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Author "emily"

wrote in 1034: Apple Bores The Street, Beware Of Counterfeit Cables, Insulate .

Earlier this week I had a customer asking me about an inexpensive cable for their Mac. Their current charging cable had finally stopped worked and they were looking for a replacement. I honestly can’t tell you how many times over the years I have had to answer the question about what other option besides the Apple branded charging cable for their Mac, iPhone or iPad. The short answer is there are very few. When it comes to your MagSafe charger the answer is pretty straight forward. You absolutely want to buy the Apple charger. If your shopping on the internet or walk into a store and find a killer deal on a charger it’s very likely it’s a knock off and there are legitimate dangers with these too-good-to-be-true chargers.

I’ve seen in our service department over the years a handful of Apple lookalike MagSafe chargers. It’s usually a minor detail in the manufacturing that tips us off it’s not authentic. The real problem with these chargers and iOS chargers is the risk of fire. Eventually many of us will end up with cables that need replacing. With both your computer’s MagSafe and your iOS charging cable a common failure is the wires becoming frayed and exposed. Once the wires become exposed you do want to replace them rather than trying to repair or just cover them with electrical tape. The electrical tape trick can work for a little bit, but you’re still at risk for a short and in extreme cases you can end up damaging your charging port or even worse cause the device to catch fire.

When you are looking to replace your cables, there are alternatives besides the Apple Lightning or 30pin charger, but you want to make sure you can “identify a counterfeit or uncertified cable”:https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204566 before making the purchase. Another tip for purchasing a non-Apple cable for your iOS device is to stick with a manufacturer you have heard of like Belkin or Griffin.

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Lastly you can do a few things to try and extend the life of your cables as long as you can. Proper cable management is often not discussed. Some of us prefer to keep cables neat and tidy, others just throw them in a drawer and when we find a place to plug them in just make sure the device can reach the port. It’s very important to make sure that you don’t wrap your cables too tight and force tension right at the connector. I’m forever reminding my kids not to use their devices while charging in a manner that the wire right at the lighting cable is bent at a 90 degree angle. This will surely cause the cable to bend and fray in no time. It’s also important to disconnect the cable by grabbing it right at the plug verses just grabbing it from any old spot and tugging.

Follow these quick tips and steps and you’ll be sure to continue safely charging your devices. Our charging cables go through a lot in a lifetime and they are ultimately fragile accessories.

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wrote in Spend Your Weekend With Small Dog Electronics! .

!http://blog.smalldog.com/images/5067.jpg!

It’s a rainy weekend here in the Green Mountains which means it’s the perfect time to work on some inside projects! Have you heard that we’ve set up new “home automation”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/Home_Automation centers in our South Burlington and Waitsfield retail stores? If you haven’t checked out our stores lately this weekend is the perfect time.

We’ve talked a lot about home automation in the last few months and we want to make it seamless for everyone to make their home or office run just a little bit smoother. We’ll come to you at **no cost for an initial consult** where we will take a look at your space, provide recommendations and a quote for your space.

If you’re not sure what or how home automation works, our retail stores have demos of lighting from “**Phillips Hue**”:http://www.smalldog.com/search?search=phillips and Lutron. We can show how to make every room in your house rock with your existing speakers or add some new “**Sonos**”:http://www.smalldog.com/search?search=sonos speakers. You can monitor your air quality with “**El Gato Sensors**”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/88350/elgato-eve-room-wireless-indoor-sensor and even turn on lights from just about anywhere. Have a rental space? Locks from “**August**”:http://www.smalldog.com/search?search=august are quick and easy to install and provide access via digital keys on a smart phone or key pad.

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wrote in 973: Customize You Desktop, Spring Cleaning, Back To The Roots .

It’s been a busy few weeks in our South Burlington service department. We’ve added two new team members in the last few weeks, “Justin Pryce”:http://blog.smalldog.com/authors/justinpryce and “Jordan Hoekstra”:http://blog.smalldog.com/authors/justinpryce. Justin is working on his certifications for Apple and Jordan is one of our front-line service employees working at at the service counter. We are very excited to have these two new members on our team. As I’ve mentioned in previous issues of Tech Tails, we spend a lot of time working with our new hires on trainings and certifications. These two team members have a lot of work ahead but they are taking on the challenges with ease.

