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  • Dear Friends,

    I am feeling just a tad guilty for basking in the Key West sunshine while my buddies in Vermont are freezing their Rudolph noses off. Very cold temperatures and wind have created very dangerous wind chills. Of course, that means that things are failing at my house for my tenants like the water and heat. It is a good thing I have great neighbors and people to watch out over my place.

    Okay, I am not really feeling guilty because I have the doors open, there is a nice ocean breeze and my feet have tan lines from wearing sandals. As we wrap up 2017, I am looking forward to a fresh new year. I will be heading out for my annual trip to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show and will report on the latest trends in technology.

    Key West has a big New Year’s celebration with a concert at the newly constructed waterfront amphitheatre, fireworks and not one, not two but three separate “drops”. There is the cross-dresser in the giant red heel, the huge conch shell at Sloppy Joes and the wench dropping from the mast of the tall ship at the docks. While the recovery is still on-going from hurricane Irma, it has very clearly taken its toll with businesses here in the Keys as tourist traffic is down significantly and even parking downtown is easy.

    This week’s Kibbles & Bytes Exclusive is a Hammerhead bundle. Hammerhead is our house brand, originally named after my late bulldog. We have a number of Hammerhead products but this special consists of two long 2 meter Apple licensed Lightning Cables, one 2-port USB Charger, one 2-port car charger and a green selfie stick – okay, we will toss in a pair of Chill Pill speakers, too! This bundle is only $39.99!

  • Stay Away From Windex!

    All iPhones pick up fingerprints, and it’s all too easy to get your iPhone dirty with ink, lotion, makeup, dirt, food, and oil….

  • Crypto Craze Part 2: Party on the Blockchain

    What a whirlwind it has been these last few weeks in the world of cryptocurrency. Bitcoin hit the milestone of $10k/1 BTC (and growing!), LiteCoin soared from ~$60/1 LTC to an ATH (all-time high) of ~$371 in a matter of weeks, and Ether (ETH) nearly doubled in value in less than a month. It certainly has not been dull since the last issue of Crypto Craze. As for me, I’ve been shopping around and soaking up as much information as I can with other, lesser known alt-coins and seeing some potential in every direction. Now, it should be stated before I continue to churn out these Crypto Craze issues, I am NOT an expert on cryptocurrency, investing, or finances. These guides should not be taken as investment advice.

    But let’s get down to it!

    Last time we glazed over the genesis of Bitcoin and the early days of cryptocurrency. In recent weeks, with the surge in price, Bitcoin is becoming more and more of a household name. But how does it work? What separates Bitcoin from traditional fiat currencies? How are transactions completed? Well, dear friends, that brings us to Part Two: Party on the Blockchain.

    In order to grasp the theory behind blockchain tech and protocol, we will take a look at a traditional transaction as we know it today in a hypothetical scenario.

    Let’s say Don has this really nice 15” MacBook Pro for sale that Connor has been eyeballing for some time. Connor could pay with cash or check, but as we all know- most transactions are completed via Credit or Debit card these days. Traditionally, Connor would slide his card, wait a few moments for the transaction to clear by his financial institution, and a few moments later he has a nice new MacBook Pro to enjoy on Christmas morning. Simple right?

    But why don’t we take a step back to examine what actually takes place when you swipe that card. A typical Visa transaction involves four parties: the merchant, the acquirer (the financial institution that enables payments to the merchant), the issuer (the card holder’s bank), and the individual cardholder. When the card is swiped, the authorization has to travel through several different parties in order for payment to pass through. While generally this is not time consuming, we are all familiar with credit card issues such as extended hold times, contested charges, foreign transaction fees, late fees, interested charges, and potentially adverse effects on your credit score.

    Now the same hypothetical scenario, but instead of using a credit card, we’ll use some Bitcoin.

    Don wants to sell me a 15” MacBook Pro for 1 Bitcoin, (currently valued in the ballpark of $15k. That’d be one sweet machine!). Instead of swiping the credit card and involving a third-party financial institution, I decide I’m going to pay him in Bitcoin. In order to do this, Don would need a digital Bitcoin wallet of his own (we’ll touch on wallets soon). A wallet is an online, offline, or physical storage unit for storing cryptocurrency and it has both a ‘Send’ and ‘Receive’ address. In order for me to give Don the agreed upon amount of 1 BTC, he would need to supply me with his ‘Receive’ address which is typically a long strand of alphanumeric digits that is unique to his ‘Receive’ wallet. When Don gives me his ‘Receive’ address, I would then open my own digital wallet, navigate to my own ‘Send’ address, punch in Don’s ‘Receive’ address, designate the amount of 1 BTC and hit confirm the transaction. Note: almost every exchange or wallet you will find applies this same operation for BTC, albeit the user-interface will differ between them.

