Archive for the ‘Advice Columns’ Category

What do coast guards do for a living?

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

Answer: They rescue people from drowning.

Their raison d’être is to react as soon as possible to avoid casualties. Imagine this; you and your friends Mike and Jerry are sailing off the coast of BC, when your vessel hits a rock. No one is around. You’re in trouble. You jump on the vcf radio, but Mike says : “Oh wait, we’re not going to bother these nice gentlemen with our little problem. Let’s scoop the water out, we’ll see how it goes”.
“Makes sense to me,” says Jerry. “And on top of that, the hull is so dirty! I wouldn’t want them to see the boat before we can scrape it clean…”

This situation looks surreal, doesn’t it?

Now imagine that you decide not to pay attention to what your friends are saying, the costguards arrive in no time, and they’re so good at their job, and arrive quickly enough that you’re actually able to fix the crack in the hull in a couple of hours and resume your trip. They even give you a couple of cool navigation tips to prevent your disaster form recurring. By the smile on their face – and on Mike and Jerry’s too – you know that you did the right thing.

At Macinhome, we like it better when things go smoothly. But we are also here for our clients when a hidden rock grounds the boat. In a case of network or system failure; in situations when staff is drowning in complexity, think of us as your mac coastguards.

And don’t feel embarrassed to call us because you think we’re somehow too busy, or because your hard drive is a mess: you’d rob us of the opportunity to save the day!

Mac-ify Your Personal Life #2

Saturday, November 28th, 2009

The Beatles plagiarized this button.

The Beatles plagiarized this button.


Oftentimes, when people’s personal problems become overwhelming, they turn to an advice columnist. This not only alleviates them of burdensome personal responsibility, and decision making, but also exposes their problems to a wide, ravenous readership.

But who do you write to when your personal problems are Mac-related? Well fret no more, exhibitionist advice-seeker! Macman is here to solve all your problems – publicly!

Dear Macman,

My husband and I have been avid Mac users for the entire fifteen-year tenure of our marriage. However, as the years went by, our “iLife” seemed to get a little stale. A little routine. Hell, Leopard and Snow Leopard barely have different names!

Anyway, in an effort to inject some much-needed spice into our relationship, my husband suggested that we try something a little different. A little daring. He bought us a Dell.

I was fine using it once, and it seemed to make my husband very happy. However, now he wants to use this Dell every night. In fact, last week he went and bought a BIGGER one, which frankly just makes me uncomfortable.

I’m all for trying new things, but all this “crashing” and “defragging” inevitably just feels promiscuous. I miss my wholesome, old Mac lifestyle.

What should I do?

-Embarrassed Ashley

Hello Ashley,

First of all, let me say shame on you. Shame, shame, and a thousand times shame. How do you think your kids would feel if they found out their mother was defragging in their childhood home?


Your husband may want your life to have more Steam, but frankly he probably wants a lot of things – and do you have any idea how many viruses get spread around by people who go from good, faithful Mac usage to Dells, Toshibas and God knows what else?


It’s not too late for you, Ashley. Sit down with your husband. Tell him it’s not Windows 7 that will strengthen your relationship. If anything, it will make it cumbersome and counter-intuitive. Tell him you need to rediscover eachother. Tell him you need to reconnect.


Buy him MobileMe.


-Macman

How to Become Better Friends With Your Mac

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Your Mac loves your touch... Macinhome’s end goal is to enhance the relationship between Mac-users      and their Macs.  Lately we’ve been ‘tweeting’ about Mac  tips and tricks, but we  also want to share some resources with you so you can continue on your Mac  journey as easily as possible.  Although most of these articles are directed at the  new Mac user, there are some pieces that target the longer time Mac geek.  See  where you fit in.

The Brand New Mac User
Here are a couple of great articles that give you an overview of what you need to  know about your Mac, and some great keyboard short cuts to make working with  your Mac a bit speedier.

Mac 101: 56 Useful Shortcuts - Check this out for a complete list of Mac keyboard  shortcuts.

Find Out How – Straight from the mouth of Apple.  This site features tons of videos  and resources for the new Mac user.

Macinhome New Mac Services
FYI: Macinhome offers a great overall, introductory tutorial for the new Mac user, and we have a Mac set up package for anyone who has just purchased a Mac. If you sign up for either of these services, your Macinhome consultant will help you navigate around your new Mac, and he or she will show you some tricks.  But you might also want to do some research on your own vis-à-vis the above articles.

The PC-to-Mac User
This article, Your First Day With a New Mac: the get started guide for windows-users, is targeted toward the PC-to-Mac user who may be floundering without his or her PC-based short cuts and features.  For example, have you been wondering how to right-click on a Mac?   Are you lost without the colourful, PC Start menu?

If you’ve recently converted to a Mac from a PC, you should know that Macinhome offers a complete package designed to switch your system over from a PC to a Mac.  Your Macinhome consultant will fill you in on the all the Mac 411s, but reading online is also a good idea.

