Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • PowerCurl for MagSafe Power Adapters!

    “MagSafe”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74727 adapters are amazing–they can often keep a little stumble from turning into a full-on disaster with the way they just release the cord when the wrong pressure is applied. Sometimes, though, power adapters suffer some abuse due to our busy, on-the-go lives; even with good care, _fray happens!_

    Well, our friends at “quirky”:http://www.quirky.com/ teamed up with the quirky community to create a fix for our fraying blues. The “PowerCurl!”:http://www.smalldog.com/search/?find=quirky This bright orange creation allows your power cord to have a safe housing (the power cord fits into the PowerCurl frame), the wires from the MagSafe wrap around the PowerCurl so you don’t have to worry about the cord going everywhere (it will even house the extension cable!). But the best part is that the PowerCurl will help cut back with the cord fraying by the brick of the MagSafe because of the way it coils around the unit.

    It also makes bringing your power cord much easier. You don’t have to worry about the cables going all over the place. I have a pocket in my backpack that holds this perfectly!

    You might argue that the MagSafes have the legs on the power brick that you can wrap the cable around; however, I feel like they are a bit flimsy and don’t offer the same “toughness” that the PowerCurl does. For $11.99 you can’t go wrong!

    It’s a lot cheaper that $79.99 for a new MagSage Power Adapter! **Tip:** **The PowerCurl is available in a “60W”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/75009 and “85W”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/75010 size!** So be sure to get the 60W for your MacBook or 13″ MacBook Pro and the 85W for your 15″ or 17″ MacBook Pro!

  • Quiver for iPod/iPhone

    If you enjoy running, biking, or snowboarding, you’ve probably brought along your iPod to keep the energy flowing and have realized that reaching into your pockets to fumble with your iPod to change songs can be tricky (not to mention dangerous).

    The “Quiver”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74793 aims to eliminate this hassle, sporting a simple yet ingenious design that allows you full control of your iPod or iPhone while keeping the headphone wires under control and your iPod safely tucked away. The design is reminiscent of an arrow quiver used by archers (hence the name) and is worn across the torso, similar to how you would wear a messenger bag. The material is stretchable and water-repellent, so it remains comfortable and will get you through virtually anything Mother Nature can throw your way.

    Right on the front and in easy access in a line of five buttons that make up the “Quiver’s”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74793 “inSound” control system–allowing you to play and pause your music, answer a call on your iPhone, skip tracks, and raise/lower the volume. These controls are enabled by plugging your device into the dock connector in the “Quiver’s”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74793 main pocket.

    Headphone management is the other area where the “Quiver”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74793 shines. No one likes to deal with tangled, dangling wires, especially in the middle of activity. The “Quiver”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74793 allows you to feed your headphone cord through the fabric and to the pocket where your iPod sits. This allows enough cord to comfortably and safely wear your favorite headphones without getting them tangled in a tree branch or other obstacle.

    Once you have your headphones and iPod in place, adjust the “Quiver”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74793 to fit against your body snugly, and you’re off! This would make a perfect gift for the holiday season for snowboarders or skiers. Come by our retail stores and ask one of our staff members to give you a demo! Priced at $89.99 the “Quiver”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74793 is a great holiday gift!

  • Aroma Home Animal Screen Wipes

    With little chamois bellies, these “Aroma Home”:http://www.smalldog.com/search/?find=aroma Animal Screen Wipes are sure to add a little fun to computer or LCD cleaning! Easier to hold on to than other screen wipes, these animals will erase finger prints and any dust off your screen as well as reduce static.

    Don’t worry, they won’t scratch your screens, but they will leave a nice lemony, clean smell–giving you some aromatherapy while you work! “Aroma Home Animal Screen Wipes”:http://www.smalldog.com/search/?find=aroma are also reusable and no training is necessary!

    This is a fun holiday gift that is perfect for the person who has EVERYTHING! Available in four different animals – “Elephant”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74953, “Gorilla”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74954, “Pig”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74955, and a “Tiger!”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74956

  • Seasons Greetings!

