Assorted resources that I regularly use. You might find them useful too.
Do you see technology as a strategic asset or a necessary evil?
Whidbey Telecom Map of Fiber Optic Service
Whidbey Telecom List of Services
Apple’s System Status Page
Watchman Time Machine Exclusion info
(425) 272-2462 VirtualF
Backups
- CloudAlly – backup Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), Microsoft 365, Dropbox, Box and more.
- Synology CloudSync – to backup Dropbox or be a two-way sync with Dropbox
- CubeBackup – backup Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 to local hard drives or to a private cloud account.
- Microsoft’s own built-in backup of Microsoft365. Pay-as-you-go.
- Neither CloudAlly or CubeBackup reportedly backup Google Tasks. In the past, Google Tasks Porter let you make a backup of Tasks but it’s defunct now. Google Tasks Backup succeeded Tasks Porter but it also defunct.
- DropSuite – Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, QuickBooks Online (QBO)
- Rewind – Trello, QuickBooks Online (QBO), Jira, GitHub, Mailchimp and others
- iDrive – Backup Macs, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox
- Crashplan log review
Memorable Password Generator
Micro Digital’s memorable password generator
Securely Share Passwords, Text and Documents
- QuickForget
- One Time Secret
- One Time
- Wormhole – for sharing documents
Apple Silicon
- Eclectic Light’s Startup Mode summary
- Mr Macintosh Everything You Need To Know
- Revive or Restore using Apple Configurator
macOS
- OS X Application Compatibility Info
- Snow Leopard Application Compatibility Info (Mac OS X 10.6)
- Printer and Scanner Compatibility
- iCloud Status
- macOS User Guide Sonoma. Replace 14 with 13, 12 or 11
- macOS User Guide Mojave, 10.14 or Catalina 10.15 or High Sierra 10.13
- Apple’s Mail Server Settings Lookup
- History of macOS and major new features.
iOS
Technical Details about Macs and other Apple Products
- MacTracker, EveryMac and Low End Mac
- Identify your iPhone model and your iPad model
- Lookup your Mac’s Serial at AppleSerialNumber or PowerBook Medic or Chipmunk.
- EveryMac’s LookUp and Comparisons
- Geekbench benchmarks also EveryMac’s benchmarks
- Apple Developer Documentation
- How To Geek Mac Processes
Repairing Macs and other Apple Products
- Apple Exchange and Repair Extension Programs
- Apple Vintage and Obsolete Products-Apple will repair products for 5 years from the date the product was discontinued.
- Search Apple’s Knowledge-base
- Macintosh Take-A-Part Guides – iFixIt and PowerBook Medic
- Mac Parts – caveat emptor, read the detail and check the return policy: UsedMac, MacPartsOnline and MacPalace
- Component-level repairs: Computer Repair of Des Moines Iowa and Rossman Group of NYC
- Repairing iPhones, iPads and iPod Touchs
- Mac Data Recovery – DriveSavers or DataSavers LLC.
- iOS Data Recovery – Dr. Fone and iPhone Backup Extractor
- MacBook Pro Apple Repair Price Tiers.
