“Fix It” collection
HTD Tech Briefs
View all →April 15, 2015
How To Fix: Billing Problem with Family Member’s Purchase in iOS/Mac OS X
How to fix iTunes error "There is a billing problem with a family member’s previous purchase."
Read more →March 6, 2015
How To Fix Repeating Black Boxes in a Row in Microsoft Word
How to fix repeating black boxes that appear in a row on Microsoft Word. What causes them and how to stop them from happening.
Read more →December 30, 2014
How to Reset the TeamViewer ID After Cloning a Mac
Recently, I set up a new MacBook Pro for my step-mom where I used Apple’s Migration Assistant to easily copy over all of her data, applications and preferences. One of the applications that I actually use on her machine is TeamViewer which is fanstanstic if you need to provide remote assistance to a Mac or PC (you can actually set up a…
Read more →December 22, 2014
How To Replace a MacBook Pro Keyboard after a Liquid Spill
Liquid and laptop keyboards are not a match made in heaven in any way. In fact, if you don’t act quickly, a liquid spill will fry out the circuitry in your laptop very quickly. I recently received a mid-2012 MacBook Pro (MBP) 15” with Retina display from a family member who spilled some coffee on it. A row of keys…
Read more →November 24, 2014
How to Fix Mac Office 2011 Crashing in Yosemite [UPDATED X3]
Recently, my version of Office for Mac (Office 2011), started crashing on my MacBook Pro. Every time I launched Word, Excel or PowerPoint, the app would crash after a few seconds with an error asking if I wanted to recover my work, reopen the Office app and send the error to Microsoft. It didn’t matter if I opened a document…
Read more →October 23, 2014
13 Tips to Optimize Your Mac After Yosemite Installation [UPDATED]
As most of us know, Apple's latest operating system Yosemite (10.10), a free upgrade from Apple, is now available. And with it come a lot of nice new features, visuals and enhancements. But, as with any upgrade, there is always the possibility of having issues. While I had been running the Developer Preview on my MacBook Air and had not…
Read more →September 30, 2014
How to Fix iTunes Error 1723 When Syncing iPhone or iPad
I stumbled across an error when I was syncing my Apple iPhone 5S running on Apple's iOS 8 with iTunes on my Mac. It was an iTunes Error 1723. Apple errors are always a bit cryptic and sometimes require you to do some searching to find a solution. So, hopefully you found this article while searching for "how to fix…
Read more →September 11, 2014
How to Turn Off Facebook’s Auto-Play Videos & Save Data
If you are anything like me, you watch your cell phone's data consumption very closely. And given that I have 4 other people on my family shared plan (3 of them being teens & almost a teen), there are some apps that simply gulp down data. Tweens and teens absolutely LOVE image and video apps (think Instagram, Vine, SnapChat and…
Read more →September 3, 2014
How To Change the Default Browser on Mac with Chrome Canary and Chrome
Google recently released a 64-bit version of its browser, Chrome Canary. If you want what Google calls "the bleeding edge of the web" type of browser, you can download and install Google Chrome Canary for Mac (or Windows). It has the latest features and is targeted towards early adopters, developers and the like. I had been using the beta channel…
Read more →December 17, 2013
This Amazing Fix Will Get Your MacBook Air Charging Again!
I have an older MacBook Air and absolutely love it. It has performed flawlessly and is well used by me and my kids. However, I have had a lingering issue that has appeared every few months or so that has often left me scratching my head. Sometimes, when I plug in my 45 watt power supply, the little green light…
Read more →June 21, 2013
How To Fix “Login to server imap.mail.me.com failed” Issues on Postbox or Thunderbird
There is nothing more annoying than getting repeated email error messages in your email client from an email server. Sometimes this can be caused by issues with the server, or perhaps the connection, or because some configuration has changed or simply because you have not set up your email properly. Recently in my Postbox app (which is based on the…
Read more →April 25, 2013
How to Stop CHKDSK from Running on Every Boot Up
Recently, my Windows 7 computer started running a CHKDSK each and every time that it booted up. For those that don't know, the CHKDSK utility is a way that Windows validates the system file structure and integrity of your computer's hard drive. You can scan your hard drive with it or run it with a fix (/f) flag to correct…
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