Link 2 Know

Before you call tech support:
If you’re calling technical support for help, there are 14 basic items of information you need to know or do before you call. I suggest writing down the first four items now while everything is working. The remaining items can be listed for the immediate issue.

1. Desktop/laptop model name and number
2. Operating system and version number
3. Any firewall or antivirus applications that are installed
4. Any non-standard applications or settings you’re using
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Did you know that Apple loads multiple languages for many software applications? There is a great little program called Monolingual that will delete all languages you do not use. It’s a quick download and gives you the option of which language(s) you wish to retain. I freed almost 2.8GB. Who knew?

I switched! I recently switched my desktop from WinXP to Tiger, and later upgraded to Leopard. Although the basics are simple, there are some habits I was accustomed to in Windows that needed to be UN-learned for OS X.

The most electrifying lesson was that, unlike in Windows where dragging a folder onto another folder merges the contents, in OS X, dragging a folder onto another folder actually replaces the entire folder. This was obviously a habit that needed to be un-learned immediately. Continue Reading »

I found a little application to synchronize bookmarks across Mac browsers. It’s called BookIt and costs $12. You can download a trial version. Yes, you can always import and export bookmarks but I find that I work in several different browsers for various reasons. With this I can set a ‘master’ browser bookmark table and sync all other browsers with it. That way I always have all bookmarks on all browsers without duplicates.I want to point out that there are others out there and of course there are online services which do similar syncs so you can have your bookmarks wherever you may log onto the internet. Those will be for another post — along with some for the PC folks as well.

Your office is flooded, your files/photographs/documents are lost, and the words come back to haunt you: “When is the last time you backed up?” Lost documents, viruses, the ‘read error’ message regarding your hard drive. And it always seems to happen right before an important project is due.Here is an option that requires virtually zero maintenance by you and better yet, it is free (up to 2GB).

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