Kibbles & Bytes Blog

Apple news, tech tips, and more…

KB Dog

  • _Dear Friends,_

    Which passwords are the most important to remember? I cannot tell you how many times we are faced with a customer needing help on their Mac or iOS device and when we ask for their password a confused look crosses their faces and immediately we know we are into a password recovery situation. Sometimes, the customer will pull out a dog-eared notebook with passwords written down and crossed out and more written in. Other times they mutter under their breath about passwords and use some unique language.

    There are really only a few passwords that are essential for you to remember. Number one is the main password to your Mac or iOS device to unlock them. You use that password all the time, presumably, so it should not be too hard to remember but I do recommend stashing that someplace safe so you can get it when you forget. Second most important is probably your Apple ID. Your Apple ID is used for everything Apple from iTunes, to the App Store, to setting up iCloud and new devices. You can reset this password but that is time consuming and frustrating as you try to remember the answers to your security questions, i.e. my first dog was Skippy.

    Email passwords and banking passwords are next but if you use Apple’s keychain or other Password programs like 1Password you should not have too much trouble retrieving those. In most cases, however, when we are called for technical support it is either the main administrator’s password for a Mac or Apple ID that stops the help in its tracks and starts the clock on our paid password recovery services.

    I think Apple made great strides with Touch ID and they have brought that to the Touch Bar Macs but they need to make it even more useful to identify yourself. Why go through a complicated password recovery situation when you have biometric security. I don’t believe that I still have to enter my Apple ID and password every time I buy a book from iBooks, for example.

    Okay enough of my password rant for today. Here’s an “**exclusive for Kibbles & Bytes readers**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002756/kibbles-bytes-exclusive-bundle? that goes along with my review of the BenQ PD2710QC display. I am bundling the BenQ USB C display with an Apple Factory Reconditioned MacBook Pro 13-inch with Touch Bar. This MacBook Pro has the 2.9GHZ i5 Dual Core processor, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD drive and is Space Gray. It has been refurbished by Apple and has a 1-year Apple Warranty. We are also bundling Applecare+ which now has become almost essential as it also covers accidental damage (like spilling that glass of wine on your Mac) with a deductible. It covers this MacBook Pro for 3-years and provides 3-years of free Apple technical support, too. So, you get the “**MacBook Pro, AppleCare+ and the BenQ PD2710QC display for only $2099.99.**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002756/kibbles-bytes-exclusive-bundle? That is $200 off for Kibbles & Bytes readers while supplies last!

  • Heading Into The Library Stacks

    I remember way back when, that Grace and I would go to the Chicago Public library to “do our homework”. When we actually…

  • We have three basic job requirements here at Small Dog Electronics that go beyond doing extraordinary work. We ask each employee to write a weekly report outlining work accomplished, challenges encountered and any commentary they would like to make about their job. My techs tend to do daily reports which really give me a good handle on the work flow. The second job requirement is to reach the highest level of Apple sales training for even those not on the sales floor. My favorite is my third requirement, which is to take a paid day off and do community service.

    The only requirement for that last one is to send me an email and tell me what they have done. It can be as simple as helping an elderly neighbor stack their firewood to designing a web site for a non-profit. I was sort of boasting about this idea one day at a meeting of some other business leaders and the CEO of Ben & Jerry’s listened patiently and then casually said “we do the same thing but we give our employees a week off”. Crawling quickly under the table, I decided that was something to aspire to.

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

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Emily & Hadley_

  • A Laptop Replacement?

    I’m going to split from my usual articles this week so I can talk about another one of my passions. I recently decided it was time to retire my original iPad Air. It was actually the first Apple product I purchased myself. Someone gave me a Mac mini in 2009, but that doesn’t count. When I got it in June 2014, iOS 7 had just come out and I remember being totally sold on the new direction iOS was taking. I also liked the shift in form factor that came with the Air. It served me well over the years, went on many trips, watched hours of movies and TV shows. It’ll serve a good purpose as my new HomeKit base station. I have it set up in my living room next to my TV. I also use it to Airplay content to my TV.

