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ATPM 3.02
February 1997

Dear ATPM readers,

I had quite a scare in the computer department in the last few days.
I like sorting and filing things and keeping them quite perfect.
My husband bought me a magazine for a treat, called "Mac Addict."
It came with a CD-ROM and lots of wonderful stuff.

First, I wanted some games.
I loaded several onto my hard drive
(not knowing that I could play them right off of the CD).

Then, I tried out a little file-sorting feature called "Tidy It Up."
It made a mess of my Hard drive.
I had no room to run any programs.
The screen became unstable.
My Mac was bumping programs.
I tried to cry but the shock was too much.
So, I wrote a note to myself on Claris Works:

Dear myself, I had some wonderful things working on this computer.
I will now have to throw away many things to keep my computer from crashing.
I love this computer and wouldn't know what to do without it.
Netscape is unstable and I don't know why.
I will continue this post later, because it is one thirty in the morning.
I need to sleep on this mess and make a concrete plan.

The next day's woes:

The computer has a bright screen.
I can hardly stand it.
My Netscape has corrupted words in Adlib font,
but not Geneva or Helvetica.
It has taken hours to get rid of " Tidy It Up."
Some problems are solved, but I still can't get this Adlib font
off Netscape and other programs.
My "Find File" is bumped out of the Apple menu.
I lost my Launcher button and have to open the hard drive manually.
My printer is unusable.
My fax/modem startup icon has a black circle around it with a line going through it.
It won't show up on the menu in it's place beside the Help.

I' m not crying yet, but
my nerves are popping and I can't sleep.
My nerves are popping and I'm stressed out.
Better call for help.

Apple Canada Help desk 1-800-263-3394
Wonderful kids.
The "Find File" is restored.
It was lost in the System folder.
I dragged it back to Apple Menu Items.
Got my Launcher back by going into the Control Panels folder,
making an Alias
and putting it back on the Desktop.
The font thing is still unsolved and so is the fax thing.
I'm getting sick over this.

Third day of woes:

I'm waking up from nightmares about
what could be wrong with my computer.
First thing in the morning I phoned
Apple Canada Help desk 1-800-263-3394.
Again.

Finally, some solutions.

I had duplicate fonts.
Two font folders were living in the System folder.
I was getting distortion on many of my programs,
including my e-mail.
I sorted out the fonts and got rid of the duplicates.
Font problem solved.

Screen brightness solved by using a little button
on the front of my Macintosh Performa 5200 CD.
I thought this was a sound button and kept turning it up.
I have a RAM upgrade to give my computer 24,576k total memory.
I figured it couldn't be the memory.

The kids at Apple Canada showed me that
the fax problem was in the Extensions Manager.
I went back to the set called communications and restarted.
Yeah! Solved.
Everything back to normal.
Or was it?

I wonder what is taking up all the memory?
I looked the hard drive to see how many "k" each program had.
I found a Simpletext document called "Read me."
It said there is no need to put these on your hard drive.
They take a lot of "k" to play.
You can play them right off of the CD....

I restored 11Mb by putting one game in the trash.
I trashed 5 games.
I played them from the CD and they worked.
Yeah!

Now, I have room on my hard drive to do what I want.
Using the program called "Tidy it Up"
and loading games which stole my memory
caused three days of computer headache.

Three days of hardly any sleep, worrying about my MAC crashing.
I don't recommend "Tidy It Up."
It is supposed to organize files,
but I like the organization I made myself
using the Launcher and Find File.

I've been trying out various programs lately.
Through this experience, I've learned about how my MAC interacts
with itself and other programs.
I don't recommend putting games on a hard drive
that can be played off the CD.
I'm proud of my MAC, he's revived.
I didn't have to do any drastic things to fix it.
I'm tired, and now I can sleep in peace,
knowing that MAC is OK.

Heather Isaacson is an aspiring writer, photographer and artist who lives in the back woods of Southern Alberta, Canada. She sometimes "snow shoes" to her "day job" but enjoys coming home to her Mac. ©1997 Heather Isaacson.

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