‘Tis The Season For Gift Giving! We have put together some exclusive deals for e-mail subscribers, you won’t find these deals listed on our website. For a limited time, we are offering a FREE $25 iTunes gift card with the purchase of any iPad with AppleCare+. Give the gift of accidental damage coverage, plus a […]
Dear Friends,
All of us here at Small Dog Electronics send our heartfelt wishes from our family to yours this Holiday season!
It is always easy for me to think of things to be thankful for and the list usually starts with family, dogs and friends. I spent a few days in Vermont freezing but it was so good to see the crew at Small Dog and to spend some time with Hapy and Autumn and my Vermont friends. I did miss Jezebel a lot and she was so happy to see me. Dogs sure are one amazing love mirror!
I got my iPhone X on Wednesday and am just learning about it. I will talk more about it next week in Kibbles & Bytes but the facial recognition is way cool and it will take some time to get used to the lack of a home button.
Well, I hope you all got to eat way too much food yesterday and gave thanks for what brings happiness to your life. I know I am thankful for this weekly opportunity to talk directly to Small Dog’s most valuable asset, our loyal customers. Thank you so much!
This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive is our normally “retail-only” Black Friday specials which, this year, we are opening up to Kibbles & Bytes readers.
Thank you so much for reading Kibbles & Bytes!
Your Kibbles & Bytes Team and the Small Dog crew!
Black Friday is just days away and Small Dog Electronics has the deals that you do not want to miss. We might be a small company, but we are offering some incredible deals and savings to kick off the holiday season.
These deals are in store only and some will only be available on Friday, November 24th. Visit us in Waitsfield or South Burlington. Don’t miss out!
Apple gives iCloud users 5 GB of free storage, but that fills up fast with iCloud Photo Library, iOS backups, iBooks, and more. For some, the majority of iOS users, the free 5GBs of storage does not get them very far, if your someone who also uses iCloud storage for files on your computer additional storage is an absolute necessity. I have shared more than once that iCloud storage makes my job a lot easier.
Until iOS 11 and macOS 10.13 High Sierra, each person in a family had to buy extra iCloud space separately. Happily, Apple has now made it so everyone in a Family Sharing group can share a single 200 GB ($2.99 per month) or 2 TB ($9.99 per month) plan. The family organizer can start sharing storage in High Sierra or iOS 11 as follows: on the Mac, go to System Preferences > iCloud > Manage Family > My Apps & Services > iCloud Storage; in iOS, go to Settings > Your Name > Family Sharing > iCloud Storage. Any other family member can then cancel their paid plan and join the Family Sharing plan using their iCloud Storage screen. Keeping your family organized and storage needs managed is made easier with this new update. Until my kids are old enough to have their own devices and files I’m still happy with my 50gb of individual storage, but it’s good to know and have this option available should the time come that I need additional cloud backup storage.
Happy November, folks!
Welcome to another edition of Tech Tails! This week in South Burlington, we’re prepping for the holiday rush by stocking up on popular items. Not surprisingly, I believe the Apple Watch is going to be a top seller in the gift category. Lately, I’ve been seeing parents in the store asking questions about the Watch with the intent of getting one for their teenager. These days, Apple Watch is leading the fitness tracking market, so I expect we’ll see them more and more in the high school demographic.
Last week I wrote a bit about the DSLR market and today I want to talk about storage options for photo archives. Exciting stuff, I know! But after the cold set in last weekend, I found myself at home organizing digital files from the past couple of years and finding a logical place for everything. The truth is, a single hard drive cannot be relied on, you need redundancy. My suggestion to everyone is always, important files should always be in two places. Following that rule, I usually use an application called SuperDuper to clone my hard drives, any time changes have been made. This week I also started mapping my disk inventory using a mind mapping application called Mind Node. I never thought of this until now, but having a virtual layout of all your hard drives and what era they cover can be very helpful. If you asked me, “where are those engagement photos you shot for your friend Mike last year?” I’d open MindNode and search for his name, and it would give me the location of the folder containing his photos. This could become a very useful tool if I were to somehow lose a pair of hard drives so I would know exactly what was lost. On the general topic of organization, I do not claim to have the best method. In fact, I’m really hoping to hear from our customers this week. How do you archive files? Do you organize by year or subject? A customer once told me all of his photo archiving was done by the TYPE of photo it was (portrait, landscape, etc.) and subsequently sorted by year.
