Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • 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_

  • Like a Regular Wave, Only Smaller

    In my last article about lasers, a reader pointed out that in the history of the laser started off as something called a MASER. These devices were identical in functionality to a laser, except the beam was composed of microwave radiation, rather than visible light energy. In researching for my article, I had actually come across this fact, and I thought I mentioned it, but in re-reading the article, it looks like it slipped through the edits.

    Obviously it’s easier to conceptualize lasers you can see. A MASER would be invisible since we can’t see microwave radiation. While the MASER didn’t really proliferate in the same way that lasers have, microwave radiation is one of the many things that makes our modern world work the way it does. To start off, let’s go to the obvious place, your microwave oven. Every single microwave oven in the world uses microwaves to heat food, but how does it work? First, we have to define what microwaves are.

    Microwaves are electromagnetic radiation (yup, that same ol’ spectrum). They are defined as having wavelengths between one meter and one millimeter and frequencies between 300MHz and 300GHz respectively. Microwave radiation at about 2.45GHz has a special property though. When it passes through dielectric molecules, like water, it causes them to rotate. This rotation is the absorption of the microwave energy by the molecules. If you remember back to an article I did on cooling and temperature, the heat we see in the molecules is the result of them now moving. So the microwave oven isn’t heating your food, it’s heating any water or moisture present in the food. You can actually see the wavelength of your microwave by removing any turntable and placing a plate of shredded cheese inside. Turn the microwave on for approximately 30 seconds and take the cheese plate out. You’ll notice that there are rows of melted and unmelted cheese. The space between the melted rows is the approximate wavelength of the microwave.

    Heating food isn’t the only use of microwaves though. Microwaves are the primary radio waves used for all modern communication. L band microwaves, from 1-2GHz are used for GPS, GSM mobile phones and amateur radio. S band microwave, from 2-4GHz are used for weather radar, microwave ovens, other mobile phones, WiFi, Bluetooth, and more GPS. The automotive radar I wrote about a few weeks ago is also a microwave. Some automakers will even call it “millimeter wave radar”. These microwaves are in the Q band ranging from 33-50GHz. Microwaves, unlike lower frequency radio waves, operate by line of sight and as such they are excellent for point-to-point communications.

    I wonder if anyone caught something in that last paragraph. “Hadley, are you saying that the same band used for microwave ovens is used for cell phones?!?!” Yes, it’s true. Many mobile phones operate in the same frequency as microwave ovens. This is partially what caused a lot of concern when cell phones first started to proliferate. Is there a risk? Technically speaking, yes, but the risk is so incredibly minute, it would take decades of talking on the phone with it right to your ear before your ??chance?? of experiencing negative effects even rose a little bit. The reason for this is power. You may know how much power your microwave oven is rated for. Many are in the 1200 watt range. That’s 1.2 kilowatts of power. That’s ??a lot?? of power. That’s more power than a hair dryer might use, and the only way for most of us to get that power is to plug into the grid. A tiny cell phone battery is not capable of producing even a fraction of that power, and devices like WiFi transmitters are regulated to only transmit a certain amount of power.

    Finally, why do we even call it radiation? Microwaves can’t cause chemical changes by ionization so they aren’t radioactive like plutonium is radioactive. This is one of the times we use “radiation” to mean energy radiating from a source. Technically you could call the light from a flashlight “light radiation”. The radiation itself is non-ionizing and therefore is not dangerous. The only danger from microwaves is if they are backed by sufficient power. Then your body could experience dielectric heating, just like in a microwave oven.

    Hopefully this was a helpful discussion of what microwaves are and what they aren’t, and maybe I’ve removed some of the mystery of certain technologies that use them.

  • This week I’ve had a longer than usual morning commute. As it’s the last week of my kid’s summer vacation we’ve been staying at our camp about forty minutes from work. Normally my drive is about three minutes to get to the office. In the past week, I’ve observed a handful of trees beginning to change color. I’m never sure what to think when it’s August and the leaves are starting to show hints of yellows and reds. After all, peak foliage season isn’t typically seen until early October. It’s a subtle reminder that it’s time to start thinking about all those projects we didn’t finish in the spring and that before I know it I’ll be turning in my flip flops once again for real shoes.

    This week’s “**Kibbles & Bytes exclusive special is the ultimate back to school bundle.**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002781/ This bundle covers all the essentials for whatever demands your next year has in store for you. I’ve bundled together an Apple Factory Refurbished MacBook Pro 15in w/Touch Bar 2.6GHz i7 QC 16GB/256GB with AppleCare+, a 2TB USB-C backup drive, and a sleeve to carry it around in. In addition to the savings, you’re getting with a factory refurbished computer, which has the exact same warranty as a brand new computer. You’re also saving another $200 on this bundle. “**This deal would normally cost $2459.96, but this week only (don’t tell Don) you can get it for $2259.99!**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002781/kibbles-bytes-ultimate-back-to-school-bundle? This is an incredible deal with a limited supply so you don’t want to miss out.

  • Apple Pencil

    I am by no means an artist nor someone who has drawn anything beyond your standard High School art class. However something drew…

  • Avoid Phishing

    Unlike the band (depending on who you ask, I suppose) to get ‘phished’ is not as groovy, wavy, or as psychedelic as their malicious digital counterpart. 

    We’ve all no doubt heard of the blowback and headaches that notorious phishing scams can cause, but how can you stay alert and protected when you cross paths with a potential scam?

