It is on rare occasion here in Oregon that we experience anything more than a dusting of snow in the winter months. But this year we’re experiencing quite a storm with about a foot of snow on the ground and more still falling.

But, I am pleased to report that the Dr. Bott team is rising to the occasion, and we’re ready to get our customers the products they need.

I arrived early this morning to find our Shipping Supervisor already hard at work – he had driven for about an hour and a half in his 2-wheel drive sedan to make sure our warehouse was ready to start shipping.

When UPS arrived with the first delivery of the morning, the driver ended up getting stuck pulling into our snow-covered parking lot. Fortunately we were able to tow him out with one of our trucks and received the shipment. Special props to UPS for being the only carrier that could even make it to us today!

We will have the tow chain ready when it’s time to ship, and Dr. Bott customers can rest assured their products will be shipped today!

With Macworld Expo starting earlier than ever in 2009, we’re well into our final preparations for the show. The Dr. Bott booth will be located in South Hall #1912, right next to the Apple booth. If you’re going to be at Macworld Expo, stop by and you’ll get a first-hand look at some of the most innovative products for Mac, iPod and iPhone — many of which will be making their debut at the show.

The Dr. Bott booth will feature exhibits for 20 Dr. Bott vendors, including Axio, Blackmagic Design, Blue Microphones, Bookendz, Brenthaven, Case-mate, Cinemizer, Dr. Bott, H-Squared, iDowell, ifrogz, iPevo, It’s About Time Products, Matias, MCA, nekFIT, Softpress, Ten One Design and Thermapak. It will also feature the popular Dr. Bott Store, where show attendees can purchase product on-site at a special show discount.

We hope to see you there!

Last week we moved the Dr. Bott headquarters to a new location. Our new address is below:

9730 SW Hillman Court
Suite 600
Wilsonville, OR 97070

The new location provides us with an improved warehouse space that will make for a more efficient operation. In addition, the fact that the space is located in the same business park as our previous location enabled us to make the move as smooth as possible with minimal impact on daily workflow and warehouse operations.

As we’re already in the thick of the holiday season, this smooth transition to the improved space has put us in a position to better meet our customers’ needs, especially in the busiest time of year.

About a week ago, Apple held a town hall meeting to showcase their new laptops. I have been long overdue for an upgrade to my own black MacBook, so I was excited for the announcement. It began with the a “State of the Mac” talk from Tim Cook explaining the great advancement in market share the Mac has made. Jony Ive is then introduced to talk about the new aluminum unibody manufacturing process.

Steve came back on stage and introduced new features that the MacBooks will now have, such as nVidia 9400M graphics and the multi-touch glass trackpad. The new MacBook Pro and MacBook are introduced. It came time for me to decide which one of the new models I was going to upgrade to.The five models available in the notebook lineup are the 13″ White MacBook, 13″ Aluminum MacBook, 15″ Aluminum MacBook Pro, 17″ Aluminum MacBook Pro, and the 13″ MacBook Air. The 13″ White MacBook, 17″ Aluminum Macbook Pro, and Macbook Air remain unchanged on the exterior, though they gain several internal changes.

The 15″ MacBook Pro now includes an integrated graphics chipset as well as a powerful discrete chipset for great performance. It has the ability to switch between the two based on what you’re doing and how long you want the battery to last.

The 13″ Aluminum MacBook has gained the new nVidia 9400M graphics chipset which Apple says is 5x faster than the previous integrated graphics. It also has the option for a backlit keyboard on the higher end model. It appears to have unfortunately lost the FireWire 400 port. All notebook models now have a LED backlit display and the option to use a 128gb SSD, and are moving towards being quite a bit more environmentally friendly.

When it came down to it, I didn’t need the extra processor power that the 15″ MacBook Pro offered, though I wished the 13″ MacBook still had it’s FireWire 400 port. The 13″ Aluminum MacBook was my choice, which I picked up the day after the announcement. After having had it a week, all of the changes that Apple has made have proved to be well worth the wait.

Dr. Bott LLC announced that Matt Gorski has joined the company as Director of Sales. Matt brings nearly 20 years in sales and sales management to Dr. Bott, with experience at electronics-related companies including Thrustmaster, Labtec, Logitech and Creative Labs.

“We’re really excited to have Matt working with us,” said Eric Prentice, CEO of Dr. Bott. “His experience in retail combined with his ability to manage and grow teams has us confident that he’s exactly what we need to take Dr. Bott to the next level.”

“Dr. Bott has a unique position of strength in its distribution of products for Mac, iPod and iPhone,” said Matt Gorski, Director of Sales for Dr. Bott. “I am thrilled to be working at such a dynamic company, and I look forward to building upon Dr. Bott’s already strong momentum.”

In these tough economic times you need every advantage you can get. The markets are down, the housing crisis is looming, and politicians, as always, are desperately trying to look good on TV. Do you find yourself taking every spare minute to launch the Stocks application on your iPhone? Are you desparate to see if your beloved stock has launched you into financial freedom or economic crisis? Then Bloomberg app is for you.