Buying and Selling Macs, iPhones and iPads
- New – Mac Prices and Mac Rumors Buyer’s Guide
- Compare current Macs or iPads
- SellYourMac
- Used or Refurbished – LowEndMac Best Deals or UsedMac
- RefurbTracker (offers RSS feed) and RefurbMe
- Pricing Your Used Mac – LowEndMac Deals and Seattle CraigsList or Phobio
- Pricing Your Used Mac – Gazelle, ItsWorthMore, OWC’s SellYourMac,
- Selling iPhones and Other Electronic Gadgets
- Buying refurbished iPhones or iPads from Gazelle
Hardware and Peripherals
- All HP Printers
- All Brother Printers
- All Canon Printers
- All Xerox Printers
- WA State Starlink Installers
- Finding Best Prices – Google Shopping
- Frequent Vendors – Provantage, Other World Computing and StarTech
- Cable, Adapters, Face Plates and More – Monoprice, Vetco Electronics, DeepSurplus, and CableJive
- Cable Management, Organizing and Labeling
- Hardware Reviews: Tom’s Hardware, The Wire Cutter and TrustedReviews
- Scanners
- Custom Cables – DataPro in Ballard or Redmond Cable
- Hardware Stores – Aubuchon and Home Fix It Parts
- Ergnomic Resources – The Human Solution
- Synology Diskstations – DSM Support
- Pictures of the myriad of USB connectors
- Thunderbolt and USB-C explained by AppleInsider
- AppleInsider Thunderbolt cable recommendations
Networking
- Fast.com simple interface, starts automatically, made by Netflix
- Comcast’s speed test has a cute animation.
- SpeedOf.Me good if looking for speed fluctuations, interface cluttered with ads
- Measurement Lab speed test. Clean interface. Detailed results.
- SpeedSmart.net clean interface, detailed results.
- SpeedTest.net has a good reputation but is cluttered with ads. Internet Health Test which is also made by Ookla
- Your IP Number
- Ubiquiti Comparison by Evan McCann
- UptimeRobot – free server monitor
- Check to see if ports are open or do a port scan at DNS Checker or https://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports/
- WhoIs or IntoDNS or aBongo. or SecurityTrails (free account required)
- IPvoid – IP address tools such as GeoLocate, WhoIs, Ping, etc
- Who’s DNS servers are these?
- Global DNS Propagation check at WhatsMyDNS
- Netcraft Site Report including SPF, DKIM and DMARC, name servers, hosting company and much more
- DMARC Checker
- DMARC Academy from Dmarcian
- MailTester.com for SPF and DKIM.
- Email Header Analyzers at MXToolbox, Azurewebsites and DNS Checker.
- Check SPF, DKIM and DMARC records
- Kiterman SPF Test or SPFSyntax, ORF Tools, Dig Web Interface
- Web Site SSL Tester
- Determine which web server (Apache, SquareSpace, CloudFlare) is being used
- Specs for CAT5 – CAT7 cabling
- IP Calculator
- Check to see if an IP number is blacklisted at MXToolbox or SenderScore
- Router Emulators
- PFSense – Open Source Firewall
- Extending Airport Networks
- DNS Servers and who operates them
Training, Learning and Education Resources
- Lynda.com – hundreds of topics. Some freebies. Subscribe for about $30/month.
- NoteBook Productions – General Mac Training
- Apple’s YouTube video channel
- PC Classes Online – free online video training
- The Mac U – buy their Mac-related training apps for $2-$10 at the App Store
- ScreenCasts Online – membership-based online training
- CommonCraft – -blog, twitter, hardware, software, web browsers, QR codes and others
- Adobe Creative Suite Training Luminous Works, School of Visual Concepts, and American Graphics Institute
- SimonSezIT – Adobe, Microsoft, QuickBooks, Web Development, macOS training
- INE in Seattle – Bootcamps, classroom and online training. CompTIA, Linux, AWS, Google, Java, VMware, WireShark, SolarWinds, etc
Security Tools, Services and Training
- Mobile Device Security – iVerify or Zimperium or Lookout
- Human risk management, phishing training, security awareness training – Knowbe4 or …
- Hive Systems – Cybersecurity Awareness Training, Cybersecurity Assessments, pen tests, web app tests, etc
- Cloudflare – free accounts include basic CDN, Bot protection, block AI bots from crawling pages, DMARC report, DDoS protection. Upgrade for much protection.
- Network Monitoring – Domotz
- VPN – NordVPN, ProtonVPN
- Password Managers – 1Password, Apple Passwords.
