Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • Do You AppleCare?

    AppleCare is one of the most outstanding values that Apple has to offer. While Apple products are among the most reliable in the world, mechanical and electrical things do fail from time to time. Apple only provides a 1-year warranty to help keep prices low but offers AppleCare to increase that hardware warranty to three years. Almost anything that will fail in your new Mac will cost more than the cost of AppleCare should it fail outside of the 1-year warranty. That should be reason enough to buy AppleCare but wait, there’s more!

    Your new Mac purchase comes with 90 days of free technical support from Apple. This includes support for Apple operating system software, iLife or iWork or connecting to printers and wireless networks. After those 90 days, Apple technical support will ask for your credit card before they will talk to you for any incidents. AppleCare takes that 90-days and extends it to 3 years! This is a fantastic value and gives you peace of mind that you have Apple’s award-winning technical support locked in for the whole three years.

    I feel so strongly that AppleCare is a great value that we are having a one-week sale for *Kibbles & Bytes readers only* to reward our subscribers with something that really matters. You haven’t seen prices this low for AppleCare before and we are unlikely to do it again, so if you are on the fence about buying this protection for your Mac, I hope this pushes you over!

    *Kibbles & Bytes Exclusives:*

    “Save $30: AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac mini”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag19412/at_kb
    “Save $35: AppleCare Protection Plan for iMac”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag19413/at_kb
    “Save $45: AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac Pro”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag19414/at_kb
    “Save $45: AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook, MacBook Air, 13-in MacBook Pro”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag19415/at_kb
    “Save $70: AppleCare Protection Plan for 15/17-in MacBook Pro”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag19416/at_kb

    __Offers end Thursday, 9/3. Valid through this link only.__

  • Hands On With Snow Leopard–In Brief

    I installed Snow Leopard on my MacBook Pro as soon as possible this morning. Installation took just over 45 minutes. As others have noted, Snow Leopard is sightly (but noticeably) faster and more responsive than Leopard with nice usability touches scattered about. For example, I like having Expose available in the Dock, and I appreciate how windows gathered by Expose are highlighted when moused over. The new contextual menus in the Dock pop are easier to scan. I really like QuickTime X; playback of HD video is silky smooth, and the new minimalist playback pane is excellent.

    Bootup time is improved by about 20 seconds, and it’s 20 seconds I can really feel. Also, because of the substantial under-the-hood improvements in Snow Leopard, I expect speed enhancements to be more pronounced in the near future with application and general software updates.

    Out of curiosity, I launched an old version PowerPC version of Dreamweaver to see what would happen. Snow Leopard simply asked asked if I wanted to install the Rosetta code required to run older PowerPC apps. I chose not to, to save hard drive space; it’s nice to know I have this option in the future, though I don’t anticipate installing or uing older PowerPC-based software.

    We’ll test Snow Leopard in depth and report our findings in a future article!

  • OS 10.6 Snow Leopard Reviews

    We’ll be posting our own review of Snow Leopard next week after we get to spend some quality hands-on time with it. In the meantime, here are some reviews from around the web:

    * “Wired.com – 6 Things You Need to Know About Mac OS X Snow Leopard”:http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/08/6-things-snow-leopard/

    * “Gizmodo – Snow Leopard Review: Lightened and Enlightened”:http://gizmodo.com/5346418/snow-leopard-review-lightened-and-enlightened

    * “Wall Street Journal – Apple Changes Leopard’s Spots”:http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090826/apple-changes-leopards-spots/

    * “New York Times – Apple’s Sleek Upgrade”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/technology/personaltech/27pogue.html

    * “C|Net – Apple Mac OS X Snow Leopard”:http://reviews.cnet.com/macintosh-os/apple-mac-os-x/4505-3673_7-33676737.html?tag=mncol;txt

    * “Engadget – Snow Leopard review”:http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/26/snow-leopard-review/

    * “Physorg First Look: New Mac ‘Snow Leopard’ software not a dramatic change”:http://www.physorg.com/news170527795.html

    And then there’s this ridiculous link-bait article over at PC World. Personally, this makes me glad Small Dog Electronics no longer advertises over there!

