2023-11-03

For My Friends With Macs

This website is written for my friends and family that use Macintosh computers.

What's Here

I have shared a lot of Mac related info with people. It makes sense to write it down and organize it a little.

Beginners are sometimes overwhelmed by the vast amount of information on Google, but can't find a simple cookbook to get started with basic tasks. Often the Apple discussion forums are full of outdated information and incorrect guesses. I have tried to write down what I end up telling people how to do. As such, my recommendations reflect my biases, which may be right or wrong. Use these notes as a starting point, search the web, use common sense.

Some Questions Answered

How can I comment on your articles? I prefer that strangers create their own websites and comment there.

Why does the main page look ragged in Internet Explorer? I guess there was a bug in IE. Firefox and Safari work fine.

About The Author

I have been a Mac user since 1986, when we had a Mac Plus at home (with a 10MB hard drive). Lost count of how many different Macs I've owned; I used an original Mac Portable for about a year. I've used a lot of different computers and operating systems since then, and a lot of different Macs. Started using Mac OSX in 2001. When I want to get something done, I reach for my Mac.

I have been a professional programmer since the 1960s. In the 1990s, I worked for an Apple subsidiary, and made many friends who still work at Apple. In the 2000s, I worked on a research project that experimented with security improvements to the Mac OS X kernel; I worked on the internals of OS X and modified, built, and tested new versions of the kernel. As a result, I am under no illusions that the Mac is the perfect operating system: I have seen where some of the bodies are buried and even know some of the people who buried them.