Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • Accidental Damage: Why Protection Is Important

    With many schools and colleges back in session, we are seeing the usual and predicable spike in accidental damage repairs in our service facilities. It’s very important to remember that a dropped computer, one with a broken screen, or one with any type of liquid damage–no matter how new–has no warranty coverage.

    Here are my favorite protective products for Apple laptops.

    **1.** “Speck cases”:http://www.smalldog.com/search/?find=speck are hard shells that are form-fitted for a precise and tight fit to your laptop. Also see JJ’s review of Incipio Feather cases (another great case) below.

    **2.**The second part of protecting your laptop is a well-padded laptop bag like “those from Timbuk2.”:http://www.smalldog.com/search/?find=Timbuk2 These messenger-style laptop bags have lots of storage, look good, and provide great protection.

    **3.** If you prefer a sleeve-style laptop case, know that they provide less protection, but are still better than carrying around a naked computer. My favorite is the new “Hammerhead line,”:http://www.smalldog.com/search/?find=hammerhead named for CEO Don Mayer’s bulldog.

    **4.** “KB Covers”:http://www.smalldog.com/search/?find=kb+cover makes a line of form-fitting super-thin plastic covers that’ll save your bacon if you spill a small amount of liquid on your keyboard. It only takes a drop of water to make it through your keyboard and onto complex (and very expensive) circuitry below!

  • How I Use Spaces

    I discovered recently in an informal poll of my co-workers that I seem to be the only one in love with Spaces. When Leopard was released nearly two years ago, Spaces was touted as one of the biggest new features, allowing up to sixteen separate virtual desktops. While hardly a new idea in the computing world, I always found the implementation in other distributions cumbersome and clunky. Apple applied their expected touch of polish and turned a useful feature into a useful, easy, and fluid feature.

    Space is located in System Preferences, paired with Apple’s other extremely useful window management feature, Exposé. Make sure the “Enable Spaces” box is checked, along with “Show Spaces in Menu Bar,” which creates a small menu items for a quick reference to which space you are currently in. I also find it handy to map Spaces to a hot corner, for quick switching between spaces. Once it’s enabled, you can assign applications to always open in a particular space; this is where the true power of Spaces shines through.

    If you’re like me, you are probably browsing the web, listening to iTunes, checking Twitter, sending emails, and finishing a presentation all at the same time. With more than two applications open at once, the desktop can become very cluttered and hard to manage. Sure, Exposé does make jumping windows very easy, but I don’t necessarily need to have iTunes and Twitter in the way of my Keynote projects and emails.

    Spaces also allows me to group applications onto a particular desktop and then use Exposé to work between those programs. This makes it much easier to multitask with your Mac and can actually improve your workflow quite dramatically. This works fantastically when working on presentations, photo editing, podcast recording, or even file browsing.

    My personal Spaces philosophy is as follows: web activity in Space one, iTunes in two, downloads in three, email and Word documents in four. Not only does this allow me to mentally organize myself, it means I can have all these items open at once and not worry about minimizing or manipulating window sizes when working between them. The bird’s eye view Spaces gives uses also allows you to drag applications between desktops and even rearranges entire Spaces with each other.

    Spaces is now one of my favorite Mac OS features and is now completely integrated into my everyday workflow.

    To learn more about Spaces, check out “Apple’s video tutorial on YouTube here.”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7MHup6kXbU

    Do you use Spaces? “Email me”:mailto:dan@smalldog.com your favorite ways to use Spaces!

  • Aperture 2 Review

    If you’ve been using iPhoto, Lightroom, or Photoshop, Aperture 2 may be the perfect program for you. It combines iPhoto’s award-winning interface, Lightroom’s workflow capabilities, and Photoshop’s raw processing power.

    As a long-standing iPhoto user with thousands of photos, I can appreciate how easy it was to switch my library over. Most of my photos are in RAW, which is supported in both iPhoto and Aperture, but Aperture 2 also supports JPEG, PNG, GIF, and almost every other type of image.

    To import your iPhoto Library, just click Import iPhoto Library in the file menu. It’s that easy. You can even choose to keep those photos in the iPhoto library file, and just create links to them in Aperture 2 (this saves quite a bit of disk space).

    The equivalent of an Event in Aperture 2 is called a Project. In a project, you can create multiple albums, web pages, light tables, and slideshows. When it comes to editing them, the Inspector allows you to either change elements in the main window, or edit fullscreen. The controls only show up when you need them, and are very easy to use. The only downside to Aperture 2 is that it doesn’t support Face Detection or Geo-Tagging. This may come with a later release of Aperture 2, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

    I think Aperture 2 is well worth the $199 price tag (Save $20 off Aperture 2 in-store!). Don’t believe me? Try a demo in-store!

  • Snow Leopard Incompatibilities

    With each and every major operating system upgrade, there are a handful of programs that just won’t work. Snow Leopard is no exception, and the list includes some anti-virus software, old versions of Parallels (2.5 and earlier), a number questionably useful titles, and even some Apple software (AirPort Admin Utility for Graphite and Snow).

    If these applications are present on your computer when you install Snow Leopard, there will be a folder called Incompatible Software at the root of your hard drive once the installation is finished. You can check with the software manufacturer for any updates in the coming weeks, but know that there is no workaround for incompatible software available from Small Dog nor from Apple–you must go directly to the manufacturer for any update.

    Also on the list are a few applications that are not technically incompatible but will not be allowed to launch, registering a message that the application unexpectedly quit. Apple feels these are safe applications if they are updated for Snow Leopard. This list includes Parallels Desktop 3.0, the hugely popular virtualization tool from Parallels.