    I’m sure, right now, in your Spam inbox, you may find a number of emails from a sender masquerading as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc… asking you to “verify” certain aspects of your personal information i.e. credit card number, address, phone number, and in some cases even your Social Security number. I’ve dealt with a few of these cases personally, where the victim, unfortunately, thought these requests were legitimate.

    Some things you can make yourself aware of if you feel a possible phishing email has pushed its way past your spam filter:

    Note the subject line of the email. How’s the grammar? Does it sound fishy (forgive the pun) if you say it aloud to yourself? For example, Apple will never let even the slightest grammatical/syntax error go unnoticed, so if you receive an email from “Apple” and it reads like the first draft of a fifth grader’s procedural essay, delete it.

    What’s the point of the email? Scammers are getting craftier by the day as cyber security measures are getting better and better at weeding out the malicious parties trying to swipe your personal info, so it’s unlikely that they’ll come right out the gate asking for your credit card number. Instead, they may try to get you to follow a link to their page to “verify” your personal info. Let’s just say, for the sake of this example, that you follow the link. Keep in mind, if it really is an email sent from Apple, the web address won’t look like this: http://appleid.apple.com.apple.givemeyourmoneyplease.4573949034.ithinkimsoclever.apple.com One thing to note here if you do click on their given link, Apple will never just use an ‘http’ address. All Apple websites are prefixed with ‘https’, with the ‘s’ meaning that a security certificate is in use to encrypt the communications between your device and the Apple web server. 

    Above all else, use your better judgment. If you have a sneaking suspicion that the email you’ve received isn’t genuine, call the company. If your account is really about to be deactivated, or your subscription is truly about to run out, a customer support representative of the company will certainly tell you. And please, don’t use the number listed in the email.

  • Technology Brings Us Together

    A few weeks ago Small Dog sent me to Key West to help with the Small Dog team in the southern most point. While I was there I met this wonderful Chilean. One problem though is that we do not speak the same language. She was raised speaking Spanish, English for me. Thanks to our quick thinking we were able to communicate via translators built into a few different apps. She was using an iPhone 6 with the Whatsapp app. I was using an iPhone 5s with google translate, and with a lot of patience, we were able to hold a conversation strictly relying on our iPhones.

    After I left Key West and went back to Vermont and her to Chile, we kept in contact via translators over Facebook. Until I realized that Skype had a translator built into the app, One problem it is Windows only! (Boo, Skype, Boo!). Lucky for me I already had the best windows laptop you can buy…a MacBook Pro!

    So I partitioned my drive and now Running Windows 7 and OS X, which lasted about a week before going back to just OS X. Now the setup I use is Skype running on MacOS 10.12 with google translate.

    The cool thing about Google Translate is that it has a speak option. So you type into one box and in the other box it would translate to Spanish, then just click on the sound button and google will speak in the language you translated to with a cool robot voice. The only problem that I have found with Google Translate is that they are not good with slang. I learned I use a lot of slang.

    Reflecting back on this whole scenario it amazes me that we are in a time of such great tech(slang), and we do not use it to its full potential.

  • The cool, breezy evenings have set in and we’re starting to feel the first wave of Autumn here in Vermont. It is a bittersweet feeling, as always. I hate to see summer go by so quickly. As I said in our last edition, we’re in the midst of our busy back-to-school rush, which affects every department in different ways.

    Going into the fall, we’re all gearing up to take tons of photos, especially here in Vermont. While I’m stocking up on color film and developing chemicals, I’m also looking into a better video rig. One of my coworkers has the latest GoPro Hero5, and I must say, the HD recording at 120fps is quite impressive. For the past couple of years, I’ve shot with a Canon 70D, which is well regarded for its video recording capabilities. This system is especially handy for filmmaking, as you can attach a variety of lenses to the body and achieve almost any cinematic look you desire. I’ve found for action video, this camera falls short for a few reasons. First of all, a larger camera body usually means less stability in the image. GoPros are so lightweight, you tend to have an easier time keeping things steady. In addition, recording 4K video gives you the resolution flexibility needed to apply heavy image stabilization in post-processing stages.

    When I purchased the 70D, I never expected an action camera at half the price would surpass it in terms of video capacity and ruggedness. I should add, the 70D still has a superior image sensor in so many ways I won’t get into here, but if you’re looking to shoot action without the larger camera body getting in the way of your participation in said action, I think a GoPro is a worthwhile purchase. I’m especially fascinated by the extended range of FPS (frames per second) options going all the way up to 240. If you have a minute search for 240FPS GoPro footage on YouTube. Yes, your iPhone can now handle super slow motion at the same capacity, but I’d rather not take my iPhone out water skiing, skateboarding, or strapped to a dog’s head, for example.

    Speaking of strapping to a dog’s head, we have a ton of GoPro mounting accessories at the South Burlington store, including the Karma Grip, which stabilizes even the most rocky footage, using an electronic gimbal. Very cool! If you’d like to hear more about these products, come see us at the store. If you happen to see Erich or Riley, make sure to ask them about their GoPro experience.

    Have fun with your last couple weeks of summer, we hope to see you soon!

    Patrick McCormack
    “patrickm@smalldog.com”:mailto:patrickm@smalldog.com

  • I will be off this coming week and Emily and Hadley will have to entertain you next week in Kibbles & Bytes. Heading south on motorcycles to view the total eclipse sounds like a very romantic trip but it is all about the ride. We love being on the road and the challenges of motorcycling.

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes! And don’t look at the eclipse without proper glasses!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Emily & Hadley_