Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • Easy Hard Drive Failure Prevention

    It’s true that laptop hard drives tend to fail before desktop hard drives (unless your desktop computer uses a laptop hard drive, as is the case with the Mac Mini). This is simply because laptops tend to be moved around much more than desktops.

    I see customers close their laptops to make them sleep–which is fine–but they then pick up the computer immediately and begin walking with it. The problem with this is that modern laptops take the contents of memory and write it to the hard drive. This is what makes “safe sleep” possible, and it can take up to a minute.

    A hard drive is like a record player. There are platters inside that spin anywhere from 4,200 revolutions per minute to 15,000 revolutions per minute. If you’ve ever bumped into your record player or otherwise jarred it while it was playing music, you know that it doesn’t sound very good, can damage your stylus, and can damage the vinyl. The same holds true in hard drives.

    Perhaps the easiest and most effective thing you can do to protect your laptop hard drive is to wait after closing the lid. When the sleep light begins “breathing,” your computer is truly asleep. If the light is solid or off entirely, your hard drive is still spinning. Take a deep breath and wait until the hard drive spins down; your data will thank you, and so will your wallet.

  • Web Clippings: I Now Love Dashboard

    I’ve long been anti-dashboard. I find that the widgets consume more RAM that is reasonable and can bog down systems not loaded up with memory and running on older hardware. Thankfully, I use a top-of-the-line 17″ MacBook Pro with 6GB of RAM so don’t have to worry about processor speed or memory constraints. But I’ve never really used Dashboard.

    Sure, Leopard was released in October, 2007, and I’ve been using it ever since. I even knew about Web Clippings, one of the myriad new features in the operating system. But until now I haven’t used them. We have several dozen security cameras throughout our retail stores, warehouses, and offices, and it’s often helpful for me to see the video stream from several of these cameras. While the web interface we have is perfectly functional, it is clunky, and I grew tired of navigating through many web pages any time I wanted to see what a camera is seeing.

    The solution was web clippings, and now I have quite a few on my dashboard. I have local and regional Doppler radar, several security cameras (which I can see from home while connected to our virtual private network, or VPN), and quite a few other clippings. A quick press of F12 gives immediate access to all of this information, which would’ve taken over a minute to see before.

    If you have not yet used this feature of MacOS X Leopard and Safari 3, check it out. All you need to do is click on the web clippings button in Safari’s toolbar, and then drag a box on a web page to make the clipping. Dashboard will open, and you can place the new widget wherever you’d like.

  • Tip of the Week | Maximizing Your Mac's Dictionary

    If you use OS X’s built-in spellchecker, chances are that you’ve added custom words to your dictionary. For example, here at Small Dog, we frequently write “Smalldog.com”. By default, OS X’s spellchecker doesn’t recognize that word because it’s not in its dictionary. To save a couple of seconds a day, I’ve added it to my Mac’s spellcheck dictionary.

    You can easily add custom words to your Mac’s dictionary by invoking the spellchecker, highlighting the word it doesn’t recognize, then clicking the “Learn” button. Invoke your Mac’s spellchecker in most apps by holding down the *Command-Shift-;* keys, or else by navigating to *Edit > Spelling and Grammar > Check Document Now*.

    There have been times when I’ve accidently added words to my dictionary. This has included misspellings. Fortunately, it’s easy (though not obvious) to remove these misspellings from your Mac’s custom dictionary.

    My recommended method for editing your Mac’s custom dictionary is to download the free “Dictionary Cleaner”:http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/28239/dictionary-cleaner application. This adds a small preference pane to your System Preferences panel, where you can easily view and remove the custom words you’ve added to the dictionary. You can download this app “by clicking here.”:http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/28239/dictionary-cleaner

    You can also navigate to the Library folder in your User account on your Mac, where you’ll find a folder called “Spelling.” If you open this file with a basic text editing program, all you’ll see is a big cluster of words. These are the words you’ve added to your library. Before deleting any of these words, it’s better to use a program such as Text Wrangler (“free, click here to get it”:http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11009/textwrangler) that allows you to see invisible characters. Now the words you’ve added are separated by red ¿ symbols. You can easily delete these. However, I still recommend “Dictionary Cleaner”:http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/28239/dictionary-cleaner

  • Happy Tuesday,

    Small Dog newsletters and blog are powered by an open-source content management system (CMS) called TextPattern. Morgan has tweaked it to meet our needs over the years, and it’s been very good to us. It allows us to write content directly into a web browser and select a few options to direct content to the appropriate spot, like Tech Tails. This integration is both an advantage and a pitfall: typing directly in the web browser saves some time but does not allow you to save your work as you go. Further, if you don’t save your work and your computer crashes, that work is gone, unlike a traditional word processor; Time Machine doesn’t grab this content, either.

    As luck would have it, I returned from a meeting to put the finishing touches on an article to find my MacBook Pro with the dreaded Kernel Panic message on the screen. That article was lost. Had I saved my work to the server… well, you get the idea.

    Do you have Time Machine set up on your Mac? Do you have Leopard yet? Have Leopard but no external drive? Time Machine is for me the most compelling feature of the operating system, as the peace of mind alone makes the upgrade worthwhile.