    So what did I replace it with? Well, much like in 2014, iOS 11 really sold me on the new 10.5-inch iPad Pro. I was also genuinely impressed with performance specs that actually rival some laptop computers. I actually confirmed this by running Geekbench on both my 10.5-inch iPad Pro and my MacBook Air (circa 2014). Generally, the iPad had higher scores across the board. Some scores were comparable, but where the iPad really shined was in multicore performance. My MacBook Air is a dual-core i5, while the iPad Pros use a 6-core A10X. More cores is obviously going to push that score up a lot for the iPad.

    The 120Hz screen refresh rate is something you really have to see in person, and it affects every single thing you do on the device. That combined with what is otherwise a very nice display makes for a really nice user experience. For me, one of the other reasons I wanted this iPad was so that I could get the Apple Pencil and start doing some fashion design. I’m actually a terrible artist, but I wanted to give this a try. So far it’s gone very well. I can’t speak to how the Pencil worked on previous iPads without the 120Hz refresh, but I’ve found it to be actually very useable. Other pen inputs I’ve used in the past, even good ones, have had far too much lag. I’ve found that using the Pencil doesn’t get annoying over time, which I like.

    There are actually a handful of apps out there specifically designed for fashion design. One that I really liked initially was Prêt à Template. It gives you all sorts of body form templates that you can draw your designs on top of. I liked this because I had no idea how to draw a body form that looked like an actual human. The problem with Prêt à Template is that instead of just being able to purchase the app, it has a weird subscription model that I did not want to do.

    I can however recommend two other apps that have worked very well for me with my designs so far. The first I tried is free. Adobe Sketch is a powerful drawing app with great brush assortment and good layering. Obviously just sketching out fashion designs isn’t intensive digital art, but I love the ability to have such a wide variety of colors and textures available to me anywhere I am with my iPad. The ability to undo is also pretty handy.

    The second app isn’t free, but it’s the one I’ve started using exclusively now. It’s called Procreate. It costs $6 in the App Store, but for such a powerful app, I think it’s totally worth it. I prefer Procreate because it has a bit better brush assortment, seems to be better tuned for the Apple Pencil than Adobe Sketch and the undo feature is a bit better. I felt there was a bit more of a learning curve on Procreate, but once I got the basics down for what I wanted to do, I definitely get the results I want.

    It’s been a few weeks with the iPad Pro so far and I’m starting to think that once iOS 11 comes out, this device might genuinely be able to replace my MacBook Air in many ways. I’m also excited to see how well it can do with video editing and music creation, two other creative hobbies I enjoy.

  • Are You Ready For iOS 11?

    Some of you might have already jumped on the “public beta”:https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/ program for “iOS 11”:https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-11-preview/. If you did, you might have discovered that some apps have stopped working for you. If you haven’t installed it yet this is a good time to get ready.

    I’ve been an iPhone user since the iPhone 3GS and I’ve been an iPad user since the original iPad came out. iOS 11 brings on some similar hiccups that have plagued macOS, most apps and applications ( if it’s on the Mac ) will carry over and run, but eventually some apps and applications will stop working and you need to either replace or update them. Here’s the run down on why and what to look for with your iOS apps.

    Through the iPhone 5, fourth-generation iPad, original iPad mini, and fifth-generation iPod touch, Apple used 32-bit processors. However, in 2013, Apple instead began putting 64-bit chips in all new iOS devices. Apple encouraged developers to make their apps run on 64-bit mode but kept iOS7 compatible with older 32-bit apps. Starting in 2015, Apple required apps to run in 64-bit mode to receive App Store approval. iOS 10 initially warned that 32-bit apps might slow down your device and later said 32-bit apps would need to be updated.

