If you have been having trouble with your Mac - perhaps finding it is slow, or getting the 'spinning beachball of death' far too often, it may be that you have problem with your Mac's hard drive.  Or there may be a simpler fix for your problem.

I was asked this week if it is worth downloading a product like 'Clean My Mac' or MacKeeper' to do a cleanup of a mis-behaving Mac.  

My answer is a big NO, that I would not download any such app.  I would instead use some build-in utilities provided by Apple on your Mac, as well as performing some basic checks and tasks.

A checklist for improving your Mac's performance

Before you go looking for other potential causes of problems with your Mac, go through the list below. (iTandCoffee Club members can get the detailed instructions for how to do each of the below in the Handy Hint:  A checklist for fixing a slow or misbehaving Mac.)

• Clean up your Desktop - having lots of files on your Desktop can definitely slow down your Mac.
• Restart your Mac, especially if you haven't done this for a while.
• Make sure you don't have too many apps running.  Close those that you are not using.
• Check for apps that are ALWAYS opening on startup.  These might not be necessary and could be consuming memory and processing capacity.
• Check if your Mac is too full.  Just clearing up some space on your Mac can make a huge difference.​  If your Mac is nearly full, this can be the cause of the slow performance.
• If you have Safari (or another web browser) open, close any tabs/pages that you are not using.
• Check what apps and processes are consuming all your memory and CPU, and check for (and terminate) any 'not responding' processes.
• Check for and remove any malware and adware that has been inadvertently installed on your Mac - this can really slow it down.

As mentioned above, all of the above tips are discussed in a Handy Hint for iTandCoffee Club members.  This tip gives a short, video tutorial on how to carry out each of these checks.

If you are not yet a member of The iTandCoffee Club, you can find out more about The Club here ».  Club membership gives you access to a huge library of great tips like this, as well as free sessions, discounts, great online content and more.  

We even have a great competition running - join the club before December 2017, and you go into the draw to win an iPad*.

What of the none of the above helps?
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I should say here that if you haven't done a backup lately, then it is probably time to do one NOW, to avoid losing your precious files, especially your photos, should you be unable to 'recover' from the problems that are occurring on your Mac.

If none of the above suggestions seem to resolve your Mac issues, it's time to look at whether there are problems with your Mac's hard drive, RAM, and maybe hardware.

In fact, it is worth checking your hard drive's health on a regular basis.  In writing this article and recording the Handy Hint to demonstrate how to check your hard drive, I actually found that my own Mac had an issue that needed to be fixed!  Thank goodness I checked!

Checking for problems with your Mac's hard drive is quite easy, using a utility that is provided on every Mac.

iTandCoffee Club members can learn about how to find and use this utility in the below members-only tip.

What to do if a problem is found and you are told to use 'Recovery' mode to attempt a repair

When you perform this check of your Mac hard drive, you may find that a problem is detected that can't be resolved immediately (as happened to me today!), and that you are told to attempt a further repair from a mode called 'Recovery'.

Learn about how to access and use Recovery Mode in the below Handy Hint for iTandCoffee Club members.

Would you like unlimited access to tips and tutorials like those described above?

Join the iTandCoffee Club today to go in the draw to win a new iPad!*

*Conditions apply.  See our iTandCoffee Club page for further information.

I had a call from my lovely Aunty V during the week, after the news came out about yet another 'ransomware' attack.

She asked me if I could explain a term that was being used in news reports, about the need to 'patch' your computer to ensure that you are protected against attacks.

Microsoft, Apple, Google (i.e. Alphabet) are constantly working on the software that runs our computers and mobile devices (know as operating systems), to ensure that evil-doers cannot gain access to our devices and lives via the internet.

Microsoft's computer operating system is Windows.  Apple's computer operating system is OS X or, more recently, MacOS.  Apple mobile devices run iOS, and many other mobile devices run Google's Android operating system. 

All of these operating systems are, at times, targeted by hackers who try to find 'holes' in the security of these system, so that they can sneak in and steal stuff from computers that run the operating system - or even (in the case of ransomware) scramble all the information that is on the computer so that we can no longer use it.