    As I write this, I can’t believe it’s already December 14th! This year seemed to fly by! But that’s alright because that means its time for the Holidays—and then the start of a brand new year!

    This time of year most customers who come through are looking for the perfect gifts for the Mac enthusiast, the person who has everything, or something small to just say “thanks”.

    Jeremiah, Gary and I wanted to do a special edition of Best in Showroom to pass along some of our gift picks for this year! Enjoy—and please feel free to contact Jeremiah, Gary or myself if you have any questions whatsoever!

    On top of the savings you will see below, we still have great rebates when you buy a new Mac with AppleCare (which is currently discounted itself!). Enjoy a FREE HP Officejet J4680 All-In-One Printer, Scanner, Copier and Fax after mail-in-rebate (regularly $119.99) OR get a $60 mail-in-rebate when you purchase a LaCie 500GB or 1TB Neil Poulton hard drive!

    Happy Holidays!

    -Katie, Jeremiah, and Gary (and the rest of the South Burlington Crew!)

  • Happy Tuesday, Every year I seem to forget just how beautiful the woods can be right after snowfall. I woke up Sunday morning…

  • Repair of the Week: MacBook Won't Charge

    This week’s repair is on a first-generation MacBook that had a very slight amount of water spilled on it. The customer did everything right: he immediately turned off the computer and removed the battery, and left it alone in a warm place for ten days. An attempt to fire up a spilled-on computer generally makes the situation worse, so while it might be tempting to cross your fingers and hope for the best, resist the urge and wait it out.

    After 10 days near his wood stove (not too close!), he plugged it in, pressed the power button, and it fired right up. Delighted, he attacked his inbox for a half hour and right after signing into Facebook, the reserve power warning came up. Even after plugging the computer in, the battery would not charge.

    This is a fairly common situation and there are several components involved. The flow of power in a MacBook goes from the MagSafe adapter, into the MagSafe-in clip, to the logic board, to the battery transfer board, to the battery. Of course, the easiest thing to do is test the MagSafe adapter itself with a known-good one. If that does not resolve the issue, the next component to test is the battery. If neither of these resolve the issue, it’s time for a visit to your local repair shop.

    Knowing that the spill was concentrated in the area around the arrow keys, right above the battery transfer board, the first step was to swap that part out. No luck there. Not having a spare logic board to test, I went to the MagSafe-in board and swapped that with no luck. At that point, I had to order up the logic board for diagnostic purposes, and it did resolve the issue. While I could not find any sign of liquid on the logic board, I did very plainly see liquid damage on the battery transfer board, so the outcome was a bit surprising. In the end, though, the customer elected not to repair the damage due to the very high cost of logic boards. In this case, the best thing to do was simply use the computer while plugged in.

  • Tip of the Week: Time Your Time Machine Backups

    I love me some “Time Machine”:http://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is-macosx/time-machine.html. It’s the easiest way for the average Mac user to reliably back up their computer. Since it’s the easiest backup method, it’s also the most likely method to be used, which is a good thing. Apple writes:

    “Time Machine automatically makes incremental backups every hour, every day, copying just the files that have changed since your last backup. And it does this all in the background, so you can continue working while Time Machine is busy copying your files.”

    As much as I adore and use Time Machine, there are times when it gets in my way. I frequently import and edit audio and video, which results in large files that take a long time to backup. The standard hourly Time Machine backup is often too frequent.

    Fortunately, there is a free app for Mac OS 10.5 and Mac OS 10.6 called “TimeMachineEditor”:http://timesoftware.free.fr/timemachineeditor, which lets you change the default one-hour backup interval of Time Machine. You can change the interval or create more sophisticated scheduling based on a calendar. I prefer my Mac to simply backup to Time Machine once at the end of the day.

    You can “click here to download TimeMachineEditor”:http://timesoftware.free.fr/timemachineeditor. It’s easy to install and uninstall. If you decide you prefer the standard one-hour Time Machine backup, simply use TimeMachineEditor one last time to turn it off, then drag the application to the trash to uninstall.

