Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • Losing the Tether

    The “Sony BT140Qs”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/76735/sony-drbt140q-bluetooth-stereo-earset-silver/at_bis are some of the top rated, affordable headphones to incorporate Bluetooth wireless technology.

    I ordered these to try out, and now I am absolutely relying on them. The sound quality is mediocre compared to most wired headphones, and this is definitely the tradeoff for the Bluetooth capability. However, the battery life is fantastic considering their size, coming in at around 4-5 hours.

    I use these often with both my iPhone 4 and my MacBook Pro. They’re great in situations in which you are walking around and need your hands free. I’ve used these for everything from doing dishes to pull-ups. The signal from the iPhone is definitely far weaker than the MacBook Pro and has difficulty passing through the body, which means I need to keep the phone on the same side as the right earpiece which has the antenna.

    On the other hand, it goes through a wall or two pretty well. All in all, I’m very happy with these earphones, and enjoy taking advantage of the wireless versatility.

  • September Free Saturday Seminars

    Every Saturday in our South Burlington store we give free seminars on varying Apple topics. Come on in or give us a call for more info!!!

    9/4/10 – iTunes & iPod, 2pm
    9/4/10 – iPad, 4pm
    9/11/10 – iPhoto, 2pm
    9/11/10 – iPad, 4pm
    9/18/10 – iWeb, 2pm
    9/18/10 – iPad, 4pm
    9/25/10 – iWork, 2pm
    9/25/10 – iPad, 4pm

  • Apple's New Magic Trackpad

    When Apple first introduced the current generation of Multi-Touch trackpads on their MacBook and MacBook Pros, it was pretty amazing. Two finger scrolling is really just the tip of the iceberg for gesture controls. For the first time, I actually preferred the pad to my mouse. Now, I can have that same gesture interface on my iMac.

    Apple’s new “Magic Trackpad”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/76695/apple-magic-trackpad/at_bis brings all the same fluid controls that make the MacBook so, well, magical.

    Supporting one, two, three, and four finger gestures you can zoom, scroll, and use great Snow Leopard features like Exposé almost effortlessly. Also, paired with a Bluetooth keyboard, its wireless design will easily give you the slickest looking desktop around.

  • Meet Our Dogs: Customer Edition

    *September’s Dog Friend*
    This month’s dog is not one of ours, but a customer’s! Kato is a 4-month-old Boxer and is a bundle of energy.

    Mike Shannon, one of our customers, brought him in last week to show us the new puppy.

  • Local Spotlight: iPad Paintings by Corliss Blakely


    Corliss Blakely, a life-long Vermont artist, is now painting on the iPhone and iPad, which has “opened up a new world for artists,” as she puts it. Corliss has translated her realistic style in oils to the new technologies, stating, “the world is changing and artists now have a wonderful new canvas to create on.” Corliss purchased an iPad at Small Dog the day they came out, and was the first artist in the world to display an iPad painting on the internet!

    The iPad is a mobile studio: artists can now create without the toxic paints and mediums they have used for centuries.

    Her favorite painting app on the iPad is ArtStudio.

    Visit her site at www.ipadpaintings.com to see her paintings and demonstrations.

    Are you doing something creative, wild, out of the ordinary, or just plain cool with your Apple gear? Want to show it off in an upcoming issue of Best in Showroom? Come in to one of our stores to let us know!

  • September Product of the Month

    “Hammerhead Aura Case for iPhone 4”:http://www.smalldog.com/search/?find=aura&refinecat=iPhone_Accessories|Cases_|iPhone_4

    Protect your new iPhone 4 with the newest addition to the Hammerhead lineup.

    With its Thermoplastic poly material it’s the perfect case to resist dust and fingerprints. The $14.99 price point won’t hurt your pocket and with its selection of colors, it’s the perfect addition to your new iPhone 4!


  • Photo by “Jeremiah Johnson”:http://www.smalldog.com/jj

    Hello Everyone,

    It’s hard to believe summer is starting to wind down, and fall is just around the corner. We hope everyone gets to enjoy the upcoming Labor Day long weekend with friends & family, and hopefully some good food!

