Why Does This Sandwich Maker Have a Logic Board?

1. Who are you?

Andrey “Andrey Summers” Summers; Macinhome Consultant.

2. How long have you worked for Macinhome?

Almost a year. Almost.

3. What’s the most complicated Mac situation you’ve come across?

I once arrived at a gentleman’s home, having been dispatched to fix his email. Once onsite, I discovered that our client in this case was an elderly Japanese man who spoke little-to-no English, and was also quite hearing-impaired.

The computer he was having trouble with was a 2001-era “Kiva” iMac, running Mac OS 9. Within this operating system, the mail client he was using was Microsoft Outlook Express 5. Oh – and every single word was in Japanese.

As Macinhome Consultants, we are expected to communicate clearly with our clients. We are also expected to have a firm grasp on what we’re doing and be up to date on troubleshooting practices. I think you can see how being up-to-date and well-versed in English were almost entirely vestigial skill-sets in this case.

Luckily, the client and myself managed to understand just enough of what the other person was communicating to surmount the language/auditory barrier, and after some baffling poking around I managed to solve his problem in about half an hour.

Don’t ask me how I did it, though, because I still have absolutely no idea.

4. What’s the most frequent problem that you fix (at work)?

Dysfunctional email.

People tend to think of their email application as this mysterious, genie-like benefactor that stops bestowing you with letters when it’s displeased, or you’ve run out of wishes. Really, it’s more like a high-school locker with a combination lock. Sometimes, the lock sticks, but really as long as you have the combination, you’re okay.

In this scenario, your email provider is the popular girl who doesn’t remember your name, whose locker you’re desperately trying to break into.

5. What do you love about your job?

I experience a somewhat unhealthy, narcotic thrill when a client’s computer goes from being a pile of problems, and suddenly becomes the ultimate solution for their workflow, or lifestyle. It’s basically that moment that I’m chasing every day at work. Yeah, it sounds worrisome, but I’m reasonably sure that Macintosh isn’t a gateway drug.

At least not to anything but micro-transactions.

6. What’s the next piece of software/design feature/device that you’d like to see Apple bring to market?

I guess I’m supposed to say “the tablet”, but I’ve never really liked tablets. Honestly, I’d like them to find a way to lower the price of a new MacBook. The world would be so much calmer. When’s the last time you saw a terrorist on 24 hacking CTU’s mainframe on a Mac?

Editor’s Note: After writing this, Andrey started watching season 8 of 24 and was baffled to discover that now CTU does all their hacking on Macs! Also, CTU NY looks exactly like an Apple Store.

7.  What’s one Mac-maintenance habit you wished your clients would undertake on an ongoing basis?

Keep your Applications in the Applications folder! Surely you’ve seen what it’s called.

Andrey also writes for various websites! Look – we have proof!

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

Out Team Lead boldly goes where no man has fit before.

1. Who are you?

Corey “Toque” Zaytsoff; Team-Lead.

2. How long have you worked for Macinhome?

One and a half of your human years.

3. What’s the most complicated Mac situation you’ve come across?

Once upon a time, in a dark part of my history, I was a member of the Langley Best Buy Geek Squad. During this time, I became known for my skills with Apple Computers and had formed my own client base. During this time, there was a gentleman (30 years old) and his father (around 70) that came in to buy a MacBook Pro. The whole buying process took about 2 weeks for them as they had a lot of questions, but I found them to be enjoyable individuals. Then, two months later, the son came back in with a heavy look in his eyes.

It turns out that while he was at a friends house, his friend accidentally spilt a keg of beer on his MacBook Pro and the machine now refused to boot. To add to the tragedy, he had pictures of him and his dad on the machine which he had not backed up – pictures that needed to be recovered because his dad had recently passed away.

Buying that MacBook Pro was the last thing they did together.

I spent over 13 hours on that machine, disassembling it and cleaning each part of all the residue and replacing cables in hopes of getting it to boot. Because this was physical damage, neither Best Buy nor Apple would help the guy. I finally got the machine to work with the hard drive intact, pictures saved.

When asked the above question, most technicians will tell you about a highly complicated job based on a technical scale. However, given the nature of what we do, I find the emotional aspect can make a job so much harder. I always remind myself that even though a client’s computer is just metal and electricity to me, it has a soul to them and has to be handled with the utmost care.

This is what makes any job difficult.

4. What’s the most frequent problem that you fix (at work)?

Inter-office romance. And wireless problems.

5. What do you love about your job?

I’ve always loved problem solving! To come to a solution when everything seems dire – there’s no feeling like it. The people I work with keep my sanity in check though, by being completely insane themselves. Even when everything seems madness inducing, we always find a way to poke fun at each other and laugh.

Isn’t that right Audrey and Blair?

6. What’s the next piece of software/design feature/device that you’d like to see Apple bring to market?

Two things:

1) MacBook Tablet – Come on Apple, we know you’ve been ordering touch screens big enough to be tablets. Just release the damn things already!
2) Apple Netbook – Apple said it couldn’t make a netbook that wasn’t “junk”, but I own an Acer netbook (relax folks, I’m running Linux on it) and it runs fantastically. I’ve hacked a Dell netbook (can Apple sue me for that? I bought the copy of Leopard…) and it was the greatest little portable machine ever! If Apple dropped prices down into that area and created that little a machine (MacBook Air is technically portable, but is a bit glitchy in my opinion), their market share would skyrocket.