    “Snow Leopard Is a Pale Imitation of Windows 7”:http://www.pcworld.com/article/170783/snow_leopard_is_a_pale_imitation_of_windows_7.html

  • OS 10.6 Snow Leopard Released Today!

    Surprise! OS 10.6 Snow Leopard has been released early–today, August 28! Here at Small Dog Electronics we are very excited about Snow Leopard, even though Apple is not heavily promoting its launch with pre-press, etc.

    Snow Leopard is designed to make day-to-day tasks on your Mac easier, faster and more accessible. It delivers a wide range of enhancements, next-generation technologies, out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange Server, and new accessibility features. Snow Leopard is the most powerful and refined version of Mac OS X ever.

    *How to Purchase and Upgrade to OS 10.6 Snow Leopard*

    Snow Leopard is an upgrade for Leopard users and requires a Mac computer (duh) with an Intel processor, 1GB of memory (though at least 2GB is highly recommended), 5GB of available disk space, and a DVD drive for installation. “Visit our RAM Finder if you want to add RAM to your Mac before upgrading to Snow Leopard.”:http://www.smalldog.com/ramfinder

    *If you’ve purchased a qualifying Mac or Xserve on or after June 8, 2009 that didn’t include Mac OS X Snow Leopard,* you can upgrade to Snow Leopard for $9.95 exclusively from Apple via the Mac OS X Up-to-Date Program. “Click here to get details of this offer and download the PDF.”:http://www.smalldog.com/snowleopard

    *If you have OS 10.5 Leopard installed on a Mac purchased before June 8, 2009,* you can upgrade to the Snow Leopard Single User Edition, on sale for $29.99. “Click here to see this.”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74329

    *If you have multiple Macs running OS 10.5 Leopard,* you can upgrade to Snow Leopard with the Snow Leopard Family Pack. This can be installed on up to five Macs and is on sale for $49.99. “Click here to see this.”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74330

    *If you have Mac OS 10.4 Tiger or earlier,* the only way to upgrade to Snow Leopard is with the Snow Leopard Mac Box Set. This includes OS 10.6 Snow Leopard, along with iWork ’09 and iLife ’09. Purchasing those separately would cost $289! See the Snow Leopard Mac Box Set on sale for $169.99 “by clicking here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74331

    *If you have Mac OS 10.4 Tiger or earlier running on multiple Macs,* the Snow Leopard Mac Box Set is available as a Family Pack that can be installed on up to five computers for $229.99. “Click here to see this.”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74332

    *Our Favorite Features*

    Some of the most exciting new features and overall system enhancements in OS 10.6 Snow Leopard include:

    * 64-bit support, the next big step for the Mac. All key system applications are now 64-bit so they can take advantage of all the memory in your Mac.

    * Out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange. Mac OS X Snow Leopard delivers built-in support for the latest version of Microsoft Exchange Server, something even Windows PCs don’t have.

    * Smaller footprint. Snow Leopard takes up less than half the disk space of the previous version, freeing about 7GB for you–enough for about 1,750 more songs or a few thousand more photos.

    * The Finder has been completely rewritten using Cocoa to take advantage of the new technologies in Snow Leopard, including 64-bit support and Grand Central Dispatch. It’s more responsive from top to bottom, with snappier performance throughout the Finder.

    * Quicker Time Machine backup. Snow Leopard makes Time Machine up to 80 percent faster and reduces the time it takes to complete your initial backup to Time Capsule.

    * Faster to wake up and shut down. Your Mac wakes from sleep up to twice as quickly when you have screen locking enabled. And shutting down is up to 80 percent faster.

    * QuickTime X: As the next generation of media players, it’s built on new core technologies and advances modern media and Internet standards.

    * More efficient file sharing.

    * Multi-Touch gestures in older Mac models. All Mac notebooks with Multi-Touch trackpads now support three- and four-finger gestures.

    * A new technology called Grand Central Dispatch takes full advantage of multicore systems by making all of Mac OS X multicore aware and optimizing it for allocating tasks across multiple cores and processors.

    * Universal Access: Every Mac comes with built-in technologies designed to help people with disabilities experience it. Innovations in Snow Leopard advance accessibility even further.

    It’s a pleasant surprise that Snow Leopard is being released earlier than expected. We will feature in depth reviews of Snow Leopard in our newsletters as soon as it’s released.