(I'll leave you to read up about ransomware in this article from Wikipedia:  Ransomware - Wikipedia.)

Most commonly, it is Windows that is the target of such attacks (as has been the case with the last two highly publicised 'ransomware' attacks). 

Microsoft, Apple and Google have, in most cases, already 'patched' the hole in their operating system security, and 'released' that patch as an 'update' to our computers' operating systems.  

Any computer on which the 'patch' is installed is protected if you, inadvertently, click on a nasty link or file in an email or on a website that might have otherwise taken advantage of the security hole. 

On some computers and mobile devices, these updates (patches) are automatically installed. 

The problem is that many computers have not been 'patched' because the business or individual user of the computer has not installed the updates that have been made available. 

This has left them at risk of falling victim to the ransomware attacks that seem to be getting more and more frequent.

The big question is how do you 'patch' your computer or device.

To help you with this, we have included some 'how to' articles about below, that will (hopefully) help you ensure your computer or mobile device is up to date with all 'patches'.

We know that for many of our clients and subscribers, the information provided in the above articles will still leave them unsure how to proceed.

If you need assistance with this area, iTandCoffee is available for one-on-one appointments at the shop in High Street Glen Iris, or in your own home (depending on location).

Over-the-phone support can also be provided if required.

Just call 1300 885 420 or email bookings@itandcoffee.com.au to make an appointment.

Do you sometimes find that, even though your device shows a 'full' 'Wi-Fi' symbol on your device (your computer, iPhone, iPad, or other device), you still don't seem to have any internet?

This issue came up in appointments with two clients this week.

​It is important to know that, even if you see full bars on your Wi-Fi symbol, this does not necessarily mean that you have internet.  The Wi-Fi symbol is just showing that you are connected to your router.  However, the router itself may have lost its connection to the internet.

In this scenario, your best bet is to go and switch off your router, leave it for a few seconds, then turn it back on.  In many cases this will restore your internet connection (once all of the router's lights are back on).

If it doesn't, the next step is to check if there is an outage in your area.

Here is a previous article on this topic:  If you have been having trouble lately with your internet or with sending mail ...

Cynthia D asked iTandCoffee this week:  "Last year you gave me that for how to clean up my computer so it would be faster. And it worked amazingly!
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I have tried to do it again but Windows has now upgraded to 10 and the configurations are all different and I can’t work out how to do it again.  Would you mind forwarding me your instructions I can use with windows 10 so I can have another clean out?"

The article that Cynthia referred to was an iTandCoffee Hany Hint from a while back, that describes how to stop unnecessary processes from opening up on startup of the computer.  Here is that article, applicable to Windows 7 and earlier.
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With Windows 10, accessing the list of 'startup' items is achieved differently.  Here is an article that covers this topic.

Since updating my iMac to MacOS Sierra, I have suffered constant freezes and crashes - which have gotten worse and worse, to the point where I have had to restart my Mac several times a day.

I have been nearly tearing my hair out - something that I can't afford to do!

I had tried everything I could think of to diagnose the problem.  The hard drive is fine, there is no hardware issue, no sneaky malware hijacking my computer, and I have been monitoring ingoing and outgoing network traffic using a handy app called Little Snitch.  

Nothing I tried seem to help resolve my problem.

I was on the verge of wiping my Mac and re-installing Sierra when I decided to try one last thing.

Oh dear.  My poor 3.5 year old iMac (the 28in variety) suffered a major, major failure this past week!

After suffering frequent and persistent 'spinning beachballs of death' last week, I worried that something was amiss and, between other work, started the process of diagnosing what was wrong with it.

It seemed that the hard drive passed all checks, and tests showed that the RAM and other hardware were fine.

But, my poor Mac was certainly still unwell, so I tried a couple of other resets - all to no avail.

After I had exhaused nearly all the tests and reset my login preferences, I decided to start up my Mac in something called Safe Mode - at which point, I got the dreaded black screen of death.

From that point on, any attempt to start the iMac up failed - it would look like it was starting but just give up and shut off after a few seconds.

