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  • Speaking of sci-fi, Grace and I are heading to Fort Myers tomorrow to catch the new Star Wars movie on IMAX. It is a nice drive up the Keys and over to the west coast of Florida. Now that Disney is buying 21st Century Fox they may have a pretty big science fiction franchise going for them with all the Marvel movies, too. Hapy used to warn us that Disney was going to take over the world…

    We are entering the home stretch for the holidays and we are working hard to keep the products you want in stock. We have some great holiday deals so check out our website, too!

    Thank you so much for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    Don & Emily

  • iMac Pro

    The iMac Pro is finally here! Apple introduced us to this amazing machine several months ago, there was chatter we’d see it in December. Yesterday Apple officially released the 27-inch 5K iMac Pro. This computer is available in several configurations, up to a 18-core processor, 128gb of memory and up to 4TB of storage. Let’s take a quick look at the specs in some more detail.

    The standard configuration comes with the 3.2GHz 8-core processor, it features 32gb of ram, the Radeon Pro Vega 56 graphics card and a 1TB SSD drive. However, you have almost endless upgrade options for the iMac Pro. You can choose from 4 different processors, 8-core, 10-core,14-core or 18-core processors. With each processor choice, you can choose from 32gb, 64gb, or 128gb of memory. Each configuration also comes with options to upgrade your storage capacity from 1TB to 4TB and you can choose from either the Radio Pro Vega 56 graphics card with 8gb of memory or the Vega 64 with 16gb of memory. The flexibility in configurations means you can truly can customize it to fit your performance needs.

    There is more to this mac than just incredible configuration options. The iMac Pro features the T2 chip. What is this you ask? The T2 chip allows for even higher levels of data security than your standard computer. Data stored on your SSD is encrypted using dedicated hardware encryption that is unique to each iMac Pro. This feature provides full disk encryption performed by a dedicated AES crypto engine. The FileVault on the iMac Pro extends encryption to your personal user key and keeps your credentials secure.

    The iMac Pro continues to deliver impressive features with its ability to offer real-time 3D performance that is up to 3 times faster than the standard iMac with a Radeon Pro 580 graphics card. Adobe Photoshop might not be a program that you would think is a one for power users, but it is. For photographers working on very large files and projects, the iMac Pro is impressive. Multithreaded filters can run up to 3x’s faster than a Mac Pro, now that is something!

    Ok, so I have listed some pretty cool statistics and configurations, but how many folks will need to take advantage fo this mega machine? After all, it’s base model pricing is $4999. First, consider what the machine is. Not only is it an incredibly powerful computer, it’s also an impressive 5K display so it’s multiple products in one. Users who are needing a computer for high-end digital work, those involved in 3D graphics or anyone getting into VR content will benefit from this computer. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, it’s incredibly customizable. You can build a machine to truly fit your computing needs. This machine is probably more than the average computer user needs, but for someone working on very large digital projects and those working on tight deadlines, the iMac Pro is an excellent choice.

  • 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 codger, it is truly future shock to be holding such a powerful device in my hand and one that instantly recognizes my face, too! There have been a lot of stories out about Face ID and my first-hand experience is that it just works. It is transparent and I lift up my iPhone and it is unlocked. Contrary, to JoJo’s report a few weeks ago, it is not just black people that it has trouble recognizing in the dark, I have to enter my passcode on occasion when I lean over in bed to see what stupid notification I got at 2AM.

    What You Need to Know About Face ID

    Apple’s new iPhone X does away with the Home button, which has been a fixture since the original iPhone and has long served as the Touch ID fingerprint sensor. To replace Touch ID, Apple developed a new facial recognition technology called Face ID. With Face ID, the iPhone X scans your face to authenticate you instead of using your fingerprint. It is truly amazing technology! Apple even invested in the company making the scanning lasers that make Face ID work this week.

    How does Face ID work?

    Freaking Magic. Well, almost. As science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Face ID is cutting-edge technology that uses Apple’s TrueDepth camera system to project over 30,000 invisible dots onto your face. Then it illuminates your face with infrared light and takes an infrared image. Finally, it translates that image into facial recognition data that are encrypted and stored within the iPhone’s Secure Enclave (the data never leaves your iPhone). Face ID updates its mathematical representation of your face overtime to keep up with how your appearance changes.

    How secure is Face ID?

