Do I have Apple Care? Did I Buy it? When is it Up?

I work on a lot of people's macs and the first thing I ask is if they still have Apple Care? AppleCare is an extesion of the 1 year warranty provided with the mac product, usually an additional 3 years. Here's how to check to see if the Mac you're using is covered. It's connected to the serial number of the mac.

To see the serial number of your mac without standing on your head just go to the blue apple menu, then select About this Mac. You'll see the Version number here. Double click it and our mac's serial number will appear. This is NOT the serial number of the software, but the Mac itself.

Now goto this website https://selfsolve.apple.com/GetWarranty.do

In the field put in your SN. You can't copy and paste it from the the other window. Then fill in the country and click Continue. Your status should show up giving a date the warranty expires.

How to Trash Photos

Q: I keep emptying my trash can in iPhoto yet the can keeps showing the number of pictures I trashed. They never go away. I can’t seem to trash the pics.

A: It’s rare but this application has it’s own trash can. Go under the File menu in iPhoto and empty the trash from there. You are emptying the system’s trash can. Your pics aren’t there.

The Insomniac Mac: I Can't Sleep

Q: My mac has trouble sleeping automatically or on command. It’s very frustrating. What’s going on?



A:Nothing is more frustrating than a mac  that won’t sleep, or even worse a mac that won’t wake from sleep and needs to be rebooted losing precious time and waiting for a reboot. 

The answer isn’t always simple as there could be a couple reasons. First open the System Preferences and click on the Energy Saver control panel. Now make sure the sliders are on anything but “Never”. If set to “never” the machine will never sleep no matter what.

If you don’t use your mac to receive faxes, click on the Print and Fax tab to check and make sure your mac isn’t awake to watch for incoming faxes. That will also prevent sleep.

While in System Preferences click on the Sharing control panel. Now click on the “Internet” tab. Make sure your mac isn’t sharing an internet connection. If so, click it off by shutting it of with the “Stop” command.

Another reason for insomnia is a damaged preference file most likely a Blue tooth or Power Management preference file. These files are best left to a mac tech like me to dispose of and replace.

One of the most likely culprits is an incompatible card recently added such as a USB card. These cards are usually problems in desktops, not so much portable. Be sure to go to the card’s manufacturer website and make sure you have the latest drivers or software upgrades. Many times people buy “no name” cards and have to info to act on such as technical support for the company. In that case you are stuck with a non functioning card as far as the sleep command goes.

On ibooks and Powerbooks the power manger could also be the reason for a non-sleeping laptop. Each mac portable requires a different way to reset the power manager so it’s best to take it to a mac tech. In the meantime, if your mac does go to sleep but won’t wake there’s a not-so-green temporary answer. That would be to visit the System Preferences as mentioned earlier and click on the Energy Saver control Panel. In this case set the sliders to “Never”. This will prevent the mac from going into a sleep it doesn’t wake from. This should only be a temporary solution until you can get the mac fixed. Sleep is good, saves energy and wear and tear on your computer.

Remember to always reboot your mac at least once a day or better yet just shut it down when down it for more than 8 hours. restarting a mac clears out a lot internal logic clutter and ensures a leaner running mac. Putting a mac to sleep and never rebooting it is a bad habit and can tax the systems RAM supply. Everybody likes a fresh start once a day, so shutdown.

The Problem with Mac OS X 10.5.7 Update

[caption id="attachment_47" align="alignleft" width="164" caption="Danger Danger! "]

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Running Leopard I was notified to run the 10.5.7 update. I did so while I decided to leave and have lunch. After restarting my beautiful HP w2207 monitor wouldn't sync to the correct resolution. I never had problems this an update before...

I'm using a mac mini and the monitor is connected via HDMI> DVI.

I was now annoyed because now a nice warning box was displayed in the middle of my screen and wouldn't go away. To make matters worse the display would go to sleep every 15 seconds. It asked me to set the resolution to 1680 x 1050 60 hz. great except that option was now gone in the display panel.

I tried everything. Nothing worked. After two hours I finally called Apple. They gave me a couple ideas that didn't work. The only thing left was using Time Machine. I had never used it and was a little reluctant to wipe out my Hard drive with a backup system that was untested.

Well I took a leap of faith and went back to the last version TM saved of 10.5.6. I had to boot form my Leopard install disk and do a TM Restore. This took almost 4 hours!

So don't upgrade to 10.5.7 if you connect to a monitor/TV via HDMI cable. Apple is now aware of the problem and a fix is on the way.

For more on this issue and alternate solutions besides Time Machine (See the value of backing up???) goto this site.

My mac won’t start and only makes beeping noises.