On that note, I am due for another Seagate purchase. My archives are currently scattered across a handful of 1TB drives, and about once every two years I fill them up and retire the cloned pair. Naturally, I’ll always compare all of this to film, where I have a permanent hard copy in the form of negatives. This is one of the downsides of shooting digital. People take the seemingly unlimited shutter count for granted. You should make sure your photos are safely backed up somewhere, and prepare for the worst! Hopefully, these redundant backups are a waste of money, because your primary system never fails. Anyway, I’m going to get back to work here, enjoy our tech-y articles today!
Patrick McCormack
patrickm@smalldog.com
This weekend we will hopefully finish the last of our major projects before Winter. Over the last year or so we’ve slowly been converting a covered porch into as much of a four-season space as we can. Last summer we enclosed the space with energy efficient windows and insulated the underside of the decking. Saturday we will finish insulating the walls, install skirting under the porch so we can minimize drafts through the flooring and replace the generic storm door with an exterior door to seal out as much of the winter winds and weather as we can.
The project has taken us longer than we anticipated, but then again, when we originally designed the porch almost 20 years ago we never anticipated we’d one day want to use the space in colder months.
Thank you for reading Kibbles & Bytes, Don returns next week and will be sharing the latest Apple financial news.
Don & Emily
With iOS 11, the iPhone and iPad interfaces continue to diverge, which makes sense, since the iPad is not merely an overgrown iPhone. Particularly when you pair an iPad Pro with a Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil, you can now get real work done on an iPad more fluidly than ever before. The “hard” part is learning how you switch between apps, display the second app in a Slide Over panel that floats on top of another app, or make two apps share the screen in Split View.
Switch Between Apps
Moving between apps is a key aspect of using the iPad. Apple has provided multiple ways to switch so you can pick those that best fit your style:
• Press the Home button, and on the Home screen, tap another app’s icon.
• On the Home screen, swipe down to show Siri app suggestions and search for another app.
• Within an app, swipe right or left with four fingers.
• Within an app, swipe up from below the bottom of the screen to reveal the new Dock, and then tap an icon on it. Note that the three rightmost icons are the most recently used apps.
• After revealing the Dock, keep swiping up to reveal the new app switching screen, then tap an app thumbnail to switch to it. Swipe right to see less recently used apps.
• From a Smart Keyboard or other keyboard, press Command-Tab to bring up a Mac-like app switcher. Release both keys quickly to switch to the previous app instantly, or keep Command down while you press Tab repeatedly to move sequentially among the shown apps, letting up on Command to switch. While the app switcher is shown, you can also tap an icon in it.
Display an App in Slide Over
Say you’re having a sporadic conversation in Messages while browsing the Web in Safari. You don’t need to see both apps all the time, but you also don’t want to have to switch back and forth. With Slide Over, you can put Messages in a panel that floats over Safari and then hide and show it.
The easiest way to put an app in a Slide Over panel is to use the Dock, so this technique works if the app’s icon is already on the Dock. For instance, while you’re in Safari, swipe up from the bottom of the screen to display the Dock. Then touch and hold the Messages app’s icon until it dims slightly. Keeping your finger down, drag the icon over Safari until it becomes a vertical lozenge. Lift your finger, and Messages appears in Slide Over.
If the app you want to put in Slide Over isn’t on your Dock, you can use a two-handed procedure to get it from another location and drop it onto another app. For instance, you can start dragging an app icon from any place where app icons appear, including the Home screen or Siri search screen. Once you’ve started dragging it, use your other hand to switch to the other app (perhaps via the Dock or pressing Command-Tab on an external keyboard) and then drop it over the other app. Don’t worry if you find this approach confusing at first—it takes some time to become accustomed to two-handed usage.
