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  • The rise of eSports

    I may be dating myself here… wait, scratch that. I am literally dating myself here, but when I was ten years old a movie came out called The Wizard, starring The Wonder Years’ Fred Savage and sponsored heavily by Nintendo. The story revolved around a pair of brothers on a cross-country journey to make it to the “Video Armageddon” video game championships in California to compete for a prize or something-or-other, it was all quite cliche but for my Super Mario-obsessed brain, it was incredible.

    The concept that there were such things as “Video Game Championships” that thousands of people watched and participated in on the level of professional sports teams literally blew my mind. Little did I know that the first “Nintendo World Championships” of video games actually happened a year after the movie came out and was much less of an event than the movie had depicted and growing up in rural Vermont before the internet meant that even had there been a Video Armageddon every year, my elite skills in The Legend of Zelda would never get me there no matter how many times I got the Triforce.

    Competitive electronic gaming or as it’s known today ‘eSports’ is clearly not new, but around the turn of the century when higher-speed internet became widely available, multiplayer games such as Counterstrike, Starcraft and League of Legends among many others spurred the development of national and international tournaments with cash prizes, scholarships, sponsored teams and finally the kind of recognition and following that allow someone to be an eSports athlete full-time.

    When it began, amateur competitions drew a few thousand fans in person and over the Internet. In October 2013, 32 million people watched the championship of Riot Games’ League of Legends on streaming services such as Twitch and YouTube. That’s more viewers than the 2013 NBA Finals and MLB World Series combined.

    Streaming services also provide a platform to earn big money for content creators. Twitch streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins recently revealed that he makes $500,000 per month streaming gameplay on Twitch but he cautions people eager to make money playing video games,

    “You can’t just drop everything to focus on playing video games for a living. It’s also becoming a very competitive career choice. You want to make sure you’re securing your future while putting the extra time to make this happen as well.”

    So where is this headed? The International Olympic Committee just made moves that may introduce eSports into the Olympic Games in the future, making statements addressing the challenges in dealing with the violent themes in many competitive games, and the strong male-heavy gender imbalance in the current pool of eSports athletes, neither of which reflect on the spirit of the Olympics. Regardless of this, the IOC officially recognized eSports as an actual sport in November, paving the way for big moves in the future.

    As of yet, there’s no word on whether using the Power Glove™ would be considered an illegal performance-enhancement but I’ll be in training just in case.

    Nintendo Power Glove

  • HomePod Tips

    HomePod has finally arrived in our retail stores! While it has been shipping for a little over a month now, its taken a little while for Apple to open up availability to resellers such as ourselves. Our staff have eagerly set up speakers in all of our stores, everyone has been impressed with the sound quality and reporting that Siri is working better than ever!

    Single user. Anyone in the room can give Siri commands, but when it comes to account-based connections, the HomePod is a single-user device. So if you set it up, which is astonishingly easy, it will connect to your Apple Music account, your iMessage account, your iCloud account for Reminders, and so on. That’s fine for you, but, for instance, your family members won’t be able to access their Apple Music playlists.

    Speakerphone. The HomePod may be the best speakerphone you’ve ever used. Alas, you can’t initiate a call on it, but once you start one on your iPhone, you can transfer the call by tapping the new Audio button that replaced the Speaker button in iOS 11.2.5 and selecting the HomePod.

    Apple Music. The HomePod can act as an AirPlay speaker, allowing it to play audio from your other Apple devices. But when you control it via Siri, the music must come from Apple Music, your iTunes Store purchases, or be matched in your iCloud Music Library. To send Mac audio from apps other than iTunes to the HomePod, get Rogue Amoeba’s Airfoil.

    Audio power. It may be small, but the HomePod has plenty of power. At 6 feet, we measured the sound output at 100% volume at 80 decibels, which is louder than is comfortable.

    Volume control. Speaking of volume, you control it by percentages, as in “Hey Siri, set the volume to 15 percent.” You can also tap the + and – buttons on the top of the HomePod to adjust the volume in 5% increments.

    It listens. The HomePod hears your commands remarkably well, even when it’s playing music at a high volume. You shouldn’t have to shout at it.

    Hey Siri. If you’re within earshot of a HomePod and want to give Siri a command on your iPhone or Apple Watch, don’t say “Hey Siri” right away. Instead, to use your iPhone, unlock it first. Or, to use your Apple Watch, raise your wrist. Apple has an explanation of how Hey Siri works with multiple devices.