    The local colleges are back in session, and for those who still need new computers, **we are running our Mac To School specials until the end of the month**–note that Apple’s back to school special expires September 7! Currently, with any Mac and AppleCare purchase, you will receive a free $50 or $100 gift card (to use immediately, or save it for later–it never expires). We’re here to help!

    It’s an exciting time here between all of the new Apple products that have been released over the past couple of months (some of which are reviewed just below) and the opening of our new Manchester, NH store on the horizon. Be sure to drop in and check out all the great specials and new products.

    We’re keeping busy over the next month–check out our upcoming “calendar of events”:http://blog.smalldog.com/article/super-fun-and-beneficial-upcoming-events-in-vt-and-nh/ here!

    __Note: As of this writing, the Apple Music Event has just ended, so check out “our blog, Barkings!”:http://blog.smalldog.com for all of the new product announcements!__

    -The South Burlington Sales Team

  • !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/1880.jpg!:http://www.smalldog.com/wag20280/at_dr

    *Save $290 on the closeout MacBook Pro 15-inch with antiglare screen and FREE Magic Mouse!*

    Introduced in 6/09, the 2.53GHz 15-inch MacBook Pro with antiglare screen has 4GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive and is an amazing deal at over $220 original pricing: *$1599.99 for both, with $4.99 flat-rate shipping.*

    Because we want to give you the best deals AND stay in business, Deal Retriever deals are valid for one week only. Quantities are limited; offers good while supplies last. $4.99 shipping applies to shipments within the contiguous US.

  • Garage Sale: This Friday, 9/3

    This Friday, our Famous Garage Sale commences for the second time this year. What did you do to deserve two in one year? Well, let’s just say that we have been lucky enough to see a large amount of products go through our warehouse, we’re on top of organization, and hey, we thought it would be fun!

    *We have lots of ink cartridges, cases for iPhone 3G, nano 4Gs and 5Gs, and overall, dozens of iPod accessories at over 50% – 90% off most items (and lots under our cost), with many items under $5!*

    Orders will be taken online only via our website, and there are no phone orders permitted. Get ’em while they’re hot.

    Check “our blog, Barkings!”:http://blog.smalldog.com for more details and see the “Garage Sale page here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/garagesale/at_tt

  • Repair of the Week: Kernel Panicking Mac Pro

    The Mac Pro has always been a beast of a computer, and even the first-generation examples remain so. Their reliability is second-to-none amongst the Apple product line, but with some approaching three years old, we are beginning to see more failures.

    This week’s repair is on an 8-core 3.0 GHz unit outfitted with a fibre channel card normally connected to an Xserve RAID, 16GB of RAM, a super high-end Kona video card, and four 2TB hard drives set up in RAID 5.

    Needless to say, this is a computer our customer desperately needed back up and running as fast as possible.

    Because he bought AppleCare and the computer from Small Dog, he enjoyed a free loaner computer during the repair. But because we need the entire machine–fibre channel card, RAM, and all the hard drives–to properly diagnose, he had to make do with a more-or-less stock Mac Pro.

    The Mac Pro came in for random kernel panics during Time Machine backups of the startup partition to a FireWire 800 LaCie external drive. First step was to swap the the RAM with known-good chips, and the kernel panics persisted. We then booted the computer from an external drive with a known-good operating system, and the kernel panics persisted. Then, the internal drives were unplugged and the machine booted again off the external drive. No luck.

    Component isolation is where you strip a computer down to its minimal configuration and unplug every nonessential component; then plug them back in one-by-one until the problem reappears. When it does, you can be fairly certain the component just reinstalled is the culprit. In its minimal state and not showing symptoms, the optical drives were plugged in one by one with no luck. It can only be called good luck that the second component swapped in, the Bluetooth card, brought the kernel panics back. Swapping in a good one fixed the problem.

    This was an easy one, but some of the harder Mac Pro diagnoses can take a very long time and are often a combination of software and hardware. More common failures are of hard drives, processors, logic boards, RAM, and RAM riser cards. Logic boards and processors are very expensive (but covered by AppleCare), so this customer was very lucky!