Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • White MacBooks, $599.99 With One Year Small Dog Warranty

    We recently took delivery of fifty white first-generation MacBooks. I’ve been refurbishing them myself these past few days, as the technicians in South Burlington and Waitsfield are experiencing some extraordinary volume right now.

    They came to us with some stickers identifying their former owners, so that has to be stripped away. I’ve found that denatured alcohol, a Mac mini opening tool, simple green, and paper towels do an extraordinary job at removing the goopy sticker residue.

    In the course of testing these units, I verify each and every function, and make sure each unit is one I’d be happy buying or giving a loved one. I test Bluetooth, ethernet, AirPort, FireWire (yes, these have FireWire!), every key, trackpad button feel, hard drive, and USB ports. I then stress each machine for 24 hours by running two instances of my favorite stressing command in terminal: yes > /dev/null. Simultaneously, the MacBooks are set to display examples in the Grapher application located in their utilities folder.

    I wasn’t really surprised to find that each of these machines held up incredibly well. They’re from late 2006 and early 2007, 1.83GHz Core Duo MacBooks with 60GB hard drives and 1GB of RAM. They’re a steal at $599.

    I’m have great confidence in these units, and am protecting them with a one year Small Dog Electronics warranty. And, they all come with Leopard AND iLife ’08!

  • Adjust Trackpad Travel on Unibody Laptops

    The newest Apple laptops feature a glass trackpad that supports many useful gestures. Made of glass, it feels great and the whole trackpad is the trackpad button. You can press in certain areas to accomplish simple tasks like right-clicking, and the supported gestures are, I’m sure, only a precursor of what’s to come.

    I received a few e-mails from customers asking whether the feel of clicking can be adjusted at all. They find that the noise from clicking is too loud, and that there’s too much travel in the mechanism for their comfort.

    This is a rare hardware hint, and as such your mileage may vary and you’re wholly responsible for any damage that might be caused!

    Start by removing the battery cover of your unibody MacBook or MacBook Pro. Remove the battery by pulling on the clear plastic tab – it’ll pop right out. You’ll notice a screw on the underside of the trackpad with a Y-shaped head. Using a small flat screwdriver, turn it clockwise about an eighth of a turn. I’d advise reassembling the unit, testing for the desired tactile feedback, and continuing or backing off as necessary.

    Be sure not to turn the screw too far in one direction or the other, as you may either lose the screw or cause irreversible damage to the trackpad. Neither of these outcomes would be covered by your warranty!

  • Damage and Your Mac

    We see a ton of damaged computers in the service department. It seems more common in our South Burlington tech room, as it’s right down the street from the University of Vermont and, well, it’s a college town. There are two primary types of physical damage: liquid spills and impact damage.

    Liquid spills often mean the end of a machine’s useful life. If you spill anything in your computer, immediately turn it off by unplugging the MagSafe and removing the battery. Open it up and turn the machine upside down. Leave it alone. FOR A WEEK. If you bring your spill-damaged machine in for service, we will not begin testing for a week; this ensures that all the water has evaporated.

    If you drop your computer, it’s safe to try turning it on in most cases. Depending on the impact, the machine will probably have obvious denting and perhaps even a shattered screen. I’ve seen quite a few dropped MacBooks come in with a dim screen, very little denting, and functioning external video.

    Dim screens can be caused by a failure of the LCD itself, the inverter board, various cables, main logic board, or a loose connection anywhere along the line. In the MacBook that inspired this article, a very severe drop caused the connection from main logic board to inverter cable to come loose, resulting in a dim screen.

    Of course, the best way to prevent impact damage is to keep your laptop in a “well padded case.”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/x/Notebook_Gear|Cases

  • Happy Tuesday,

    After a week at Macworld making connections, sourcing parts, and attending meetings on every possible service-related topic, it’s great to be home. It’s always weird being away from the dogs. In the office, it seems one is always either at my feet, in my lap, or jumping on me; we wouldn’t have it any other way.