    Extremely. Apple claims that Touch ID’s false positive rate—the number of people who would have to try logging in to your iPhone before someone would succeed randomly—is 1 in 50,000. In contrast, Apple says that Face ID’s false positive rate is 1 in 1,000,000. It can’t be fooled by a picture or a simple mask, although a high-enough quality 3D reproduction of your face might get past it, just as a sufficiently good cast of your fingerprint could fool Touch ID.

    However, Face ID has trouble distinguishing between identical twins and siblings who have nearly identical features. So if you have an evil twin or even a nice twin with a sick sense of humor, stick to a Touch ID-based iPhone or your passcode! The probability of an incorrect match is also higher with children under 13, since their facial features haven’t become sufficiently distinct yet.

    By default, Face ID works only when you look at the iPhone X—it can’t be unlocked by your face when you’re sleeping or in my case when I am staring at my Mac’s display with the iPhone on my desk.

    How fast is Face ID?

    Not quite as fast as Touch ID in current iPhones, but fast enough that you likely won’t notice. When you pick up your iPhone X so you can look at it, Face ID will, in most cases, have already recognized you.
    This quick recognition is possible in part because the iPhone X can start scanning early, thanks to iOS’s Raise to Wake feature and a new Tap to Wake feature that automatically wakes the iPhone X when you touch the screen.

    What if Face ID doesn’t work?

    First off, things like wearing a hat, scarf, or glasses won’t confuse Face ID, nor will growing or shaving a beard. Thanks to that infrared camera, it even works in complete darkness, sorta. It does seem to have more trouble working with black people in the dark or maybe even darker skinned people. However, Face ID does fail occasionally. One reason for a Face ID failure is holding the iPhone X too close to your face—this is easy to do accidently if you’re nearsighted and not wearing your glasses. (Some sunglasses prevent Face ID from seeing your eyes, but you can work around that problem by disabling Require Attention for Face ID in Settings > Face ID & Passcode.)

    To make Face ID retry a facial scan, hold the iPhone X at a normal viewing distance, tilt it away from you, and then tilt it back to your normal viewing position. If that doesn’t work, or if you want to let someone else use your iPhone, enter the passcode. Entering the passcode is always an option.

    Alas, unlike Touch ID, which let you enroll up to five fingers (so family members could unlock your iPhone without using the passcode), Face ID lets you have only a single face.

    Can I use Face ID for anything besides unlocking?

    Oh yeah, Face ID completely replaces Touch ID, so you can use it to authenticate when you’re using Apple Pay, or the App Store or iTunes Store. Plus, apps that previously relied on Touch ID, such as the 1Password or LastPass password managers, will automatically use Face ID instead.

    We hope Apple can make the hardware necessary for Face ID cheaply enough to bring it to other devices as well. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could walk up to your Mac and have it automatically unlock because it had recognized your face? Now, if it could just read my mind and do my work for me I’d be all set!

  • Single User Mode Commands

    Back in the old days of computing, you had no choice but to navigate through your file system using what is called a terminal. That was before the time of GUI or graphical user interface. This is the most basic form of interacting with your machine, this is an art. For a while now, my fellow techs and I would occasionally write a terminal article teaching you some of the simple commands.

    By entering Single User Mode you can give basic commands to the UNIX shell of the Mac OS just as if you were typing on an old UNIX terminal. This is NOT to be confused with the Terminal App in your Utility folder. Single User Mode and Verbose Mode are only available upon boot-up by holding special keys to get to the UNIX shell.

    Now you may ask why do I need to learn this? Well, it is what divides the average user from the power user. It is one of the most powerful tools a user has in their arsenal, it cuts right through the pretty wrapper of macOS GUI. Single User mode has a plethora of uses, including troubleshooting. Let’s say your Mac will not complete its login, OH NO!! With the power of UNIX, you can troubleshoot part of the issue using this handy tool! Let’s get started.

    First, boot your Mac and hold the Command and S keys, you are going to see a bunch of crazy lines of text than just a blinking curser. Type ‘df -h’ this will get a read-out of the disk space and amount used. Many times your Mac may not boot because your drive is filled to the max. This means the filesystem has no space to make the temporary files it needs to function. We always recommend that you leave at least 10% of your drive’s capacity vacant. That means if you have a 1TB drive you need 100GB free.

