Training, Training, Training

2008-06-24 08:57 AM Category General Mac | Beginner | Intermediate | MaclevelTen

I am always looking for ways to learn about new programs for my Macintosh, but I want the training to be reasonably priced. While Apple provides training on Apple products in the stores and Lynda.com provides training on Apple and Adobe products, where do you go to find training on software and web services such as Evernote, TextExpander, and Fluid. Even more difficult, were can you find information about how to expand the capabilities of your AppleTV with ATV Flash?

Don McAllister creates weekly videos on these programs and a lot more at ScreenCastsOnline. His programs are well-done and easy to follow. While there is a free edition of his programs, the videos offered with a membership to ScreenCastsOnline offers so much more! The videos are larger in size, sometimes offer extra content, and there are members-only shows. Click here to read more...

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Computer Troubles or Power Problems?

2008-06-19 07:55 AM Category General Mac | Beginner | Intermediate | Troubleshooting

Just what is the problem? You’d think Apple Inc. could make a program for the Mac without any bugs! What are those coders up to! Yeah, yeah, yeah – its all Apple’s fault!

Now, wait just a darn minute! Are you sure some of the blame isn’t yours?

I have been getting lots of calls about Macs not working as they should. These are the same kinds of problems that I saw at about the same time last year – and the year before – and the year before.

I am hearing about Time Machine backups that fail, computers that are having hard drive catalog errors, and programs that suddenly quit. When I run Disk Utility First Aid on the drives, I am seeing lots of errors. I haven’t seen this many hard drive errors since early last fall. In fact, I have even had trouble with my own computers.
Click here to read more...

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Rethinking Periodic Maintenance.

There are lot of good sources of Mac information and there are some people who you come to trust and respect. The crew over at Macworld produce an outstanding web site and magazine and Dan Frakes, who joined the staff in recent years, is one of the people I regard as a true Mac expert.

The July issue of Macworld magazine has a series of very good troubleshooting articles. Much of the content has also been made available on the web site. Dan Frake’s article, Five Mac maintenance myths has brought quite a few comments. In reading them, I was compelled to add my own. This is what I wrote: Click here to read more...

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The case for using TextEdit as your word processor, Part 1

2008-06-05 11:18 PM Category General Mac | Word Processing | Beginner | Intermediate

We have a new client. He bought a new iMac and somehow, the person who helped him install his new computer managed not to move any of his files or old applications such as AppleWorks.

That technician should be drawn and quartered! There are always things that need to be moved to a new computer and leaving a client without his "past" is cruel and heartless!

One of the things this gentleman is missing are his templates as they were called in AppleWorks or his stationary pads, as they are called in Mac OS X.

Are you still using AppleWorks? It will run in Mac OS X Leopard, but it is so ancient that it is probably past time to put it out to pasture. It must be run in Rosetta these days, and that makes your newer computer work much harder. Newer products take advantage of the features built into Mac OS X such as the ability to search a document using Spotlight and to view a document in the finder without opening the application itself. Applications that run natively in Mac OS X use common interface elements such as FontBook and the ColorPicker as well as Inspectors which make it much simpler to use advanced commands and features. Click here to read more...

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