Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • _Dear Friends,_

    I am sitting in the San Francisco airport awaiting my flight back to the Green Mountains as I write this week. I was out here for WWDC and some meetings with Apple and other Apple Specialists. In addition to the time in San Francisco, I spent one day out in Cupertino talking with the AppleCare folks and discussing service issues. Yesterday, I took the day off, rented a car and visited some of our old stomping grounds with Grace. This morning Grace is flying west to Hawaii and I’m heading east to my pups.

    I know that Ed and Kali will talk about the new product announcements later in this issue but I want to talk about the general feeling of optimism and excitement that seemed to permeate the meetings both formal and informal. While the economy remains a significant challenge, the continued success of Apple on all fronts (especially with the Mac and Mac OS X) is simply invigorating. While Microsoft is struggling to finish Windows 7 and will, no doubt, have several different versions for different prices, Apple announced the ship date for Max OS X Snow Leopard and gave a full presentation of the improvements and enhancements contained in the upgrade. More astounding is that it will be only $29 for Leopard users and $49 for a family pack. Don’t worry about buying a Mac between now and the release of Snow Leopard because Apple’s Software Up-to-Date program will provide Snow Leopard for only $9.95 for anyone that purchases a Mac between now and the release date.

    Most important for Small Dog Electronics and other independent resellers was a renewed confidence in our channel and a feeling that Apple truly values its partners. Actions speak louder than words but I have a finely tuned BS sensor and I am confident that our investment in growing our business will be rewarded. I saw that same feeling of confidence on the faces of the thousands of developers that were attending the WWDC.

    As I was sitting in meetings, I used QuickerTek’s back-up battery and charger to power my MacBook Air for the long meeting. While others were looking for power outlets, I simply had the QuickerTek battery connected to my Air and my Mag-Safe adapter’s LED was green for the entire meeting. QuickerTek modifies your Mag-Safe adapter (or will sell you another modified one) to provide an aircraft quality connection in the middle of the cable. They basically cut the cable and install this adapter which allows you to charge your MacBook Air normally from AC current or connect it to the QuickerTek battery. Even after a 6-hour meeting, I had not used any of the MacBook Air’s power. Click here to view this.”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/71826

    The iPhone 3.0 software is very HOT! While I love the new features and speed of the new iPhone 3GS and will finagle my way into getting one, I think the real news is the new software that will be available for free to all iPhone owners. Cut, Copy and Paste is a huge upgrade that will make the iPhone even more useful. Landscape keyboard and improved calendar are great but the one with the biggest wow factor is the MobileMe Find and Wipe facility. If you have a MobileMe account and happen to lose your iPhone, you can direct MobileMe to find it and if you desire you can send a remote command to wipe all your data from your lost iPhone

  • Snow Leopard Coming: September 2009

    At WWDC today, Phil introduced Bertrand Serlet to talk about the Mac OS. He announced that Snow Leopard will be available in late…

  • MacBooks and MacBook Pros Galore

    We have all of the new notebooks sku’d up on our website and ready to (pre)order: 13in MacBook Pro (brand new) from $1,199.99…

  • WWDC 2009 Thoughts

    We’ll keep posting information over the next couple of days about the World Wide Developer’s Conference 2009. In the meantime, what are your…

  • Some Facts About Snow Leopard

    Just the facts, ma’am. From Apple’s Snow Leopard specs page: As mentioned earlier, Snow Leopard is Intel only. Snow Leopard has an Apple…

  • Higher Ground Ticket Giveaway!

    Higher Ground and Small Dog Electronics are teaming up to bring you ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro to the HG Showcase Lounge on Sunday, June 21.

    “Read about Jake here.”:http://highergroundmusic.com/calendar/show/3198/

    So… here’s where you need to pay attention: one lucky person will win a pair of tickets to the show, a 1GB iPod shuffle, and a copy of Jake’s new live album. To enter, email “intern@highergroundmusic.com.”:mailto:intern@highergroundmusic.com

    __The fine print: The deadline to enter is Wednesday, June 17. One entry per person. Prize package must be claimed in person by the winning contestant the night of the show. Contest will be conducted at the discretion of HG and SD.__

  • Tip of the Week: Hotel Wireless

    Whenever I travel, I make a point of staying at hotels that offer internet access. Most of them offer both wired and wireless connectivity, but very often the wireless is very slow. I tried to email Ed a photo of the Moscone Center here in San Francisco yesterday, but my connection was so bad that mail would time out every time I tried to send the half-megabyte picture.

    I know that my hotel has 802.11 a/b/g capability, and also that Apple puts up its employees here. We’re a bandwidth-hungry bunch. With so many people trying to use the wireless network at once, it slowed down to the point of being completely unusable. I looked in a drawer in the room and found an ethernet cable and plugged it into the data port on the room’s phone. I turned off AirPort on my MacBook Pro and was delighted to discover super-fast connectivity!

    So, this week’s tip: bring an ethernet cable with you whenever you’ll be staying in a hotel. Odds are the hotel will have a data port you can use if the wireless isn’t good enough. I knew there’s a reason they charge $39 for that cable!

  • Safari 4 Officially Released

    *Safari 4* has been in beta for several weeks, and now is officially released.

    *FEATURES*

    * HTML 5 support for offline technologies and support for advanced CSS Effects
    * First browser to pass the “Web Standards Project’s Acid3 test”:http://www.webstandards.org/action/acid3 (it examines CSS, JavaScript and XML standards designed for dynamic web apps)
    * Top Sites (I already use this and love it): puts your most-used websites right on a homepage instead of a blank new page/tab
    * Full History Search: search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages
    * Cover Flow: flip through web history/bookmarks
    * In Snow Leopard, Safari will run as a 64-bit app (performance boost of up to 50%)
    * Snow Leopard features a way to make Safari more crash-resistant because it will run plug-ins in a separate process

    __from Apple’s press release__

    For more features, “click here.”:http://www.apple.com/safari/features.html
    To see what else is new in Safari 4, “click here.”:http://www.apple.com/safari/whats-new.html
    “Download Safari 4 here (price: *free*).”:http://www.apple.com/safari/download/

  • Snow Leopard Coming in September

    At WWDC yesterday, Phil introduced “Bertrand Serlet”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Serlet to talk about the Mac OS. He announced that *Snow Leopard* will be available in late September for Intel Macs with either OS 10.4 Tiger or 10.5 Leopard.

    *FEATURES*
    Apple highlighted many of the features, including speed, refinements and support for other software.

    * Faster installation process: 45% faster and 6 GB smaller
    * Speed improvements for Mail, Safari 4, Spotlight and more
    * Support for Microsoft Exchange Server to Mail, iCal, and Address Book

    Snow Leopard will also be available with unlimited client licenses on Mac, Windows, and Linux for $499.99.

    *PRICING*
    For Leopard Users:

    * Snow Leopard single-user license will be available for $29.99
    * Snow Leopard Family Pack (five-user license), will be available $49.99

    For Tiger users:

    * As part of the Mac Box Set (which includes Snow Leopard, iLife ’09 and iWork ’09), the single-user license will be available for $169.99
    * Again, as part of the Mac Box Set the five-user license Family Pack will be available for $229.99
    * *Currently, we do not see evidence that a Snow Leopard upgrade is available for Tiger users as a stand-alone piece. However, the price of the Mac Box Set is still cheap, and you get all three!*

    In addition, for any qualifying new Mac system without Snow Leopard, the Up-To-Date upgrade package will be available to customers between June 8, 2009 and December 26, 2009 for $9.95. Visit “www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate”:http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate for more information.