Barkings! | The Small Dog Apple Blog

Congratulations goes out to Mark G., of CA! Randomly picked from over 8,000 entries, we drew Mark’s name as the winner of our Black MacBook Giveaway! We later found out that Mark has been a customer of Small Dog’s since 1999.

Upon hearing the news, he writes:

I’m one of those folks who have never won anything, so I guess it is finally my turn.

I own a circa year 2000 “Pismo” PowerBook, which I still use frequently, and am VERY fond of, so I’ll have a few mixed emotions about replacing “her”. Actually, she won’t be replaced, but will have a new companion to keep her company.

As you may know, I recently purchased a new Intel iMac from Small Dog; now it will have a new portable companion!

Thanks to all who entered, and congratulations again, Mark!

Tags: 2008, contest, entries, macbook, website, winner

(Don’t worry, that’s not it.)

I am excited to announce that the NEW Smalldog.com is ready for launch–on Tuesday, April 22 at 10 am, to be exact. As most of you know, it’s been many months in the making (at times we were a little overzealous), and we’re proud to say that we think you will be pleased with the improvements we’ve made.

The site is all-new and loaded with features we think will make your shopping experience much better. Among the newness? Well, the new site is faster, has a better search engine (which will continue to improve), a cleaner look, more support resources, a category-based navigation bar and more.

We want to know what you think, so we strongly encourage your feedback. When the new Smalldog.com launches next week, there will be an email link on the site to click on to contact us. We will continue to add content and make improvements to the site, and we will take your suggestions into account. After all, our website is here for you, the customer!

So the countdown has begun–from today (Tax Day) to next Tuesday (Earth Day)... we think that’s kind of fitting. We hope you’ll enjoy the friendlier, cleaner, more (customer) conscious Smalldog.com.

In the meantime, if you’d like to see how far we’ve come, check out some of our old sites here at the Wayback Machine or click on the image above for a select few screenshots on Flickr from years past.

Tags: earth day, smalldog.com, website

The following is an article originally posted by Ben. We wanted to revisit it, since the problem is reported frequently by our retail customers. Hope it clears some things up!

I rely on and love my morning cup of Starbucks while simultaneously enjoying the ability to download music directly from the iTunes Store. Imagine how happy I was when I realized that I could combine my two loves by purchasing the new Starbucks card. This synergy allowed me to continue to purchase the coffee I love, while receiving two free song downloads from the iTunes Store.

In my excitement, I rushed to my computer, redeemed my code, went to download a song, and… Disaster struck! Suddenly the billing address that I had been using for over six years was suddenly “not a valid US billing address!” Either South Burlington had seceded from the United States overnight, or the Starbucks card had done something to my iTunes Store account.

I immediately checked to make sure I had the most up-to-date version of iTunes and tried reentering my billing address multiple times. Nothing I did seemed to help—I had been given two free songs that I was unable to use! I decided to bring my issue to Apple’s attention to see if they could help me. I emailed iTunes Store support and outlined the problem I was experiencing. I explained my familiarity with iTunes and asked for any suggestions. Apple impressed me by responding within 24 hours but their answer was generic and not helpful.

I immediately replied, reiterating the billing issue while noting the fact that I believed the issue stemmed to the Starbucks card. Again, I received a reply in less than 24 hours (no complaints for tardiness) but was again disappointed with the response. I was instructed to change my zip code to “Queen City.” Confused, I again immediately responded to the support email wondering what Queen City was. I know Burlington is known as the “Queen City,” but why would they not refer to Burlington as “Burlington?” I also reiterated once again how the issue seemed to stem the activation of the Starbucks card.

With the next reply, we seemed to be making some headway. iTunes support suggested I change my zip code to 05407 which is the South Burlington PO Box zip code. I went into iTunes and typed in the new zip code, clicked on save, and again… “your billing address does not match the zip code you have entered.”

Dang, foiled again.

The plus side to this email was that they finally admitted that the Starbucks card may have played a role in the problem. I replied, this time implying how frustrated I was and letting Apple know that I appreciate a solution soon. With the next email, Apple asked for my permission to verify my account which I immediately granted. Here is part of the email I received the next day…

While testing your account I was able to replicate the error you have received. I was able to overcome this error by changing the city in your billing address to Queen City. You will be able to purchase from the iTunes Store using your credit card if you keep Queen City as your billing address city and the zip code 05403 as your billing address zip code.

Our engineering team is aware of the issue that is preventing the city South Burlington from being recognized and are working to repair the issue as quickly as possible. I would like to recommend that you change the city back to South Burlington after the 10th of November.* This will give our engineers ample time to locate the issue, make any necessary repairs, and update our systems.

A solution had finally been reached! Basically, if you live in South Burlington and have been having issues with downloading music, change your billing city to “Queen City” and leave your zip code as 05403. I was frustrated with how long it took to reach a solution for what seemed like a simple problem, but at the same time, I was quite pleased with the amount of responses I received from iTunes support in such a short period of time.

