New Hours! 9AM – 7PM
We are proud to announce that we are extending our hours from 10AM – 5:30PM to 9AM -7PM! Now all you folks who have been having trouble getting in here because of work constraints have some extra time in the evening and the morning to get your Mac dropped off and repaired or to acquire some of our specialized inventory. Our hours on Saturday are still limited to 10AM – 4PM but, even so, we think that everyone will be happy with this change. We hope that our new hours will better fit the community and we look forward to be able to see our loyal customers on their schedules.
Best regards,
Alexander Damast and the MacMechanic staff
Holiday Ad
Here is a preview of the ad we will be submitting for the holiday issue of the Santa Barbara Independent! We think it’s pretty cool and I hope you all like it as much as we do. We figured it should be eye catching, short, and charming; it depicts our logo in holiday colors with icicles on the wrenches with a bow to top it off. In the center it exclaims “Ho Ho Ho” in large printed text. We hope you share our enthusiasm for the holiday season and find our ad both slightly ridiculous and lighthearted. At the risk of sounding a bit too proud, I think we were able to accomplish our goals in this very special ad. Let us know how you like it and leave a comment on the blog!
All of us at MacMechanic hope to help make your holidays warm and stress free. As the ad says; “Whether you need an iPod as a last minute gift, or your computer fixed to make those ever-so-important holiday cards, we have you covered. From MacBooks to xServes, MacMechanic is Santa Barbara’s only Apple Specialist.”
Warm regards,
Alexander Damast and the MacMechanic Staff
Remote Support Beta 2.0!
We are getting ready to launch our next generation remote support system. We work hard every day to think of great ways to support our customers. We strive to keep up with the changing technology to offer cutting edge technologies. We invite you, our customers, to take part in this great new support program free of charge for the first five customers who contact us today only. Please visit macmechanic.bomgar.com and submit an issue. If you are one of the first five customers, your session will be on us! We look forward to continue investigating new and exciting ways for us to keep you guys up and running without ever stepping a foot outside of your house, office, or even your favorite coffee shop!
Service Excellence Award Q1-Q4 2009
When you’re on a roll, you’re on a roll. We are happy to announce that MacMechanic has received the final Q4 service excellence award from Apple, completing all four quarters of 2009! Apple started the service excellence award program in Q2 2008 and we have been continuing to achieve the high requirements Apple has set for our customers!
About Service Excellence (Apple Inc.):
“AppleCare provides special recognition to those Apple Authorized Service Providers who have implemented and utilized best practices to maximize their AppleCare Service Excellence scores in the four key metrics: repair turnaround time, KBB turnaround time, first fix time and parts per repair.
…
Congratulations and thank you for all your hard work in embracing operational excellence and providing outstanding customer service and support!” (picture inside blog!)
A Better Bottom Line
Learn how to increase your bottom line with Macintosh Computers and Mac OS X Server.
On Aug 19, MacMechanic will be holding a seminar, “A Better Bottom Line”, on Macs in the business world. We will be covering Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Server. RAID storage, and cost affective strategies for Macs in a business environment. We will have Keynote slideshows as well as a Q&A.
In less than an hour, we’ll show you how easy it is to integrate a Mac into your business. And some surprising ways a Mac can help increase your productivity. Come to our Better Bottom Line seminar to find out how
Who should attend:
- - Business owners or entrepreneurs considering a Mac
- - Business users wanting to use a Mac with their existing Windows applications and networks
You will learn:
- - How to get started with Mac OS X
- - How to connect a Mac to existing workgroups and other office computers, including PCs
- - How to communicate, share files, and use existing printers as a shared resource
- - How iWork ‘09 can help you create stunning documents, spreadsheets, and presentations
- - Feature set and true cost of running Mac OS X server.
- - Mac OS X in the retail space ( Lightspeed POS).
Sign up at:
Tech Tip: Evernote – A World of Knowledge at your fingertips.
So you are sitting somewhere you don’t want to be, and waiting for some thing you’re sure you will not care about tomorrow. What to do? Thinking swiftly, You pull out you iPhone from your pocket (or purse) and randomly search the web.
I believe I can speak for all of us, when I say this happens all to often, in this so called “Modern Life” we all seem to be trapped in. But what if, you could turn those moment of mindless web surfing into actionable, productive, and dare I say “edifying” moments of discovery. I know. . . sound impossible right. Well, not exactly, the collective knowledge of all human kind can be yours, if you only have the right Apps.
I know. . . sound to good to be true. And well, I may be playing it up a bit, but I do have a few suggestions on how you can turn minutes (or hours, you know who you are) of mindless web browsing into not so mindless web browsing.
The first app, is the Wikipedia iPhone app. A must have for those of us who love the random verbal tidbit, or the slightly odd meme of the moment. The second is not any app in particular, it can be one (or more) of the many news app, or any of the other site readers (Diggnation comes to mind.) It could even be one of the many eBook you can find at the app store. The source is not really the focus, it’s the collection of the interesting snippets, that we are concerned with.
The final App, is Evernote: http://evernote.com/. This application is not only on your iPhone, but on your Mac (and PC) as well. And get this. . . they sync. Now that the iPhone 3.0 software has copy-paste, you can save the things you want to remember on your iPhone, and it will sync to your Evernote account on line, then sync back to the Evernote application on your Mac (or PC) the next time you launch the app. It even allows you to have several different “NoteBooks” so you can categorize the thing you collect. It is free, but you can upgrade to a pay account.