    (EXTREME word of CAUTION to anyone interested in delving into trading coins- NEVER under any circumstances make your ‘Send’ address known to anyone other than yourself. Treat this as your bank account number. If your ‘Send’ address were to fall into malicious hands, there is nothing to protect your coins. And yes, coin theft is a very real threat, but if you treat your digital wallet as you would a bank account number or SSN, you will decrease your chances of coin theft.)

    Once the transaction has been completed, the funds will be deposited into the recipient’s wallet. And in order for it to be finalized, the transaction must be ‘confirmed’ by various nodes and it is then posted on the blockchain ledger for all to see! But I’m sure many of you are wondering HOW this transaction is completed and confirmed. Have no fear! We’ll do a deep dive of the ins-and-outs of the Bitcoin ledger on the next edition of Crypto Craze.

  • Flashing folder after installing High Sierra or an update?

    So, you’ve just updated to the newest version of High Sierra. Perhaps you moved up to High Sierra from an earlier operating system to take advantage of the newest features and security patches. After installation, instead of your familiar desktop photo or login screen, you’re greeted with a flashing folder and there is seemingly nothing you can do about it. Enter recovery mode!

    Recovery mode is a tool that’s been available to the Mac user since the introduction of OS X Lion (10.7) it’s essentially a separate partition created on install. 10.7 was the first Mac OS to eliminate physical install disks, this new partition provides access to the tools that were only previously located on recovery disks. Those tools include “Disk Utility”, used to create/erase/modify internal or external hard drives and their subsequent partitions (portions of space created on the drive for use) “Restore From Time Machine Backup” which allows you to restore your machine to a previous state that you would have stored on an external hard drive using Mac’s built-in backup software. Lastly, the most helpful tool when it comes to reinstalling an operating system that may have gotten corrupt or damaged during install “Reinstall macOS”.

    To get to recovery mode, you start with the machine fully powered off. Press the power button as if turning the machine on as normal and immediately press and hold both the “command” key and “R”. Hold those keys until you either see the Apple logo or a spinning globe. If you see the Apple logo it is booting into its recovery partition, if you see the spinning globe it may ask for your WiFi password as it’s starting from an internet based recovery program.

    Now, back to the main topic. You’ve suddenly been greeted with a flashing folder, so we want to get into recovery mode first (CMD+R) once at the utility screen you’ll want to choose “Reinstall macOS.” Follow the prompts. When it asks where you want to install you simply choose your main drive (typically listed as Macintosh HD unless you’ve otherwise changed it) and that should be it, just let the machine do its thing and reinstall the operating system.

    If after the reinstall you’re still greeted with the flashing folder, it is a signal of a deeper lying issue and may require service. If that’s the case, bring it on by one of our stores and our talented technicians can see what they can do to bring your machine back to life!

  • Hello Tech Tails readers!

    The temps dropped down quite fast here in South Burlington as we complete the final push of holiday traffic. We’ve been busy all week, and we’re all looking forward to the New Year! In particular, I am looking forward to seeing the iMac Pro ship out, and AirPods return to normal stock levels. The last few weeks, we’ve seen a dramatic shortage of these handy little headphones, and I can totally see why! A lot of our techs have been using the AirPods this year, and the employee reviews have been outstanding.

    The other thing we’ve been getting a lot of calls about is Malware. If you’ve recently added virus protection software to your Mac, like “MacKeeper” for example, you may want to stop by the store to have it removed. This is something we’ve always strongly advised against, as it tends to cause more problems than necessary. I always tell my customers, the weakest link in your Mac OS is the end user. Like it or not, a virus can occur if you surrender your password at the wrong time. Always verify the source of your downloads, and ensure that when Apple asks “is this a trusted source?” you are answering with confidence.

    Around this time last year, we were seeing a fraction of this type of malware, somehow it has increased in popularity. Nevertheless, our tech department remains at a 2-3 business day turn around time for hardware repairs. This time of year is usually slower for repairs, but I remind folks that Christmas gifted Apple products mean this could be the last week of your warranty!

    Anyway, I’m headed back out to the sales floor to restock those stocking stuffer products, everyone has a great week and enjoy this edition of Tech Tails!

    Patrick McCormack
    patrickm@smalldog.com

  • I hope that you have a great holiday. I know that I will because I will have some visitors to entertain, family to hang out with and probably some good food mixed in there, too!

    All of us at Small Dog Electronics wish you a very Merry Christmas and thank you so much for your support. It is loyal customers like you that make this all worthwhile and we appreciate you!

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    Don & Emily

  • Stay away from windex!

