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.
