the computer never turned off. I forced a shut down by holding down the power button and then fired it back up, holding down the trackpad button to force the disk to eject before the startup process, then forced a shut down again. I inserted the machine’s original restore disc and tried to boot from that. Same thing: dark screen.

    I then plugged the machine into our NetBoot system to see if any external boot volume would keep the screen on. Same thing happened.

    Totally baffled, I put the laptop into target disk mode and hooked it up to my own MacBook Pro to capture a backup of the machine. I then reinstalled the operating system from scratch using target disk mode. When it finished, I tried to start it up, and… you guessed it, the screen stayed dark.

    At a total loss, I opened the thing up and started removing components, stripping it to a totally minimal configuration of logic board, inverter, display and a few other components. Gradually, I started plugging components in between restarts, using the process of elimination to figure out which hardware component was causing the problem.

    When I finally arrived at the SuperDrive, I had my answer. The machine behaved normally until I reconnected the SuperDrive, so I then took a known-good SuperDrive flex connector cable to see if that little cable could cause all this ruckus. Lo and behold, a $10 part needed replacing.

    I restored the customer’s data from the backup I’d created and let him know it was ready for pickup. This was truly one of the most bizarre diagnoses to which I’ve ever come.

  • A Bizarre Keyboard Problem with an Unlikely Solution

    A MacBook Pro came in last week because it refused to render the “d” character when its key was pressed. This is bizarre behavior that I hadn’t seen before; usually when a customer reports this sort of problem, technicians don’t immediately believe it.

    We confirmed it was an issue and tried an external keyboard first. The problem persisted, so we knew it wasn’t the keyboard or top case. In MacBook Pros with silver keys on the keyboard, the keyboard and top case are two separate parts. Confirming it wasn’t either part, we booted the computer up from a known-good external source. Your system’s restore disks are the perfect choice here, but we use a fancy NetBoot system that’s much faster and more versatile.

    The problem went away when we booted the computer from the external source, confirming that hardware was not to blame. So, after a restart we started narrowing things down. By creating a new account on the computer, you can determine whether the problem is system-wide or isolated to one particular user. Mac OS X is designed for multiple users, but there are core components that all accounts use.

    The new account did not show the symptom. Lowercase “d” worked just fine. This meant we needed to look at the user account.

    Knowing from experience that this sort of thing usually is a result of fiddling with the Universal Access preference pane, I headed there to look for the case. No luck. Google searches yielded little, and the replacing of various kernel extensions proved ineffective. By chance, I’d clicked on Macintosh HD once, and the name became editable. I decided to try the “d” key again, and the computer spoke “Macintosh HD.”

    Off to the Speech preference pane, where I unchecked “Speak selected text when the key is pressed” from the Text to Speech tab. Somehow, lower-case “d” was set to make the computer speak selected text.