Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • Taking Photography to the iPad

    One of my biggest pet peeves about digital photography is taking a picture and having it look good on your camera’s display only to find something wrong with it when transferred to your computer.

    I recently purchased an item to help combat this: The Eye-Fi Connect Card. This SD card has built in Wi-Fi, and can wirelessly transfer photos to your computer, iPhone or iPad.

    The Eye-Fi card can remember up to 32 wireless networks, and even create its own for your device to join. This makes it perfect for either shooting at home or viewing pictures on the go.

    The Eye-Fi comes in three different models. There are “4GB”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/78320/eye-fi-connect-x2-4gb-sd-secure-digital-sdhc-class-6-card-with-wi-fi/at_bis and 8GB models for everyday users, which transfer JPEG photos and movies, and a “8GB Pro”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/78321/eye-fi-pro-x2-8gb-sd-secure-digital-sdhc-class-6-card-with-wi-fi/at_bis for more serious photographers with support for RAW files.

    All three cards feature an endless memory mode that allows you to automatically free up a card by deleting photos once they have been sent to your device. The cards can also be configured to automatically upload your photos to your favorite social network site such as Facebook or Flickr.

    The biggest selling point for me was the ability to send photos directly to your iPad. An iPad is easier to haul around with you than your laptop and also makes it fun and easy to show off your photos to people as you take them.

    Plus, since everything is wireless, you don’t have to worry about additional accessories like a camera connection kit. Eye-Fi cards make a great solution for professionals who want to show off their work as they’re taking photos.

    Eye-Fi even has a free iOS “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%2Feye-fi%2Fid306011124%3Fmt%3D8%2526uo%253D6%2526partnerId%253D30 While it does all the basic functions, it’s still a free app and could use some improvement.

    For the best results, I use an app called “ShutterSnitch.”: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%2Fshuttersnitch%2Fid364176211%3Fmt%3D8%2526uo%253D6%2526partnerId%253D30 ShutterSnitch allows you to wirelessly import photos to the iPad and sort them into events based on the project you’re working on.

    ShutterSnitch comes with some nice features such as the ability to set up rules the photo should follow such as ISO, shutter speed, aperture and light level. If these rules aren’t followed, ShutterSnitch will send a warning. It can highlight washed out areas and even watermark your photos should you decide to publish them. ShutterSnitch is a universal app and is available for both iPad and iPhone.

    An Eye-Fi card plus ShutterSnitch makes your iPad the perfect tool for photography. Whether you’re a professional looking to show clients previews on the fly or just a hobbyist who likes to look at their photos on a bigger screen before calling it a day.

    Both items work for a wide variety of users and are an absolute must have.

  • Friend us, Follow Us

    Check out our blog, Barkings! to keep up with the latest Mac news, tips and tricks. Keep up with the Small Dog Barkings!…

  • *Greetings from Manchester, NH!*

    This month, we held two of our famous annual eWaste Recycling events. One at National Life Group in Montpelier, VT and the other at our newest location in the Mall of New Hampshire in Manchester, NH. We had a great turnout in both locations.

    Here in Manchester we unloaded 615 cars, resulting in seven filled semi trailers and 75 tons of collected eWaste! Our Vermont event collected even more with 1,100 cars–totaling 100 tons of eWaste!

    We’d like to thank each of our community members and volunteers for making the choice to recycle responsibly and helping to keep this waste out of our landfills! We will continue to hold these annual events, and plan to schedule at least one more eWaste event this year. Stay tuned for details!

    We have continued to get a great response from both new and returning customers in our Manchester, NH location. We are working to continually offer even more in this location.

    We have recently started hosting seminars each weekend to teach you more about your Apple products. Our offerings are listed in the right side of this newsletter, they are all free and last about 30 minutes. Please stop by and check them out!

    – Michelle and Manchester Retail Crew

  • MAC TREAT #156: Look it Up!

    Earlier in the week, Merriam-Webster debuted an HD (iPad native) version of its previously iPhone/iPod touch only Dictionary app. After installing the free…

  • Mac OS X 10.6.8 and Mac Protector/MACDefender

    Apple is currently preparing an update to Mac OS X 10.6 that will detect and remove the MACDefender malware, and prevent users from installing it again should they be faced with its tempting trap to remove a nonexistent threat. We wrote about this in “past Tech Tails”:http://blog.smalldog.com/techtails, “on our blog”:http://blog.smalldog.com, and “in our other newsletters”:http://www.smalldog.com/newsletters. This is certainly a welcome move on Apple’s part, but it worries me that such an obviously fraudulent piece of software is being downloaded seemingly by thousands and thousands of users.

    About half, or even more, of the calls to our tech support call center are from customers seeking assistance in removing the software. About half of those customers gave their credit card number to the software and had to call their bank to cancel their cards.

    Though OS X remains secure, it is vulnerable to users who don’t think their decisions through quite thoroughly enough. Odds are we will see similar attacks in the future, so it’d be a good idea to get into the habit of Googling the name of any product offered in a pop up window or advertisement on a web page. It only take a moment, and can give you reasonable peace of mind that you are purchasing not only a legitimate, but a useful product that performs as advertised.