    Not all of us are able to upgrade our hardware every few years, especially in this economy. Older computers meet many our needs and while we’d love to buy new computers, operating system upgrades are often enough to tide us over for a few more years. As part of our Moms, Dads and Grads promotion that kicked off yesterday, I’m offering a bundle including the Box Set (Leopard, iWork ’09 and iLife ’09), 4GB of RAM, and a LaCie 500GB external hard drive for $399.99 installed. It’s a savings of over $100 off our normal pricing, and with the RAM upgrade you’ll notice a considerable boost in speed in addition to all the new features of Leopard.

    If you already have Leopard, but lack a backup drive, we have 500GB LaCie models starting at $79.99. And if you just want a bigger internal hard drive, we’re offering half off data transfer services.

    For all the Switchers out there, we’re also offering a free basic Windows to Mac data transfer, a $69.99 value, for the duration of the promotion. There’s never been a better time to get a Mac! Swing by one of our stores, or give us a call. There are tons of great deals right now.

    Thanks for reading, and keep in touch.

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

  • Our little motorcycle club is going to take advantage of the unusually warm temperature on Saturday to make our annual lunch run. We will ride east over the White Mountains until we find some lobsters for lunch. Hey, it’s a good excuse for a spring ride!

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,
    _Don, Kali & Ed_

  • Top 5 Tricks to Make Your PC More Like Your Mac

    Last week, I wrote about “how to make your Mac more like a PC.”:http://blog.smalldog.com/kibbles/?c=kb617 Now, here’s a Top 5 for the other side: those who want to make their PC more like a Mac! Whether you’re someone who wants the look and feel of a Mac because you’re used to one at home and your evil bosses make you work on a PC at the office (kidding) or simply because it’s fun to mix it up a bit, the following tips should help:

    1) *Get Firefox (or Safari):* Seriously, ditch Internet Explorer if you haven’t already! Both “Safari”:http://www.apple.com/safari/download/ and “Firefox”:http://www.getfirefox.com are much faster, cleaner, secure browsers for the web. In addition, Safari has the same features you love on the Mac side, and Firefox offers a seemingly infinite number of extensions to customize it (including numerous Safari/OS X skins). It’s a no-brainer!

    2) *Use Thunderbird:* Similarly, using Thunderbird will mimic your Mac experience. There are skins (themes) for it as well that emulate the look of Apple Mail–nice and clean. (We’ll be writing about our favorite Firefox/Thunderbird extentions in a future Kibbles.) Don’t worry about ditching Outlook; Thunderbird can handle all of the same types of email accounts (POP, IMAP, etc.) that it can, so you won’t miss a thing. (Just be sure to have someone guide you through the process if you’re unsure of some of your email settings.)

    3) *Fix that UI:* Face it, the user interface of a Mac looks good. If you’re still using Windows XP, it’s especially apparent that it doesn’t look as great. Try “StarDock’s WindowBlinds,”:http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/ a utility designed to make XP or Vista look amazingly Mac-like. It’s a non-permanent option that’s safe for work computers (as long as you have access) because it just gives your PC the smooth, aqua ‘skin’ of OS X.

    4) *Create PDFs:* Miss how easy it is to make a PDF in OS X? Grab “PDFCreator.”:http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ Create a PDF from anything you’d be printing instead–no rebooting necessary!

    5) *Get Command back:* Use “SharpKeys!”:http://www.randyrants.com/2008/12/sharpkeys_30.html This tool allows you to switch your Alt and Ctrl keys, emulating the Command key on an Apple keyboard.

    Have some tips of your own? Let us know. Next week, I’ll feature some feedback from both of these articles!

  • eWaste Recycling Event Success!

    It’s official: our 3rd Annual eWaste Recycling Event was a success! With about *150 tons* collected from *1,700 cars* by about *100 volunteers* in roughly *4 hours,* it was an epic day.

    Thanks to our partners this year–we couldn’t have done it without them:
    *Ben & Jerry’s, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, SymQuest Technology, WeRecycle!, Belkin, Chittenden Bank, Chroma Technology, Seventh Generation, Sugarbush Resort, Waitsfield & Champlain Valley Telecom, DriveSavers, Ingram Micro with Canon, HP, FileMaker, LaCie and Kingston, Deerfield Designs, CSWD, Bisbee’s Hardware, Hall Communications and Kingsbury Construction.*

    Ed took some amazing footage of the event as well, so be sure to check out his videos below, as well as our photos from the event.

    * “Behind the Scenes of Our Record 2009 Ewaste Collection Event”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS7yVUgKri0&fmt=18

    * “Time Lapse Video: 150 Tons of eWaste Collected in 5 Hours!”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TyS38j5OzU&fmt=18

    * “2009 eWaste Recycling Event on Flickr”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/sets/72157617001479815/

    Thanks again to all who participated! You did a great thing!

    For more information about the event, visit “our website.”:http://www.smalldog.com/ewaste All of the material is processed in the US and recycled responsibly by “WeRecycle!”:http://www.werecycle.com.