In addition to our regular staff trainings, communication is also a key component to our service department. We have weekly meetings and e-mails within the service department. It’s important to us that the entire team is kept up to date on any changes to Apple service guidelines as well as our own internal processes. A lot of effort goes on behind the scenes everyday to ensure customers and staff have a seamless and cohesive experience when entering our service department.

I hope that everyone is getting their spring projects wrapped up. Spring is in full bloom around my house and the list of chores both inside and outside seems never ending this time of year. I’m determined to keep up my momentum this year. It seems each spring we start two or three too many projects before summer hits and I don’t think I’m alone in saying that unfinished spring projects quickly become last minute fall projects. I’m hopeful and optimistic that this year I’ll break the cycle.

Thank you for reading!
Emily Dolloff
“emily@smalldog.com”:mailto:emily@smalldog.com

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wrote in Uncategorized .

I have been a fan of Notes for years! I started out using the Notes program on my mac and used it for everything, and sadly, I mean everything including usernames and passwords. Thankfully I learned many years ago safer means of account login storage and abandoned my sticky note ways on my Mac. What […]

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wrote in Uncategorized .

But stickers are sorta cool. iOS 10 brought stickers to Messages. With your iPhone or your iPad you can embed stickers in a thread, adjust their size, rotate them or peel and place stickers on top of bubbles or photos in your conversations. I found some animated stickers that look a bit like my dog, […]

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wrote in 1033: We Don't Need No Stinking Badges, Teleporting Web Links, Future Of Electricity .

Many of us use multiple Apple devices throughout the day and I am most definitely one of those people. I had one sad little tear this morning when I arrived at the office as I realized I left my iPad on my nightstand and had to actually take my MacBook Air into my morning meeting. I’ve grown very accustomed to preparing for meetings on my MacBook Air and then just grabbing my iPad or iPhone to bring the necessary notes and files while on the move around the office. I’ve talked a lot about sharing of files from device to device, but what about web pages? Many users rely on bookmarks and that works smoothly, but there are other options as well.

With the release of Yosemite Apple introduced hand off. For some users it might have been something utilized all the time and then fell off their habits list, but it’s super handy! If you’re researching an issue on your Mac and after digging through several forums you need to need leave for an appointment but you want to keep the research going, in comes handoff.

Handoff allows you to immediately move a webpage ( and other Apps like Mail ) instantly to another Mac or iOS device. On your Mac, to the very left of your dock if you have Safari open you will see a Safari icon with a shadow image of an iOS device. You can simply click on that and boom, the webpage that was on your iPad or iPhone is now on your Mac screen. If you’re going from your Mac to your iOS device you will see the Safari icon in your lock screen and you simply swipe up. You can also double press your home button as well to access the information.

Another cool feature that you might have found by accident is via tabs in safari on either you Mac or iOS device. When you open a page in Safari a tab opens. You can see this easily on your Mac in the Tab Bar ( select View > Tab Bar if you don’t see it). It gets just a little bit cooler when you view all the open tabs on all your Apple devices. You can do this by tapping or clicking the tabs button. This button is a double square image on the top right of your Safari tab bar or the lower right corner on your iOS device. In this view you will see first all the tabs from the device that you are using. Beneath them as you scroll down you will see the tabs from your other Apple devices.

Lastly, you can designate a site as a reading list. Safari can store a list of pages that you want to read later in the reading list. This is great for longer articles or just tagging an interesting recipe you found at lunch. To add the current page to your reading list on the Mac choose Bookmarks > Add to Reading List. On your iPhone or iPad, tap the share button and them tap Add to Reading List. To later access your reading list on your Mac choose View > Show Reading List Sidebar. In Safari on your iOS device, tap the book icon and then tap on the eyeglasses icon.

In order for these features to work seamlessly on your Mac and iOS devices there’s a few important tips. First you need to be running 10.10 Yosemite or newer and at least iOS 8 on your iPad or iPhone. Lastly all of your devices need to be logged into iCloud. It’s also important that you have Bluetooth turned on as well, since handoff uses that specifically.

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wrote in It's Graduation Season! .

“!http://blog.smalldog.com/images/5045.jpg!”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002669/congratulations-class-of-2017?