    The Small Dog service departments are seeing unusually high volume right now, but we’re keeping repair turnaround to an industry-leading five business days. I learned a lot while I was away, and have some great ideas to improve your experience with our repair team. From sourcing less expensive parts of equal or greater quality to better data recovery tools, there’s some great stuff in the pipeline.

    As always, thanks for reading, and keep in touch.

    Matt
    matt@smalldog.com

  • Grace gave me an advance 60th birthday present just before I left for Macworld. She is taking me to Tanzania to see hippos in the wild. After watching the keynote with the new version of iMovie, we have decided to bring along a digicam, too!

    Our friend Chet Newbold from Olympus is going to loan me one of their ultra zoom cameras, too, so I hope to bring back some great photos and video from this trip. I am so excited about fulfilling this dream and spending my 60th birthday in Africa!

    I think we are going to see a lot of new products coming out of Apple this year. When they are ready on schedule, I am much more optimistic than most about 2009. I think that Apple is well-suited to innovate its way through this economic downturn.

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

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team
    _Don, Kali & Ed_

  • SPECIALS | 01/09/09 – 01/16/09

    View specials while on-hand supplies last. Please note that some specials may not be available in our retail stores; check for availability.

    Over 200 total specials are featured online on our Specials page. “Check them out here!”:http://www.smalldog.com/specials

  • FEATURE OF THE WEEK | 01/09/09 – 01/16/09

    For several weeks we’ve known that AT&T would finally be introducing the iPhone in Vermont mid-January. The time is almost here. We’ve heard from various AT&T affiliates that the iPhone will be launched in Vermont next week. To commemorate this long overdue occasion, we’ve put all “iPhone 3G”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/x/iPhone_Accessories|Cases
    cases on sale. Every single one. They’re $5 – $10 off, or with a free FM transmitter.

    “You can see all iPhone cases by clicking here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/x/iPhone_Accessories|Cases

    We offer dozens of iPhone-compatible speakers, clocks, chargers, and FM transmitters as well. Most of these are listed “in the iPod Accessories category.”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/x/iPod_Accessories

    Regarding iPhone 3G cases, I like the “Contour HardSkin in black.”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag18611/ It makes the phone easier to grip, gives a shock protection, and is relatively low-profile.

  • Picasa for Mac – Better Late Than Never!

    On Monday, Google finally released a public beta of Picasa for the Mac. Picasa is a free desktop app for importing, editing, organizing and sharing digital images–particularly digital photos.

    Picasa for Macs is a free download from “Picasa.google.com/mac/”:http://picasa.google.com/mac/. You need an Intel Mac running OS 10.4 or later.

    Picasa has been a popular photo app on the Windows side for years. It shares some features with iPhoto, and adds some unique killer features. These include the ability to sync your Picasa desktop and Picasa Web Albums edits, screen captures, create and edit movies within Picasa, add text/watermarks to photos, manage folders on your computer, a collage creation, screensaver creation, and Facial-recognition technology. Privacy and sharing settings can be adjusted for individual photos, collections or for your entire library.

    Preliminary tests show Picasa to be as fast or faster than iPhoto and easy and elegant to use. We’ll test further and review Picasa in detail in the future.

    Google also offers Picasa Web Albums, which is an excellent web service for sharing and organizing photos. This has been Mac-compatible for years. There is an iPhoto plugin if you want to use Picasa Web Albums without necessarily using the desktop version of Picasa. “Click here to download this.”:http://picasa.google.com/mac_tools.html

    Also, the new version of iPhoto ’09 looks amazing. News about Picasa for Mac has been swept under the rug with the announcement of iPhoto ’09.

    Picasa Web Albums integrates tightly with Google’s Blogger service, along with many other blog platforms and web services. Picasa Web Albums is very easy to use, uploading is a breeze, and photos are nicely displayed online. Picasa Web Albums offers up to 1GB (“enough space for 4,000 wallpaper-size photos”) of photo hosting for free.

