Kibbles & Bytes Blog

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  • Pick A Color

    Have you found yourself wanting to add more color or make an image stand out better? Maybe you’re touching up a photo, or want to find a shade of red that reminds you of Dorthy’s ruby red slippers in the Wizard of Oz. Did you know you can do this on your Mac without the need for specialized programs like Photoshop? Well if you didn’t, you’re about to learn how.

    You likely have found the color window on your Mac already. It’s commonly used to change the color of font or change a spreadsheet cell to a specific color. Like many longer-standing elements of the Mac experience, most people have seen and used it for these basic purposes, but it can do so much more. How you bring up the Colors window varies depending on what app you’re using, but it usually entails clicking a color button associated with styles or formats. The Colors window has three sections: button for the color pickers at the top, their individual controls in the middle, and the color wells at the bottom. Click the buttons at the top to switch between these pickers:

    Color Wheel: This picker is useful for exploring a wide range of colors. Don’t forget the brightness slider at the bottom, this changes the colors in the wheel above.

    Color Sliders: Use these sliders to replicate specific gray scale brightnesses or RGB, CMYK, or HSB color by number. Or, you can find a color with another picker and then look up its exact values. If you have used Photoshop you’ve likely done this, but perhaps didn’t know your Mac can do it by default as well. When matching colors with outside sources, click the gear button to choose the appropriate standard color pallet before picking a color.

    Color Palettes: This picker shows color swatches from different customer pallets. Use the gear button to make, add, rename, and delete palettes. ( Find them in /Libray/Colors ) The utility of these palettes is that you can share your own color collections, enabling co-workers to use identical colors easily. This is also very helpful if you have a file created by someone else and you want to match the color easily.

    Image Palettes: Click the gear here to load a new image, after which you can select any color in that image by clicking it.

    Pencils: Do you remember when they looked like crayons? Well it’s the same thing, just now they are colored pencils.

    Within each color picker, it’s usually obvious how to select different colors. Click the wheel, move the sliders, enter cyan-magenta-yellow-black percentages and so on. The selected color, which will be applied to your drawing or text, appears in the large square color well at the bottom left. However, there is one other extremely useful way to select a color: the eyedropper. Find it in the bottom portion of the Color window, and click it to see a circular loupe that magnifies anything under it. Move the loupe until the single pixel in the middle is over the color you want, and then click. If you press the Space bar while the loupe is showing, the loupe displays the RGB values of that pixel.

    What are those little squares to the right of the eye dropper? That area is called the swatch drawer, and it’s where you store particular color swatches that you want to use repeatedly. Just drag the color from the color well to the left into a swatch square. You can even pick a color swatch up and move it around, so you can arrange your swatches in a way that you’ll remember. Swatches you store here become available in all Mac apps, so it’s a great way to ensure you’re using the same colors everywhere. To remove a swatch, drag it to the right of the swatch squares and let go just inside the right edge of the Colors window. If this doesn’t work, try to expand the window to the right as much as possible.

    Now you can use colors in your everyday work and even turn out images and work that look like a professional photo editor created!

  • Sharing Your Calendar from iPhone or iPad

    I have a friend running for Governor of Vermont, James Ehlers. He texted me about sharing his calendar with his campaign manager. It is pretty easy if the person you are sharing with has an iCloud account (and most Mac users do) and if both of you are using an iPhone. Well, it was complicated by one of them using an Android device but we will get into that later. I might have to make a campaign contribution so they can get an iPhone.

    But let’s assume that you are running for office and your campaign manager is using an iPhone and so are you. This is the easy way! You both need to have iCloud accounts to share calendars.

    1) The first step is to launch Calendars on your iPhone or iPad.

    2) Click on the ‘Calendars” button at the bottom

    3) In the iCloud section, click on the “i” on the calendar you wish to share

    4) Click on the “Add Person” and enter their iCloud email address and click “add”

    The person you are sharing with will simply receive a calendar notification asking them to accept your invite. Once they do, they will be able to view and edit events. Remember, calendar sharing currently only works with iCloud calendars. Both you and the person you want to share the calendar with have to be using iCloud.

    Okay, but back to my friend and his campaign manager’s Android phone. How can they do it? I have not tested this but I think it should work.

