Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • _Dear Friends_

    I’ve been traveling a lot over the past few months and I think I clearly qualify as a road warrior. This week I traveled with Rob to Minneapolis to meet with a customer. My Delta flight had WiFi on board so that made it easy to keep up with email and get some work done. It was good to travel with Rob, who is one of the veteran Small Dog employees. He started out in the shipping department, rose steadily in the ranks to sales, to sales manager, to outside sales manager and now is also in charge of our two house brands, Chill Pill and Hammerhead.

    My road gear has been highly enhanced by my 3G iPad. While traveling with the WiFi version was great in China, here in the States it’s nice to have Internet access anywhere with a 3G cellular signal.

    I cannot rave enough about my “Brenthaven ProStyle II XF bag”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/75043/brenthaven-prostyle-ii-xf-checkpoint-friendly-shoulder-bag-black. The simple fact that it’s TSA approved and can be easily zipped open to lay flat on the xray machine is a time saver as I go through security. The handy strap on the back allows me to securely attach it to my rolling overnight bag and it easily fits all my various adapters, cords and if I wanted, would carry both my MacBook Air and the iPad. I can wholeheartedly recommend this laptop bag if you do a lot of traveling. It has literally been around the world with me in real world stress testing and it looks like new and is with me almost all the time. Use coupon code *ROADWARRIOR* to get $10 off this great case.

    I’ve found that my iPhone battery runs out of power a lot less now that I have the iPad. Where I used to use the iPhone to check stocks, scores or email, now I mostly use the iPad and with its beefier battery, my iPhone is ready to make calls almost all day long.

    I have a few minor issues with iPad that I would ask Apple to improve. Right now the most inconvenient is that it does not know how to handle iCal invitations sent in email. We use iCal for all our meetings and schedules and even for friendly wagers on sporting events so the inability to simply click on an iCal invite attachment to add it to my calendar is an inconvenience. My assistant, Kerry, has access to my calendar (actually I have given her complete control) so the work around is for her to add stuff and then MobileMe syncing takes care of the rest. I am confident Apple will address this in later updates and it is a minor inconvenience in what is a great convenient device.

    I am pleased to report that Small Dog Electronics was selected as one of three finalists for the Deane C. Davis Vermont Business of the Year award (more below). This is our second time to be in the final three and we have our fingers and paws crossed that the Governor announces our name when the winner is revealed at the Vermont Business and Industry Expo in two weeks. We are being joined at that Expo by many of our vendor partners for our Technology Pavilion, so if you are in the area stop by on May 26 or 27.

  • M-Audio AV-40 Review

    I’ve put off buying new speakers for months. I just could not justify the expense of them, and did not want to waste money on cheap speakers with poor quality. There had, however, been a set of speakers I’ve listened to and sold extensively in-store that interested me. After moving into my new apartment, I decided my bedroom would not be complete without them.

    I realized that when buying my computer, I put a huge amount of effort into making sure my operation of it went unburdened, but scrutinizing monitors, keyboards, mice and mousepads. But I never considered my ears as important in being one of the senses that uses the computer. Boy was I wrong.

    The Studiophile AV 40s are a set of studio reference monitors sold by M-Audio. As studio monitors, they have a very precise sound that most home computer speakers can’t match, and the clarity is generally botched by cheaper hardware. They also, being more precise, don’t fill a room in the same manner other 2.1 subwoofer/satellite speaker combos do. As M-Audio outlines right in their included comic-book style instructions, there is a very specific way to configure them on your desk based on your room and sitting position. This said, cranking them is certainly capable of filling my entire house with clean, crisp music and decent bass. The AV 40s also sound fabulous on their quietest setting, for listening to podcasts at 7AM when your housemate is asleep.

    Their precision has also led me to turn off my iTunes EQ entirely, I don’t think I’ll ever use it again. Lastly, because they’re so precise, I’m finding that they’re incredibly great for gaming, as they convey the virtual world your mind is struggling to become a part of so well. Sounds like rifle shots are far different than grenades, or a peaceful flowing waterfall, which other speakers can’t put such a space between.

    The packaging is pretty basic, but does the job. I like the minimal, wasteless packaging. M-Audio was also good enough to include rubber pads to adhere to the bottom of them, so they don’t slide on my glass desk. The enclosures are a soft black, with pretty solid mesh protection over the cones. On the front of the left speaker are two jacks, one for aux-in and one for headphones. This way I can conveniently connect a laptop or iPad to them when I want to switch computers. Of course, they’re classy enough to include a blue LED on the volume knob, so they’re a perfect match for my monitor, keyboard and mouse!

    I give these a huge thumbs up.

    $149.99. For more information, “click here”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/73166 to check them out!

  • Instant Message Spam

    I am used to helping clients reduce spam by training Mail’s spam filter and enabling the pop-up blocker in Safari and Firefox, but…

  • Your iPad Came With A Guide!

    If you bought an iPad and need support, a good place to start is your iPad! Apple has a user guide on their…

  • Steam: Not Vaporware?

    A while ago I wrote about how excited I was for April’s impending release of both the iPad and Valve’s Steam gaming client…

  • !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/1684.jpg!:http://www.smalldog.com/wag20009/at_dr/

    *Save $10 on the A4Tech SecureFit In-Ear Earphones. Just $14.99 with free 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.

  • iPad Travel Experience

    This past week. I took a substantial leap of faith. That’s right, I left my MacBook Pro at home and traveled with my…

  • App of the Week: iExit

    Lately, my husband and I have been taking a lot of road trips. Navigation has become a lot more interactive since we have…

  • Instant Message Spam

    I am used to helping clients reduce spam by training Mail’s spam filter and enabling the pop-up blocker in Safari and Firefox, but I saw something new in a recent consult. Our customer emailed while presented with a warning about a Windows security problem, pushing a shady Windows registry repair tool. She went ahead and bought it before asking me and was still faced with the message. I had her confirm the pop-up blocker was not enabled, and that the spam didn’t via email. So how did this happen?

    It was immediately clear when I arrived at her home that the client received the spam through Skype. Her husband was on a long Skype chat, during which two spam chats came in and were left on the screen after the chat session. Our client was tricked by the message, and I wrote an email to the shareware payment processing company on her behalf. I encouraged them to issue a refund and to not do business with a company that gains new customers through deception and fear-mongering.

    To prevent future incidents, I changed my client’s privacy settings in Skype by selecting Preferences from the Skype menu and pressing Privacy. I changed most of these settings to only allow incoming chats and calls from people in her contact list. iChat has similar privacy settings available by selecting Preferences from the iChat menu, clicking on the Accounts tab and selecting your account. From here you can control just who can see you and send you messages.

    Take a moment to check your privacy settings regardless of your Chat program. Don’t be scared of these powerful communication tools, but do use some common sense and healthy skepticism when you are online. Keep in mind that any message referencing a Windows problem will not affect your Mac.