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A very busy week this week!   I’ll get to all the news coming out of Apple a bit later in this issue but first I want to tell you all about Project Burlap.  For weeks, all we have been able to say is "Woof" but now the true story can be told.   Small Dog Electronics is opening our flagship retail store in S. Burlington, Vermont next month.  This will be a 3700 square foot store at the busiest intersection in Vermont.   We are located in the same shopping center as Eastern Mountain Sports and Barnes and Noble.  We are right across the street from the biggest and busiest mall in the state and we are walking distance from the University of Vermont.  Right off of Interstate 89 we have what we feel is an ideal location.    Hannah Parfitt has been working hard to make this store a reality and she will be joined by our current Waitsfield store manager, Rob Berkey and Apple Certified Tech, Scott Obara as the core staff for this store.   Mark Jones who has been our bookkeeper for many years is moving to take over the Waitsfield store which will remain open.

Hapy and I have, for years, felt that the Burlington, Chittenden County market was the right place for our next retail venture but it required just the right combination of a great location and more importantly at great staff to make it a reality.  This store will have extended hours and be open 7 days a week.  We are hiring personnel and making fixtures, creating a sound room for iPod speakers, laying flooring and planning for our grand opening.   Not only is it a lot of work but it is also a lot of fun!  You can expect the same world class Small Dog customer service and a great selection of Apple Macs and iPods as well as accessories and peripherals.   We will have a complete Apple Authorized service center for our customers and will feature Small Dog’s private labeled products, too. We’ll also be offering Stephen Huneck’s famous dog-related artwork at the store.

Two members of our Board of Advisors deserve some special recognition for helping in this project,  Steve Magowan, an attorney from South Burlington told us about the vacant property and John Osgood, our neighbor here at Small Dog negotiated the lease on our behalf.   I’d also like to thank Mike Hogan and Apple for their encouragement and support.  I think we will have a great staff up in Burlington, without even advertising we have dozens of qualified candidates.  I was up in Burlington last night at the Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility board of directors meeting and I stopped in a Starbucks for a "hammerhead"  (that’s one of many names for a cup of brewed coffee with a double shot of espresso in it) and the clerk noticed my Small Dog sweatshirt.   He went over the newspaper rack and showed my our ad in Seven Days that announced our new store and asked if we are hiring.   He has a technical background and was anxious to get back into that rather than brewing coffee.   This is the kind of reaction we are having all over town.

Ed will be talking about the specifics of the announcements this week from Apple but I want to give you some of my perspective on the news from Apple.  As you may know, Apple has announced new iPods across the line, shuffle, nano and full size iPods.  They announced a major upgrade to iTunes and have brought movies to the iTunes store. Steve Jobs also showed what might be the most exciting development, the iTV (codename) which is a wireless interface between your Mac and your TV.  While this product will not ship until the beginning of the next calendar year,  it is the "media center" that many of us have been looking for – the missing link in the digital home.   Imagine sitting on your couch and being able to stream movies, video, music, pictures or any combination of the above to your digital home entertainment system!   The 24-inch iMac introduced last week was a great step – but this device has a universal appeal that will be yet another market that Apple can define and dominate.

The new iPod nanos are very cool.  Hapy told me that he’s trading in his full size iPod for an 8GB nano because it now holds plenty of music.  I’ve still got about 20GB of free space on my 60GB unit so I have more purchases at the iTunes store to do before I’ll be ready to upgrade.  On the other hand, movies!   The new shuffle is simply amazing.   It is the smallest MP3 player available and it has a scroll-wheel!  I definitely want one!  I’m going to import some helmet speakers and start offering a complete motorcycle (or snowmobile) music system featuring the shuffle and Small Dog’s helmet speakers.

These are powerful products to take Apple into the end of the year and the holiday season.  Powerful products for our new store in S. Burlington, too!  It is no wonder that analyst increased their estimates for Apple and that their common stock is again on the rise!

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New iPod Specs! By Ed @ Smalldog.com

5G iPods Feature:

- 60% brighter screen. – 3.5 hours of video playback. – Gapless audio playback (finally!) – Redesigned earphones. – New quick scrolling feature using letters – very cool! – New games – Bejewled, Cubis 2, Mahjong, Mini golf, Pac Man, Tetris, Texas Hold Em, Vortex and Zuma. – Games will work on all 5G iPods, will cost $4.99 each from the iTunes Store

White and black are available: 30GB – $249 80GB – $349

Second-generation iPod nano Feature:

Looks like an thin iPod mini with beautiful Aluminum shell

- Green, silver, black, blue, pink available – 24 hour battery life – New charger, armband, lanyard headphones

- 2GB – $149 (Silver Only) – 4GB – $199 (Silver, pink, green, blue) – 8GB – $249 (Black)

iPod shuffle:

World’s smallest MP3 player Half the size of the previous generation Shuffle 1/2 ounce

- Metal body with white click wheel – 12-hour battery

- Requires included dock to sync

- Available  in October

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iTunes 7 Dissected By Ed @ Smalldog.com

Along with the new iPods, Apple released iTunes 7. This is a major update to the venerable application. In this article, I’m writing about new or improved features in iTunes 7 to look out for.

