Troubleshooting

If you have updated iTunes or moved your iTunes music library you may find that your song playlists seem to have disappeared. The good news is they aren’t actually missing, iTunes just isn’t finding them. There is no bad news, because you can recover the playlists rather easily, here’s how: Recover missing iTunes playlists This … Read More

Error 3194 in iTunes will usually prevent an iPhone, iPad, or iPod from being able to successfully restore. Typically Error 3194 will show up when iTunes is not able to communicate with Apple servers. If you run into Error 3194 in iTunes when trying to restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you might be … Read More

There are a few ways to properly eject a disk on a Mac, the first and perhaps the easiest method is to use the Disk Eject Key which is located in the upper right hand corner of a Mac keyboard (it looks like the image to the right). The disc eject key applies to all … Read More

If you need to place an iPad into DFU mode, you can do so with the instructions detailed on this page. These instructions will work to put any iPad model with a Home button into DFU mode. DFU stands for Device Firmware Update, entering DFU Mode is how you adjust the firmware on your iPad … Read More

You may notice an excessive amount of disk activity and high CPU utilization from a process called “find” that runs randomly in Mac OS X. This process has been a cause of concern by some users because of it’s behavior, but this is not spyware and the process should not cause worry. If you see … Read More

Some users are reporting that their song and media library has disappeared after downloading iOS 4.2.1 and installing the update. You’ll know you’re effected because instead of your typical iPod music library loading in the iPod app, you’ll get a message that says “No Content” and telling you to download music from iTunes. Fix the … Read More

You may have noticed that some Mac models display 3.75GB of RAM in the Activity Monitor when they have 4GB of RAM installed, but why is this? The answer is simple: your Mac has a GPU that uses shared memory. This means that your graphics card borrows some of the systems memory and uses it … Read More

Some users report variations of a “Network Connection Timed Out” error when trying to update their iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to a newer version of iOS or even when attempting to connect to the iTunes Store. Errors include but are not limited to: “There is a problem downloading the software” “Network Connection Timed Out” … Read More

Resetting your PRAM (or NVRAM) is a common troubleshooting technique when a Mac is misbehaving. We’ll cover how to reset PRAM on any Mac, as well as providing some additional information about PRAM and what it is to better help you understand when and why you’d want to reset it.

If you bought an iPhone app and it didn’t work on your device due to technical failures or limitations, or perhaps the app purchase was made in error by a child or someone else using your device, you may be eligible for a refund from Apple. Apple will selectively refund app purchases, though it’s not … Read More

Update 2: LetterBox for Mac OS X 10.6.7 has been released and it resolves the latest incompatibilities. If you’d rather fix the plugin yourself, follow the instructions below but use these two UUID’s instead: 9049EF7D-5873-4F54-A447-51D722009310 1C58722D-AFBD-464E-81BB-0E05C108BE06 Thanks to Vincent for providing the UUID’s in the comments! Update: A new version of Letterbox for Mac OS … Read More

Wondering what to do about a dead pixel or stuck pixel on an Apple device? Apple’s internal policy on dead and stuck pixels has been revealed. Titled “Acceptable numbers of pixel anomalies”, the internal document explains Apple’s policy on what they call pixel anomalies and how they handle repairs or replacements.

Adobe Creative Suite (CS) will automatically connect to the internet and attempt to initiate connections with Adobe Online Services and Service Update, this will happen regardless of you disabling the updates within the Adobe preferences for some reason. If you want to turn off the ability for Adobe CS to access the online services, kuler … Read More

AirPort Base Station Agent runs in the background of Mac OS X whether or not you use an AirPort Base Station. It’s a part of Mac OS X, and as the name implies it handles Airport Base Station connections as well as connections to Time Capsule. If you use either of these Apple products you’ll … Read More

If you’ve downloaded something from Adobe recently you may have unintentionally installed Akamai Download Manager. Akamai is a helpful content delivery network (at least for the web), but for whatever reason the Akamai Download Manager that is used and packaged with Adobe software often goes haywire on a Mac with usage spikes and random internet … Read More

AppleJack is a really handy troubleshooting utility for Mac that works even if you can’t load the Mac OS X GUI. Running in Single User Mode, it’s a simple menu-based tool to run a series of tests and repairs on the Mac OS. With AppleJack you can easily: * Repair Disk * Repair Disk Permissions … Read More

Who doesn’t love free software? MacScan is a full service anti-spyware detection tool for Mac OS X and for a short time is available entirely for free, so you need to jump on this one quick. For a limited time only (just today: 9/20) you can download this anti-spyware tool for FREE. Get the free … Read More

This is a rather strange error message which you may see in Mac OS X, you’ll get the notification “Another device on the network is using your computer’s IP address” and then you’ll lose internet access with the dialog box telling you to try connecting again later. No thanks, we need internet access now! So … Read More