I don’t care who are, a student, a lawyer, or just someone love to argue, and win. This application set will save you brain space, help with any project, big our small. With all the things the life can shoot your way, a little mental outsourcing can’t hurt.
Well that my two cents for this week. See in a fortnight.
-Seth
Tech Tip: Using File Sharing Services
One of the most useful functions of OS X is it’s powerful built-in file sharing services. You can easily set up custom shared folders for Windows file sharing, OS X file sharing, and the tried and true FTP file sharing. Virtually any platform is supported in some way. Simply turning on file sharing will allow anyone to connect to your machine and put things in your Drop Box without risking the integrity of your machine. Follow these steps:
1. Open System Preferences by clicking on your ‘Apple’ menu and selecting ‘System Preferences’.
2. Click on the ‘Sharing’ preference pane. Make sure the lock on the bottom left hand corner of the window is unlocked.
3. Click on the check box next to ‘File Sharing’. This will do two things – enable OS X filesharing (AFP) and share your public folder located in your home folder. Note: Anyone will be able to connect to your machine and have read access to this folder. They will not be able to delete anything from this folder and will only be able to copy items into the Drop Box folder. Nobody is able to READ the contents of your Drop Box folder except for you.
4. Now that you have enabled sharing for OS X users, you can easily enable Windows Sharing (SMB) or FTP sharing by clicking on the ‘Options’ button. You may also choose other folders to share by clicking on the ‘+’ button to the left of the options button. I would recommend leaving the default shared folders to minimize security risks.
5. Test your setup! Go to another OS X machine on your network. Open a new Finder window (click on File -> New Windows) and notice that your computer name shows up in the side bar under the ‘Shared’ heading.
6. Congratulations. Now when you are trying to figure out how to transfer that pesky Word document to another machine, you have a quick, easy solution.
WWDC 2009
Apple had their Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) today and they announced much more then we expected.
1. iPhone 3.0 software available on June 17th. Free for iPhone users. (apple.com/iphone/softwareupdate)
2. Macbook Pro’s have been updated. There are no longer any Macbooks except the $999 white machine. (store.apple.com)
3. iPhone 3GS announced with faster processor, video recording, better battery life. (apple.com/iphone)
4. Snow Leopard due for release in September. (apple.com/macosx)
The full keynote should be available for viewing shortly at:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/guide/appleevents/
Tech Tip: Recover from a liquid spill
Spilling any type of liquid on a computer is not an easy thing to recover from. Even if you get your computer to a functional state, there is no guarantee that it will stay that way for long. Even so, here are a few tips that can maximize your chance of having a working computer.
No two types of liquid affect your computer in the same way. Naturally water is a best case scenario for a spill. Any sort of liquid with sugar in it (soda, wine, etc) is very dangerous and damaging to computer components. Be sure to be extra careful when handling these types of drinks near any electronic device. If a spill does happen, perform the following steps immediately. Time can be a factor.
1. Turn your computer off - This step is important. If you are on a laptop, pull the battery out as soon as you can. Once again, time can be a factor. On a desktop simply pull the power cord. Remember: shutting a machine down like this can be damaging in it’s own way, only do this in an emergency.
2. Put your computer in a position to facilitate drying - Position your laptop with the lid half open on a hard surface. You could use a fan (NOT a heater) if the spill is just water.
3. WAIT, take a deep breath, relax – The worst thing you can do is panic. Do not turn the computer on to ‘test if it’s working’ (can’t tell you how many times I have heard that). Your data is ok, unless you fully submerged your computer in water then this is not a cause to worry.
4. Bring the machine to someone who can look inside it – Ideally bring the computer to a computer place like us. Do not try and open the machine if you have never done so before, a laptop requires a specific take apart procedure and you may damage your computer further if you try this yourself.
In almost every spill case we recieve, a customer attempted to turn the computer on. Please do not do this for your own sake. For a water spill that is relatively bad let the computer dry overnight (with a fan) or two days (without a fan). In the event that you spill any type of other beverage then take the computer in to a repair shop immediately. Even if the computer drys, there is still evough junk left inside the machine to cause significant problems. If memorize these steps and act quickly – your computer could be ok.
MacMechanic Support Service Setup
We are launching a new support system dubbed, for now, @support.macmechanic.net. This service will allow us to literally show you how to fix an issue by using a service called screen sharing. This service works only when the customer initiates a ’service call’. There is no way for us to control your machine in any way until you specifically accept the service request. Basically we will take control of your machine and you can watch exactly what we do. This allows for swift and quality service without you needing to leave the house!
The pay scale is as follows:
1. $20 per incident
2. $50 for 3 incidents
3. If the incident turns into a house call (Onsite) then all fees are waived
One incident gives you 30 minutes of service. If the incident takes longer you will be charged two incidents (up to the Tech’s discretion, we aren’t going to nickle and dime!)
To set up your machine to use our service:
A. Open iChat located in your Applications folder.
B. Go to the iChat menu in the menubar at the top of the screen.
C. Click the ‘Accounts’ tab at the top of the window. Click the +(plus) button on the bottom left hand corner of the window.
D. Set the account type to ‘Jabber’. The tech will inform you of which username and password you should use.
E. Click ‘Done’
That is all! You will receive a request to share your screen shortly afterwards.