At this point, I thought I had better admit defeat and booked a Genius Bar appointment at Chadstone's Apple Store - dreading the prospect of lugging my massive iMac through Chaddy for an inspection by a young Genius.

I decided that I would try one final thing before my appointment - pre-empting what I thought that the Genius would, most likely, suggest.  

Given that a successful Time Machine backup had been completed 5 days before it 'died' (thank goodness), I decided to do a full restore from that backup.   (Unfortunately, I would lose a couple of days' of work - the Time Machine had, without me realising, stopped working over a weekend when I did a lot of movie editing. Drat!)

I then waited the 40 hours it took to restore my iMac from the Time Machine backup, holding very little hope that my problem would be resolved.

Well, the good news is ....

It worked!!  And I am writing this article from my Lazarus iMac.  No more prolonged spinning beachballs, no black screen of death, and (thank goodness), no visit to the Geniuses!

I am just kicking myself I didn't take heed of the warning signs before it stopped functioning - I should have checked the backup was working.  This would have prompted me to separately back up the movies I was working on, to Dropbox or an external drive.

Hindsight is such a wonderful thing, isn't it.

The key message for everyone is - make sure you are backing up your Mac!  You never know when something could go wrong and, without a backup, you may lose EVERyTHING.

Not only as my Mac been mis-behaving this week - my new iPhone 6S Plus has been getting a 'Storage full' message, even though it has about 30GB of available storage!   This morning it showed this message for the second time in two days, then shut itself down.  Grrrr.

This was so strange, as it had shown that I had 23GB of storage yesterday afternoon - and I had not taken any photos or added anything to it since then.

What to try first in a situation like this

If you can identify the app that is causing the problem, you can double-press the home button and 'swipe up' that app to close it.  Sometimes this sorts out whatever is going wrong.

In a case such as mine where I was not sure what was causing the problem, there are a couple of other things to try.

Try a clear out of its memory

Your iPad and iPhone is pretty good at managing its memory (RAM), but on occasion can get itself into a bit of a knot.  

You can clear out your device's memory and see if that solves your problem - see the below article for instructions. This does not delete anything, and your list of 'recently used' apps remains intact.  

Perform a hard re-boot

The next thing I tried was a 'hard re-boot' my iPhone by holding down the Sleep switch and Home button for about 10 seconds, until the screen went blank and the white Apple symbol appeared - at which point I let go.  

This does a 'flush-out' (technically speaking!) and, once this is done, takes you back to the Lock Screen.  If you normally use your fingerprint to unlock, you will need to enter your passcode the first time you access your i-Device after the reboot.

Did this solve my problem?

Normally, one of these methods would fix whatever was amiss with my i-Device.  

In this case, however, it seemed to be something going awry with my Photos and iCloud Photo Library.

As soon as I deleted all photos from my Recently Deleted album in photos - something I had already done yesterday to (temporarily) solve the problem, 30GB was magically freed up - even though the storage used by my Photos did not show any change.  (I went to Settings->General->Storage and iCloud Usage to check this.)

I'll be taking a trip to the Apple Store if this problem occurs again!

If you have a lot of photos on your Mac, you may find that you are suddenly running short of storage space on your hard drive after you migrate your photos from iPhoto to the new Photos app.

On my 128GB Macbook Air, I suddenly found that I was getting a message popping up telling me that 'Your startup disk is full'.

Here's something that Apple doesn't tell you when you perform this migration to Photos: it leaves a copy of your photos behind in your iPhoto library, and and creates a new Photos library.  This means that your photos are suddenly taking up twice as much space as they used to!

​Here is a link to the article ››          

Related articles about your Mac

Below are some great Mac tips and tricks from the iTandCoffee Club's Handy Hint library.  Are you a member?  Why not Join Today!

• Where is Ctrl-Alt-Del on my Mac? / Force Quitting applications
• Enable right-click on your Mouse or Trackpad to get access to lots of 'context' options.
• Most used keyboard shortcuts
• Some more great Mac Keyboard Shortcuts
• Mac 'Sleep' settings - how to set the inactive period before your Mac sleeps, and how to require a password after it wakes
• Telling your Mac to startup with a 'clean slate' each time - preventing apps from automatically starting up each time you start up or log in 
• Conquer your Mac's spinning beachball
   How to check if your Mac is running out of storage space                                                 

Here are a couple of other handy Mac tips, provided in articles published by MacWorld over the past week.