    Not sure if your Mac qualifies for Snow Leopard? Email “sales@smalldog.com”:mailto:sales@smalldog.com with any questions!

  • MAC TREAT #98: Burn Several Times to the Same Disc

    Did you know that it’s possible to burn to one CD or DVD multiple times? The trick is to use the “Leave Disk Appendable” option in Disk Utility, located in the Utilities folder on every Mac. First step is to create a folder and fill it with the stuff you want to burn. From there, open up Disk Utility (*Macintosh HD/Applications/Utilities*), pull down the File Menu, select New, and then Disk Image From Folder in the sub-menu.

    When the resulting window opens, find that folder you just created and click the Image button. Select a destination for your image, and click Save. The disk image, ending with .dmg, will shortly appear on your desktop and along the left side of the Disk Utility window. Click once on its icon in Disk Utility, then click the Burn button at the top left of the Disk Utility window.

    Here’s the trick: When you click the Burn button, a dialog box will pop up asking you to insert a disc–go ahead and insert the disc, then click the blue triangle on the right side of the window and click the box next to Leave Disk Appendable before hitting Burn. Next time you need to burn a disk, just repeat the process; when you get to the final step, the button will say Append instead of Burn.

  • _Dear Friends,_

    Snow Leopard mania! We’ve been scrambling to get “Snow Leopard upgrades, Snow Leopard Family Packs, Snow Leopard Mac Box Sets and Snow Leopard Mac Box Set Family Packs”:http://www.smalldog.com/snowleopard into stock for the Friday launch. We have the inventory ready to go, so if you placed a pre-order or made the 3PM ET order cut off today, we have started shipping them now!

    This is the most affordable upgrade in some time at only $29.99. While there are not the same “wow” applications such as Time Machine in this upgrade, the important “under the hood” changes are significant in terms of stability, speed, security and over-all performance. I highly recommend this very affordable upgrade!

    We had a tremendous tax-free holiday here in Vermont. We did about 10% more business this year in a single day than we did in the two-day holiday last year. We had lines at our doors at the opening at 8AM and were answering the phones until midnight. Both stores were jammed and the Small Dog team was on the very top of it game so we had a lot of fun talking to our customers and making sure every customer received personal attention.

    I worked up in the S. Burlington store most of the day with my partner, Hammerhead, who served as the official “greeter.” He occupied the kids while the parents shopped. He was so tired when we got home that he crashed out on the couch and didn’t even come to bed at night. It’s his birthday today, by the way, so in honor of that, we’ve put our Hammerhead sleeves on sale (50% off) through the weekend!

    “Click here for more details.”:http://www.smalldog.com/search/?find=hammerhead

    The first mention of the “F” word was in the weather forecast last night. That is, F as in frost! The low-lying mountain hollows can expect some frost, yikes! We haven’t really had summer yet so now we are in for cooler temps that are normal by the end of August. But hey, it is sweet corn season and Artie took the day off today to help out in haying.

  • Mac OS X Server 10.5.8: Port Aggregation For Greater Bandwidth

    Apple recently released version 10.5.8 of Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server. As part of troubleshooting an email issue for one our server customers, I decided to run all the software updates and install the new 10.5.8. After installing and rebooting, and then running “mailbfr”:http://osx.topicdesk.com/content/view/41/41/ to rebuild the email databases, I checked the server to see if everything was up and running.

    While I had solved the email problem, the server reported a new error message in a sporadic fashion, periodically saying that the server’s serial number was invalid, and that there was another server running with the same serial number! I brainstormed about what could possibly be the problem, going from worst to best. Did someone take the serial number and set up their own server? Had the client’s serial number expired or something? I was imagining the worst!

    My first step in figuring it out was to check the log files. You can do this on your own machine with the Console.app in the Utilities folder. Apple’s Server Admin program provides access to many important server logs directly in it’s own interface. Reading the logs, I noticed that it was reporting the IP address of the offending server with the duplicate serial number. I checked the IP address and was bemused to learn that that it was the IP of the second ethernet port on the same server. The server was complaining about itself!

