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Speeding up a slow-booting Mac

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| by | Techology, Internet, Gadgets |
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One of my Mac Minis with MacOS Mountain Lion started to act a little sluggish on boot. Well, not just a little sluggish, it took over 2 mins to bootup and become available to use. I even timed it:

Not good.

When this happens, it’s likely time for a PRAM reset. This is just a little Mac maintenance task you sometimes have to do. The good news is it works quite well!

1. Shut down your Mac. Don’t unplug it or anything, just shut it down. All shut down? Good.
2. Turn on your Mac and hold down Command, Option, P, and R keys all at the same time (all four keys).

Keep holding down all four keys until you hear the startup sound a second time.

3. Release the keys.

4. That’s it.

My Mac Mini went from taking over 2 mins to boot, back to a nice 1:03. Not super fast, but a lot faster than before!

There’s an extra 5 minutes a week you just got back!

The nightmare of online customer account management

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| by | Humor, Personal, Techology, Internet, Gadgets |
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AT&T_1307386263514

I recently switched banks and am now with the Lower East Side People’s Credit Union (highly recommended). Since all of my bills (AT&T, Time Warner Road Runner, Manhattan Mini Storage, Con Ed) are paid automatically, I have to go online and switch these checking accounts.

Think this was easy? Not only was it not easy, it was impossible. Their websites are down. I am telling you, here I sit, and several of these sites are down simulatenously. How is that possible?

As you read, keep in mind I took these screenshots all within 20 minutes of each other as I attempted to update my checking account.

AT&T Wireless, with revenues over $30 billion, cannot keep their site up

Time Warner Cable forgets the e-mail address linked to my account

I haven’t changed this since I enrolled years and years ago. So why all of a sudden aren’t they recognizing my e-mail? I can’t re-register, because, guess what, I don’t have my customer ID.

Paperless Billing=I don’t know my account ID

Often companies ask for things like your customer account ID. But since I’m on paperless billing (which they know, and have known for years) how can I possibly know my customer ID? It’s been 7 years since I ever saw a paper bill or my account ID.

Contact Us. Or Not.

In a final attempt to end the frustration of registering and logging in, I attempt to contact the company, in this case Manhattan Mini Storage to get this information so I can pay my bill. Think that’s easy? You haven’t been paying attention! The contact form asks for the same information I don’t have. Please enter your customer ID number, e-mail, etc. to contact us. I don’t have that!

So I finally find a form that doesn’t ask for all this information, and click submit.

Guess what?

404 Page not Found. I kid you not!

It’s like a sadistic game of catch 22. You don’t have your account info, but you need it to get your… account info.