General Maintenance Rebuild the Desktop Rebuild the desktop on floppies and removable media: Crashes and Freezes Memory Installing More Memory on an iMac (Hardware) Increasing Application Memory Saving Time by Making an Alias Your Mac can accept voice commands
PC Troubleshooting
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This method will delete any comments you have entered in the Get Information windows for all files. You may use Tech Tool (freeware) or Conflict Catcher 8 (about $50) to rebuild the desktop and they can be set to save your comments. Do this more frequently if you use your Mac a lot. Important!! Apple's official recommendation is that you rebuild the Desktop only after you've turned off all your extensions and control panels. Most Mac books don't mention this and most Mac users just do the following:
If your hard disk has several partitions each partition has its own desktop file, after each desktop file is rebuilt, you will get a dialog box asking if you want to rebuild the next one. Go ahead and do it.
Every floppy disk, zip disk, removable cartridge or drive partition has its own desktop file AND trash. If you put files in the trash on a floppy, but don't empty the trash, the file is still taking up space on your floppy so empty the trash if you want more space on your floppy.
Get as much memory as possible in your iMac. OS 8 +++ takes more than half of the memory installed in a 32 Meg iMac. You must have more than this to operate a lot of software. Here's what to do:
This allows your Mac to think it has 64 Megs of RAM. You can then operate some software too. Apple says that you should never have both your RAM and disk cache set near their max because this will cause erratic functioning of your Mac for some unknown reason.
iMac memory installation is not as easy as on other Macs. This site takes you to a page with pictures and text on how to add more memory to your iMac. Take a look and, if it looks too hard, take your iMac to a dealer. If you can handle it yourself, order your memory and knock yourself out. If you decide to do it yourself, make sure you get the grounding straps from Radio Shack if they don't come with your memory module. 32 megs of RAM is really sufficient to run most of the software you normally want to run. If you are a computer nut or want to change your iMac from a great computer to a knock your socks off computer, then more memory would be in order.
Bookmark my page so you can get back here again. This takes you away from my page completely.
There are three memory values assigned to every application. You can and should change one of these if you have any problems with a particular application. If one of your applications is slow or crashes or freezes, do this:
The alias is one of the neat things about a Mac. You put your applications in a permanent place, make an alias and then you can move the alias anywhere you want the application icon to be and treat it just like the application.
You can highlight (select) your word processor application icon, press control - m, and you have an alias. You move the alias to your desktop and it is always available to turn on your word processor. You can move it anywhere or delete it without affecting your application.
The best use for an alias, is to put it into the Apple Menu. Windows users have the "Start" icon, but this was ripped off from the Apple Menu. Mac users can put any application or document into the Apple Menu and be able to open it by selecting it in the Apple Menu without having to search for it through folder after folder. This saves a great deal of time and frustration.
There are at least three ways to get aliases of your applications into the Apple Menu. If you are familiar with Applescript, you can find and use an Applescript that you drag your application icon onto and it will make an alias and place the alias into the Apple Menu. I don't like dragging my application icons anywhere so I used the manual way until I discovered .....
Now I just click once on the icon of the item I want in the Apple Menu and say: "Add this to the Apple Menu." I hear a thud, look in the Apple Menu and, voila!, there it is.
Here's the manual way to place aliases into the Apple Menu.
Fill in the blanks below if you have a comment or a question. When you hit the send button, you will get a notice that your e-mail address will be sent along with the information. Being a busy student myself, I have delegated "me dear old dad" to help me maintain this webpage. The info provided by you below will go to him. He thinks he's a Mac Guru, but he may be able to help you. He'll send the info either directly to you or post it here without identifying you or your e-mail address.
I expect this page to help me keep my iMac chugging along so please respond.
There are some things you should always know about your Mac such as your model and your Operating System. The most Recent operating system is OS 8.6. OS 9 is expected in September or October. Other operating systems might be 6.0, 7.1, 7.1.2, 7.5.3, 7.6, 8.0, 8.5 or 8.6. This information is necessary to diagnose problems.
I am especially interested in the Mac experience here at CWRU. If you know of places nearby to buy peripherals or get Mac help or repairs, I would appreciate your adding a comment here. If you know someone on campus who is a real Mac Guru, I would also like that information. If you have information about a problem you have had solved and want to share it, please enter it here.
After filling in the three fields, pressing the "Send Info" button sends the info to dad. Pressing "Clear" deletes all of your info from all three fields and sends nothing.
By the way, if you happen to see me around campus, please don't ask me for any help with your computer. I am very busy and would prefer that you use this method to communicate about computers. Thanks for understanding. After all, I have a Strawberry iMac, not a Ph. D. in computer science.
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