    First off, don’t worry about what 32 and 64-bit mean, all you need to know is that 32-bit apps are old and won’t run on iOS 11, and that 64-bit apps will continue to work as they always have. But how do you know which of your apps are 32-bit? For apps that you use regularly you’ve probably seen one of these warnings. But other apps you may open only occasionally. How can you figure out which of those are destined for the chopping block?

    In iOS 10.3, Apple added a feature to call out these apps. Navigate to Settings > General > About > Applications to see a list of 32-bit apps that don’t have direct updates available. Note: you do need to be running specifically iOS 10.3 for this to work. If you are on iOS 10.3 and Applications won’t let you tap it, it means you do not have any 32-bit apps. When I looked up any potential issues I found 4 of my 122 apps are 32-bit. Now what? Well there are some options for handling this.

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/5160.png!

    **Delete the app.** If it’s an app you don’t use much or perhaps at all anymore just get rid of it! Simply press and hold the icon until you get the familiar shaking apps and tap the X.

    **Look for an update that’s a new app** It’s very possible that the developer simply released a completely new version of the app that you need to downloaded. This unfortunately might mean that you have to buy a paid app again, but if you like that app well enough it will be worth it.

    **Look for an alternative app.** Few iOS apps are truly unique, so you may be able to find an alternative that does basically the same thing.

    If you are in an unfortunate situation where it’s an app you must keep using but there is no update to 64-bit then you’ve got some options, but they may not be ideal. Just like when OS X came out and countless users were faced with costly software upgrades from OS9 to OS X, you might consider running an older iOS device exclusively for that app. You could also consider not upgrading to iOS 11 and keep your device back. Both of these options come with drawbacks and eventually you’ll need to upgrade and migrate to newer versions of the app, so this is only a bandaid. The best advice is to work to replace that older app as soon as possible.

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/5161.png!

    You’ve still got several weeks to work out a plan and prepare for the official release of iOS 11. For myself, I’m going with the easiest option and just deleting the apps and looking for alternatives.

  • Expanding Your View

    As I mentioned, I am using two displays now so I thought I would write up a short article on just how you can set up a multiple display situation. There are three different ways that you can use multiple displays:

    *Expand Your Desktop*
    This is what I am doing and I have one continuous desktop that stretches across two 27-inch monitors and my MacBook Pro display. Move your pointer past the edge of one display and it appears on the other display. At first, your primary display has all of your desktop icons and open app windows. You can drag them to the other display as needed.

    *Set Up Mirroring*
    Video mirroring shows the same desktop and windows on multiple displays at the same time. You can use it to view content such as photos or videos on a larger display or HDTV.

    *Closed Laptop Mode*
    You can use an external display or projector with a Mac notebook while its built-in display is closed. This is known as closed-clamshell or closed-display mode.

    I will go over each of these but will concentrate upon the extended desktop. I often have two browsers, an email client, Messages, Skype, Numbers, Pages, our K9 database and other windows open when I am working. It does get crowded, especially if I am working on the 13-inch display on my MacBook Pro. Setting up an extended desktop allows me to spread out the work in a much more organized fashion.

    Here’s how to set up an extended desktop:
    Connect and turn on your additional display or displays. I have mine connected to two of the USB-C ports on my MacBook Pro.

    * Open System Preferences.
    * Choose Displays.
    * Click the Arrangement tab.
    * Make sure that the Mirror Displays checkbox isn’t selected.

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/5164.jpg!

    * Each display has a menu bar.

    * Each display can have full-screen apps. To take an app full screen, click the green button in the upper-left corner of the app window. Or press Control-Command-F.

    * You can use Mission Control to organize windows and full-screen apps across your displays.

    * If the Dock is positioned at the bottom of your screen, you can view it on any one of your screens by moving your pointer to the bottom edge of that screen. This one had me baffled for a long time as my dock would end up on the wrong display and I could not figure out how to get it back. But moving the cursor to the bottom of the display where you want the dock works every time.