Once an app is in Slide Over on the right side of the screen, you can swipe right on its left edge to hide it, or swipe left on its right edge to move it to the other side of the screen.
Put an App in Split View
Displaying two apps side-by-side in Split View is almost the same action as Slide Over. The only difference is that, instead of dropping the app lozenge on top of the current app, you drag it to the far left or right of the screen, and drop it once the screen shows a 90/10 split—after you drop, the split changes to 70/30.
Drag the handle between the apps to switch to a 50/50 split or a 30/70 split; if you drag the handle all the way to one side of the screen, the app that’s shrinking in size disappears entirely. One of the two apps in Split View will have a handle on its top as well, and dragging it down slightly converts that app into a Slide Over panel. (You can also drag a Slide Over panel’s handle down slightly to switch to Split View.)
Take a few minutes and try putting apps in Slide Over and Split View in different ways, since some of the actions require practice before they feel natural. Finally, if combining two particular apps don’t seem to work, don’t fret. Apps must specifically support both Slide Over and Split View, and not all do.
This past Sunday Vermont saw hurricane force winds in some parts of the state and as I write this there are still a few thousand Vermonters still without power. I do not know how strong the winds were at my house, but the sound of my broken storm door slamming against the side of my house woke me up in the night and around 3am our power went out. Fortunately, we are fairly prepared for power outages at my house. The cooktop of our kitchen stove is propane, we have a woodstove for backup heat, a supply of bottled water, lanterns and some easy stovetop meals on hand. Aside from the occasional need to truck in water for the horses during extended outages we are fairly well prepared. My area was fortunate because the extent of the storm damage was minimal by comparison to other parts of the stay and the power outages we did experience didn’t last more than 8-12 hours.
The events from this past weekend have inspired me to create the ultimate survival kit for your favorite techie. This could be a great gift for the coming holidays and the best part is these are items you can probably use every day regardless of the weather and power conditions. I’ve bundled together with the Tivoli Pal radio, the Outdoor Tech Buckshot Pro and the Just Mobile Gum++ portable power pack for iPod,iPad, and iPhone. Having a portable radio with its own built-in battery, a light source and portable power source are essential items when our communications and power sources are limited. This bundle normally would sell for $339.97 and for our Kibbles & Bytes readers I am offering it for $279.99
I was scrolling through my Facebook feed a few months ago and saw a post from a friend. Her iPhone appeared to be frozen, she was locked out of it and there was a message that she needed to pay a $50 fee in order to regain access to her iPhone. Over the years I have seen several similar instances. I remember seeing once on my own iOS device a message in Safari that took over my screen and told me to contact Apple because I had a virus on my iPad. Knowing that Apple would never send me an alert about needing to call them I simply ignored it. I tried to close out of Safari by hitting the home button, that worked, but when I opened Safari again the message was still there. Ultimately I had to power down my iPad and upon restart, it was gone, I never saw the message again. I had a few friends send me some panicked messages with screenshots of this same message on their device, I let them know to just turn off the iPad or iPhone. Historically, that is all you needed to do to avoid a scam about a virus or hack. This particular message was not isolated to an iOS device, it could happen on a desktop as well. However, all this was, was a scam to get some money out of a concerned user and nothing more.
Fast forward a few years and now we are seeing reports of Mac computers or iOS devices locked and messages demanding a ransom be paid to regain access to your device. Unlike the Safari messages from a few years ago, just powering down your device or clearing your browsing history is not going to fix this problem. These new Bitcoin or PayPal ransomware are locking users out of their devices. Victims can not use them and are stuck with often one question running through their minds, do I really have to pay a ransom?