It’s hard to believe that graduation season is upon us! Whether you want to get a gift for that special grad on your list, or just something for yourself, we’ve got some great deals! The best part? You don’t have to be a student, a graduate or have a diploma in hand. These specials are for everyone and we have “special financing”:http://www.smalldog.com/finance/affordable-financing-options options both in store and online.

p{text-align: center;}. “**Get a FREE Hyper drive with the purchase of a Space Gray MacBook 12in 1.2GHz 8GB/512GB and AppleCare**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002660/get-a-free-hyper-drive-with-the-purchase-of-any-in-stock-macbook-with-applecare

p{text-align: center;}. “**Get a FREE Hyper drive with the purchase of a Silver MacBook 12in 1.2GHz m5 8GB/512GB and AppleCare**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002662/get-a-free-hyper-drive-with-the-purchase-of-any-in-stock-macbook-with-applecare

p{text-align: center;}. “**Free charging cable and wall charger with iPad Pro 9.7in and AppleCare+**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002667

p{text-align: center;}. “**Free charging cable and wall charger with iPad and AppleCare+**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002664

“See all of our deals”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002669/congratulations-class-of-2017? to order online or visit one of our “stores”:http://www.smalldog.com/retail/visit-us-in-store-at-any-of-our-locations

“!http://blog.smalldog.com/images/5044.jpg!”:http://www.smalldog.com/retail/visit-us-in-store-at-any-of-our-location

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wrote in 972: What The Cloud, Terminal Tidbits, Mechanical Keyboards .

There’s a lot of behind the scenes effort and training that goes into our service department. Small Dog Electronics is an authorized service provider for Apple computers, and this authorization comes with a lot of training and safety measures within our service department. Every computer that is checked into our service department goes through a checklist of Apple diagnostics and processes to accurately determine how to best resolve the issue that the machine is experiencing. Additionally all of our technicians go through a fairly intense and lengthy training processes before they begin working on customer machines. Even once a technician is certified as a Apple Certified Mac Technician their training does not end. With each new computer release technicians are required to take exams and training sessions on any new machine prior to working on that unit. We’ve recently had two new members join our South Burlington service team and they are currently going through our training process and certification steps. They begin their training at our service counter doing check in and check out of computers coming through our service department. We’re looking forward to having two more members in our service department trained and ready to help keep our service department running smoothly and efficiently.

As a customer one of the most frustrating repairs that computers can need are battery replacements. To try and help customers get their computers back as efficiently as possible we’ve set up new processes and procedures within our service department over the last few weeks to get these machines back as quickly as possible. We know that down time for computer repair is a huge inconvenience for many users so we do our best to get machines back to our customers. If you feel that your computer is in need of a battery replacement and you want to find out more about pricing and turn-around time send an e-mail to “support@smalldog.com”:mailto:support@smalldog.com

Our first flower bloomed this week at our main office in Waitsfield and the grass has begun to turn green. It’s really starting to look and feel like spring in Vermont.

Thank you for reading!
Emily Dolloff
“emily@smalldog.com”:mailto:emily@smalldog.com

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wrote in 1031: Beats X Wireless Headphones; Notes!; Digital and Analog, Oh My! .

I have been a fan of Notes for years! I started out using the Notes program on my mac and used it for everything, and sadly, I mean ??everything?? including usernames and passwords. Thankfully I learned many years ago safer means of account login storage and abandoned my sticky note ways on my Mac.

What I missed most about my sticky notes was a quick and all in one location for things I needed to jot down, hello and welcome notes! Notes has been out for many years and it’s certainly nothing new on iOS or macOS. Notes is an incredibly versatile program and one that I rely on heavily as another tool for keeping me organized and in order. I’ve written in the past about reminders, but I admit, try as I might I just can’t get away from Notes and find its versatility in features to be something that reminders just can’t compete with. There are several features within the notes program that go beyond just taking a simple note, and I want to share some of my favorite features.

**Syncing**

I think the ability to sync my notes across all of my devices is hands down the number one reason I use and just can’t break away from this handy little app. I can write a note on my computer and it automatically sends the note to my iPad and iPhone. With iCloud turned on and note syncing your notes update across all devices that are logged into your iCloud account. There is one catch to the auto syncing that is new in the last year or so. In order for your iOS devices and your Mac to get your notes you do need to make sure that in addition to to iCloud being turned on, all of your devices need to be running the latest OS. Last week I had an issue where my notes were syncing from my iOS devices to my Mac, but not from my Mac to my iOS devices. A quick look at my devices revealed I hadn’t run my most recent software updates.