• How to check you Mac's free hard drive space 
• The five most common Mac problems and how to fix them

Alan H says:  I have a problem with one of my apps – The Age digital – it has been working beautifully until now, but no more! 

A call today from a representative of the Office of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) restored my hope for a resolution to the ongoing battle with Telstra about a client's email accounts and billing accounts.

Words cannot describe how good it was to speak to someone that I could understand (!), and who understood the nature of each of the issues we have encountered.  This person was interested in understanding the full picture of what has happened since this tale of woe began.  No-one from Telstra has shown such an interest to date.  

So far, every time Telstra has tried to 'fix' something, we have found a new problem generated.

They have cut off email accounts, re-instated them incorrectly, not communicated changes they have made to email account settings, wiped out emails that had been re-instated, not cancelled an account that should be already cancelled, charged for that account that should no longer exist, not responded to a formal complaint for 8 days, not communicated regularly after assigning the complaint, and - after all this - have left the email accounts connected to the wrong Telstra account (something that we had to work out for them - it seems that no-one at Telstra was capable of noticing this).  Back to square one after weeks of aggravation.  

In dealing with past Telstra issues (my own and on behalf of clients), I would only have escalated to the TIO as a last resort.  However, the TIO rep that I spoke to today said that, in this case and others, we should have given Telstra only one chance to resolve the issue.

So, as soon as the issue had not been addressed the first time, we should have immediately then raised the TIO complaint.  And, when Telstra failed further in their commitments to resolve the problem/s, we did not need to wait the two weeks from the original TIO complaint to escalate our issue further with the TIO.

This is great to know - I certainly will show less tolerance for Telstra's 'run-around' and lack of communication and progress when seeking resolution to problems in future.

Our TIO rep has now taken control of getting the matter resolved, and discussing with Telstra the matter of compensation for my clients.  

Do you have the 'language' to talk to Telstra and other Telcos?

A key issue for many people in a similar situation to my clients, however, is that they don't have the language needed to talk to Telstra representatives in a way that clearly articulates the problem, and are unable to determine if what they are being told is reasonable.

In some cases, it is also difficult to determine if their problem has been properly addressed when Telstra says it has.  When things are still going wrong, is it something wrong at the Telstra end, or  perhaps with one of the client's devices.  Endless hours spent on Telstra phone calls or Live Chats can generate enormous stress, especially for older people.

I had a case recently where Telstra told my client that an ongoing problem had been resolved, then closed the corresponding complaint - even though nothing had been done to address the problem.  When I checked the account and saw the problem still existed, I then had to go through the process of re-opening the complaint.  That particular issue took 3 or 4 months to resolve, and should certainly have involved the Ombudsman.

Unfortunately, getting problems understood and addressed is made so much more difficult by foreign call centre accents that even I struggle to understand at times - especially given that much of the terminology being discussed is foreign to most people anyway.  This can make it difficult to identify whether an issue is at the point where it should be raised with the Ombudsman.

If you are having an issue with a Telco, and would like someone to act as your 'Advocate' when dealing with Telco staff - or just need help to interpret some of the language that you are hearing, or to help diagnose your Telco problem -  please don't hesitate to contact iTandCoffee on 1300 885 420.

And do keep in mind the advice given to iTandCoffee today by our lovely TIO case handler, about only giving the Telco one chance to resolve the issue before lodging a complaint with the TIO.  

Complaints can be lodged with the TIO at https://www.tio.com.au/making-a-complaint.

Well, my iPad just completely froze while I was trying to use one of my favourite apps, Evernote!

The Home Button didn't work - single OR double-click.  My usual trick of bringing up the task switcher and closing the mis-behaving app was just not possible.  Even turning off and back on seemed to leave it in a knot.

What do you do when your iPad just won't respond!?

Sometimes, you need to do what in called a 'force re-boot'.