    Android phones do not have CalDAV client built-in so to make this work you will need to get a CalDAV client onto your Android phone. There are a number of Android apps that add a CalDAV client:

    SmoothSync for Cloud Calendars (Note: Problems with Samsung Galaxy S5 reported)
    CalDAV-Sync (Note: Problems with Samsung Galaxy S5 reported)
    Sync for iCloud Calendar)

    The free Sync for iCloud Calendar seems to work the best. Here’s how to sync iCloud calendars with Android Phones and Android tablets:

    1) Install Sync for iCloud Calendar from Google Play and tap on ‘Install‘
    2) “Accept” the apps need to access your calendar and contacts
    3) Once it is installed, open Sync for iCloud Calendar and tap on ‘Add Calendar Account‘.
    4) Select ‘Sync for iCloud Calendar‘ as account and fill in your iCloud user name (Apple ID / iCloud email) and your iCloud password.
    5) Select the iCloud calendar you want by taping on the link.

    As I said, I have not completely tested this yet since I do not have an Android phone but adding a CalDAV client seems logically the way to go to sync calendars between and iPhone and an Android.

    Easier still is having Irma take care of that Android and getting an iPhone – I hear some new models might be coming out next week.

  • Dear Friends,

    Our hearts go out to those already touched by Hurricane Irma in St. Martin, Barbuda, Puerto Rico and other Caribbean Islands. This giant storm is heading right for Key West and the rest of Florida. We have boarded up our store and closed until we have the all-clear. Two members of our team have evacuated but Tommy Allen has decided to ride out the storm in Key West despite my pleadings. He is a Conch and I assume he knows what he is doing but we will be nervous until the storm passes.

    My house is all shuttered and just about everyone has left Key West, the cams show empty streets and beaches. Mallory Square, the site of the daily sunset celebration was completely and eerily vacant. With Hurricane Jose following Irmas tracks and Katia hanging out in the Gulf it is a dangerous and unprecedented hurricane season. I liked a meme on Facebook that said “It’s like Mother Nature heard all the climate change denials and said ‘here, hold my beer’ “ .

    Hopefully, Irma takes a hard right and goes off to sea and dies but we are thinking of all those in the path of this dangerous storm!

    How about those Red Sox using Apple Watch to steal signs from the Yankees. That was the best “feel good” story of the week!

    This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive features the Apple Factory Refurbished MacBook Pro 13-inch with Touch Bar. This unit has a 2.9GHz processor 8GB ram and 256GB SSD drive. I have a few in Space Gray and some in Silver. I am bundling this unit which has a 1-year Apple warranty with AppleCare + to extend that to three years and also cover some accidental damage (deductible applies). But to make this a really cool system I am also including a BenQ PD2710QC Designer Monitor that includes an integrated USB C hub. This is the set-up I use and it is fantastic! You get the MacBook Pro 13-inch with Touch Bar, the BenQ display and AppleCare + for only $2199.97!

  • Travel Lighter With The Cloud

    Anyone who spends time in the great outdoors knows that gear is both your best friend and your worst enemy. Most tech doesn’t need to be used moment-to-moment and therefore we end up hoarding many devices that we don’t necessarily need. What I have always struggled with is the balance of having everything I need on hand while remaining unburdened by unnecessary equipment. Musicians who haul their gear across the world, jack-of-all-trades contractors with trucks full to the brim with tools, trekkers with a week’s supply of rations and essential needs on their backs… we can all relate to each other’s struggles. Those are extreme examples, but even if you’re a student with a heavy backpack or a traveling businessman who doesn’t want to drag so many carry-on bags everywhere, I believe you must feel it too.

    So what is the point here? Apple has worked really hard to help folks need less on their person at any given time. Yet, if you are reading this article, you probably have at least two or three Apple devices that you use regularly. Here’s a setup I see a lot: someone with an iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch and MacBook Pro that are consistently on their person while traveling. Let’s think for a moment about what each of those is used for; most folks access email and iMessages, browse the web, stream content, capture audio, photos and video, play games, design content within creative apps, edit documents and share data with others. Of the four devices I mentioned, three of them can do EVERY ONE of those functions completely autonomously (the Watch of course being in its own category of device completely unlike anything else they make and therefore not to be compared in that context).

    This is not to say that the features and level of control are the same on each device, far from it. You should certainly own all those devices for the most complete Apple experience overall; however, moment to moment or out and about, it’s unnecessary to have them all on your person. Your iPhone can likely be your best friend; coupled with an Apple Watch it’s likely the only device you’d need all day every day. Unless you are doing more intensive work, you shouldn’t need more than maybe an iPad Pro on the go. The MacBook Pros are a lot lighter weight than they used to be, making them a lot easier to carry day to day. Once iCloud is all-encompassing data storage, as it pretty much already is, you won’t need anything else just to stay connected, entertained, and inspired. Goodbye heavy, redundant tech! You’ve got all the power you need right in the palm of your hand (and also attached to your wrist if you’re on the next level). And here’s the icing on the cake – iCloud accounts will become your only logins. Each iMac and MacBook, iPad and iPhone of the world will require an account to setup (the iPhone and iPad pretty much already do). You won’t think about what is on each device, you will simply know that it’s all in the cloud and also backed up to your Time Capsule. If you’re using iCloud correctly, tech is lighter and easier to manage on the go!