7.  What’s one Mac-maintenance habit you wished your clients would undertake on an ongoing basis?

Laptop owners – Clean your screens and organize your “Download” folder.
Desktop owners – If the images in your iPhoto library are of a private nature, don’t ask me to organize it for you!

I blush easy.

One Sassy iPod

Macinhome is celebrating the opening of the Oakridge Apple Store by giving away an iPod Touch. Help us celebrate by entering the iPod Touch draw on our website.

Entry deadline is Saturday October 10th at 10:00am Pacific.  Full details on our website.

Winners are determined by random number generating from http://random.org/. Good luck!

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.

Yes, Roshena Huang (www.roshenahuang.com/), Vancouver musician extraordinaire wrote a full review of her Macinhome experience on her blog Thoughts For Company.  http://www.roshenahuang.com/2009/09/macinhome-is-in-da-house-consider-name-change-to-macindahouse/.

In her articled entitled “Macinhome is in da house! (Consider name change to Macindahouse?” Roshena uses her keen wit and critical eye to generously run through her entire Mac Tune-up experience. Although the entire article is an informative review of our services, we did best love her apt summation of Macinhome:

“There is something refreshingly different about how Macinhome interacts with its clients – and something simultaneously familiar in that you actually speak to a human being in a reasonable amount of time.  Even the automated hold message is honest and unpretentious.”

Roshena, your awesome praise was a big treat on a Tuesday morning.  Thanks, again.  Thanks, also to Miss 604 for running the contest.

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

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

We’re running a contest with a local, Vancouver blogger, Miss 604 ( www.miss604.com ). You can enter to win a free two-hour tune up and tutorial – worth $190. Just post a comment about your Mac here: http://www.miss604.com/2009/08/mac-tune-up-giveaway.html

How does it work?

An Apple-certified Macinhome consultant will visit your home to revitalize your Mac and put the spring back in its step.  By the end of the visit, your Mac will have its system optimized, caches cleared, oil changed, Desktop uncluttered (unless you prefer it cluttered), and performance tested.

Macinhome would love to have the opportunity to give your Mac some “me” time – please give us a call at 1-877-707-MACS (6227) or visit us at www.macinhome.com to book an appointment.

The Misused Monitor In Question

Macinhome Mobile Consultant (MMC) Blake Wickman is not a scientist. Anymore. He is, however, a self-proclaimed expert in the field of Brainology. As a brainologist, Blake has made some controversial discoveries regarding what he calls the “nerd-brain”. This tertiary growth between the cerebral cortex and cerebellum – divided into the Upper, and primal Lower nerd-brain, is what gives the select few people in whom it is developed the ability to over-complicate problems, and to deconstruct them to an inane degree, especially when a simple solution is readily available.

Macinhome hires only people with overdeveloped, almost tumorous nerd-brains. This recurring blog feature will be devoted to chronicling the complex, nerd-brain solutions MMCs came up with to problems that turned out to have rather simple outcomes. Hark, Nerding the Question:

MMC Andrey was sent out on one of his first solo jobs during his training period. The client was initially OK with his performance, but she called in later sounding pretty concerned. She had switched from Microsoft Entourage to Apple Mail (with Andrey’s help and at his insistence) When he’d left her everything had been working fine, but now when she opened her Mail Application, the window would not appear.

The client explained that the menu bar did, indeed, change to display Mail as the primary running application…but nothing to the tune of a list of emails would eclipse her desktop background. Nothing at all. Andrey was concerned, and his brain Nerded the Question.

He asked the client to quit out of Mail, restart the program and lastly, to restart the computer. No improvement. Nerding the question further, Andrey asked the client to click Window > Zoom, in case Spaces was running, and the mail window had shifted to one of the virtual desktops Spaces creates – this would center it in the current screen.

Nothing. Andrey began to feel the burn. He asked the client if he could call her back, and he got on the horn with a more elite Fully Trained MMC. A short discussion later, the Question had been Nerded to the nth degree, and it looked like the next move would have to be removing Mail’s Preferences file in <username>/Library/Preferences. , The client’s user accounts would have to be set up from scratch, but that would be a small price to pay in resolving this complex, software-based anomaly.

Back on the phone with the client, Andrey was about to walk her through toasting her Mail Preferences when a solar flare (or possibly a local microwave or cell-phone signal) suddenly caused his nerd brain to temporarily shut down. Able to think with his normal brain for a split second, Andrey suddenly remembered that the client had a secondary external monitor hooked up to her MacBook.

“Wait!” he said. “Your Mail isn’t displaying on your second monitor, is it?”

“Oh, no, no,” said the client, “The second monitor is off.”

“Would you mind turning it on for me?” asked Andrey delicately.

And there was the Mail window. Safe and sound on the second window. Just a power button away.

Before Nerding the Question, Remember: When you turn off an external secondary monitor, its contents are Still There.