    Apple TV. You can play audio from your Apple TV through your HomePod. On the main screen of the Apple TV, press and hold the Play/Pause button on the Siri Remote, and then select the HomePod before playing a show. Or, while playing video, swipe down on the Siri Remote, swipe right to select Audio, and then select your HomePod in the Speaker li

    Once you’ve transferred audio to the HomePod, you can use Hey Siri commands to pause and play the Apple TV content, change volume, and even rewind and fast-forward by a certain amount of time (“Hey Siri, rewind 10 seconds”). However, other things that Siri on the Apple TV can do, like tell you who stars in a movie, work only when you press and hold the Siri button on the Siri Remote.

    Apple plans to release software updates that will enable two HomePods in the same room to provide true stereo sound, and that will let you control multiple HomePods simultaneously for multi-room audio. So far I’ve held out on setting up HomePod in my home. Something tells me though, that once this next update comes out I won’t be able to fight the urge any longer.

  • Dear Friends,

    Many folks use the calendar to let them know that spring has arrived, but for me, it’s hair. As soon as I start to notice my horses shedding out their winter coats I know spring is near, even if I hop into my car and see the temperature gauge display -6 degrees when taking the kids to school. Over the last week my horses have begun shedding at an incredible rate. Last night as I took the shedding blade to my mare I quickly created a pile of fallen hair on the ground and it brought a little smile to my face. The birds and other small critters also enjoy the site of my horses shedding their winter coats, as the fallen hair is a popular nest-making material. I’m looking forward to once again being able to have evening horse therapy sessions after work. While my dogs are great company, I’m a horse girl through and through. Not much beats the smell of the horse barn and time with my horses after work.

    We have been doing some spring cleaning around the Small Dog offices and warehouse. I’m always surprised to see the things we’ve continued to hold onto after all these years and some of it is truly junk! In a back closet, I found a five-gallon bucket of what looked like spackle that had dried up ten years ago and a huge bag of lightweight utility or gardening gloves. Did we at some point hire an army of workers to spackle who were afraid to get their hands dirty? I’ll never know. Luckily, our spring cleaning has mostly revealed valuable items. If you happen to be in Vermont this weekend, stop by our South Burlington store today or tomorrow. We’ve pulled together all of or used, demo, dented box, refurbished and other less than perfect box computers and iPads and have put them on sale.

    This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive bundle is HomePod and Phillips Hue. HomePod is now the central hub in many homes, so why not let it take over your lights? This bundle normally sells for $549.98, but Kibbles & Bytes readers can get it for $524.98.

  • The Rise of eSports

    I may be dating myself here… wait, scratch that. I am literally dating myself here, but when I was ten years old a movie came out called The Wizard, starring The Wonder Years’ Fred Savage and sponsored heavily by Nintendo. The story revolved around a pair of brothers on a cross-country journey to make it to the “Video Armageddon” video game championships in California to compete for a prize or something-or-other, it was all quite cliche but for my Super Mario-obsessed brain, it was incredible.

    The concept that there were such things as “Video Game Championships” that thousands of people watched and participated in on the level of professional sports teams literally blew my mind. Little did I know that the first “Nintendo World Championships” of video games actually happened a year after the movie came out and was much less of an event than the movie had depicted and growing up in rural Vermont before the internet meant that even had there been a Video Armageddon every year, my elite skills in The Legend of Zelda would never get me there no matter how many times I got the Triforce.

    Competitive electronic gaming or as it’s known today ‘eSports’ is clearly not new, but around the turn of the century when higher-speed internet became widely available, multiplayer games such as Counterstrike, Starcraft and League of Legends among many others spurred the development of national and international tournaments with cash prizes, scholarships, sponsored teams and finally the kind of recognition and following that allow someone to be an eSports athlete full-time.

    When it began, amateur competitions drew a few thousand fans in person and over the Internet. In October 2013, 32 million people watched the championship of Riot Games’ League of Legends on streaming services such as Twitch and YouTube. That’s more viewers than the 2013 NBA Finals and MLB World Series combined.

    Streaming services also provide a platform to earn big money for content creators. Twitch streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins recently revealed that he makes $500,000 per month streaming gameplay on Twitch but he cautions people eager to make money playing video games,

    “You can’t just drop everything to focus on playing video games for a living. It’s also becoming a very competitive career choice. You want to make sure you’re securing your future while putting the extra time to make this happen as well.”

    So where is this headed? The International Olympic Committee just made moves that may introduce eSports into the Olympic Games in the future, making statements addressing the challenges in dealing with the violent themes in many competitive games, and the strong male-heavy gender imbalance in the current pool of eSports athletes, neither of which reflect on the spirit of the Olympics. Regardless of this, the IOC officially recognized eSports as an actual sport in November, paving the way for big moves in the future.

    As of yet, there’s no word on whether using the Power Glove™ would be considered an illegal performance-enhancement but I’ll be in training just in case.

