Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • MAC TREAT #56: Fast and Dirty Math with Spotlight

    Did you know that you can perform simple calculations with Spotlight in Mac OS 10.4 and OS 10.5? All you have do is enter the numbers you’d like to add, subtract, multiply or divide in the Spotlight bar, and Spotlight will automatically update on the fly with the answer. I often do this rather than launch the Calculator app, typically to quickly calculate percentages.

    Use the following symbols in both the Calculator app and in Spotlight for performing calculations: + is add, – is subtract, * is multiplication, and / is division. You can use ! for factorial calculations and ^ for exponents. There may be more symbols for other types of calculations; if you know of any, let me know and I will share with other readers.

  • HTML Newsletter Details and Info

    As most of you have noticed, we launched an HTML version of Kibbles & Bytes last week. We introduced this in response to the overwhelming percentage of you who voted for HTML in our February ’08 survey to Kibbles & Bytes readers. It allows us to add color, photos and style to the newsletter, while making it easier to read and keeping the Small Dog “feel.”

    And, as Don mentioned above, we have noted your feedback; thank you for taking the time to let us know what you think! There are going to be some changes to future issues–some pre-planned and some based on your responses. I’ve noted some common concerns and suggestions that we’ve received, with further acknowledgement and explanation:

    * __”Why is it so small on my iPhone?”__
    Unfortunately, Apple Mail for the iPhone is the limitation here. It is not coded to understand the zoom/width settings needed to view the newsletter in a larger size.
    The remedy: Click on the “View in web browser” link at the top of the email and Safari will display this in a more viewable way. You will be able to turn iPhone/touch sideways and view horizontally, as well as scroll to enlarge text.

    * __”It would be great if the image at the top was a link.”__
    We agree! We are working on making this happen, and we should see it in the next version of Kibbles & bytes.

    * __”The links are hard to see.”__
    One of the great things about HTML is that links don’t have to be spelled out in order to access them, but we acknowledge that sometimes they can be embedded within text, and possibly hard to see. We have used the color scheme of our website as a template for the link colors (blue), but sometimes email clients (often webmail) override those settings, making them a different color. With this in mind, we will try to make the links as visible as possible in the future. This includes the links in the footer, which we have altered to make them more visible. They now match our footer on “Smalldog.com”:http:www.smalldog.com with blue links that turn orange when hovered over.

    * __”What are those weird characters when I look at the text-only version?”__
    This is a good question. We’ll spare you the boring details of why this happens, though, and promise to keep those annoying symbols out of the text as best can can! (Feel free to “email me”:mailto:kali@smalldog.com if you’re curious!)

    I would also like to note that we understand that there are some of you out there who do not want HTML newsletters altogether. We currently are unable to offer two separate email lists (one HTML and one plain text), so we have included the link to get plain text at the top of each newsletter. The images are not embedded, keeping the file size smaller, but if this is still too much for slow-loading email clients, the other alternative is to view the plain text emails in our online archive.

    “The Kibbles & Bytes archives can currently be found here”:http://www.smalldog.com/kibbles/.
    (The link is subject to change pending further development, at which point we will feature the new link in future Kibbles & Bytes issues.)

    We thank you for your feedback again, and hope you enjoy the newest version of Kibbles & Bytes!

    To offer your feedback, either reply to this message or email “subscriptions@smalldog.com”:mailto:subscriptions@smalldog.com.

  • _Dear Friends,_

    Thank you for all of the great comments and suggestions for our new HTML format for Kibbles & Bytes. We are enjoying the process and feel that this new format will enable us to bring you more news and features in a better-looking and easier-to-navigate form. We will continue to make improvements and incorporate your suggestions.

    We are all heading up to Centennial Field in Burlington for the last game of the Vermont Lake Monsters, Vermont’s Single A short-season minor league team. As the baseball and football seasons overlap over the next six weeks or so, I frequently take time to listen to the late George Carlin’s monologue on baseball versus football. I’m a baseball fan first–I love the game for its subtleness, the details (the “game of inches”), and of course, this year I am watching every Cubs game that I can as we see if the 100-year curse is over for my team.

    __Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life. Football begins in the fall, when everything’s dying.__

    “Watch George Carlin’s famous bit here”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-gakLqibP4.

    The next big Apple event is Tuesday. The “Let’s Rock” event will likely herald this year’s new offerings for iPods and music from the market leader in these categories. There is a lot of anticipation and guessing going on but we’ll have to wait for Steve to take the stage at the special event in San Francisco to see exactly what Apple’s been working on for the past several months. We’ll have pictures for you in next week’s Kibbles!