  • iCloud Lost Mode

    We’ve recently had quite a few run ins with Macs that have been coming into the South Burlington location with either iCloud lost mode active, a firmware passcode active, or a combination of both. While this is usually used as a personal security measure if a device is lost or stolen, this recent surge has been of the malicious kind.

    In my experience working with Apple for a few years, the devices themselves are not being “hacked” but rather the user’s accounts are being hijacked by thieves or money hungry “hackers” in an attempt to collect money from the account holder. The only way out of this lock is to either pay the thief and hope they give access back OR be able to provide proof of purchase for your device. If you’re lucky, at least for iOS device users, you can verify your identity with AppleCare directly and regain access to your account and iOS device. But the Macs are a different story, as they often include what’s called a firmware passcode. The firmware passcode cannot be bypassed without providing a proof of purchase to an Apple Store or an Authorized Apple Service Provider, such as ourselves.

    The way the thieves manage to take control of the iCloud account associated with the Mac or iOS device is by gaining access to the associated email address, then resetting the password for the AppleID, then logging into the iCloud website with the newly stolen credential. They do this in such a way that most people wouldn’t know that it had even happened until it was too late, and they were locked out of their Macs or iOS devices. The accounts I’ve seen hijacked have all been accounts that did not have either two-step authentication nor two-factor authentication active. The thief will then activate lost mode on their devices, with a message attached to the likeness of, “To regain access to your account, email me at johnnyrotten@madeupemail.com!” They will then ask to be paid in a form of currency called “BitCoin” rather than using user’s before giving back the account.

    There is no telling when or where this sort of “hack” may happen, but there is an easy way to make sure the account is secure: setting up two-factor authentication for your AppleID account. You can do this by following the instructions on Apple’s very own website Two-factor authentication for Apple ID. If you do find yourself stuck in a situation like this, make sure to first change your email password to block out access to the attacker. Make sure to change any account passwords associated with that email as well (such as banking). I’ve posted the links to articles below to further educate you on the uses of iCloud Lost Mode and Firmware Lock.

    Stay safe out there, and keep your accounts on lockdown so this doesn’t happen to you!

  • We sadly say farewell to Hadley this week. Hadley has been a prolific Kibbles author and now I am going to have to find another hidden talent here at the dog. Speaking of Small Dog, I was out walking the dogs the other day and a couple came driving in and parked in the far corner of the lot. As they started to walk to the store, Jezebel and Half Pint came walking over to them to greet them with their tails wagging but the customers were scared. I quickly gathered up the pups so they would not feel intimidated (the pups that is) and told the customer that they could reasonably expect dogs at Small Dog Electronics. It is always sad to meet people that have not experienced the love of canines!

    Apple sent out the invites! September 12th is the big announcement day and it will be held at the new Steve Jobs Theater. The invite simply states “Let’s meet at our place.” We expect some iPhone thingy and Apple TV updates and I am sure some stuff we have not anticipated. Should be fun!

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

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Emily & Hadley_

  • Farewell

    Sadly, this will be my last article for Kibbles and Bytes. I’m going to be moving on from Small Dog to the next chapter of my life. I’ve really enjoyed writing articles almost every week and hearing from readers who learned something new or just wanted to tell me more about the topic I wrote about. I feel like I often learn more new things when writing. Usually I start off with a topic in mind, maybe something that I thought about in the week prior, and then research it in more detail. I’ve certainly covered a wide range of topics from gamma radiation to air conditioning to electrical safety basics. For this last article, I thought I’d share a bit about how I’ve picked up so much of this stuff and despite not having much formal training.

    The only formal course I took on electronics was an in-development course in college. It was a brand new instructor and a brand new course the college was offering that year. I struggled tremendously in it. It was heavily math and theory-focused and my calculus background has always been pretty weak. I somehow managed to eke out a B average when all was said and done. I think if the course had included more hands-on learning, I would’ve done better. My skills have always been in putting theory into practice rather than just focusing on the theory alone.

    I tend to be the kind of person who will decide to build something, and then do a ton of research until I understand what is going on. I remember when I built my solar power station, I did a lot of research to understand how to size wires for loads. You wouldn’t think something like that would be complicated, but actually, there’s a lot of theory behind it. What kind of amperage is involved? What will the voltage be? How long are the wires going to be? There are plenty of resources out there on the internet to help you on your way to learning about these things. I’m a firm believer that anyone with the desire can understand how all of this stuff works.