    *Arrange your displays*
    I don’t think I have the ultimate set up yet but I am playing with positioning my displays. Using the Display pane of Systems Preferences you can tell your Mac where your displays are in relation to each other. Use this feature so that your connected displays match their real-world location when you move between windows.

    You can select which display has the Finder’s menu bar and arrange them just right so that mouse movements are smooth from one to the other. In the picture of my setup here you will see that I set the MacBook Pro display much lower than my others. This makes it so when I am a moving between displays it is totally fluid.

    The blue boxes in the Arrangement pane represent all displays that you’ve connected to your Mac. The size of each box represents the current resolution of each display.

    The white bar at the top of the blue box identifies your primary display. The primary display is where your desktop icons and open app windows first appear. To make a different display your primary display, drag the white bar to the box that represents that display.

    *Setting up Mirroring*

    Video mirroring shows the same desktop and windows on multiple displays at the same time. You can use it to view content such as photos or videos on a larger display or HDTV.

    Here’s how to set up video mirroring:
    * Connect and turn on your additional display.
    * Choose System Preferences.
    * Choose Displays.
    * Click the Arrangement tab.
    * In the lower-left corner of the Arrangement pane, select “Mirror Displays.”

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/5165.png!

    In OS X Mavericks or later, you can add a status menu bar item to make it easier to mirror your displays. Use this menu to select an Apple TV or television to use as a display. It appears when you connect to an HDTV, or when an Apple TV is available on your network. To add the menu to the top of your screen, select “Show mirroring options in the menu bar when available.”

    *Closed Laptop Mode*

    To use closed laptop mode you need:

    * An AC power adapter
    * An external keyboard and mouse or trackpad, either USB or wireless
    * A USB-C to USB adapter if you’re using a USB mouse or keyboard with MacBook (2015 and later) or MacBook Pro (2016 and later)
    * An external display or projector

    Use these steps to enable closed-display mode.

    If the external display isn’t recognized when it’s connected and your Mac is powered on, try connecting the display while your computer is asleep or off. Then wake or turn on the computer after you connect the display.

    If you’re using a USB keyboard and mouse:
    * Make sure that your Mac is plugged into AC power
    * Connect a USB keyboard and mouse to your Mac.
    * With your Mac turned on and the display open, connect the Mac to the appropriate port on the external display or projector and turn the display or projector on. Use an appropriate Apple video adapter if necessary.
    * After your Mac laptop’s Desktop appears on the external display, close the computer’s lid.

    When you close the lid:
    In OS X Lion 10.7 and later, the external display changes to a blue screen, then shows your Desktop.

    You can now use your Mac laptop as you normally would with a USB keyboard and mouse.

    If you’re using a wireless keyboard and mouse:
    * Make sure that your Mac laptop is plugged in using the AC power adapter.
    * Verify that Bluetooth is turned on
    * Pair your Bluetooth keyboard or mouse with your Mac.
    * In the Bluetooth pane of System Preferences, click Advanced and make sure the checkbox next to Allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer is selected.
    * With your Mac turned on and the display open, connect the Mac to the appropriate port on the external display or projector and turn the display or projector on.
    * After your Mac notebook’s Desktop appears on the external display, close the computer’s lid.

    You can now use your Mac notebook as you normally would with a wireless keyboard and mouse.
    It’s best to put your Mac to sleep by choosing Apple menu > Sleep before disconnecting your display

    This new BenQ display has a little shelf for the MacBook Pro to sit on when using closed mode but I find it convenient to have that third display as even more desktop.

    With all these displays I must look like my friend Larz Barber at Merrill Lynch.

  • Delete Files In Terminal

    **Warning this is permanent**

    You CANNOT RECOVER FILES with method. So you have a file that you don’t want anymore, you can skip the steps in the GUI (graphic user interface). In terminal it is one command, but there is no “Trashcan” you can recover from.