  • Hire a Consultant for the Holidays

    ‘Tis the season for gadget giving but in all the hustle of the holiday season have you thought about how to really get a good start with your new products? It should come as no surprise that while December is a booming month for retail, January is actually the busiest month in technical support; lots of new gifts to set up and configure. It’s always an awesome feeling to unwrap new machines, iPods and accessories, but getting them set up can be a chore. It doesn’t have to be.

    Our Watchdog Consulting department is available for in-store, in-home/office, and remote sessions to help get your new goodies working the way you want them to and help teach you how to get the most out of them. While you’re always welcome to check our “website”:http://www.smalldog.com/consulting to learn more about what we have to offer, we’d also like to cordially invite you to our second Meet The Consultants day this Saturday (12/12) in our South Burlington location from 11am-4pm. Feel free to stop in for a free 15-minute consultation and learn more about what we have to offer. Don’t have time to wait? Schedule your 15-minute session in advance by shooting us an email at consulting@smalldog.com or give us a ring at (802)496-7171 x512.

  • From the Archives: Wary of iWeb

    For all the wonders of the iLife suite, occasionally I run into bizarre quirks that don’t seem to have any easy solutions. This week, the newest quirk I discovered was in iWeb. Now, I have to say that I love iWeb. I know it bugs the heck out of some people that it’s impossible to directly edit the html, so it’s not nearly as robust as most site-creating applications, but it has some really amazing user-friendly features that have really gotten me hooked.

    For example, I needed a quick, clean, professional site for my home business and iWeb helped me create and maintain it in just a few hours. While I still get the itch to fire up BBEdit and get my hands dirty in the code, it’s really not necessary for my needs.

    Something that is necessary, however, is being able to edit my site on multiple computers or to access the files for my site if I somehow lose my local copy. This was the issue I ran into this week when one of my clients called up our support line to say that he needed to “re-download” his iWeb-site from his iDisk. His hard drive crashed, and, due to some extenuating circumstances, he also lost the backup he had on his Time Machine.

    However, he’s a MobileMe member and the latest edits to his site had been uploaded to his iDisk, so he, logically, assumed that he could just import the site from his iDisk back into his iWeb program. Wrong!

    After doing a little research, I found that there is no way to reimport an iWeb-made website into iWeb. Just for reference, the iWeb files are kept in your user folder in Library/Application Support/iWeb. In there you’ll find a Domain file that is a package created by the iWeb program.

    At first I was hoping that I could just take the site folder from MobileMe and create a package with those contents, but if you actually view the package contents of an iWeb domain (select Domain -> Right Click -> Show Package Contents) you’ll see that it’s not laid out like a site folder at all. Frustration!!

    What’s the solution? Well, make multiple backups of that iWeb domain file (see “this Apple Support article”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1105 for more details). If you’re a MobileMe member you might want to consider manually backing up the iWeb Domain file to your iDisk so even if your computer and external hard drive fail there’s another copy of your Domain off in cyber-space that you can easily re-download.

    Also, if you feel like editing your site on multiple computers just be sure to transfer that Domain file to the Application Support folder of the user account on your other machine. Launch iWeb and it’s all gravy from there. For now, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that some swanky Apple-programmer out in Cupertino finds a way to make importing a site into iWeb just as easy as exporting one.

  • Happy Tuesday,

    Every year I seem to forget just how beautiful the woods can be right after snowfall. I woke up Sunday morning to a scant dusting on the ground, but it was warm enough that the clumpy snow stuck to the branches. I knew it wouldn’t last more than an hour or two, so Owen and I donned bright orange vests and headed into the forest for a morning hike. There was a dusting last night and this morning, but it is almost melted already. This cold streak finally has me in the winter spirit.

    Did you know that Small Dog will match any donation up to $200 to any of our pet charities like Planned Parenthood, Vermont Food Bank, and Doctors Without Borders? I hope you’ll consider donating through Small Dog to double your donation dollars. Learn more about our Charitable Giving Program “here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/charity

    As always, thanks for reading and keep in touch.

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

  • Welcome back to Deal Retriever! This week’s deal is on a hot new item—the 3M MPro120 Portable Projector. Save $80 on a great…