The Experienced Mac user
If you’re a long-time Mac user you might think you know all there is to know about your Mac.  You should, however, still read this article, Top 10 Things You Forgot Your Mac Can Do because it’s a good reminder of some of the wonderful Mac features   For example, are you using screen corners?  Do you have the date displayed in your menu bar?  What you don’t know might surprise you.

If you’re still craving tips, stay tuned to our Facebook page.  Our Macinhome consultants will be posting way more tips, tricks and advice in the months to come.

Staff Picks: Back to School With Professor Wickman

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
Back to School!

Our Kind Of Backpack (TM)

Below are Professor Wickman’s recommendations:

  1. Organizing your email is huge. Your workflow in Apple Mail will serve you till the ripe old age of thirty. Create both regular and Smart mailboxes to help you parse and organize your incoming email, and make sure you’re set up with an IMAP Gmail account, instead of the older POP format, so your computer talks intelligently to the server, and doesn’t just drag mail one way in a messy, abrasive net.

  2. For word-processing, presentation creation and spread-sheets, iWork is an amazing toolset. It’s a hundred bucks cheaper than Microsoft Office, but has all the same functions, and more! Plus, some outlets will give it out for free with the Back-to-school purchase of a Macbook. Useful!
  3. Snow Leopard was released at the end of August, and for just 35 dollars (the amount any given student wastes on friday night drinks), it will significantly boost your machine’s speed and performance. Technically, you can even upgrade from Tiger with the 35-dollar disc, but you didn’t hear it from me.

  4. The AppleStore extends a discount to students purchasing new MacBooks during back-to-school. Combined with one of their payment plans, this could put a machine in your hands in time for the first lecture. Trust me – school goes a lot smoother with a laptop in your bag instead of ten binders.

  5. Of course, owning a MacBook shouldn’t just be about taking notes. If you and your friends are watching videos, and finding that the screen dims every two minutes, a handy free application called “Caffeine” from Lighthead will solve this for you. Just click on the little coffee cup to fill it, and your screen won’t dim till you empty the cup. Handy!

  6. Backup your data! Leopard and Snow Leopard both come with Time Machine – a simple and phenomenally useful backup tool. If you can afford to grab a $150 external hard-drive, having the peace of mind backups provide is a no-brainer.

  7. Surf on over to www.apple.com/pro/tips or drop by Macinhome’s own tip page, to get the most out of your Mac.

  8. The iPhone 3G has dropped down to $99 a unit, as long as you sign your livelihood away for a 3-year plan – and why not? This device is incredibly handy for taking your contacts and calendars with you everywhere you go. Email and maps don’t hurt either, if one can afford a data plan.

  9. Tofu is a handy Application that reformats text documents to make them more readable. Handy when decoding illegible junk from your prof.

  10. Finally, once you do grab that affordable iPhone, here are three handy Apps for students to carry with them on the go:
    MobileTranslator - will help you with your language requirement. Translate any word into any language
    Convert – will convert any value into its equivalent in another denomination.
    Cambridge Talking Dictionary – a dictionary that speaks the words you want aloud.

Go forth, children, and be fruitful in your quests for knowledge. And let that fruit be an Apple.

Mac-ify Your Personal Life

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

The Beatles plagiarized this button.

Mac-ify Your Personal Life

Oftentimes, when people’s personal problems become overwhelming, they turn to an advice columnist. This not only alleviates them of burdensome personal responsibility, and decision making, but also exposes their problems to a wide, ravenous readership.

But who do you write to when your personal problems are Mac-related? Well fret no more, exhibitionist advice-seeker! Macman is here to solve all your problems – publicly!

Dear Macman,

My husband and I have come to a stage in our relationship that I can only describe as lamentable. According to him, I spend far more time with my new 13″ MacBook Pro than I do “strengthening our marriage”. On the one hand, I do admit that things used to be different between us, and a passion was there that has perhaps receded, but on the other hand…my husband certainly doesn’t have a unibody aluminum enclosure.

Is there hope for us, Macman? Is there anything I can do?

-Baffled Belinda

Hello Belinda,
It pains me to hear about how clingy your husband is, but you know how men get! They’re always so emotional, and commitment-centric when it comes to relationships…nowhere near as cool and rational as, say, a 13″ MacBook Pro.

If you really are committed to this schmoe (who, frankly, sounds like a PC user), why not try setting a date with him in your iCal? You could even toggle it to recur weekly, if you don’t feel this will smother you! Heck, you could even change your desktop background in the System Preferences pane to show a photo of yourself with your husband. I assume you have a couple of those from before Mac came into your life.

But seriously, Belinda, level with me: has a decade in a loving, committed relationship truly ever been able to compare with the wondrous bond forged between you and your Apple computer?

Can your husband fan all your documents out in a stack?

Can your husband do wireless, intelligent backups to a Time Capsule?

He probably can’t, Belinda. Because he’s just a man. Your MacBook Pro is your new Life partner. … your iLife partner.

-Macman