    Hapy is out for the next couple of weeks recovering from shoulder surgery. Hapy participates in heavy athletics and suffered a sports injury, but they were able to repair the damage with orthoscopic surgery. However, he won’t be doing much typing for a few weeks; he’ll probably just be annoying us with video iChats.

    We have some amazing bargains right now on 17-inch MacBook Pros and some Mac Pros. These are the best values we have had all year on professional machines. Be sure to check out some of the specials below!

  • Easy Website / Blog Creation Tools

    At Small Dog Electronics, we’re frequently asked how to create simple, easily maintained websites. There are many excellent reasons to build a website,…

  • Giant Ice Cream Cone Surprise

    We decided to surprise our co-worker Tony with a giant creemee from our local creemee stand. It was already melting when we ran…

  • Activity Monitor: Part One of a Series

    My MacBook Pro was acting strangely last week: slow application launch times, incessant beach-balling, fans at full speed all the time, hot to…

  • It’s hard to believe that this is Labor Day weekend. I love the 3-day weekend but the end of summer is upon us. Tony just came up from the warehouse to report that there were “ducks on the pond” – yet another sign of fall.

    Small Dog Electronics will be closed on Labor Day to allow our employees to enjoy this last summer weekend and celebrate the holiday. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and thank you so much for spreading the word about Small Dog Electronics and reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,
    _Don, Kali, Ed and Matt_

  • SPECIALS | 8/29/08 – 9/5/08

    “UPDATED! Save from $500 – $1000 on two new 17-inch MacBook Pro models! From $1999.99. Click here to see them all!”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/x/Apple|MacBook_Pro|17in

    “MacBook Pro 17in 2.4GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB RAM, Superdrive, FREE 3-day express shipping – $1999.99”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag18316/at_tt

    “MacBook Pro 17in 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo 2GB/200@7200rpm/Superdrive/Glossy Screen, FREE 3-day express shipping – $2099.99”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag18314/at_kb

    “MacBook Pro 17in 2.4GHz, 2GB, 160GB, 3-Year AppleCare Plan, FREE Canon Printer/Copier/Scanner – $2329.99”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag18323/at_kb

    “See our most popular Mac to School bundles and gear by clicking here. Save up to $390!”:http://www.smalldog.com/mactoschool

    “Free shipping on every MacBook with a 4GB RAM upgrade! Or, get a FREE Canon Pixma MP470 Printer/Copier/Scanner when you buy any MacBook with AppleCare!”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/x/Apple|MacBook

    “Save up to $400 on iMac bundles. Purchase any in-stock iMac with AppleCare and get a FREE Canon Pixma MP470 Printer/Copier/Scanner! Upgrade to 4GB of RAM for only $100 more!”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/x/Apple|iMac

    “Special iMac with bluetooth keyboard and mouse bundle: iMac 20in Intel 2.0GHz 4GB RAM, 250GB hard drive, Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse, Free shipping -$1189.99”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag18252/at_kb

    “Mophie Juice Pack external battery for iPod Touch – up to 24 hours of battery life, free shipping – $99.99”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag18324/at_kb

  • FEATURE OF THE WEEK | 8/29/08 – 9/5/08

    Get a 17″ MacBook Pro for (almost) the price of a 15″! With a rich, glossy screen, a 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB RAM and a 200GB@7200rpm hard drive, it could very well be your desktop!

    An amazing price on an amazing portable Mac. The power, speed, and performance of a desktop machine, ready to go wherever you go. Starting at only $2099.99!

    “BUY NOW”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/72012

  • Battery Conservation Tips

    Since I bought a MacBook Air from our first delivery of them earlier this year, I’ve grown more and more attached to it. I take it with me when I travel, and it serves as my main home computer. Combined with the AirPort Disk functionality of the newest AirPort Extreme Base Station, the MacBook Air’s relatively puny hard drive isn’t a problem.

    I have two quibbles with the Air, though. Firstly, it’s so light and whenever I keep it in my backpack, I forget it’s there; I sometimes toss the bag into the car or into a corner of the office. Thankfully, no damage has come from this! My second quibble is with the battery. Apple advertises a five hour battery life for this machine, but I’m hard pressed to squeeze two hours from it unless I employ some extreme power conservation. Also, the battery takes a very long time to charge. In an airport, between flights, I could charge the MacBook Pro quickly and efficiently for the next flight; with the Air, no such luck. It takes an excruciatingly long time to charge the thing.

