Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • MAC TREAT #120: Use vCards for Easy Contact Management

    Recently my good friend “Andrea”:http://learnedon.com purchased a new MacBook Pro. It was fairly easy for her to migrate data from the old Mac to the new one, which one important exception: her Daylite contacts couldn’t be accessed on the new machine. Fortunately, she still had the old Mac, and was able to access Daylite contacts on that machine. But how to get the contacts over to the new machine? vCards to the rescue!

    vCards are electronic versions of old-fashioned Rolodex cards. They provide the fastest way to import contacts into your Mac’s Address Book app, or to share your Address Book contacts with friends, family, or colleagues. vCards contain basic contact information (such as name, address, phone, and email). They can also contain information such as including URLs, photos, or logos.

    The vCard format works cross-platform with many contacts programs, including Microsoft Outlook and Gmail, making it easy to exchange contacts with people who don’t use Address Book in Mac OS X.

    Apple recently published a Pro tip about vCards and address book that is worth sharing:

    To export a vCard from Address Book on your Mac, just highlight the contact and drag it to your desktop or directly into an email. (The file icon even looks like a Rolodex card.) To import a vCard into Address Book, drag the card-shaped icon into your open Address Book application or onto the Address Book icon in your Dock or Applications folder. Address Book opens (if not already open) and asks you to verify the import. Click Import to have Mac OS X store the vCard’s contact information in Address Book.

    Share contacts by dragging vCards to and from Address Book.

    Want to export more than one contact from Address Book? Just Command-click to select multiple contacts, and drag them to the desktop or into an email. This method collects all the highlighted contacts in a single vCard file. (Note that although Address Book allows you to export multiple contacts in a single file, Microsoft Outlook only lets you import a single contact per file.)

    When you drag this combined vCard into Address Book, all the contacts are added at once as separate Address Book contacts. So with vCards and Address Book, it’s as easy to share a large group of names as it is to share a single contact.

    Back to Andrea and the Daylite dilemma. We that discovered Daylite can export contacts as vCards. From there it was a simple matter of exporting all the Daylite contacts as a group vCard, which she simply emailed to herself. On the new MacBook Pro, she simply double clicked on the group vCard, and added all her Daylite contacts to her Mac’s Address Book. She could then sync those contacts with her iPhone.

  • _Dear Friends,_

    I got my iPad on Saturday at the launch and Small Dog Electronics sold out of our initial stock at our S. Burlington store within 26 minutes of store opening. We have since replenished stock and currently have inventory in both of our retail locations. I’ve been taking the time to get used to my new friend and have decided to travel to China on Sunday with only my iPad. I will not be taking a computer with me. It feels a little bit like taking a brand new motorcycle on a cross country trip.

    I have been getting samples of cases for the iPad from our suppliers and we have chosen a design for a neoprene sleeve as well as some very nice leather cases. I have been testing one of the samples and we have made some refinements that I will discuss with the factory when I visit next week. I hope to have these new Hammerhead products very soon.

    I grabbed one of the Apple Bluetooth keyboards to take with me on the trip, and downloaded some interesting applications and some books from the iBook store and also from Amazon’s Kindle store. I have also bought Pages and Numbers for the iPad so I can work on documents and of course, downloaded MLB 2010 so I can keep track of the Cubbies. Check out more of my initial reactions below.

    Hapy and I have a series of bets for things like hand washing the others car or plane tix and game tickets depending upon how the Cubs and the Giants do. Betting money with Hapy is sort of meaningless since we are partners at Small Dog; it is sort of like taking money out of one pocket and putting into another. Today, I had to wear a Lakers Jersey because the Lakers had a better record than the Celtics, for example. (But then again, I do have the picture of Hapy wearing Celtics garb after the championship a couple of years ago.)

  • iPhone OS 4.0: Coming Soon!

    At the risk of overloading you with iPad information, I couldn’t resist mentioning the anticipated announcement of the next version of the iPhone…

  • iPhone OS 4.0: Coming Soon

    At the risk of overloading you with iPad information, I couldn’t resist mentioning the anticipated announcement of the next version of the iPhone operating system. The iPhone OS powers not only the iPhone, but also the iPod touch and iPad.

    It is certainly true that there are justified gripes about the operating system itself, particularly the inability to multitask. It’s said that the new version of the OS will allow for multitasking (running more than one app at a time), which is a must-have feature, particularly on the iPad.

    If customers want to adopt the iPad as a computer replacement, this is a must. Multitasking is a major distinguishing feature of Google’s Android system, an smartphone operating system; successfully implementing it on the iPhone will be big.