    To do this open up terminal and type:

    rm {file path of file you want to delete}

    Or is this is not enough you can remove entire directories. “rm-r” stands for remove directory and the syntax looks like this:

    rmdir {the file path itself}

    Now before you even just play with this command, make sure you have a Time Machine back up. It’s always just good to have a Time Machine back up, but if you make a mistake with this command, a backup may be your only way to recover data.

  • Breathe Life Into Your Old Mac

    It’s always a sad day when you realize your older Mac isn’t quite performing how it used to. Perhaps it’s a bit sluggish to open certain applications. Perhaps the time it takes to boot seems to be getting longer and longer. And perhaps all that data you’ve accumulated over the years has almost filled up your storage space. It’s realizations like this that can sometimes push users to prematurely purchasing a more up to date model. Fortunately, there are a few ways to breathe a bit of “life” into your older machine.

    First and foremost, performing backups is always recommended before making any significant changes to your machine. 

    If your machine has accumulated some desktop or toolbar junk seemingly inexplicably, you may have unintentionally acquired some malware. Tracing back to the genesis of this malicious software can be difficult, especially with older Macs, but luckily there’s a free application out there called Malware Bytes that does the hard work for you. Malware Bytes scans your hard drive for any traces of this malicious software and walks you through the removal process step by step. After the removal process you may notice your computer runs much more smoothly than it did before. 

    Having a lot of files on your desktop can be convenient, but when you boot your machine it can certainly bog down to the startup time, as your machine will have to load all of those items, one by one in order to complete the startup process. Instead of having a lot of files all neatly organized on your desktop, I recommend creating a folder called ‘Desktop’ and storing all your most frequently used or opened files there. 

    And speaking of storing files…

    Having your files just a few clicks away is great, but keeping too many files on your hard drive is a surefire way to keep your machine sluggish. In this case, an external hard drive is your best friend. I personally keep my Photos library and iTunes library on two separate external hard drives. Granted, doing this is also a bit of a process worthy of some research before deciding to do so, but it’s definitely kept my Mid-2012 MacBook Pro trucking right along in its oncoming golden years. 

    Along those lines, a few times a year I’ll go delving into the contents of my hard drive and do some manual housekeeping to keep things tidy and running smoothly.

  • Too Many Passwords!

    Most of us have been using the Internet for many years, and have created accounts with hundreds of different Internet services. After a certain point, one cannot reasonably be expected to remember the passwords to all of their different accounts, especially since many websites have different requirements for password complexity. Having to remember too many different passwords is a common frustration we see here at Small Dog.

    This is a problem inherent in the username/password system. When the system was introduced decades ago, no one anticipated having to remember hundreds of different usernames and passwords. Other methods for authentication, like biometrics, have slowly become supported by more and more hardware and software developers, like Apple’s Touch ID, however there is still no viable system for authentication that can be used by virtually any device, so username/password has remained the most dominant method.

    The best solution to the problem of having too many passwords is to install a password manager. A password manager is an application that securely stores a users passwords, so that only one password is required to access any of them.

    The password manager I would recommend is LastPass. LastPass offers a desktop application, a browser extension, and a mobile app. A premium account is only $1 per month, and all of the core features are available with a free account. With LastPass, any time you see a password prompt, you only need to enter your LastPass password, and LastPass will find, decrypt, and enter your password to that service.

  • The Boston Celtics got their man when they signed Gordon Hayward as a free agent. I have been sneaking off to watch the NBA Summer league games (Grace disapproves) and our newest rookie Jayson Tatum is looking great, too. I see banner #18 in the future!

    Meanwhile, Grace and I are planning our annual pilgrimage to Wrigley Field in Chicago. We are celebrating our 50th anniversary this October and with any luck the Cubbies will be there in the post-season but we are heading there for a couple games in August. Anyone know anyone with awesome tickets? We went on one of our first dates at Wrigley Field and we are both fanatical Cubs fans so we go every year. Does anyone remember “Riverview Park”:http://www.defunctparks.com/abandoned/il/chicago-illinois-riverview-amusement-park/ – that is where we had our first date and of course, the park closed forever shortly after that.