    My next step was to check the Apple Support forums and knowledge base, where I found I was far from alone in seeing this problem appear with 10.5.8. Apparently, this was only happening when both ethernet ports were configured within the same subnet. It was not affecting servers with only one active ethernet port, servers with two bonded ethernet ports (two ports acting as one, with one IP), or servers setup as gateways, where one port is part of the outside Wide Area Network, and the other is part of the private Local Area Network.

    The simple fix was to turn off the other ethernet port, which I did, since it was just there as a spare. However, Apple posted a “Knowledge Base article”:http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24888 to specifically discourage setting both ports on the same subnet, a practice I will now follow with all my servers! Where I previously used one port as a spare, I will probably now use link aggregation to combine them and double the network bandwidth.

  • Tip of the Week: Burn Several Times to the Same Disc

    Did you know that it’s possible to burn to one CD or DVD multiple times? The trick is to use the “Leave Disk Appendable” option in Disk Utility, located in the Utilities folder on every Mac. First step is to create a folder and fill it with the stuff you want to burn. From there, open up Disk Utility (Macintosh HD/Applications/Utilities), pull down the File Menu, select New, and then Disk Image From Folder in the sub-menu.

    When the resulting window opens, find that folder you just created and click the Image button. Select a destination for your image, and click Save. The disk image, ending with .dmg, will shortly appear on your desktop and along the left side of the Disk Utility window. Click once on its icon in Disk Utility, then click the Burn button at the top left of the Disk Utility window.

    Here’s the trick: When you click the Burn button, a dialog box will pop up asking you to insert a disc–go ahead and insert the disc, then click the blue triangle on the right side of the window and click the box next to Leave Disk Appendable before hitting Burn. Next time you need to burn a disk, just repeat the process; when you get to the final step, the button will say Append instead of Burn.`

  • Software For the School Year

    Somehow the summer has flown by and the back-to-school season is well under way. While I’m personally enjoying the fact that I am __not__ in the position of getting ready for a school season, I did think it was a good time to plug two of my favorite school-related applications. While there are many standard applications that are considered “school necessities,” the two applications I’d like to share with you today, “Schoolhouse 2”:http://www.loganscollins.com/schoolhouse/ and “iFlash,”:http://www.loopware.com/iflash/ are lesser-known applications that can help you get organized and study for exams.

    I discovered “Schoolhouse 2”:http://www.loganscollins.com/schoolhouse/ in my very last semester of a professional program I was enrolled in and I’ve been kicking myself that I never looked for something like it sooner. It’s a free/by donation application that calls itself a “homework manager,” but I find it to be much more than that. “Schoolhouse 2”:http://www.loganscollins.com/schoolhouse/ uses a simple interface that’s very similar to iTunes. It allows you to define semesters, class-loads and instructors (even an area to add your instructors contact information) and then gives you a tracking area for quizzes, upcoming assignments and projects. You can define priority levels to assignments, due-dates, add notes and tasks.

    My favorite feature is the project center. It’s a great home base that allows you to list all of the related files for a project and even email the files to individuals or groups that you’re collaborating with. For example, I worked on a large group project for my pathology class in my last semester. My project center allowed me to list the pictures, Word documents, Keynote presentations, notes and a list of tasks all in one window so I could see all of my project elements and keep track of what I needed to do. When I finished my portion of the project I was able to email it to my group and we could edit things as needed. It was a great way to keep everything organized and really helped me visually break down the project into tasks so that I was less apt to wait until the last minute and stress out over how much work was left. As a veteran procrastinator this was a big plus for me!

    “iFlash”:http://www.loopware.com/iflash/ is a recent find of mine. While I’m not in school, as a technician I am frequently studying for new certifications. Flash cards work very well for my learning style; kinesthetic and visual. While there are several flash card applications out there, I particularly like “iFlash”:http://www.loopware.com/iflash/ because it allows me to add pictures and audio to my flash cards and I have the option of studying on my computer or sending my card deck to an iPhone or iPod touch and studying on the go. For those who like the tactile benefit of flash cards, the decks can also be printed out on paper. The only flaw I’ve found so far is that pictures and audio can’t be displayed on the iPhone or iPod touch, but other than that it’s an easy and versatile program.

    For those of you heading back into the educational trenches, cheers to a great year!