“Fix It” collection
HTD Tech Briefs
View all →March 13, 2013
How To Fix a Broken iPhone Home Button – A Free & Easy Software Fix
Yesterday I received a panicked call from one of my daughters - "Daddy, my iPhone's home button is broken!" Tears and wailing ensued. But, as with any broken gadget, I was up for the challenge, knowing that I could either replace the iPhone home button myself or figure out some other way to breath a few extra days or weeks…
Read more →January 9, 2013
iOS Apps & Backups are Hogging Up Your Hard Drive – How To Easily Free Up Disk Space
I don't know about you but I am always looking for ways to clear up my laptop's precious free hard drive space. I have tools that clean caches, temporary files, language files, logs and files in my trash. But I never seem to get ahead of the game. I probably never will but a periodic cleaning is always an important…
Read more →July 25, 2012
How To Create a Bootable Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8) Installation DVD or USB Drive [Updated]
As many people know, Apple's new Operating System, OS 10.8 - a.k.a. "Mountain Lion," is officially available for purchase and download. Just head over to the Apple App Store on your supported Mac and purchase and install Mountain Lion now! As part of the upgrade process, your Emergency Recovery Boot Partition will be upgraded to support re-installs of Mountain Lion…
Read more →June 28, 2012
How To Set the Default Address Book in Microsoft Outlook 2010
I recently got a new computer at my work and got Microsoft Outlook 2010 installed on it. However, I kept running into problems as I was trying to send emails to people within my organization. I would type in their name and Outlook wouldn't find it. I would then click the "To:" button and no names would show. This is…
Read more →May 4, 2012
How To Create a “Work” Menu Like Office 2004/2008 in Microsoft Word 2011 for Mac
While I truly like Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac (you can see my review of it here on the Microsoft Office for Mac Blog), there are some folks who have complained about a feature being removed from previous versions, specifically, the “Work” menu that was present in previous versions of Word in Office for Mac (2004 & 2008). Personally, I…
Read more →April 23, 2012
How To Fix Adobe Fireworks Hanging After Launch on MacOS
Adobe Fireworks is the lifeblood of many web developers, artists and bloggers so when it stops running, I envision all of these groups running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Recently, I ran into an issue where when I launched Fireworks, it would run through the splash screen, loading extensions and the like but then hang, once it…
Read more →January 10, 2012
Video: How To Wrap a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro MagSafe Power Adapter the NEW Way
I have been in search of a really good way to wrap up my MagSafe power adapter for both my MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. The reason being, if you simply wrap them up the "conventional" way, you run the risk of fraying the connections which increases the risks of electrical shocks or shorting out your power adapters. And to…
Read more →October 28, 2011
How To Fix Applications Crashing After Upgrading to Apple iOS5 on the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch
The upgrade to Apple's iOS 5 is a few weeks behind us now and most people are up and running on it. And, now the iPhone 4S is out in the market and more people are migrating over from older iPhones to the new iPhone 4S. I haven't heard of too many issues as part of the upgrade process, though…
Read more →August 22, 2011
How To Easily Remove, Replace & Install an Apple iPhone 4 Battery
I have done quite a few installs and hardware replacements in my time, but never have I found an easier project than to replace the battery of an iPhone 4. As with many of my previous iPhones, I tend to blow through the batteries pretty quickly. Some of the signs that you have an aging battery are: battery drains faster…
Read more →August 4, 2011
How to Get Hostnames to Resolve over a Mac OS X VPN Connection
Yesterday I ran into a little issue. I tried to use my Cisco VPN client on my Mac after having upgraded to Lion. For some reason, it was not working. I did find some ways to correct that (the Error 51 issue) and how to migrate your Cisco setting over to the native Mac OS VPN client, but that will…
Read more →July 22, 2011
VIDEO – How to Re-Download Mac OS X Lion & Create Bootable Install DVD & USB Thumb Drive
Yesterday I wrote a post "How To Re-Download Mac OS X Lion & Create a Bootable Install DVD" and it seems to be helping a lot of people out there. So, sometimes it is even more helpful to create a video that explains the process, so I quickly put one together. Also, a few users were wondering how to create…
Read more →July 21, 2011
How To Re-Download Mac OS X “Lion” & Create a Bootable Install DVD
In my excitement yesterday about the release of the new Macintosh operating system called "Lion", I downloaded and installed the new OS without thinking about creating a bootable DVD since Lion is the first Apple OS to NOT come on DVD but rather be distributed via the App Store. You will also be able to order a USB stick from…
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