Not only is the Bloomberg app free, it takes the features of Apple’s Stocks app and presents them in a more interesting way, offering more options and a slick interface. You can read market news and find information on the major equity, commodity, bond and currency markets. It even allows you to send news stories to your friends via email.

Once a stock is selected, you’re presented with the daily high, low and volume information in addition to the stock’s current price. A small bar graph displays the stock’s activity, but when you turn your iPhone on its side, the graph expands to fill the entire screen. News articles related to the selected stock are also displayed, as is a short summary of the company.

With its advanced features and simple access to diverse information, I’m giving a strong “buy” recommendation for Bloomberg app for iPhone and iPod touch.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=281941097&mt=8

There is always a stir of fun stuff leading up to an announcement from Apple. Some people in the iPod accessory industry feel like it is a hurricane relief effort after Steve makes his announcements as we all ask ourselves “what current product is going to be compatible now?” Rumors fly all over the info-super highway, but behind the scenes we are triangulating these rumors weeks in advance with vendor partners so that when the announcement comes we pretty much have a good idea of what is going to work and what isn’t. It is because of our close relationships with these partners that we are able to provide the community with quick lists of what we are all going to want with the new products.

It is blog posts like this one on CNET that prompted me to give us and our partners a bit of kudos during the storm. Our vendors work hard to stay on top of what is about to change. Dr. Bott helps all the vendors figure that out more specifically as a collaborative effort, and the community gets a very fast list of products that will work as the dust settles from the announcements.

We have been setting SKUs up for a few weeks now, but some products are still missing as far as I am concerned. One of the hottest cases for iPhone 1G was the Elan Cork (Reseller Link) from Griffin. Man I love mine. It provides plenty of grip but still allows your phone to slip in and out of a pocket easily enough. Plus it is just one of the most unique cases anyone will ever see. The world should have these for the touch 2G and iPhone 3G. And Matias…where is our Armor (Reseller Link) series for the new nano 4G or the touch 2G? I want the world to have these things… it would be a more perfect place for all of us.

The industry was buzzing with the anticipated product announcements from Apple yesterday. Once again, Steve Jobs and company did not disappoint regarding the new Apple iPod nano 4G.

Taking some of the earlier technology success from the iPhone, Apple brought over the accelerometer feature and applied it to the nano. Apple also brought over its successful Cover Flow options to locate and search through album art. They kept the same 320 x 240 pixel resolution on a 2” screen display. The 3G with its nearly square design (2.75” x 2.06”) has been taken back to its roots as the candy bar style dimensions of 3.6” by 1.5”.

How about your very own personal DJ at your beck and call? The Genius feature on the new nano has the capability to locate and suggest songs that go great together based on a song you really like. This is a really great feature to build up your personal music library fast. Apple has also added a “Shake and Shuffle” feature that with a gentle shake will kick you over to another song to keep your play list fresh. This is very cool but could pose a problem depending on how sensitive it is. It might end up an annoyance say if you are driving off road in your ’88 Jeep Cherokee. I’ll have to personally check this out. Apple did keep the gamers in mind with yesterday’s launch. The 4G comes with the game Maze, which, as its name describes, tests the accelerometer feature of the product. Apple it seems is leveraging their success with the iPhone and iPod touch to establish nano as a gaming platform.

Today’s nano touts a really thin and sleek design that comes in 8GB and 16GB with prices at $149 and $199 respectively. My first reaction to the launch was that Apple is still in touch with the customer’s desires well beyond the capacity change and multitude of new colors.

We’ve built categories into the website for what we’re anticipating so the moment of Apple announcement today, we’ll give it the green light and the website will be updated.We’ve also been talking to our vendors to make sure they’re up to date on what everyone is expecting. They have sent key people to their manufacturers so that shortly after 10am today, they can have new and exciting accessories start moving down the production line. Stay tuned for more announcements as today’s events unfold!

Back in June, Apple unveiled to the world the iPhone 2.0 software update along with the iTunes App Store. The world would never be the same again. No longer did iPhone finaticas have to resort to nefarious “jailbreaking” of their beloved device to enjoy 3rd party applications. With a simple click users could download hundreds of applications at a moment’s notice.

Many of the App Store applications are free, but to really enjoy all the iPhone has to offer you might need to part with a few pesos. Many great applications and games can be had for $.99, but some cost a bit more.

Lately, my kids and I have been enjoying not so much a game, but a 2D physics simulator called Aqua Forest. This simulator is based on Prometech Software’s Octave Engine, which they describe to be “demonstration software for 2D-based multi-physics simulation.” The desktop version is amazing and the iPhone is no different.

Aqua Forest has two modes, free and puzzle. The free mode lets you take the various elements and put them on an open canvas to interact with each other. You can create a water fountain which pours onto a furnace, which turns the water to steam, which condenses back to water when it touches a piece of ice. You are only limited to your imagination.

The puzzle mode give you numerous pre-set environments in which you need to move the elements around to complete a defined goal. The puzzles range from simple to difficult and are all fun to play.

You can download Aqua Forest through iTunes (viewSoftware) or directly from your iPhone or iPod touch for $7.99. If the price is a bit steep for you, I’d recommend downloading the free desktop version at Prometech’s website to get a feel for what it’s like.