Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • Mac App Store Opening January 6

    Apple, yesterday released a “*PR document*”:http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/12/16macappstore.html announcing that the Mac App Store will open Thursday, January 6. Utilizing a similar business model to the current App Store, (soon to be dubbed the iOS App Store?) the OS X application will surely change the ways in which programs are installed, updated, and managed on the Mac.

    Just as Apple revolutionized the mobile industry with the opening of the original App Store in 2008, the Mac App Store is poised for the same levels of success. Navigating developer sites or Apple’s own downloads page for applications, will soon be a thing of the past. With a selection of paid and free apps in a wide variety of categories, the Mac App Store will make discovering and installing new apps easier than ever. As all transactions are tied to an Apple ID (the same one used for iTunes purchases) users will simply have to log in to begin downloading content.

    Perhaps one of the greatest strengths of Apple’s new platform is its ability to effortlessly manage updates. If you have a large number of traditional 3rd party applications installed on your Mac, you know it can be a serious pain to keep them up-to-date. Similar to its iOS counterpart, the Mac App Store will alert you whenever updates become available, and allow you to easily install them. Steve Jobs offered the following on the new store:

    bq. __”The App Store revolutionized mobile apps. We hope to do the same for PC apps with the Mac App Store by making, finding, and buying PC apps easy and fun. We can’t wait to get started on January 6.”__

    Though the Mac App Store is an important innovation for several reasons, among them is the glimpse of the future it offers. With Apple slated to sell much of their traditionally disc-based software digitally, the new commerce platform may indicate the death of optical media is nigh. It is safe to assume that if other major developers begin to follow suit, we might not be seeing software sections in electronics stores for very much longer. Digital distribution is undoubtably the wave of the future.

    If Apple can execute the Mac App Store to the same level of polish and success it has achieved on iOS, it will cause serious waves in the software industry and usher in a new era of content distribution and acquisition. Kiss those discs goodbye, my friends!

    When the Mac App Store launches next year, it will be available as a free download through Software Update. Stay tuned and we’ll provide you will all of the details as we learn more.

    Do you think the store has enough potential to mark the imminent death of physical media? “Leave your comment on our blog and let us know!”:http://blog.smalldog.com/article/apple-announces-january-6th-mac-app-store-launch/

  • MAC TREAT #142: The Joy of Discovery

    One of the joys of using OS X is discovering useful little features on a regular basis. I frequently hear this from new Mac users, but it’s just as true for me–and I’ve used a Mac daily for more years than I care to relate. These “new” discoveries are often old news to other Mac users.

    For example, in the Apple Mail program, I always thought that the little curling arrow next to an email you’ve replied to was simply a visual cue saying “hey, you replied to this email.” However, it’s actually a button. When you click the little curling arrow, the original email that you replied to opens. This makes digging through an email chain a bit less cumbersome.

    This is something that everyone else at Small Dog seemed to know about, but again it was new to me. It makes me wonder what else I’m missing and have yet to discover. And for me, that’s part of what keeps the Mac fun to use!

  • _Dear Friends,_

    Someone tried to put a damper on our holiday spirit as both of our Vermont stores suffered break-ins and robberies this week. My staff reacted fantastically by both cleaning up the mess of broken glass and displays and by continuing to provide great customer service to the busy stores, even as the doors and windows were being repaired. Shoppers were very sympathetic and we continued to operate while we tried to recover from the thefts. Other Apple Specialists across the country offered their help, too, and we are very proud to be part of such a strong network.

    We have to change our mindset a bit based upon these robberies. We are operating a jewelry store and the jewels are iPods and iPads. There seems to be an increase in thefts this time of the year, and even normally safe Vermont seems to have gotten its share of drug-related property crimes. Through our associations with the Vermont Retail Association and VBSR, I have found expert consultants to help us respond to this new threat.

    The weather has definitely turned into winter with snow and cold temperatures as we head into the final week before Christmas. As we had predicted, the hottest gifts for the season are iPads, iPods, Apple TV and the new 11-inch MacBook Air. The growth of the iPad market is simply spectacular as it makes its inroads from homes into businesses and government. My attorney called me the other day to tell me that he had used his iPad in court and it was the first time, to his knowledge, that an iPad was used during a trial in Vermont.

    I am pleased to announce that we are introducing Hammerhead stylus pens for iPad, iPod and iPhone. While we considered manufacturing gloves with sensitive fingers for the winter months here in the North Country, we felt that introducing our own selection of these styluses would be a better solution, especially for those who wear mittens! We have three styles available immediately. The first is a pen-like stylus, the second is a slim retractable stylus with an integrated sim card pin under the cap and the last is the Stubbie stylus that can be tethered to your iPod, iPhone or iPad by the headphone jack.