    With electricity, there are always safety concerns. If you’re not confident about something, it’s ok to admit it. Remember that if the resistance is right, and there’s enough charge behind it, virtually any voltage can be lethal. Under most normal conditions, voltages below 48V are fairly safe. If you recall, my very first articles here about electricity basics focused on the safety factor and what was and wasn’t dangerous. If you’re looking to get involved in a project, 12 and 24 volt systems are generally pretty safe (shorts can still cause fires though). They can be a great way to work on gaining a better understanding of how electricity works. They also translate to useful projects. Most cars, for example, have 12 volt electrical systems, so if you’re comfortable working with that, there are lots of things you might be able to do.

    Finally, you can always just read about the history of inventions and developments in the world of electromagnetism. Amps, volts, ohms…all of these terms are named after people. Reading about how they discovered what they did can really help to shed light on why we do things a certain way now, or how certain modern devices came to be. It can be incredibly fascinating to learn about the processes and experiments early scientists used to discover the fundamentals of electricity and it’s a great way to get yourself into the same mindset of learning.

    Electromagnetism, at least the fundamentals of it, are what an old professor of mine would call “pure truth.” He was a professor of mathematics and computer science and he always told us that the things he was teaching us were pure truth. These things were true from billions of years before we were born, and they’d be true billions of years into the future and beyond. I always liked that. My hope in writing all the articles I’ve written is that some of you might have become more interested in some of those pure truths. Take care, and always keep learning.

  • Markup!

    A while back I wrote about some often forgotten features of the Notes app and the ability to sketch notes as well as create basic drawings. Hidden features are everywhere in our Macs and iOS devices, including features like Markup which can be found in your Mail program on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

    Markup allows you to add drawings, text, and signatures to PDFs and photos. If you have used some of the Markup features within preview, you’ll be right at home using it on your iOS device. To try out these features you will want to make sure your using the Mail app on your devices and ensure that you have an active e-mail account set up as well. Recently I have found the Markup feature on PDFs to be incredibly helpful. To unlock these features you’ll first need to attach a PDF or photo to an e-mail.

    1. Open Mail and tap on the square with a pencil to launch a new email
    2. Double-tap in the body of the new email, this will pull up the option to insert a photo or PDF
    3. Once you have located a PDF or photo to add simply tap choose
    4. Tap the attachment and then tap Markup
    5. Choose the tool you wish to use and tap done

    There are several options within Markup to make quick on the fly revisions, provide instructions or give a final signature approval on a document. You can use the pen tool to draw directly on an image and you can select how thick or thing you need your lines to be. You can zoom in or out of an image and you can easily enter text, you even have a few different font options to choose from. To add a signature you simply need to select the signature option within markup and just like in Preview you can enlarge or shrink your digital signature to fit the signature space.

    Markup is a great way to keep up on basic tasks and workflow from anywhere. Combine the features of Markup with iCloud drive so you can access and attach any document you need. Markup is just another way to turn your iOS device into an invaluable resource in the palm of your hand.

  • Four Ways to Make the iPhone Easier to Read without Glasses

    I am lucky. About the same time that I started Small Dog, 23 years ago, I had Lasik surgery. They made one of my eyes really good for distance and one for close-up work. The result is that I do not normally need reading glasses unless the print is REALLY small. But as you get older, if you haven’t zapped your eyes you may need reading glasses.

    If you have 20/20 vision or are still wondering why your parents have reading glasses, count yourself lucky. But if you’re like many people–over 60 percent of the population by some estimates, including most people over 45–reading the tiny text on your iPhone or iPad screen might be impossible if you don’t happen to have the right pair of glasses handy.

    What we really want is a screen that corrects automatically for its user’s individual vision problems–research into such technology has taken place at UC Berkeley and the MIT Media Lab, but real-world products are probably years off. Until then, those of us who need a little help seeing our screens will have to rely on features Apple has built into iOS. Try these options:

    *Increase Text Size*
    Although not every app supports it, Apple has a technology called Dynamic Type that lets you set your preferred text size. In Settings > Display & Brightness > Text Size, you’ll find a text size slider, and you can see how it affects text in the iOS interface by moving around in the Settings app or looking at Mail.

    If you want a size even larger than is available from the Text Sizes screen, you can get that in Settings > General > Accessibility > Larger Text. Turn on Larger Accessibility Sizes, and the size slider adds more options.