I downloaded iTunes 7 as soon as it was posted on Apple.com. Within 15 minutes I had installed the program, and had purchased a movie and an iPod game (Pac Mac.) The game was strictly for research, of course.

So far, I’ve no problems with iTunes 7 – indeed, I’ve had some pleasant surprises, like when the new Download Manager  found some stray tracks on the iTunes Store that had not been downloaded, and automatically started to download them for me. However, I’ve have read that some people are experiencing glitches with the program, and apparently some professional Podcasts (e.g, Popular Mechanics) have been dropped or otherwise scrambled. I’m sure Apple will work out the bugs ASAP. Before you install iTunes 7, it’s a good idea to back up your iTunes library, in case it somehow gets scrambled during the install. This happened to Wil Wheaton. You can read about how it was resolved here:

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2006/09/apple_gave_me_b.html

So, here are a few things to notice in iTunes 7:

- Performance

On my computer, iTunes 7 runs considerably  faster and smoother than iTunes 6.5. Of note, video finally plays back in a useable manner, even at fullscreen resolution. The new Cover Browser animation is extremely smooth.

- iTunes Interface – iTunes 7 sports a slightly updated interface. Regarding the "look" of the application, some people feel it is a hint of things to come with Leopard. It’s a sort of smoothed out and less glassy version of Aqua. Colors are much more subdued. Some people hate the new look, but I like it. It feels clean and professional.

There’s also a new shinny blue icon. You can read about the iTunes icon history, and see old iTunes icons here:

http://macteens.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-3582

On iTunes left pane, you’ll notice that the Library is now divided into Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, and Radio. The Store heading is divided into iTunes Store and Purchased. When you purchase a song, a new Download header pops up under Purchased. The new Download window is great – it’s possible to start listening to music or watch video as it downloads. Also, you can observe download progress and pause a download in-progress for later.

The Podcasts listing now displays a number showing how many Podcasts are waiting to be listened to. I have 37 sitting there, waiting for attention.

There are new options for viewing items in your library. I especially like the new List View – it shows the album cover next to a list of songs and artists on the album, all in a long list. This will make it easier to choose songs for mixes.

Also of note is the new Cover Brower. This is the digital equivalent of flipping through a sleeve of CDs or a stack of LPs. It’s an elegant and fun way to choose music. I really like this feature. It will look great on a big TV, if you have your Mac set up as a digital home media center.

- iTunes Store-  For most people, the addition of full-length movies to the iTunes Store (it’s now simply the iTunes Store, no longer the iTunes Music Store) was the big news of the day. Right now, there are only 75 mediocre movies in the iTunes Store, but Steve Jobs promised that more would be added in the weeks and months ahead. I can imagine buying movies when traveling, or during huge snowstorms when I don’t want to go out. Also, if the 30 minute download time is released, it would be possible to purchase a movie, start the download, cook dinner, and then begin watching the movie when dinner is ready. I guess I’ll do that when there are better movies.

I did purchase "The Brothers Grimm" for $9.99. The file is 1.3 GB, and took 68 minutes to download. Apple wants this to take more like 30 minutes as the Store develops. The movie is 16 x 9, and looks and sounds great on my 22" Cinema Display. It close to, but not quite DVD quality. It would look excellent on a Macbook or MacBook Pro, or an iMac.

Movies downloaded from the iTunes Store have chapter markers, so you can skip ahead as on a DVD. The lousy movie controller in iTunes

 - Backup Your Music – This is now easier than ever. Go to File > Back Up to Disk, and you will see options to back up your entire library, back up only iTunes Store purchases, back up only items added or changed since last backup. If your collection is larger than a single DVD or CD, iTunes will create a series of discs for you.

- iPod Preferences – iTunes 7 has a nifty new interface for the iPod. The only way to see this is to connect your iPod. You can now manage music, movies, TV shows, Podcasts, Photos, Contact and Games individually. In the Summery panel, you can see how much free space you have on the iPod, and how much space is dedicated to Audio, Video, and Other.

Personally, other than Contacts & Calendars, I’ll manually manage everything that goes on and off the iPod. Options for automatically syncing media with the iPod have been substantially upgraded. It’s now easier to manage what media automatically syncs to the iPod.

- Reverse Sync –  Now you can move music purchased from the iTunes music store off of the iPod and onto an iTunes-authorized computer. There are other programs that allow you to do this, but this is the first time Apple has overtly allowed it. Again, this currently only works with music purchased from the iTunes Store.