    With the ‘df-h’ command you can see you if you have enough space or if your drive is more stuffed then Uncle Phil around the holidays. But you have enough space, now what? Maybe your filesystem has become corrupted, no, not the type of corruption that we see in our nation’s capital. Trust me, your computer can be trumped by corruption and that is not locker room talk! So before you tweet to your buddies in an angry rage, try running ‘fsck -fy ‘which is a file system repair. Now before you try any of this BACK UP YOUR MACHINE, there is no confirmation or undo in single user mode, it is all or nothing.

    Another command you can use is ‘config’, which will give a list of your internet interfaces, i.e. wlan0 or eth0. It will also tell you if you have what is called an IP address which looks like this 192.168.1.xxx the xxx are your subset that gives you your address. If your mac is getting an IP address and you still get no interwebs the issue might be with your web browser or router so what is the next step? The ping command to the rescue! It works like this, you type ‘ping’ and then the web address i.e, ping google.com. If you have an IP address and cannot speak with the outside world your DNS setting not be working or your router could be broken.

    When navigating in single user mode it is easy to get confused and lost, so you can use the ‘pwd’ command or present working directory, to give you the ‘you are here’ or if you want to see what paths you can take try the ‘LS’ command. This will list the next paths you can take in the directory. I can’t go into all the uses of the single user mode, I would need a book for that and I have computers to fix. But, hopefully, I leave you today knowing a little more about single user mode.

  • Life's a Beach

    Call it what you will. “Beachball of Death”, “Pinwheel of Patience”, “Rainbow Wheel”, “Color Pizza”, “The Waiting Pie” (Yes, these are all names I’ve heard), we as mac os users are familiar with the dreaded and colourful menace. A few times a day I receive concerns from Mac users that there may be an issue with their machine as the pinwheel spins constantly. To be fair, a machine that displays the pinwheel for more than a handful of seconds may be trying to tell you a number of things.

    If you’re attempting to open an application and your Mac pinwheels for more than a few seconds, try clicking on the Desktop. Most of the time that will free up your cursor and allow you to navigate to the Force Quit menu to shut down whichever application is gunking up your performance.

    Should you see the pinwheel seemingly out of the blue, (eg. on startup), it could be indicative of full storage. It’s recommended you leave at least 10% of your storage disk free. In the About This Mac submenu, you can monitor your available and used storage space on your machine. If there is only a few Gb’s available, it may be time to do some deep cleaning. However, if you see plenty of storage available and your machine constantly pinwheels, it may be indicative of a hardware issue. In which case, you could take a trip to one of our locations to get it looked at.

    Lastly, one of the most common instances of pinwheeling rests in browsing the Web. Safari is one app that often calls up the pinwheel when it’s dealing with a problematic web page. Typically you can fix this by hitting the ‘x’ symbol in the web address field to stop the page from loading or just close the window altogether.

  • Happy December, Tech Tails readers!

    We’ve got an informative edition for you today, and I want to lead off by talking about Apple’s ForceTouch Trackpad. A lot of you may own a Mac with one of these handy innovations attached to it, and if you do, you may have noticed that the TrackPad DOES NOT click when the computer is turned off. This has actually caused a few customers to believe they picked up a defective unit, and even freaked out a couple of our technicians at first! To me, this is still a bizarre concept, but a very cool one that makes me wonder about the future of keyboards and other input devices.

    How does Apple do this? Using a Taptic Engine, the ForceTouch Trackpad creates the illusion of movement by generating feedback based on the amount of pressure you’ve applied. Unlike the previous design, which used a “diving board” design, these models are completely solid state, meaning the parts do not move. Now, this is not news to us, we have had this technology for a couple years now. The thing that WAS new to us was Trackpad issues being related to a user account. Our technicians were baffled to find the Trackpad of a MacBook mysteriously misbehaving ONLY when used by the primary user account. This issue was resolved by reinstalling the operating system. In the past, with “diving board” design trackpads, we would have never tried this measure to resolve such an issue.

    The takeaway from a repair like this: you can never be too sure! As service providers, we are constantly learning. New OS features new repair guides, and all the parts and tools that are constantly evolving. If you’re experiencing some type of issue with your Mac, never rule out the possibility of software corruption. You would be surprised what elements of operation it can impact, especially if you consider the new class of Macs are dealing with these days.

    Ever had an issue that appeared to be hardware, but ended up being resolved without repair? Let us know!

    Patrick McCormack
    patrickm@smalldog.com

  • Show Me The Cash!

    My granddaughter Khadija is away at college at Boston University and from time to time she will hit her gramps up for some…

  • The Magic Of The Trackpad

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