Do not pay the ransom! But how do you regain access, and, more importantly, how did you get locked out in the first place. As hackers have gotten more sophisticated, so has their ability to scam you. In almost all of the reported cases we have seen or heard about, users have been locked out via find my iPhone/iPad or find my Mac. Unfortunately, their iCloud account was accessed by the scammers who have locked users out of their devices by initiating the lost mode feature. Sometimes you might simply be locked out with a message that says the device is in lost mode and requires a code ( a code you don’t have access to ) or it’s asking for the ransom.
Thankfully all is not lost, but it does require a bit of work. Regaining access to your device will mean a trip to your local Apple Authorized Repair location or calling and talking to Apple directly. You will need to provide the service location or Apple a proof of purchase to prove you are the owner of the device and you will be able to regain access and most likely without losing your information. You can also follow some troubleshooting tips online from Apple, potentially if you are not being asked for a ransom these steps might help.
But how did this happen? As I mentioned earlier, this is through your iCloud account, which was compromised. You will want to take immediate action and change your iCloud password as soon as you regain access. If you do not have two-factor authentication enabled on your device you will want to do so. Setting up two-factor authentication and ideally setting a stronger password for your account will prevent these kinds of breaches. I always recommend passwords with a combination of letters, numbers and even special characters, and your password selection should be somewhat random. Hopefully, with these tips you can avoid being locked out of your device!
I was scrolling through my Facebook feed a few months ago and saw a post from a friend. Her iPhone appeared to be frozen, she was locked out of it and there was a message that she needed to pay a $50 fee in order to regain access to her iPhone. Over the years I have seen several similar instances. I remember seeing once on my own iOS device a message in Safari that took over my screen and told me to contact Apple because I had a virus on my iPad. Knowing that Apple would never send me an alert about needing to call them I simply ignored it. I tried to close out of Safari by hitting the home button, that worked, but when I opened Safari again the message was still there. Ultimately I had to power down my iPad and upon restart, it was gone, I never saw the message again. I had a few friends send me some panicked messages with screenshots of this same message on their device, I let them know to just turn off the iPad or iPhone. Historically, that is all you needed to do to avoid a scam about a virus or hack. This particular message was not isolated to an iOS device, it could happen on a desktop as well. However, all this was, was a scam to get some money out of a concerned user and nothing more.
Fast forward a few years and now we are seeing reports of Mac computers or iOS devices locked and messages demanding a ransom be paid to regain access to your device. Unlike the Safari messages from a few years ago, just powering down your device or clearing your browsing history is not going to fix this problem. These new Bitcoin or PayPal ransomware are locking users out of their devices. Victims can not use them and are stuck with often one question running through their minds, do I really have to pay a ransom?
Do not pay the ransom! But how do you regain access, and, more importantly, how did you get locked out in the first place. As hackers have gotten more sophisticated, so has their ability to scam you. In almost all of the reported cases we have seen or heard about, users have been locked out via find my iPhone/iPad or find my Mac. Unfortunately, their iCloud account was accessed by the scammers who have locked users out of their devices by initiating the lost mode feature. Sometimes you might simply be locked out with a message that says the device is in lost mode and requires a code ( a code you don’t have access to ) or it’s asking for the ransom.
Thankfully all is not lost, but it does require a bit of work. Regaining access to your device will mean a trip to your local Apple Authorized Repair location or calling and talking to Apple directly. You will need to provide the service location or Apple a proof of purchase to prove you are the owner of the device and you will be able to regain access and most likely without losing your information. You can also follow some troubleshooting “tips online“https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204306 from Apple, potentially if you are not being asked for a ransom these steps might help.
But how did this happen? As I mentioned earlier, this is through your iCloud account, which was compromised. You will want to take immediate action and change your iCloud password as soon as you regain access. If you do not have two-factor authentication enabled on your device you will want to do so. Setting up two-factor authentication and ideally setting a stronger password for your account will prevent these kinds of breaches. I always recommend passwords with a combination of letters, numbers and even special characters, and your password selection should be somewhat random. Hopefully, with these tips you can avoid being locked out of your device!