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes team,

    _Don, Emily & Hadley_

  • Tasty Waves, Cool Buzz

    The waves I’m going to talk about here are a little bit different than the “tasty” waves Jeff Spicoli was looking for in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but they’re still interesting and crucial to modern technology. First though, I need to distinguish what kind of waves I’m talking about. In previous articles, I talked about the electromagnetic spectrum. That spectrum itself is composed of waves too, and we describe electromagnetic radiation waves using wave terminology, such as frequency, amplitude and wavelength.

    The waves I want to talk about here though are different. These waves are more accurately described as “electronic signals”. A very basic and simple example of this kind of wave is AC electricity. The voltage varies according to a perfect sine wave up and down, positive to negative. It has a frequency (in the US, 60Hz). It has an amplitude, which is 170V for 120VAC. So this signal is a wave, a sine wave, but it’s not really inherent. We can (and do) create AC electricity with all sorts of frequencies and amplitudes. These waves can also be highly irregular and change over time rapidly.

    AC electricity is typically a sine wave because of the rotational methods by which most AC electricity is generated. Any time you have rotation and you’re stretching it over time you’re likely going to see something that resembles a sine wave somewhere along the line. The fact that our normal electricity comes in the form of AC isn’t wasted. We use the sine wave all the time. Induction motors for example use the rising and falling pulses of the wave to “kick” the motor armature into motion. The proper function of the motor depends on the sine wave input. We also use the frequency of the AC signal as a way for certain electronics to keep time.

    Sine waves aren’t the only signals we create and use. In fact, while sine waves might be ubiquitous in industrial operations where AC electricity is being used directly, in the consumer world, the square wave dominates. A square wave looks exactly like you’d expect, a square. Unlike the sine wave which gradually increases over time, the square wave goes from one extreme to another almost instantly. Then it holds at some value before dropping back down again. Computers would not function without square waves. A square wave clock signal is like the ultimate orchestral conductor inside of every CPU. Without that signal, the 1s and 0s would be in chaos. Every time the square wave clock signal pulses, one step of the computational cycle can occur. When I built a computer from scratch in college, keeping the clock signal at a reasonable speed was critical.

    Another huge use of square waves is in something called PWM (Pulse Width Modulation). PWM can be used to encode a message into a pulsing signal (like a clock signal) and then be transmitted via conventional means. This has applications in telecommunications, though it’s used less today with the advent of digital communications. PWM is also used in photovoltaic charging algorithms. When a battery is depleted, the pulses will be long in duration since the battery needs to be charged. As the battery becomes more charged, the pulses become shorter, thereby delivering less average current to the battery. PWM also has applications in just about any instance where precise motor control is required. Servo motors rely on PWM to function and normal, spinning motors can be adjusted for speed and torque with digital controllers. All CPU fans are controlled by this mechanism. Even my sewing machine relies on PWM. When I press on the foot pedal just a little bit, the motor only spins very slowly. Before PWM, this would’ve been accomplished using a variable resistor. A variable resistor would basically “burn off” excess power in the form of heat. This is wasteful and dangerous. If it got too hot, you could start a fire, or burn your foot. PWM simply sends shorter pulses of power to the motor causing it to spin more slowly. There’s no dangerous “burn off” of excess power. In fact, it’s only using the exact amount of power it needs.

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/5148.png!

    Square waves aren’t even the end of the story. There are triangle waves, and sawtooth waves and just about any other shape you can imagine (though they might not have any practical use). As an amateur composer of electronic music, the square, triangle and sawtooth waves are the bread and butter of synthesized sounds.

    I’m not sure if I’ve changed Jeff Spicoli’s mind on these waves, but hopefully others have found this explanation of waves and signals to be interesting.