Welcome to the Twin Peaks Geeks/GeekHampton™ Newsletter. We hope you’ll find it interesting and helpful. Our aim is to impart some tips and general Mac knowledge to you our clients. Feedback is important so if you have something to say about what you read in the newsletter please let us know.

Free Advice...

It’s fitting that in this inaugural edition of the GeekHampton™ Newsletter we pass along some advice we received from a dear departed colleague, Rob Shengold: Restart! His advice is just as relevant today as it was back in the days of OS 9. What do we mean by Restart? It means that when your Mac is acting wacky, is sluggish or generally misbehaving you should just Restart the computer. So many times this simple advice will resolve the situation without a phone call to Sheryl or Mike or Amy or a call center somewhere in the world. Don't get us wrong, we'd love to hear from you but...

The second piece of basic advice is to backup your Mac. It’s never been easier to do this. Apple’s Leopard operating system has a program called Time Machine built in that handles the task of backing up with ease. You still need to check on Time Machine though and make sure it’s doing the job you think it’s doing: saving your data. You also need to have an external hard drive in order for Time Machine to have somewhere to backup to. There are many solutions for this task and the good news is that hard drives are bigger and less expensive than ever. If you don’t have Leopard on your computer there are other solutions that can be employed. Give us a call or email us if you need some direction setting up a backup.

Web Surfing Tip

Surfing the Web and need to enter in a new web address? The easiest way is to use this keyboard shortcut. Press the Command + L. This highlights the Address field in most web browsers (think Location). Now begin typing in the new web address. Press Return on the keyboard to go to the site.

What's New

Classes...

That's right, small group training sessions in your favorite programs including iPhoto, Mac Mail, iPhone, iTunes, Address Book, Photoshop, Basic Computer Skills, and more. Most classes are an hour and ten minutes long and cost just $75. Take a look at our current course schedule here. We'll be adding more and more classes and we'll update you when we have a new one. Want on-site tutoring in a program we aren't currently listing? Just email or phone us to customize a class just for you.

Stuff...

We have a great inventory of both fun and necessary computer equipment - laptop cases, iPhone skins, silly gadgets and some of the more serious stuff like back-up drives, keyboards, Apple Power Adapters, Laptop Batteries and, well, computers. We are now an authorized Apple Reseller, so please come by and check us out.

Website...

Wow, we FINALLY have a website, thanks to Meaghen Damato our Webguru! Please check us out - you'll find all kinds of useful information including easy do-it-yourself troubleshooting fixes and fun tips and tricks. You can also register for a class or contact us for tech, teaching or web services. http://www.twinpeaksgeeks.com

Cool iPhone Apps

Love them or hate them, many of us have iPhones. There are so many new, interesting, fun, helpful apps it’s hard to keep track. Here are a few of our favorite ones you might want to give a try. Just type the App’s name into your iPhone App Store or in iTunes’ Store App Section.

Pandora Radio • Free

One of my favorite Apps. You enter in a song, composer, musician and Pandora creates a ‘station’ just for you. The station plays the artist you choose and more music like it. If you register with Pandora you can then save the stations you make.

BubbleWrap • Free

A great App to annoy the person sitting next to you on the Jitney or flight to Rome. Also helpful to occupy the time of children of all ages. It's addictive so beware!

Facebook • Free

Not wasting enough time with Facebook on your computer. Now you can ignore the people you are actually sitting with and stay in touch with all your close online friends.

Google Earth • Free

‘Hold the world in the palm of your hand’, enough said. It’s from the company that will be running the world soon so why not get onboard now.

CityTransit NYC Subway Guide

$2.99

Helpful App for getting around the City. Beats pulling out the torn, worn subway map that makes you look like a tourist. God forbid. It has a station finder that teams up with the iPhone’s GPS to locate the nearest station and give you walking directions.

Public Radio Tuner • Free

Find Public Radio Stations around the U.S. Over 200 public radio streams. Does just what is says.

If you want to download free apps and don't want to give Apple your credit card to do so visit this link and find out how to setup an Apple iTunes App Account without a Credit Card.

Mac Shortcuts

Command + S = Save

Command + P = Print

Command + Q = Quit

Command + Z = Undo

Command + H = Hide

Command + . (period) = Cancel

Command + C = Copy

Command + X = Cut

Command + V = Paste

Command + Option + ESC = Force Quit

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