    *Bold Text*
    Sometimes, the problem isn’t so much the size of the text, but how light it can be. In Settings > Display & Brightness, there’s a switch for Bold Text. Turn this on, and all the text on the iPhone will become darker. Oddly, enabling Bold Text requires restarting your device, but there’s no harm in doing that

    *Display Zoom*
    If you have difficulty with aspects of the screen other than text, you can use iOS’s Display Zoom feature to expand everything by a bit. The trade-off is that you’ll see less content on the screen at once, of course, but that’s a small price to pay if it makes your iPhone easier to use.

    To enable Display Zoom, go to Settings > Display & Brightness > View. Once there, you can compare the difference between the standard and zoomed views in three sample screens by tapping the Standard and Zoomed buttons at the top–notably, you’ll lose a row of icons on the Home screen. If you think zoomed view might be better, tap Zoomed and then tap Set. Your iPhone has to restart, but it’s quick. Unfortunately, if you decide to switch back to standard view, you’ll need to rearrange your Home screen icons again.

    *Zoom*
    The iPhone’s full Zoom feature is particularly useful in two situations. First, it’s easy to invoke and dismiss if you need a quick glance while wearing the wrong pair of glasses. Second, if Display Zoom doesn’t magnify the screen as much as you need, the full zoom may do the job.

    Turn it on in Settings > General > Accessibility > Zoom and zoom in by double-tapping the screen with three fingers. By default, the Zoom Region is set to Window Zoom, which gives you a magnifying lens that you can move around the screen by dragging its handle on the bottom.

    Tap the handle to bring up a menu that lets you zoom out, switch to full-screen zoom (which can be harder to navigate), resize the lens, filter what you see in the lens (such as grayscale), display a controller for moving the lens, and change the zoom level. To get back to normal view, just double-tap with three fingers again.

    So, if you don’t want to use those granny glasses try some of these tricks to make reading your iPhone easier!

  • _Dear Friends,_

    Grace and I had a great visit to Asheville, NC to see the eclipse. As it is with most of our motorcycle trips it is usually the journey that is the adventure rather than the destination. This time, however, we visited our friend Jen Mayer (no relation) who owns an Apple Premier Partner in Asheville. Jen used to work at Small Dog and if you are not going to come to Small Dog Electronics for your Mac needs, Charlotte Street Computers is a world-class resource in Asheville.

    We stayed with Jen for three days and fell in love with Asheville. Maybe it was Jen’s tours of downtown, maybe it was the journey to the eclipse, maybe it was the Blue Ridge Parkway but Asheville felt like home. We arrived on Sunday and most of the morning on the day of the eclipse we debated whether the 99% coverage at Jen’s house was good enough or whether we should brave the expected traffic to head to 100% totality. Fortunately, Hapy was in Oregon at the time and he and I were texting and he said the 98.2% he experienced was just not good enough. So, we piled into Jen’s car and drove to totality. We did not encounter any significant traffic and pulled into a rest area off the highway just in time to see the sun disappear and for it to get dark. Well worth it!

    The trip on the Blue Ridge was so incredible. If you have not driven down the Skyline Drive which starts near Washington, DC and connects to the Blue Ridge Parkway – you have not seen one of the most beautiful roads in the world. It is over 500 miles of non-commercialized roadway with hundreds of turn-outs, hiking trails and vistas all along the spine of the Blue Mountains. It is well worth the time. We saw bears, deer, eagles and lots of beautiful views. Before we got to the mountains, I had a little encounter with Bambi who ran out and committed suicide on my motorcycle. Luckily (for me) she hit me broadside so no damage other than feeling bad for the fawn.

    This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive features the Apple Factory Refurbished 27-inch iMac bundled with AppleCare Plus. This iMac features the amazing 5K Retina display and the 3.2GHz processor. It has 8GB of RAM and a 1 TB Fusion drive. Just like new Macs it has a 1-year Apple warranty but we are bundling it with AppleCare Plus that covers it for 3-years, provides you with 3-years of Apple technical support and covers 2 incidents of accidental damage (for a deductible). This iMac with AppleCare Plus is over $100 off for Kibbles & Bytes readers this week at $1499.99!

  • It’s hard to believe that summer is just about over. My kids return to school on Monday, my oldest is entering sixth grade and my youngest is going into the first grade. Each of my girls has her own level of excitement and denial about school starting back up. Both miss their classmates as summers are always hard to arrange get-togethers and while they won’t admit it, they miss school as well. For me back to school means coordinated search parties for lunch boxes, backpacks and library books that have been tossed aside for the last few months.

    After confirming and locating the safe return and organization of necessary school supplies I’ll be spending the rest of my weekend relaxing and enjoying some good music with friends and family. Hopefully, I’ll start of the first week of school refreshed and organized.

    Enjoy what’s left of summer!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Emily & Hadley_