Q: My mac won’t start and only makes beeping noises. What are they and what do they mean?

A: Here’s what Apple says:

Products introduced after October, 1999 use a revised set of power on self-test beeps during startup. This article describes each one.

 

Products Affected

Portable Computers, Desktop Computers

The power on self-test resides in the ROM of the computer. This test runs whenever the computer is turned on after being fully shut down (the power-on self-test does not run if the computer is only restarted).

 

If a fault is detected during the test, you will not hear a normal startup chime. Instead, the system will beep as explained below. If you experience one of these beeps, you may call your Apple Authorized Service Provider for additional troubleshooting assistance.

 

1 beep = no RAM installed

2 beeps = incompatible RAM types

3 beeps = no good banks

4 beeps = no good boot images in the boot ROM (and/or bad sys config block)

5 beeps = processor is not usable

 

In addition to the beeps, on some computers the power LED will flash a corresponding number of times plus one. The LED will repeat the sequence after approximately a 5-second pause. The tones are only played once.

 

To sum up; it’s usually a RAM (memory) problem or the actual sockets the RAM modules are in. Sometimes reseating the RAM can make the problem go away.

Speeding Up Any Mac Using Only Common Sense Part 7 of 7

Top Tricks to Speed Up Your Mac #1!

 

[caption id="attachment_39" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Lotsa system junk needs to go..."][/caption]

Have your mac tuned up. Your mac is on hours on end and lots of things happen. Bad things. Caches and files grow in sizes that are unmanageable by the operating system. Preference files become corrupt. Fonts can become corrupt. Drivers that are unneeded are added from things you’ve bought and attached. Plug-in’s, undeleted temp files, bloatware are added constantly and your mac has to wade through all this.

 

Also your mac is loaded with about 40-something different languages, so if you only use English all that extra code is siting there taking up processor speed and hard drive space.

I can do a proper maintenance and tuneup. I would be a good idea to have a checkup done on your mac if it hasn’t been done in over 18 months. Macs are like cars, they require care and maintenance. Making your hard drive work unnecessarily is a prescription for a shorter life. Call me for a full tuneup, it’s cheap and will extend your mac’s life...

Speeding Up Any Mac Using Only Common Sense Part 6 of 7

Top Tricks to Speed Up Your Mac #2

 

[caption id="attachment_32" align="alignleft" width="360" caption="RAM is cheap. Don't skimp on upgrading to the max!"][/caption]

Add RAM. The biggest problem (other than the above maintenance issue) is the lack of memory that is sold with your mac. Apple is famous for selling macs with bare bones minimum memory in their macs. Why? It keeps the selling price down. 

 

RAM is so cheap now especially for macs made in the last four years it would be insane to not install the maximum amount your model takes. This can make the difference from watching the beach ball turn and watching your finger nails grow to instant response time on most tasks.

RAM hungry applications are anything by Adobe (Photoshop is the ultimate winner!) and anything Microsoft. They install a lot what's called bloatware--junk you don’t need.

In the old days 128Mb RAM was a nice amount to run system 9. Today that won’t even boot OS X. If you’re running less than 1Gb of RAM you’re just torturing yourself and putting undo stress on your mac.

Upgrade that RAM. I can help with this too.

Speeding Up Any Mac Using Only Common Sense Part 5 of 7

Top Tricks to Speed Up Your Mac #3

Restart /Shutting Down your mac. Putting your mac to sleep constantly is a bad habit. Always shutdown your mac at the end of the day or when you leave work. It not only lengthens the life of the internal components, it’s also a fresh start for the operating system when a lot of garbage and temporary files are flushed out. A micro tuneup is performed every time the mac starts up.

Speeding Up Any Mac Using Only Common Sense Part 4 of 7

Top Tricks to Speed Up Your Mac #4

 

[caption id="attachment_34" align="alignleft" width="360" caption="Hell on Earth: Dial-up"][/caption]

Upgrade your Web Access. New macs don’t even come with modems. You have to special order them or find them on eBay (good luck with that!). This is clearly an indicator to the speed progress the web has made a necessity. Try downloading an update to Tiger OS 10.4 on dialup and you can actually watch your teeth fall out. Let’s hope you never want to watch Youtube.com vids or need to download any software. Many of the tasks we perform today are directly related to an internet connection.

 

DSL is very cheap, in fact a few years ago it was cheaper than Dial-up. Some of my clients were paying $19.99 for dial-up and others were paying $12.95 for DSL. So some were actually more to go slower (50X slower!) and tie up their phone line!

I’m no fan of the cable company so I always say go with DSL from the phone company, no matter what deal you think you’re getting on the “bundle illusion”. After taxes and fees has anyone made out on any “bundle”?