    Nintendo Power Glove

  • What’s a scam? Are you being bamboozled?

    Far too many times a day I hear the complaint, “I was just browsing the web and all of a sudden something popped up on my screen telling me my computer was infected and told me to call a number for support in order to clean it out!” Ring a bell? Maybe you or someone you know has experienced this. Many users go so far as to allow remote access from a support representative when they called because the person on the other end ensures them they will fix their computer. Often times remote-control support software is installed and the support person will start moving the cursor, opening applications and typing things in the terminal and navigating to strange websites. This leaves the user feeling as though whatever was claimed to be wrong with their computer is being fixed. Unfortunately, in many cases, it’s a form of a scam to get you to agree to some one time fee to resolve the issue or maybe get you to agree to a monthly fee for monitoring designed to ensure your machine is never infected again. While in many cases this software does provide some minimal support, the bottom line is, your computer is never going to provide you with a phone number to call from a company you haven’t signed up with for security monitoring.

    Unless YOU installed the software this is just a crafty form of malware designed to get some money from you. As Mac users, we aren’t plagued as much as Windows PCs by actual trojans and viruses but that doesn’t mean all users of Apple hardware can’t be annoyed by spyware and malware. Even iPads and iPhones have been known to get these kinds of pop-ups that are often a form of ransomware making the user feel like they have to pay a fee to gain access to their devices.

    Apple holds itself to a very high standard when it comes to protecting it’s user’s privacy in many ways and does everything they can to protect your personal data. You have multiple levels of protection on your side like FileVault encryption and a solid pre-configured firewall on your side. You’ve got intelligent pop-up blockers and security warnings built into not only Safari but most industry standard browsers. You have the ability to block cookies and disable flash on websites, block any unidentified apps from running, clear your cache and browsing history. Even reinstall your entire operating system if it comes to that, these are tools provided with EVERY Apple desktop and laptop and have been for years upon years.

    No one can completely guarantee your machine won’t become “infected” by these kinds of intrusive programs. Browsing the web and using social media is inherently dangerous for all kinds of reasons, but you can use best practices to try and avoid these issues. Sure, we can recommend that you install an Ad-Blocker and reset your browser often, making sure to delete any unauthorized extensions you may have unknowingly allowed in. You can run apps like MalwareBytes, CCleaner or ClamXAV among others to automatically remove known adware and malware. These are all stop-gap measures, your best defense is taking a moment to evaluate before you make a call, click or open an e-mail. There is still no better defense than second guessing and not opening something you are unsure of.

    Some folks use TOR, VPNs or a combination of the two to abstract their location from the servers they’re trying to access. Apple always recommends you keep updating your system when updates come out to ensure you have their latest security measures and vulnerabilities patched. We have started providing our Adware Removal service as a response to a large number of concerned users after having fallen victim to some of these instances of unknowing allowing someone unknown to access their computer and helping provide them with peace of mind that their data and information is once again secure. We hope that the time comes we don’t need to offer these services, but, as computers evolve so will ways to catch folks off guard!

  • Yo, Tech Tails readers!

    The last edition you may remember I signed off with a quip about an early Spring on the way and the end of the snowy weather. Well, as fate would have it, I was wrong (much to Art’s amusement). And Mother Nature doesn’t appear to be letting up on the snow anytime soon. I guess that’s how it goes! But I’m still counting down the days to Summer while enjoying the Winter sunshine. Fortunately, the frigid temperatures weren’t enough to keep me from enjoying the weekend and a nice long walk with the pups yesterday afternoon.

    It’s been an exciting morning here in Waitsfield as we’ve been playing with the Homepod! I must say, I had my doubts regarding the sound quality and if it could rival that of the Sonos Play: 1’s, but after hearing what just a single Homepod unit can put out, I’m happy to say I’ve been swayed and will definitely find myself investing in one or two very soon. Furthermore, I was impressed that I was able to successfully call upon Siri from across our showroom floor with the music at max volume! Apple has certainly made their presence known in the home-audio market and I am eagerly awaiting more developments and evolution from them within the market.

    We’ve got a solid issue of Tech Tails for you this week, and as always I hope you can take away some insight from it. A short introduction from me this week as I battle a stubborn head-cold, but I’ll resume my lengthy ramblings next edition. And perhaps it’ll be sunny and 65º here in Waitsfield by then. Alright, maybe that’s overambitious. Fingers crossed!

    Keep fighting the good fight, Tech Tails readers!
    Connor “Wake Me When It’s 80º” McGinnis
    connormcginnis@smalldog.com

  • Two years ago my cousins and I got together spontaneously one weekend and called it cousins night. It was a blast. We’ve decided…