    While you will want to install 10.6.8 when it’s released through Software Update, both for protection against this malware and for new features, the most important thing you can do for yourself is to use common sense when downloading software and navigating web sites.

  • Print and Scan in Snow Leopard

    Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard brings a multitude of under-the-hood improvements, most of which are invisible to the normal user. However, changes to the Print and Scan architecture will affect users of older printers, scanners, and all-in-one units. Here is some useful information if you are about to make this upgrade.

    Apple has bundled printer drivers with recent versions of Mac OS X and has taken things a step further in Snow Leopard, currently including software drivers for multifunction devices from Apple, Brother, Canon, Epson, Fuji-Xerox, Gestentner, HP, Infotec, Lanier, Lexmark, NRG, Ricoh, Samsung, Savin, Tektronix, Xerox, as well as selected drivers for some other manufacturers. “Check your device”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3669 against Apple’s list to see whether it is compatible for printing and/or scanning in Snow Leopard.

    Apple’s knowledge base also has an entry called “Mac 101 – Printing”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3771 which details exactly how to set up your printer.

    Apple is also providing driver updates through Apple Software update for devices from Brother, Canon, Epson, HP, and Lexmark (and possibly others in the future). Now–instead of getting individual updates for each device from manufacturers’ websites– printer driver updates come directly through Apple’s Software Update mechanism. For other manufacturers, you can keep checking for updates in the first link above, and on the respective manufacturer’s website.

    A big change in Snow Leopard is the discontinuation of AppleTalk support. AppleTalk, a long-lived protocol for printing and file sharing, saw it’s final iteration in Leopard, and has been completely removed in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. If you have a printer that uses AppleTalk, you can try to see if it supports any other methods for printing, such as Bonjour, IP Printing, or generic PCL support. There are some very old printers that support only PCL and AppleTalk, so you can try the generic PCL drivers for those if all other options are unavailable.

    In 10.5 and earlier, most scanning was done through custom applications provided by each scanner vendor. Some of that custom scanner software will continue to work on machines upgraded from 10.5 to 10.6, but most scanning devices work under Apple’s own Image Capture application found in the Applications folder. In the short run, some users with slightly older gear will have to wait for newer driver updates to use Image Capture, but anyone with a new scanner or all-in-one unit should be able to use Image Capture right out of the box. Please check the “compatibility list”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3669 to check for your specific unit.

    Printers and scanners are often neglected as consumers and businesses upgrade their gear. If you find that your equipment isn’t fully supported in Snow Leopard, now is a great time to upgrade to more modern printers, scanners, and all-in-one units that support modern protocols like Bonjour. While our consulting staff can often coax more support out of older gear, the most cost-effective choice is often just to get new gear that works right out of the box, provides more robust features, networking, power consumption, and reliability.

    Give us a call or stop in one of our stores to talk with a Sales Associate about new gear, or contact “Rob Amon”:mailto:rob@smalldog.com in corporate sales if you are interested in bigger office printers, printer leasing, and printer/scanner gear that goes beyond the list on our website.

  • Don't Swap That Board!

    If you’ve ever seen an actual hard drive, you are familiar with their basic shape and construction. On the underside of all hard drives is a printed circuit board, or PCB. It is this board that often contains the drive’s firmware and information about bad sectors; it also controls the flow of power and data to and from the drive. In many instances of hard drive failure, there is nothing wrong mechanically, but the PCB itself has failed.

    In the old days it was possible to swap the PCB from an identical, functional drive into a broken one, and recover the data that way. This was practical and useful on drives up to perhaps two gigabytes in capacity. Now that hard drives aren’t even manufactured in capacities less than 160 gigabytes, it is not advisable to swap these boards.

    Older drives had self-test data, tables of bad sectors and other diagnostic and operational information on the platters of the drive itself; today, in order to squeeze the greatest capacity out of hard drives and for reasons I won’t even begin to speculate, the information is stored in nonvolatile solid state memory on the PCB itself.

    If a modern drive has its PCB swapped out, it may seem to function (spin up and make normal noises), but once it’s spun up and had its data port hooked to something, the data will likely be completely corrupted and totally unrecoverable.

    Data recovery at Small Dog Electronics is done with the utmost care, using the most sophisticated software tools available. We are often able to recover the vast majority of data from each drive that comes through our doors, at prices a tiny fraction of those charged by professional outfits like DriveSavers. This said, we won’t be able to recover your data if your drive is clicking or grinding, and odds are DriveSavers won’t be able to either.

    If your computer is under warranty, we can replace your hard drive at no cost to you while your failed drive is being worked on by DriveSavers. They really are miracle workers.

    When it comes right down to it, there is no reason for anyone to need data recovery. Hard drives are very inexpensive now, and now that we have Time Machine, we don’t even have to think about backing up. Give us a ring or swing by a Small Dog store, and we’ll design a solution that meets your needs and budget!