Software
- Pure Mac, Open Source Software for Macs,
- Software Discounts – Academic Superstore
- TechSoup – Technology and Software for Non-Profits
- Microsoft Office – Cortig. Also: Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Office system requirements
- Microsoft Product Lifecycle for Office 2016 (and other products)
- Download Office Updates
- Microsoft 365 Home and Personal or Business Subscriptions
- Microsoft 365 Exchange Online Plans
- Quickbooks Desktop 2019, 2020 and 2021 work with macOS 11 Big Sur
- Office 2011 for Dummies,
- Remove Office 2016 licensing
- Remove Office 2016 completely
- Office-Reset.com free Office removal tool
- Run-time error 53. Option 1 – Go to Preferences, click Ribbon and Toolbar, click Developer tab, click Add-ins, deactivate linkCreation.dotm. Or, Option 2 Go to ~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content/Startup/Word and remove linkCreation.dotm
- MacAdmin’s Office download links
- Office End of Support, End of Life info
- Old Java for Creative Suite
- Sketchup Compatibility
- Pondini’s Tiime Machine
- UNIX
- Mac OS X Server – AFP548
- Recommended Secure Email Companies, ProtonMail and Hushmail.
iOS Tools
iOS Apps
- AppShopper – provides price history
Adobe Creative Suite
- Download Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop app
- Adobe CS 6 Macintosh System Requirements and here also
- Adobe CS 6 Product Matrix
- Adobe CS 5 Macintosh System Requirements and here also
- Troubleshot Adobe Creative Cloud installation issues
- Download Adobe CC Cleaner Tool – The tool removes installation records for prerelease installations of Creative Cloud or Creative Suite applications
- Lookup Adobe Error Codes
- Adobe Customer Care
- Download installers for Adobe Creative Suite, Acrobat & Photoshop Elements.
- Download trial versions of Creative Suite
- Adobe anonymous FTP server (Acrobat 9 and other stuff)
- Blog about Acrobat update
- Mountain Lion compatibility with Adobe Creative Suite
- Creative Suite compatibility with OS X Mavericks (10.9)
- Extensis Suitcase Fusion compatibility info
Keyboard Shortcuts
- Apple’s list of keyboard shortcuts
- Common keyboard shortcuts presented in a user-friendly way
- Another list of shortcuts
- How to create keyboard shortcuts
- How to manage keyboard shortcuts
- iOS 7 keyboard shortcuts
Domain Registrars, Email and Web Hosting
- Rackspace Exchange email hosting
- CloudFlare free account offers DNS hosting and can be domain registrar too
- Registrars: Hover offers a clean and simple web site. See if domain is available. Buy it if you’d like it. Their documentation is clean. Their support techs are helpful.
- Website hosting: SquareSpace, Wix, Weebly, Big Mountain
- WordPress hosting: WPmuDEV, WPengine, MediaTemple, Big Mountain and many others
- Email hosting: Microsoft365, great option for 1 or 2 email accounts, Rackspace IMAP or Exchange with min $10/month charge,
- Cheap or Free Static Website Hosting
Name Servers of Popular Web Hosting Companies
- BlueHost: ns1.bluehost.com also nsone.net
- DreamHost: ns1.dreamhost.com
- GoDaddy: nsX.domaincontrol.com
- HostGator: x.hostgator.com
- Hover: ns1.hover.com
- MediaTemple: ns1.mediatemple.net
- Network Solutions: nsX.worldnic.com
- Rackspace: dns1.name-services.com
- Rackspace also: dns1.stabletransit.com
- SiteGround:
- WPEngine: a-engine.com
Other
“Tim has been great to work with. He showed up on time, is super knowledgable, resolved all the issues I had identified and fixed some more issues I didn’t know about. A few bugs popped up as usual when setting up a new computer, and he resolved those quickly as well. I have used a handful of Apple product consultants over the years, and Tim is by far the best. I wish I found him ten years ago. I signed up for his Remote Monitoring Maintenance program and it has been great as well. 5 stars. (out of 5)
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