- iTunes will now download all the album covers for music not purchased in the iTunes Store. This makes Cover Browser work better, and it also adds to the feel of iTunes. Other programs will also do this for you.

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iTunes 7 Quick Tip By Ed @ Smalldog.com

iTunes 7 allows you to make and manage multiple iTunes libraries, just like iPhoto 5 and 6! You can now easily keep an iTunes library installed on your computer’s hard drive and a separate iTunes library installed on an external drive.

To create a new iTunes 7 library, click on the groovy new electric blue iTunes icon, and then quickly mash down on the Option key. You will be prompted to choose an iTunes library, or to create a new one. If you create a new library and you want to switch back to the old iTunes library, simply hold down the Option key again when launching iTunes.

Other programs have allowed you to do this, but this is a very easy solution to a common problem.

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Back-up Those Digital Photos! By Ed @ Smalldog.com

We’ve said it many times before, and we’ll say it many times again: it’s very important to back up your computer’s hard drive. The hard drive is the mechanical device that stores all the data in your computer. Because it’s a mechanical device, it can – and eventually will – fail.

The most important files on your computer’s hard drive are the ones that simply can’t be replaced. For most people, digital photos are at the top of this list. I have some digital photos that are very important to me,  including photos of loved ones who have died. It would be a tragedy if I somehow lost these.

The easiest way to back-up your photos is to back-up the entire contents of your computer’s hard dive. High-capacity, high-quality external hard drives are getting less expensive by the month. You can see our selection of hard drives here:

http://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/storage/storage/wag113/wag10013/ mymac

You can use the software bundled with most of these drives for automated daily, weekly or monthly backups, or you can download two of my favorite shareware programs, Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to handle the task. See these two programs here:

Carbon Copy Cloner:

http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

SuperDuper:

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

You can also simply copy your iPhoto Library folder to an external hard drive (or a scratch disk) to get a fully working backup. Simply drag the folder "iPhoto Library," which is typically stored in your Pictures folder, over to the external drive. This method is not sophisticated, but at least you get your entire library backed up – including albums, keywords, comments, organization, slideshows, and thumbnails.

You can burn your entire iPhoto library to a CD or DVD, depending on the size of your file. If your iPhoto library is less than 4 GB, you can burn the entire iPhoto library to a CD or DVD; in iPhoto 6, go to Share > Burn. You’ll be promoted to feed your Mac a blank CD or DVD. There are a few catches with this.

First, to make sure iPhoto copies your entire library, highlight the "Library" header in the upper left pane of iPhoto, and be certain no individual photos are selected or highlighted in the library. Otherwise, you will only copy and burn the highlighted image – not your entire iPhoto library, as we are trying to do here.

Second, if your iPhoto library is larger than 4 GB, it will not fit on a single DVD, and iPhoto 6 is not smart enough to span multiple CDs or DVDs. You can divide your library into chunks of 4 GB or less, and then burn your library in batches. Or, you can use Roxio Toast to burn your library, as Toast can span single data sources over multiple CDs or DVDs.

Another way to back up your photos is to export every single photo in your library into a folder on your desktop, which can then be burned to a CD or DVD. The advantage of doing this is that all files will be exported in a full-resolution format, as JPEG or RAW files that can be opened on almost any Mac or PC. Only the images are exported; keywords, thumbnails, ratings, etc will not be exported. Date and time information will not be exported, as that data is embedded in the actual images. In iPhoto 6, to do this, go to File > Export. Make sure "Size" is set to "Full-size images." Then create a new folder at the location of your choice, name it something memorable (such as iphoto_library_2006_01_09, etc.)

This folder should be burned to CD or DVD, or copied to an external drive.

I think it’s a great idea to make multiple copies of your digital photos – keep a back-up copy on an external hard-drive, and regularly burn a copy of your photos to a CD or DVD. Some people even keep a copy of their iPhoto library off site, away from their computer and back-up hard drive.

The last method to back-up your photos is old-fashioned: print them. Select your favorite photos and have them printed at good photo lab, or at a local drug store or Costco, or buy a good photo printer and print them yourself, on good quality paper. You don’t have to print all of your photos, just the very important ones. Out of 6000 photos in my iPhoto library, only a couple hundred are truly important to me. These are the ones I will have printed!

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Parallels Now Supports the Mac Pro!

By Ed @ Smalldog.com

Ok, ok, so this is cut and pasted directly out of their press release, which can be read in it’s entirety here:

http://www.parallels.com/en/news/id,9598

Now you can run Windows on your Mac Pro, without having to reboot the computer. Update Release Candidate also adds Experimental Support for Windows Vista Beta

Parallels announced today that it is making available the Update Release Candidate (RC) for Parallels Desktop for Mac, the first solution that enables users to run Windows and other operating systems at the same time as OS X on any Intel-powered Mac, without re- booting.

