Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • Apple Goes 'Back to the Mac'

    This week, Apple announced that they will hold a media event next Wednesday the 20th. Dubbed “Back to the Mac,” invitations to the event feature a 3D Apple logo with the image of a lion hidden behind it. Reports from Engadget and MacRumors indicate that the event will occur at 10:00AM PST on Apple’s campus in Cupertino.

    The teaser image featured on the invitation has kick-started the rumor mills, bringing about significant speculation that the next major iteration of Mac OS X will be unveiled at the event. The inclusion of the lion potentially hints at the moniker OS 10.7 might take on, all but confirming Apple will continue their “big cat” theme.

    This announcement marks the first Mac specific media event in months. With the release of the iPad and iPhone 4 earlier in the year, and the next generation of iPods last month, Apple’s focus has been on their mobile platforms.

    Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is just over a year old, so now seems an appropriate time for 10.7 to be debuted. Enthusiasts have also speculated that the event may see the introduction of new hardware and additional software to supplement a potential OS announcement. With the holiday shopping season fast approaching, a move such as this would seem logical.

    Whatever Steve and Co. have up their sleeves will be announced next week. Stay tuned to “*Barkings*”:http://blog.smalldog.com/ and “*@hellosmalldog*”:http://twitter.com/hellosmalldog for updates.

    What are your predictions for Wednesday’s media event? Let us know “*here.*”:http://blog.smalldog.com/article/apple-schedules-back-to-the-mac-media-event-on-oct-20th/

  • Calling All Vermonters and New Hampshirites Oct. 23!

    *If you have old, broken, and obsolete electronics, you can recycle them for FREE on Saturday, October 23rd.* We are holding two events–one in our new Manchester, NH location at the Mall of New Hampshire and one at 30 Community Drive, S. Burlington, VT (Ben & Jerry’s offices)–from 9am – 3pm.

    *WHEN: Saturday, October 23, 2010 from 9am – 3pm*
    *WHERE:* “*Mall of New Hampshire, Manchester, NH*”:http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Mall+of+New+Hampshire,+Manchester,+NH&sll=44.450387,-73.144741&sspn=0.053673,0.08214&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=The+Mall+of+New+Hampshire,+Manchester,+Hillsborough,+New+Hampshire+03103&z=15 *and* “*Ben & Jerry’s, S. Burlington, VT*”:http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Ben+%26+Jerry’s+Homemade+Inc,+South+Burlington,+VT&sll=44.452715,-73.139248&sspn=0.055019,0.08214&ie=UTF8&hq=Ben+%26+Jerry’s+Homemade+Inc,&hnear=South+Burlington,+Chittenden,+Vermont&ll=44.450387,-73.144741&spn=0.053673,0.08214&z=14&iwloc=A
    *WHAT: All computers, monitors, printers, fax machines, cell phones, stereo equipment, digital phones, VCRs, televisions, old cables, connectors, adapters. __We will collect everything electronic except for household appliances.__*

    *Be sure to see our website for a full list of what’s accepted* (and what’s not): “Smalldog.com/ewaste2010”:http://www.smalldog.com/ewaste2010/at_kb

    All of the ewaste collected will be responsibly processed in the US by WeRecycle. While a small percentage of the ewaste can be salvaged, in most cases ewaste is broken down so elements such as tin, copper, silicon, beryllium, carbon, iron, aluminum can be reused in other electronics. Plastic, steel and glass can also be recycled. Certain waste goes to to manufacturer take-back programs.

    Hope to see you there!

  • TopTen.plist #9: Our Favorite Macs

    With Apple’s official announcement of their forthcoming media event, speculations are at an all time high regarding potential product and software updates in…

  • AAPL Hits and Closes Above $300

    Though I’m no financial writer, I can still appreciate that yesterday marked a noteworthy day in Apple’s financial history. For the first time,…

  • _Dear Friends,_

    I had a ball working the line at the grand opening of our new Manchester store. The line started forming around 7AM and soon stretched all the way past the food court and just outside of Best Buy.

    Ed and Kali gave away t-shirts and swag, while I worked the line with Kerry’s son James. I tried to shake everyone’s hand and thank them for coming. It was amazing to me how many people have been reading Kibbles & Bytes for years, knew all about Small Dog and were there to help us celebrate the opening of our new store.

    Mike Hogan and Mary Philipsek from Apple also were in attendance and rather than just standing around and watching, they both dug right in and started helping customers, demoing equipment and making sales. It made me feel really good to get that kind of help!

    I am very proud of our Manchester crew; we have hired some winners and I’m sure as you come to our store and get to know them that you will agree. Katie and her crew did such an amazing job creating a store that we can be proud of–I am very impressed.

    Now, the hard work begins as we head into the holiday season. We have one more big pre-holiday event first–our *simultaneous two-state free ewaste collection effort on Oct. 23rd.*

    We will be collecting ewaste in the parking lot at the Mall of New Hampshire in Manchester, NH (the mall owners have been very cooperative and supportive of this effort!) and we will also be set up at 30 Community Drive in S. Burlington, VT. Read more about this event below. We hope to maintain our status as the only electronics retailer who has recycled more electronics than we have sold!