    Flickr is still more popular and has deeper social network components then Picasa Web Albums. Again, we’ll do a detailed comparison in the near future.

  • iLife '09 Up-To-Date Program

    iLife ’09 looks like an awesome upgrade. Too bad it won’t be released until the need of the month. Fortunately, Apple has an iLife ’09 up-to-date program. If you’ve purchased a qualifying computer on or after January 6, 2009 that does not include iLife ’09, you can upgrade to iLife ’09 for US $9.95 plus tax.

    *Apple will administer this program, including collecting the $9.95 and shipping the iLife ’09 DVD.*

    More information about this is forthcoming. Please check “our blog”:http://blog.smalldog.com on or after Monday, January 12 for additional details!

  • iLife '09 Update: iWeb, iDVD

    iWeb also received minor updates for Macworld. In iWeb, it’s now easier to upload websites and website changes to MobileMe or to your own server via FTP with a single click. Like iWeb ’08, iWeb ’09 uploads only your changes when you publish, so you’ll enjoy quick site updates.

    iWeb will now notify your Facebook friends when you update your site. Simply link any iWeb site to your Facebook account. Following an update, iWeb adds the changes to your profile, alerting your friends and providing them with a handy link. It’s now also easier to add web widgets to your site that update automatically.

    iDVD didn’t appear to get any new features beyond performance and stability improvements. iMovie once again supports DVD chapter makers and titles for use with iDVD ’09, which is very welcome news.

    “Learn more and pre-order iLife ’09 here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/72885

  • iLife '09 Update: GarageBand

    At Macworld, Phil Schiller introduced a new version of GarageBand. The biggest new feature is called “Learn to Play.” It is designed to teach people to play instruments such as guitar and keyboards. You see the a representation of the instrument on the screen with a video of the instructor facing you.

    Celebrity instructors include Sting, Sarah McLachlan, John Fogerty, and more. Apple says “learn to play a hit song from the artist who made it famous,” which I think sounds pretty cool. Additional video lessons can be purchased from the new GarageBand store for $4.99.

  • iLife '09 Update: iMovie

    Apple has updated iMovie ’08 to iMovie ’09 as part of iLife ’09. iMovie ’09 was introduced with the statement that iMovie ’08 “didn’t have all the features that older customers wanted.” Apple has added “a bunch of features that should please everyone.” Phil Schiller continued to say that Apple has added “depth and power” to iMovie ’09.

    Some of the new features include:

    * Precision editor with expanded timeline for advanced users. Improved drag and drop of video clips and audio clips. Easier to insert, overlay, replace, and add audio straight from clips. Sound can now be extended from the first clip over audio from the second clip to give pro continuity to edits. Also now easier to skim and see edits before and after cuts.

    * Automatic video stabilization. The software identifies jittery/bumpy motion and reduces it by comparing frames of video to subsequent and previous frames. Video stabilization along with image stabilization in camcorders can practically create still photos. Two-step process. The first-pass is processor intensive.

    * Now possible to integrate maps into iMovie projects, including an option for Indiana Jones-style flyovers with a beginning and end point.

    * iMovie once again supports DVD chapter makers and titles for use with iDVD ’09, which is very welcome news.

    Other features include new themes complete with titles, transitions and credits. “Clip adjustment” includes a slider to speed up or slow down video clips (which was mystifyingly absent in iMovie ’08). A new Project Library shows you all your film clips. New video effects have been added with instant previewing; no rendering is necessary. Read all new changes “by clicking here.”:http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/new-features.html

    Personally, the announcement of iMovie ’09 was the most exciting event at this Macworld. I can’t wait to try it out. It sounds like creating engaging, attractive videos will be more fun than ever.

    “Learn more and pre-order iLife ’09 here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/72885