    Apple press event is this Thursday at 10AM Pacific Time. Keep an eye out on our blog, “Barkings”:http://blog.smalldog.com and an in-depth analysis in this Friday’s “Kibbles & Bytes.”:http://smalldog.com/newsletters

  • iPad: My First Impressions

    I picked up an iPad Saturday at our Waitsfield store, and eagerly ripped open the box to start exploring. At first glance, the iPad really seems like little more than a giant iPod touch, but a few hours of use later the differences became apparent. I spent some time watching customers pick up the device and just start using it; the intuitive interface appeals to most everyone regardless of experience.

    One customer had never used a Mac or an iPhone and was able to browse the web, view and email photos, and even search for books on the iBooks store without assistance. I only learned of her inexperience after she was done playing with it. It seems difficult to not buy one once one is in your hands.

    I was initially frustrated at how long it took to prepare my iPhoto library for iPad. This processing took well over an hour on my top-of-the-line MacBook Pro, but I do have about 4,500 ten megapixel images to process. The photo album preview animation was the first feature I really thought of as magical, and the very fast processor makes browsing through a collection of photos a breeze; there truly is no comparison to flipping through a traditional “analog” photo album.

    Had it not been 80 degree outside, I probably would’ve spent the entire afternoon playing with it. I realized by Sunday night that I had only used my MacBook Pro once since picking up the iPad. The battery is still on its original charge today.

    Typing is very satisfying on the iPad, particularly in landscape mode. I found myself typing about 45 words per minute this morning according to an online speed test; after years of using an iPod touch I can barely reach 30 words per minute on the smaller screen.

    Browsing the web truly is more immersive and satisfying on the iPad than on any other device. I don’t miss the flash-based websites–in fact, the lack of flash support seems to mean fewer ads are displayed. The one flash-intensive site I thought I’d miss is YouTube, but it has its own dedicated app that is a better way to consume the content anyway.

    David Pogue of The New York Times probably put it best: “…[T]he iPad is not a laptop. It’s not nearly as good for creating stuff. On the other hand, it’s infinitely more convenient for consuming it–books, music, video, photos, Web, e-mail and so on. For most people, manipulating these digital materials directly by touching them is a completely new experience–and a deeply satisfying one.”

    That said, Apple has done a terrific job with the iWork apps. MobileMe integration is perfect and the iwork.com concept makes much more sense now that the iPad exists.

    I cannot wait to see how this platform develops, and how the App Store and developer ecosystem evolves. It’s an exciting time.

    Now, if only the iBooks store had more titles!

  • Tip of the Week: Special Characters on iPhone OS (including iPad)

    While it’s true that the interface for the iPad is amazingly intuitive, its simplicity can sometimes hide a number of important advanced features. One such feature I recently discovered is the ability to type accent marks with the on-screen keyboard. This feature is part of the keyboard, not a particular app, so it can be used with Mail, Notes or even Pages.

    To type a letter with an accent, simply hold your finger down on the letter for a second or two, and a number of options will appear. While still holding down your finger, just slide to the accented letter you want and release. It’s that simple to type è, ñ, or even ü. Try holding down other buttons on the keyboard and see what happens. As another example, try holding down the “.com” button in the safari keyboard. It will give you options for other suffixes like “.org” or “.edu.”

    These options are incredibly useful and I honestly had no idea they were there until someone who needed them asked me how to get accents. I wonder what other hidden powers I can find in the iPad and iPhone OS.

    Let me know what you’ve found! “sebastian@smalldog.com”:mailto:sebastian@smalldog.com

  • Happy Tuesday,

    A federal appeals court ruled today that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can selectively limit the speed of certain types of internet traffic. In this blow for advocates of “Net Neutrality,” companies like Comcast and Verizon will be able to throttle download speeds and access itself to sites of their choosing, particularly those serving large files like Hulu and YouTube. This also includes large downloads from the likes of the iTunes Music Store, and opens up the option to charge more for heavy users.

    As Comcast moves ahead in its attempt to acquire the majority of NBC Universal, the threat of one company controlling distribution and content is clear. Theoretically, this new corporation could restrict or dramatically slow access to competing television networks and internet service providers.

    What a shame.

    But hey, we’ve got iPads and they’re flying off the shelves. I’m smitten with mine, as you’ll gather from my first impressions below. I’m proud to announce that Small Dog is one of a few select service providers authorized to repair the devices, so if your iPad is acting up–even if you didn’t buy it from us–we can take care of it with the same skill and verve applied to Macs.

    As always, thanks for reading, and keep in touch.

    Matt
    “matt@smalldog.com”:mailto:matt@smalldog.com

  • iPad: My First Impressions

    I picked up an iPad Saturday at our Waitsfield store, and eagerly ripped open the box to start exploring. At first glance the…

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