    Also on the list are a few applications that are not incompatible but will not be allowed to launch, registering a message that the Application unexpectedly quit. Apple feels that these are safe applications if they are to be updated. The list of Applications that need to be updated includes Parallels Desktop 3.0.

    The document can be found here: “http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3258”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3258

  • Final Cut Studio: Now In Stock!

    To show our excitement about “Final Cut Studio,”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag19312/ we are offering an **instant $100 rebate** for a final cost of $899.99!

    Final Cut Studio now includes: Final Cut Pro 7, Motion 4, Soundtrack Pro 2, Color 1.5, and Compressor 3.5.

    **Come in to check out what’s new!**

  • *Rabbit, Rabbit!*

    Greetings, all–I can’t believe it’s already September! Back-To-School is in the air and things are hopping at the retail stores. Here at Small Dog we have everything and more that your student will need! From MacBooks and MacBook Pros to laptop locks and protective keyboard covers to Microsoft Office for Mac and iWork! Let us be your students’ Mac resource! If you still need to do some shopping, check out our Mac-To-School deals “here!”:http://www.smalldog.com/mactoschool

    For those of you who are new to Macs or looking for refreshers, we have a great new promotion running. It’s called the **Class Pass**–for $99.99 you will be able to attend our **Absolute Mac Basics and Mac Basics Level 2 classes AND a 30 minute one-on-one in store consult** where you can chose the agenda! The Class Pass will get you familiarized with your Mac before you know it.

    **Snow Leopard,** Apple’s newest operating system, 10.6, is here! Every new Mac now comes with Snow Leopard. We had so many pre-orders for the upgrade to Snow Leopard we’re working to keep our shelves stocked–call us to reserve your copy today. There are a lot of reasons to upgrade–including marked speed increases and a recovery of up to 7GB of your hard drive space (over Leopard)!

    Want to learn more about Snow Leopard? Have questions about which upgrade you need or if your computer can be upgraded to Snow Leopard? Visit our full Snow Leopard resource “here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/snowleopard

    One final note: Our retail stores will be closed Monday, September 7th for Labor Day. Enjoy your long weekend and we hope to see you soon!

    Katie
    “katie@smalldog.com”:mailto:katie@smalldog.com

  • Happy Tuesday,

    I left our flagship South Burlington store last night with Owen in the passenger seat, perfect doggy posture and tongue hanging out the side of his mouth, and took the long way back to my home in Moretown. There aren’t many signs of Fall yet, but sumac is beginning to turn brilliant red and the apple trees are sagging under the weight of larger and more fruit than in past years.

    Ed spoke yesterday of his first taste of this year’s apples, a Ginger Gold, one of my very favorite varieties that happens to be completely unsuitable for winter storage. With corn still available, tomatoes unaffected by late season blight in their prime, and apples coming into season, I’ve found the suddenly low temperatures have me craving the autumn months. I’m ready for butternut squash, hardy post-frost collard greens, and braised food.

    Despite the cool temperature, I swam with Owen in the Mad River over the weekend. He still smells a bit skunky when he gets wet, and if experience has anything to do with it, I can safely say he’ll smell in February when he’s wet from melted snow.

    Snow Leopard is here and I have it on my MacBook Pro. It hasn’t been long enough for me to form a strong opinion of this very significant release of Mac OS X, and no third parties support the 64-bit architecture quite yet (at least that I know of) so the speed gains are all in the Apple iApps as far as I can tell. We’ve long known there won’t be any new features, but Snow Leopard appears to be a solid beginning to the next chapter of the Mac OS’s evolution.

    Enjoy this issue, and keep in touch.

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

  • Our Governor in Vermont, Jim Douglas announced that he is not seeking re-election, which will really throw open the election for next year. I disagree with Governor Douglas in many public policy issues, but I have tremendous respect for him as a public servant and as an individual. We share a passionate love for our state and for Vermonters and that really does transcend politics. We all wish him well.

    It looks like rain for this weekend but I hope to get out on the bikes at least a little bit and perhaps I’ll just have to check out one of the fairs in our state. Meanwhile, I have some work to do in my shop at home. I just found a 1970 Norton Commando to restore as a winter project so I want the shop to be ready for some late night mechanics.

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

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,
    _Don, Kali & Ed_

  • FEATURED SPECIAL | 08/28/09 – 09/08/09

    This is “special” but not really “a special.” We wanted to let you know that, from today on, Small Dog Electronics is including an OS 10.6 Snow Leopard installation disk with every new-condition Mac we ship.

    For previous-generation machines, such as the “2.0 GHz unibody MacBooks”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/72290, Snow Leopard won’t be installed on the machine, but *will be included on an installation DVD.* This way you can choose if you want to run Snow Leopard now or wait a couple of weeks to read Snow Leopard reviews before you install it.

    Want to learn more about Snow Leopard? “Click here for all the details!”:http://www.smalldog.com/snowleopard

  • Upcoming Garage Sale: Starts Friday, September 18!

    We wanted to let you know that we have been busy in our warehouses getting ready for our Famous Semi-Annual Garage Sale! At least once a year, we clean out our inventory and offer some crazy deals on the goodies we find. “Click here to read more about the Garage Sale.”:http://www.smalldog.com/garagesale

    This year we’re going deep and will be offering lots of interesting finds. We’ll give some hints in next week’s Kibbles and Bytes, so stay tuned. Kibbles readers are always the first to know!

    *WHEN:* Tuesday, 9/18, beginning at 8AM ET.

    *WHERE:* “http://www.smalldog.com/garagesale”:http://www.smalldog.com/garagesale