**Drawing**

Did you know that you can draw within the notes program? Notes allows you to actually write a note in your own handwriting, but also allows you to draw and there is even a handy ruler so you can draw straight lines. There are a variety of colors to choose from to put a pop of color in and you have a choice of a pencil, and two marker options. The details aren’t as responsive or detailed as that of say the iPad Pro. But this little feature allows for handy on-the-go creations. You can easily and quickly sketch out an idea via e-mail, text and even social media. This feature only really works on the iOS, you can do some similar actions on the Mac via Mark Up.

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**Mark Up**

Within notes you can insert a pictures from your photo library (on the Mac you can just drag and drop the image into your note) and then you can mark it up! You can draw over the image, add text, shapes and more. I recently used this feature specifically when I was working to re-model and paint a room in my house. We took pictures of the room and used the mark up feature to finalize what colors and changes we were going to make in the room.

**Locking Notes**

Another cool feature with the notes program is that you can lock the notes. The only information that is viewable in the note is the title. A passcode must be entered on the computer or iOS device in order to see what is in the note. This is a great way to keep things just a little bit more secure on your devices. While you should keep things like passwords and account information securely stored in your keychain, this is another option. Admittedly if you’re given a code or access to something and need the information temporarily, it’s more practical to jot it in Notes and lock it. Likewise if your a busy mom or spouse and you find yourself making notes about a special event or gifts it’s nice to know you can keep wondering eyes away from your information and keep the surprise.

Notes, the little app that does so much!

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wrote in 1030: What's Slowing Up My Mac?, Mac Pro Revised, Reviewing The New iPad .

I’ll start this article by saying some of this information might come as a bit of a surprise to some of our readers, but I’ve passed up multiple iPad revisions and releases and have been using outdated technology for years! Normally when something new comes out from Apple, that product lands in my hands fairly quickly after the release. But for various reasons, I’ve stuck with my **original 16GB iPad mini** and passed up several generations of upgrades.

We just started getting shipments in small batches of the 9.7″ iPad and I got to thinking that it’s time to upgrade my old faithful mini and officially pass it along to my youngest daughter. I’m a huge fan of the size of the iPad Mini and debated for several days if I wanted the iPad Mini 4 or the iPad with 128GB of storage. Ultimately I decided to go back to the larger screen and upgraded to the new iPad 9.7″ as I’m now using my iPad more for video watching.

The reviews of the new iPad are mixed, it’s heavier than the iPad Air 2 it replaced and is slower than the iPad Pro. When I first took mine out of the box the weight was the first thing that I noticed; it does feel heavy. I held it up against the iPad Air 2 and it’s amazing that such a small difference seems so significant. Coming from a background of using a mini for the last several years it’s no surprise the weight was a temporary negative for me when I was unboxing the iPad.

My reasons for upgrading were primarily speed of the iPad in everyday use and storage. With more and more streaming options and the ability to download and view content offline I found the battle of storage to be never ending. My first big test of the iPad was using Safari, running different apps and accessing my iCloud drive. Knowing this release was in some regards just a minor bump and refresh of the mid-range iPad family lineup this was an important trial for me. For someone going from an older and outdated iPad to this unit, there is a huge difference! Where I saw delays in just the apps themselves opening or just opening a new browser window on my old mini I experience none of that with the new iPad. Even something that seemed insignificant like how fast the screen rotates from portrait to landscape suddenly seems lightning fast, I actually debated turning off that feature while playing around with the iPad.

I also spent some time both taking pictures and transferring some photos from my iPhone 7 plus. I was very impressed with both the image quality of the photos that I took and the viewing quality of photos that I moved from my iPhone. For an iPad and comparing it against some older models there’s a significant improvement with the photo quality. I then spent a little bit of time comparing sound quality from the iPhone 7 plus and the iPad and that one is a tough call. In our unofficial testing here at the office there was slight disagreement over which sounded better, so I’ll leave that final decision as undecided.

Ultimately I went with the new iPad and my only regret is that I couldn’t get it in Rose Gold to match my watch and iPhone. This revision is not meant to compete with the iPad Pro in my opinion, but it’s a huge upgrade and an impressive unit for hold outs like myself. Apple has reduced the pricing and increased the storage capacities of their mid level iPads and I think that’s huge for the everyday iPad user like myself.

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