    All iPhones pick up fingerprints, and it’s all too easy to get your iPhone dirty with ink, lotion, makeup, dirt, food, and oil. If you’re faced with an iPhone that needs cleaning, resist the urge to spray it with window cleaner, rubbing alcohol, or ammonia, or, even worse, to scrub it with baking soda or Borax. That’s because all iPhones have oleophobic—oil repellent—coatings on their glass surfaces that make it easy to wipe off fingerprints. You don’t want to remove that coating any faster than it will wear off normally, and cleaning products will strip it quickly. Instead, Apple recommends a soft, lint-free cloth such as you would use for glasses or camera lenses. By the way, even though the iPhone 7 and later have some level of dust and water resistance, it’s important to avoid getting moisture in the openings—most of the time, a lens cloth should be all you need.

  • The Apple Year in Review

    Apple had a great 2017, posting record sales and profits and introducing some game changing products and software. I wonder what they are going to do with the estimated $45 billion windfall they will receive from the recently passed backwards wealth distribution.

    But enough political commentary, it is Christmas! Let’s review some highlights of Apple’s 2017!

    The iPhone X

    My experience with the iPhone X has been the best of any new iPhone and I have had them all. I love the new iPhone with its space age facial recognition, Apple Pay Cash, wireless charging and wicked fast speed. My iPhone X is more powerful than the computers used to send astronauts to the moon and it fits in my hand. It has been a huge success, selling millions already!

    The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus

    The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus also brought wireless charging and better cameras at a more reasonable price. They are not the game-changing iPhone X but they are new and selling very well.

    Apple TV 4K

    That’s been the hit of the season with the new Apple TV being hard to get and probably stimulating sales of new 4K TVs, too. Sony and Samsung should thank Apple. With Amazon Prime video now on Apple TV there is becoming less and less reason to have cable TV. I think that cable and satellite is not long for this world.

    AirPods

    Yeah, they shipped right before Christmas last year but they have been in short supply ever since. This could be the hottest Apple accessory product ever. We sell every one we can get our hands on and have had hundreds on order for months. The backlog on these is unbelievable. One distributor told me they are backordered some 35,000 units.

    ARKit

    iOS 11 introduced ARKit, a new framework that allows the creation of augmented reality experiences for iPhone and iPad. By blending digital objects and information with the environment around you, ARKit takes apps beyond the screen, freeing them to interact with the real world in entirely new ways. New apps using ARKit are coming out daily and we are just seeing the tip of the gigantic (melting) iceberg here!

    iPad Pro 10.5 Inch

    My favorite iPad. I find that unless I am working with my two big displays and our database and a couple spreadsheets open, that my iPad Pro 10.5 will do it all. I have mine paired with the Brydge keyboard case and I can see the day when that is all I will need. It is a huge advancement in the iPad line for 2017

    iOS 11

    iOS 11 is a big software operating system upgrade that among other things, brought us Apple Pay Cash. It changed how you interacted with devices, especially if your are using an iPhone X.

    Apple Watch Series 3

    Okay, no more Dick Tracy metaphors but the Apple Watch Series 3 was groundbreaking with its stand-alone cellular capabilities. Grace seldom takes her iPhone with her anymore as she answers her calls right from her watch. While you do pay for that privilege there is also a GPS model that makes Apple the clear leader in wearables.

    iMac Pro

    I was just making part numbers for all the various configurations of this new powerhouse Mac. You can buy the base model for just under $5,000 or soup it up big time and spend over $13,000! This is just shipping now so I might have to talk about it again in 2018.

    AppleCare + for Macs

    AppleCare + has been around for awhile for iPhones and iPads but this year Apple rolled out AppleCare + for Macs. It still has all the benefits of AppleCare – extending your warranty from 1-year to 3-years and technical support from 90-days to 3-years but now it adds accidental damage coverage for two incidents subject to a deductible. This is great for all those customers who come in with moisture sensors tripped but swear they didn’t spill that glass of wine on their laptop.

    I would also mention HomePod except that Apple delayed that to 2018 so I would have something to write about next year. All-in-all a great year for Apple. iPad regained its sales mojo, new Macs, new iPhones, Watches and more future shock!

  • Dear Friends, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and most importantly best wishes to you and your family from the entire Small Dog family! Often,…

  • Let's Face It

    I have had my new iPhone X for a couple weeks now and it is magical in so many ways. Being an old…

  • Time is running out, but our deals are not!

    December 16th through December 24th

    Are you starting to feel the time crunch? We don’t want you to be stressed so we are keeping our doors open later and releasing a new batch of deals and savings. We have a huge selection of stocking stuffers under $25 plus 20% off iPhone and iPad cases. If you have a computer still on your list we are offering a free case for 13in models and a free back up drive for the larger 15in Touch Bar and iMacs.



















    Do you want to make something old new again? We have some amazing deals available through this e-mail only on cases for iPhone 6/6s from Otterbox and Incipio.