  • Prey for Mac – Review

    Apple’s current notebook line is among the most impressive the company has ever released. From the extreme portability of the MacBook Air, to…

  • Awesome Free Mac Add-ons

    Apple computers come with enough software to last a decade of fun use. However, sometimes there are just things you need to do…

  • Tip of the Week: Mouse-Free Finder Navigation

    I met a customer the other day who used only icon view in the Finder, and she was having a lot of trouble finding what she needed in the various folders filled with hundreds of items. When she handed me the laptop, I immediately switched to list view by pressing Command-2, and she was mesmerized at this capability. It was almost too much to handle when I showed her column view by pressing Command-3.

    While navigating the Finder in list view, you can use the arrow keys to go up and down the list. If you come upon a folder, you can use the right arrow to show that folder’s contents; conversely, you can use the left arrow to hide the contents of that folder. While in column view, you can use the left and right arrows to move between columns.

    When you find the file or folder you wish to open, you can use the Command-O keyboard shortcut. If you want to delete a file, use Command-Delete.

    We write often about keyboard shortcuts in our “newsletters”:http://www.smalldog.com/newsletters/at_tt and on our “blog.”:http://blog.smalldog.com

    You can check out all of these articles by “clicking here.”:http://www.google.com/search?q=keyboard+shortcuts+site:blog.smalldog.com

  • A Few of my Favorite Widgets

    Dashboard is a feature of Mac OS X that I’ve never felt I really used to its fullest capability. That said, every now and again I decide to plunge into the widgets section of the Apple downloads page and surface with a couple of new gems. I recently found two widgets that have been great for time management.

    The first widget is called “QuickCal.”:http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/business/quickcal.html If you use iCal to coordinate your life you need this widget. It’s just a text field, much like a google or wikipedia widget, that sits on your Dashboard. What it lets you do is add events to your iCal by typing them in plain english. For instance: type into QuickCal “Budget Meeting Saturday at 2pm until 3pm.”

    Then it will create an event called “Budget Meeting” that will span the next Saturday from 2pm until 3pm. It’s that simple. By clicking on the upper right corner it will change which calendar it will add the event to. The only downside I’ve found so far is that it doesn’t seem to be able to create repeating events, but this is easily changed in iCal itself later on. I highly recommend this widget if you are often adding random events to your calendar.

    The other widget is called “Minutes.”:http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/calculate_convert/minutes.html This is nothing more than an extremely simple yet elegant timer. I find using a timer helpful in managing my attention while studying (or writing blog posts) and it’s taken me a while to find a widget I really liked. What I love about this one is its super simple interface; it’s just a dial you drag to the number of minutes you need.

    It has multiple skins, which is a nice touch, and multiple alert types. You can have it start to play iTunes when using it as an alarm clock, or just have it play one of several alert noises (I rather like the bell which sounds like a gong). My favorite though, is that it throws an alert on top of whatever you’re working on. It can also give you just this alert without the sound.

    Basically both of these widgets are very good at what they do. They are both incredibly simple without a ton of fancy options, but still manage to be as feature rich as you’d like. I use them both frequently and think you should check them out.

  • Migrating to Unibody MacBook

    I really liked the way the new MacBooks looked as soon as I saw them and definitely like the performance upgrades. The other thing that stood out, of course, was something that wasn’t there–a FireWire port. Though I am a big FireWire fan, I’m going to leave the discussion and debate about that decision for others. Instead I’m going to talk about how the lack of FireWire affects one of the greatest features of Apple computers: Migration Assistant.

    As Mac users, we take easy and (mostly) painless migration of data from machine to machine for granted. Put the source machine in Target Disk mode, fire up Migration Assistant on the destination machine, grab a FireWire cable, and with a few mouse clicks you are done. Try it on a PC sometime… it’s an exercise in frustration that could take days and cost hundreds of dollars in software and consulting. Migration Assistant really is a great and amazing thing.

    The key to this process has been Apple’s Target Disk mode, which converts an Apple computer into a FireWire hard drive that will appear on another Apple’s desktop and allows quick easy data transfers, among other things. The one caveat is, of course, that you need FireWire on both machines!

    So how to migrate data onto your new MacBook without FireWire? Apple’s solution is a new version of Migration Assistant. One of its new features allows you migrate data between two machines that are booted up–no FireWire mode needed. Connect the two machine via ethernet (or go wireless!). Fire up Migration Assistant, follow the instructions, and off you go… with a few things to keep in mind. The source machine must be running at least 10.4.11 to install and run the new Migration Assistant. And of course, there can be no underlying OS corruption.

    We have done quite a few of these transfers in South Burlington using various methods. Ethernet and wireless both work, but usually need some fiddling to work right… and sometimes, big stuff is needed like an OS reinstallation. The process can also be pretty slow if you are used to FireWire. We are talking “overnight-see-you-in-the-morning” slow. If the worst case happens and you can’t get it to work directly, you can image the target machine on a USB hard drive and migrate from that.

    To be fair, we mostly see results like this when migrating from PowerPC machines that have been upgraded from an OS older than Tiger. Time does march on, and making the move from a PowerPC machine running 10.2 to an Intel machine running 10.5.6 is likely to be an undertaking no matter what. And I’m sure Migration Assistant will improve as well. So while I bemoan the loss of FireWire on the MacBook, I’ll get over it, and it’s nice to know there is a solution in place.