The update RC, which is free for all Parallels Desktop users, adds support the recently released quad-processor Mac Pro towers outfitted with up to 3.5GB of RAM. With the addition of support for Mac Pro towers, Parallels Desktop for Mac is now compatible with all Intel- powered Apple computers, which in addition to the Mac Pro includes the MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac Mini.

The update RC also offers full compatibility with the developer builds of Mac OS X 10.5, code-named “Leopard.” Leopard, which was previewed in Steve Jobs’ keynote address at the 2006 Apple Worldwide Developer Forum, is expected to be ship in Spring 2007.

“By adding support for Mac Pro towers and OS X ‘Leopard’, we’ve shown once again that Parallels Desktop is not only a great productivity tool for any Intel-Mac user, but also for Mac software developers who need to work with Apple’s next-generation OS.” said Benjamin Rudolph, Marketing Manager, Parallels. “Now, anyone using a Mac Pro, Mac Mini, MacBook, MacBook Pro or iMac can run any version of Windows alongside any Intel-compatible version of OS X, including 10.4 ‘Tiger’ or the upcoming 10.5 ‘Leopard’.”

In addition, the Parallels Desktop for Mac update release candidate includes experimental guest OS support for the beta builds of Windows Vista, the next-generation of Microsoft’s Windows operating system. Vista is due to be generally available in 2007.

You can read more about Parallels or buy it here:

Parallels installation on any intel Mac with Windows XP Home

http://www.smalldog.com/product/40927/mymac

Parallels installation on any intel Mac with Windows XP Pro

http://www.smalldog.com/product/40926/mymac

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New SDE Board Member By Don @ Smalldog.com

I’m pleased to announce that we have added another member to our Board of Advisors group.  Jesse Stein has been actively selling and marketing to the Apple consumer for over 20 years . During his 15 year career at Apple Computer he held sales and support positions for Apple’s enterprise, education and reseller clients in North East Region, Key North East Market Center and Executive Briefing Center positions, Product Line Manager for Hardware in Apple’s WW Corporate Briefing Center and was the Product Manager for the Power Macintosh Line, bringing the Power Mac G4 733 (first Machine to ship with iTunes, iDVD, and the DVD Superdrive) to market.

He moved his family back to the North east taking a Marketing role at IBM, where he was Product Manager for the IBM PowerPC 970 (aka G5) chip and is currently the IBM’s representative and Marketing Program Manager for Power.org, a multi-company standards body focused on Power Architecture Technology.

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Specials!

Here are the specials for this week, valid through September 22 or while on-hand supplies last. Be sure to use the wag URL to get this special pricing.

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EXCLUSIVE – Save on the Apple Hi-Fi!

To order: http://www.smalldog.com/wag16918/mymac

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LaCie 300gb Extreme Triple Interface Firewire 800/400/USB – $169, limited time only!

To order: http://www.smalldog.com/wag16858/mymac

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MacBook 1.83, Canon iP1700 Printer, Belkin Surge Protector, Cable for printer, Ogio Case – $1199!

To order: http://www.smalldog.com/wag16817/mymac

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Mac Pro Intel 2.66 2 GB (512MB ECC RAM x 4)/250GB HD/SD/7300GT, 3- year Applecare Plan – $2869!

http://www.smalldog.com/wag16917/mymac

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MacBook 13" 2.0GHz 512/60/SD/AP/BT white, Epson Printer, USB Cable, Surge Protector – $1389

http://www.smalldog.com/wag16916/mymac

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Rebate on Epson Stylus CX4200 All-in-One

http://www.smalldog.com/wag16804/mymac

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$50 Rebate – Miglia TVMini HD

http://www.smalldog.com/wag16859/mymac

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Griffin Desktop Stand for Airport Express Base Station – $12.00

http://www.smalldog.com/wag16912/mymac

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PowerMac G5 DC/2.3GHz 512/250/Super/GeF6600, Apple 23in Cinema Display (r) – $2799! (web only)

http://www.smalldog.com/wag16921/mymac

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MacBook 13in 1.83GHz 512/60/combo/AP/BT white PLUS 3-year Applecare plan – $1279! (web only) Please Note: Web Only Exclusive – not available in our retail stores!

http://www.smalldog.com/wag16920/mymac

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I’m off for a change of pace today.  I’ll be attending the meeting of the Board of Trustees of Goddard College.   It looks like a sunny weekend here in Vermont so I’m sure Grace and I will get out on the bikes, too to catch the early foliage.   We will update you frequently on the progress of our new store and of course, you are all invited to our grand opening and the pre-opening "private" openings that will be held before we really throw open the sashes!

Have a great weekend and thanks for reading Kibbles & Bytes!

Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

Don, Ed & Holly