Kibbles & Bytes Blog

Remember when iPad was first introduced? Many people thought Apple would release a traditional tablet–something like a MacBook without a keyboard. Instead, Apple thought different and produced a device that is truly “magical and revolutionary.”

We believed in iPad from day one. We knew it was a transformative device, and that iPad owners would want to use it every single day. We also knew that iPad owners would want to protect their iPad from daily wear and tear.

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So, cut to the present: we decided to design our own iPad case. We started with a slew of prototypes, from which we removed buckles, clasps, velcro and snaps. Instead, Verso uses tiny magnets to stay closed and easily snaps open for instant iPad access. (Don’t worry–these magnets are strong enough to keep Verso shut, but far too weak to harm any electronics.) We removed business card holders and floppy stylus slots.

We nixed the vinyl and sourced premium leather in three colors–black, brown and candy apple red. We used stronger stitching in fewer places. We added a simple folding cover that allows iPad to be propped up at a comfortable typing angle.

The result is Verso: a simple, premium quality, easy-access case that protects iPad in style. It can go from coffee shop to boardroom to bedroom. It looks great and feels great in the hand. It’s a case that your iPad can live in.

“Click here to see Verso in three colors”:http://www.smalldog.com/search/?find=verso. We’ve temporarily dropped the price $20, to $39.99. That’s a great value on an exceptional iPad case, if we don’t say so ourselves.

We have a rack full of various Xserves that power our website and business, so we were deeply saddened when Apple announced a few months ago that they’d no longer be available past January of 2011.

Yes, yesterday was the Xserve’s last day. We never really got to take a moment of silence in honor of these compact and capable enterprise-class servers–and beautiful, let’s not forget how much they classed up a boring server rack–so let’s do so now.

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Okay, that’s enough of that! While I “bemoaned the loss of high-availability features”:http://www.makkintosshu.com/journal/xserve-your-day-has-come of the Xserve (esp. hot swappable internal storage and redundant power supplies) and the ability to pack that much power into 1U of rack space, all is not lost. We had already begun replacing a number of our aging Xserves with Mac minis when Apple made the fateful announcement.

We find the Mac mini to easily hold its own against an Xserve G5 with a fraction of the power, cooling, and space requirements. This means not only a smaller physical footprint, but a significantly smaller carbon footprint. And our backs and wallets thank us every time we deploy one as well.

We’re not the only ones who have come to this conclusion. Macminicolo.net
“published their numbers”:http://www.macminicolo.net/numbers.html regarding hosting with Mac minis and are in complete agreement. They’ve hosted 1,278 Mac minis over the last 6+ years, most of which are still in their facility. Not too surprising to us is the fact that some of those were installed on day one and are still going strong. Even more impressive though is that only 11 of them have ever required a hardware repair (“5 dead hard drives, 4 dead motherboards, 1 dead power adapter, 1 corrupted memory module”).

And, you know what? They stopped taking in Xserves for colocation a year ago and not a single customer has found switching to a Mac mini to be detrimental. Like us, the ones switching from Xserve G5s saw a net performance gain! Macminicolo.net calculates a $3,777 savings in hardware & colocation costs by going with a Mac mini over an Xserve.

The “Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/76351/mac-mini-with-snow-leopard-server-2-66ghz-4gb-dual-500gb/at_tt has been an excellent solution for us and we’re glad to see they’re working out well for so many others! “Drop us an email”:mailto:sales@smalldog.com if you think a Mac mini might be a fit for your business!