Backup Data from one Apple Computer to another

There are many useful and easy to do things with Apple Computers.

If you have failed to back up your data (which should never be the case) and for whatever reason are unable to access your desktop you can still easily retrieve your data (assuming that the data itself is not corrupted).

You create a firewire connection between two Apple computers. The working one will recognise your broken one (the one whose data you cannot access) and recognise it as a standalone drive. You then can simply drag and drop the data you wish to move to the new machine before possibly reinstalling the Apple operating system, or whatever else is necessary to return your computer to stability, onto the broken machine.

The same can be done in the Windows environment, i.e. reading data from a corrupted drive, but it means dissasembling your PC, removing the hard drive and connecting it via the CD or DVD drive of your computer. However, it is not as straightforward as in the Apple environment.

Compliments to Apple Support

Today, after installing some Apple updates, my iBook would not restart.

I called Apple Technical Support (133 622 – Select Option 2 and Option 2 again) for assistance, and they ran through various steps to get my system back up and running, which it did and with no loss of data or settings.

There are many things that could have caused my problem, which I will never find, despite my natural curiosity for an explanation.

During the call to Apple, whilst I was put on hold so that the support agent could seek assistance from higher level support, the line dropped out (this seems to often occur when you are put on hold). I then called back, but impressively, the Apple representative had tried to call me back, finding that my line was engaged. For this, as well as their professional support, they deserve high praise. Not all Support Help Desks would or do call you back, if for any reason your call to them drops out. And we all have experienced delays in getting through to these technical assistance lines. Once is bad enough. Having to do it a second time or more… So anything that reduces the time spent waiting to get through to a person on the other end gets high marks from me.

Other technical support lines could take a leaf from Apple and call you back if the connection drops out.

Lastly, it is issues such as I have just experienced that makes an investment at the time of your Apple computer purchase of Applecare that makes the expense worthwhile.

Receiving Attachments from Apple Computers on a Windows Machine (unable to open)

Have you ever had the problem that you receive a file attachment via email and it is an unknown format, and you have no program with which to open it?

This can happen with an Apple user sending a file to a Windows users and the file extension is a .dat file, which cannot be opened by Windows. Well it is not as problematic as it may at first seem. For files that you know from the sender are files with common extensions such as a word processing file (.doc) or a spreadsheet (.xls), see the example below.

In our example there is a file called UNKNOWN FILE.

All that needs to be done is to right-click over the file in question, select RENAME.

In our case we renamed it as follows KNOWN FILE.Doc.

The important part is to add the extension of the file when renaming it. As can be seen from the picture, the icon has changed into a Word Icon and can now be opened in Microsoft Word.