Macintosh


Mac Deb repaired

Traveling Mac Maven strikes in Prescott, AZ

Day 1 in Prescott, Arizona — February 18, 2014: I arrived in Prescott to clean up and repair a MacBook Air, having already saved it from daily Kernel Panics via phone. How did I end up in Prescott? A client from Beverly Hills has moved here. Day 9 in Prescott, Arizona — February 26, 2014: The woman who’s Mac I just resurrected told Apple techs that her Macintosh was about to be “the most expensive frisbee ever made” because she was ready to throw it against the wall. She’s had an ongoing love-hate relationship with all things Mac (and she’s had 5 of them) and now she’s l-o-v-i-n-g her Mac again! She has give me the title of “Residential Macintosh Intervention Maven.” After I dealt with the software-caused issues and ran diagnostics to assure her that her hardware was not the issue, I embarked on a massive file clean up. As […]


The first Mac I couldn’t make more efficient

After years and years of helping people make their Macintosh computers more efficient, I finally came across one that I couldn’t set up for more efficiency. I met a new Mac user who has a beautiful MacBook Pro. When I hit Command-N to start a new browser window on his Mac and see his default settings, he asked how I did that. So now he knows about keyboard shortcuts and how to learn them. But… I was not able to set his Finder settings and customize his menus. His Mac is in Japanese. and my Spanish isn’t good enough to explain where he needs to go and what he needs to do. OK, truth is, given time, I would be able to recall menus or change the language and set it up for him. But that just wouldn’t be appropriate while he needed to do his work. He is another […]


Photo editing software for the Mac

Traveling without my Mac, unable to activate the copy of Adobe Creative Suite that was on my (now-lost anyway) clone, I was left without photo editing software. When I arrive at a location that has a Mac, but doesn’t have Photoshop, I am in need of photo editing software in order to do some of my work. (And because I want nice-looking photos at the top of this page.) The solution? The greatest find! Pixelmator — by  Pixelmator Team Ltd. For anyone, this is a fabulous find. It does much of what Photoshop does, but costs only $29.99 as I write this. When I am able to get my hands on the right OS X install disk and rebuilt my bootable clone, I hope, and expect, that I will be able to purchase this excellent software once and be allowed to use it from my clone on any Mac that I boot […]


About Tales of Travel & Tech

When I decided to pack up my belongings and travel some of our great world’s roads with just my Mac, a few select pieces of tech, and whatever clothing basics that fit into my convertible backpack, I had no idea just what adventures in tech I was personally in for! What I knew: as long as I had my Mac I could continue to earn my living from wherever I was I’m the world. I would just need to not go off-grid (Internet grid and electrical grids, that is) for more than a week at a time. Easy, I thought. What I learned: even living in another state, staying in my hometown of NY, it was not easy to work. (in fact I took on a job that was much larger than its description and was quickly overwhelmed trying to get online, do the job, and actually get out and […]


Apple in Cancun

Of course, I had to see Apple Resellers in Cancun. I plan to do so everywhere I go. The iShop, with 20 stores in Mexico, is the largest reseller, I believe. Coming to see them was more than a wish after my Mac was stolen. I was desperate to plug my SuperDuper! Clone into any Intel Mac so I could access my info, make sure data was safe and work out ways to get my work done. Anyway, here is the iShop. oh, the huge box in front is a promotion: bring in an old piece of technology and get 1,000 pesos off your new Mac. It was fun to check out the box each of the 4-5 days I came by.