    QuickerTek announced an external battery pack for the Air that is supposed to give a total of 16 hours of battery life! “Check it out here”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/71826.

    Here’s my list of battery saving tips:

    * Lower the display brightness all the way down. Doing this will generally double the estimated remaining battery life if you were set to full brightness beforehand.
    * Disable keyboard backlighting.
    * Ensure that Energy Saver is set to spin down hard disks when possible.
    * Put your computer to sleep whenever you’re not actively using it, like when you’re on the phone, in the bathroom, or walking the dog.
    * Eject optical disks. They spin almost all the time, taking power, even when they’re not in active use.
    * Have lots of RAM installed. This helps prevent excessive virtual memory use (virtual memory is hard drive space that’s turned into “virtual” RAM. When the computer needs more RAM than is physically installed, it’ll dip into virtual memory reserves, and cause the hard drive to work more than it really has to.
    * Consider using Activity Monitor to kill the dock process, which owns Dashboard. If you’ve invoked Dashboard, killing the Dock will free up all the memory it used. Consider disabling Spotlight as well.
    * If you’re on the road, odds are you don’t have your Time Machine disk with you. Turn Time Machine off while you’re traveling.
    Use your iPod for music, not the computer; don’t charge your iPod unless absolutely necessary.
    * Turn off auto-save features in your word processor. This feature spins up the hard drive all the time, consuming lots of power.
    * Don’t keep unused Applications running in the background.
    * If you use Quicksilver (and you should, by the way: http://quicksilver.blacktree.com), ensure that it does not re-catalogue, which is hard drive- and procesor-intensive. Set it to rescan every 24 hours.
    * Turn off Bluetooth and AirPort unless they’re actually needed.
    * Mute the sound.

    It’s not always practical to use your laptop is such a minimal way, but following these guidelines my MacBook Air will ALMOST last for five hours on a single charge.

  • Cell Tower Internet: A Success!

    A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how I was going to try out cell tower-based broadband internet at our family’s lake house (a place where you can’t get a good cup of coffee, let alone internet service). Well, it worked great. Here are some details of the experiment:

    My equipment:
    – Verizon Wireless V640 ExpressCard (not sold by Verizon anymore, but the equivalent looks to be the V740 ExpressCard); this fits in either a MacBook Pro or the router below
    – Cradlepoint MBR1000 Wireless Router (802.11n)

    The location:
    – Broadband and V Cast access, as indicated by “Verizon’s Coverage Locator”:http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/CoverageLocatorController?requesttype=NEWREQUEST&lid=//global//plans//coverage+maps; this type of coverage is sometimes referred to as “EVDO”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution-Data_Optimized

    My findings:
    – On most days, the speed was comparable to DSL (somewhere around 1Mbps is my guess, but don’t quote me on that. DSL speeds range between 128kbps and 1.5Mbps); however, there were times that pages would not load for 2-3 minutes.
    – The Cradlepoint router needed to be placed where the cell strength was the best (logical); this meant that there were places through several walls that received a diminished wireless signal.
    – All Macs were able to connect to the router with no problem (we had three different ones, which had 10.4 or 10.5).
    – PCs were able to connect as well, save for one that had trouble due to Dell’s proprietary network “wizard.”
    – As many as six computers were on at the same time without issue, though there were a couple of times the PCs got a “connection timed out” message; we’re not sure why that was, but guessed that the bandwidth was being tested.(?)

    How to buy:
    – The ExpressCards are available through various cell service providers; you’ll want to check with yours to see what the coverage is like beforehand. MacBook Pros use a ExpressCard 34 slot. “Read more about ExpressCards”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExpressCard. These are generally between $49 and $129, but may be heavily discounted with a new service plan, so you may want to check with your provider.
    – The Cradlepoint MBR1000 Wireless Router is available from “3G Wireless”:http://3gstore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=35&products_id=765. The current price (at the time of writing) is $239.99.
    – We offer two Linksys models for special order at $139.99–one for Sprint and one for Verizon. It should be noted that these use 802.11g rather than 802.11n, and that it includes a PC Card slot (the slot used by PowerBook G4s). PC Cards are available from you cell provider as well. “Find them here”:http://www.smalldog.com/search/?find=linksys+wireless-g.

    Overall, we were extremely pleased. Many thanks again to Jason for lending his equipment to me for the weekend! Feel free to email me with any questions, or to share any experiences you may have had with a similar setup.