*Editor’s note: It seems they’ve needed more time to update this, so in the meantime, entering “Queen City” should alleviate the issue. It’s interesting to me that the entry for Queen City in Wikipedia doesn’t even include S. Burlington, VT in its list of cities…

Tags: itunes, queen city, s. burlington, starbucks

Image courtesy dvice.com

The Mac vs. PC debate: it seems like a competition as old as time… (can you remember what life was like before computers??)

Buying a computer isn’t always easy, and while improved cross-platform compatibility (read: Mac and PC files playing nicely) is a great feature to have in a computer these days, it also makes the decision process more involved. There are literally hundreds of PCs out there, and by comparison, only a handful of Macs.

So how does one even begin to compare the features of these machines? Here are a few general things that you’ll hopefully find helpful when comparing the two.

1. Do you have a budget?
There are probably only a choice few out there who wouldn’t consider price when buying a machine. A common myth permeating computer conversations is that Macs are more expensive when compared to PCs. When it gets down to it, there are several points to take into consideration, so you can make an informed decision.

Many PC companies offer custom-building tools on their website for certain models. This can be both good and bad: unless you know what you’re shopping for, you may end up with such a low price, it seems to good to be true (which means it probably is). Often, if you read the specs for a Mac carefully, you’ll find that it includes most of the things the PC models charge extra for. End result? Depending on the brand, you may find similar pricing between Macs and PCs, or even in our case, 4 out of 5 PC models were more expensive than the comparable Mac.

Tip: Determine what you will be using your PC for, and consider the upgradability in the future. It goes without saying that value should be considered on an overall basis and not just an initial one. For example, would you like to get a Bluetooth (wireless) mouse at some point? Including Bluetooth internally means never having to add a port-hogging external piece on an already slimmed-down laptop, or extra cost. This holds true for any feature you may strip out because you’re thinking only of initial cost.

2. Do you need Windows XP?
This is a bigger question than you’d think. Windows Vista (Microsoft’s newest OS) is wildly pretty and has some amazing features, but there are still many programs and peripherals out there that won’t work with it without headaches. My husband uses a geographic mapping program called ArcView, which is a full-featured program developed only for Windows XP. In his search, he had to weed out any computer model that didn’t offer the option of XP.

What we found is that there are some companies who offer only Vista (save for 1 or 2 models each), such as HP and Sony. This dramatically reduced the number of computers we could consider, and usually, the ones that do have XP are on the extreme high end of business machines. (What we figured was that businesses must have made the biggest stink about Vista bugs and that these users needed a reliable alternative (tried-and-true XP); by contrast, the PC makers were able to honor their agreements with Microsoft by sticking with Vista for the low-to-mid-range (because maybe the average home user wouldn’t really know that difference?).

Read a commentary of XP/Vista on CNet here.

Tip: Find out which programs, printer(s), and other things you use with your PC now. A good way to do this is to write down the version of your software, and go to the manufacturer’s website (or search engine) for more information. Do the same for other peripherals—this will save having to purchase upgrades (if applicable) or abandon the product altogether. You’ll want to make sure you cover all your bases so that you can eliminate costly surprises later!

3. Does screen size matter to you?
How are you going to be using your notebook? Are you going to travel with it, or use it as a desktop replacement? As we found, bigger isn’t always better. You must take the aspect ratio, viewable screen size, resolution, and brightness/contrast ratio into consideration.

There are many PC models out there with 14 and 15-inch screens that seem like bargains. When we looked at the fine print and glossary of terms that some companies used, we found that most of these screens were low-resolution displays. Most were also non-widescreen and considerably dimmer than the Mac counterpart. For example, the 15-inch MacBook Pro has a resolution of 1440×900, with a widescreen aspect ratio. The 14 and 15-inch PCs had a resolution more similar to that of the 13-inch MacBook, at 1280×800 (widescreen) or 1280×1024 for non-widescreen displays.

What I like about widescreen displays is that they facilitate displaying information as your brain processes it: left to right. I find that I more often like to view data onscreen wider than taller, so it’s helpful to have the widescreen with those additional pixels. The numbers indicate the following: a screen resolution of 1280×800 means that there are 1280 pixels across 800 horizontal lines that span top to bottom.

Tip: Think about what you view on your screen. Do you use it for word processing, where the page spread would be helpful, or for web pages where you would be scrolling down? A higher resolution screen is an option that may have a value of $75+ more than a similar-sized one with a lower resolution, but depending on what you do, it may be well worth it!

This is by no means an all-inclusive list. Your needs may vary. Bonus: Check out this article on CIO.com about cost-effectiveness of OS X here.

Have an experience or tip to share? Tell us!

Tags: comparison, mac, pc, specs