Mac Tips System 8 & 9

Tips you can use to help your Mac and enhance your computer experience.:

  • Rebuilding your desktop monthly will help the data on your hard drive work better. Do this when you start up by holding the command key and the option.

  • Back it up! Use floppy, zip, CD, external hard drive, anything, just do it or lose it.

  • Always have a lightning approved surge protector with telephone line input.

  • Don't over buy when purchasing a new computer. Get a system with software and components that you can use now. If looking to the future get a computer with good upgrade paths.

  • Upgrade the system software only when you need to, not when you want to, as there can be problems when getting the latest and greatest. This is also true with all Apple Updates.

  • Get a good virus protection software and a good firewall to prevent hacker entry.

  • Beware of shareware! It is not tested to standards that store bought software is and may be incompatible with other software or hardware.

  • Turn your Mac off when not in use. Sometimes the sleep feature causes conflicts.

  • Learn, live and love your keyboard shortcuts! They're represented in your menus by the symbol and can save you hours a week searching around with your mouse, and many are the same between programs.

  • You can never have too much RAM. Sometimes having more RAM can double the speed of your computer system and software.

  • If your Mac freezes up try these key configurations to un-freeze. The Command Key and 'Q'. Or ,'option', 'esc' keys. And if these fail you and you have a startup key on keyboard try , 'control' and the startup key. If all these fail to un-freeze or restart try the power or reset button on your Mac. Finally, if none of these do the trick, unplug the silly thing, wait 15 minutes for you and the computer to cool off and start-up and rebuild desktop.

  • If your computer won't start up at all, restart without extensions by holding down the shift key when you start. If it starts, that means a system extension was causing the problem. You can try turning on the extensions one by one and restarting to see which one is causing the problem. If holding down the shift key doesn't work, restart with your system disk or CD by holding down the c key or , 'option', 'shift' and 'delete' while you start up. If you can't start from a CD (or disk) or without extensions, most likely you have a hardware problem and should give us a call to diagnosis your dilemma.