    “See them all here!”:http://www.smalldog.com/search/?find=hammerhead+stylus

  • Apple Updates iBooks

    Earlier this morning, Apple rolled out an update for its popular ‘iBooks’ e-reader app. The app, which is universal across compatible iOS devices,…

  • Gotta Get Back In Time!

    First things first. Major props and an internet high five if you picked up on the nod to Huey Lewis/Back to the Future…

  • Twitter Had The Answer: Comcast DNS Was Down

    About a week ago, I was surfing the web on my iPad and tapped a link. Safari tried to load the page but stalled. I waited a minute or so and tried another site to no avail. I tried quitting Safari and re-opening it with the same result. I then tried my girlfriend’s iMac without success.

    I opened up AirPort Utility on the iMac, which reported no errors; I restarted the Time Capsule anyway without success. Lastly, I unplugged my Comcast modem for a minute or two to power cycle it. No go. The Time Capsule recognized that it was connected to the Internet, the iPad and the iMac were connected to the network, but no matter what address I typed in, the web browser would just stall.

    Thinking I had the answer already, I picked up my trusty iPhone and searched for Comcast in my Twitter app. Hundreds of tweets appeared from all over the country. One of my favorites was “I suppose Comcast doesn’t want me to finish my homework,” while others informed users to try using Google’s of OpenDNS’s DNS servers.

    With this information I headed over to the Mac and opened up AirPort Utility. There, under the “Internet” settings, I changed the DNS address to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.8.4, and restarted the Time Capsule. Sure enough, once the Time Capsule came back up after the restart, full connectivity was restored.

    DNS servers usually operate to translate the recognizable and memorable domain names like google.com to their respective IP addresses like 173.194.35.104. The address I typed in was for Google’s DNS server. So far, their service has been reliable, even faster, and I have not switched back to Comcast’s address.

  • Tip of the Week: Faster DNS Servers

    Here in the Mad River Valley of Vermont, we are fortunate to have high-speed Internet access via the local utility, Waitsfield Telecom. Much of the system was just upgraded from 1.5 Mb/sec to 6 Mb/sec, some of us can upgrade to 12MB/sec, and some new constructions can even have fiber to their home or business.

    Small Dog recently installed a new fiber connection, upgrading from a creaky old T1 that handled our web traffic and internal bandwidth needs. Despite my recent upgrade to 12 Mb/sec at home, it still takes a while for web pages to “resolve,” or begin to load, after entering the address and pressing return.

    The Domain Name System (DNS) has many functions, one of which is to translate alphanumeric web addresses (“www.smalldog.com”:http://www.smalldog.com) into Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. All internet-connected devices must have an IP address, and the IP address must be unique: no two devices on the Internet have the same IP address.

    All Internet Service Providers (ISPs) maintain their own DNS servers, designed for use on their network, but in many cases these servers are not especially speedy. I decided to ask Google for fast free DNS servers, and I settled on two: 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2. Web pages now seem to resolve much faster, making web browsing a more satisfying experience.

    There is a better way, though. “namebench”:http://code.google.com/p/namebench/ is an open-source utility from Google that seeks out the fastest DNS servers, and lets you graphically see just how much more speed you might get by switching to something faster. I gave it a try last night and did notice that pages seem to load a bit faster than before. Google also recently “announced”:http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/ its own DNS server, and the terms and conditions say that browsing habits and history are not recorded. Give it a go!

    Your DNS server settings can be changed in the Network Preference Pane under all versions of Mac OS X, or with AirPort Utility if you wish to change the DNS settings at the router level.

  • Reader Feedback: Let it Sleep

    __From Tech Tails reader Paul K.__

    “Hi Matt! I was reading Tech Tails and I have a solution to the problem you describe in your article ‘Let it Sleep.’ I used to be annoyed having to wait some seconds before my MacBook Pro would go to sleep until I found a preference pane called “Smart Sleep” which depending on the state of charge of a MacBook’s battery will trigger only sleep, deep sleep, or both (which is what the machine usually does: goes to sleep, but writes the content of ram onto HD, so that if the power runs out, in can be restored).

    I have it set so that if my battery is more than 35% charged, closing the lid will instantly put the computer to sleep without taking the seconds to prepare deep sleep. In my case, the computer is sleeping by the time the lid touches the frame. I hope this helps you, and if you like it, maybe you can share it with other readers.

    Cheers, Paul”