Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

Where to Get Troubleshooting Help

If the basic steps described in this chapter haven’t helped, the universe is crawling with additional help sources.

Help Online

These Internet sites contain nothing but troubleshooting discussions, tools, and help:

• MacFixIt (http://www.macfixit.com). The world’s one-stop resource for troubleshooting advice.

• Mac newsgroups (such as comp.system.mac). A newsgroup is an Internet bulletin board, which you can access using a program like Microsoft Entourage or Thoth (http://www.thothsw.com). If you’re polite and concise, you can post questions to the multitudes here and get more replies to them than you’ll know what to do with.

• Other Apple support resources (apple.com/support). Apple’s help Web site also includes downloadable manuals, software updates, frequently asked questions, and many other resources.

The mother of all troubleshooting resources, however, is Apple’s own Knowledge Base. This is the collection of 50,000 individual technical articles, organized in a searchable database, that the Apple technicians themselves consult when you call for help.

If you like, you can visit this library using your Web browser (http://kbase.info.apple.com) or right within Sherlock 3 (click the AppleCare icon). You can search it either by typing in keywords or by using pop-up menus of question categories.

Help by Telephone

Finally, consider contacting whoever sold you the component that’s making your life miserable: the printer company, scanner company, software company, ...