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.
- 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.
- 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
- Josh Centers Apple Buying Advice.
- Compare current Macs or iPads
- SellYourMac and RenewedMacs (products come with 12 month warranty) started by Brian Burke in Cincinnati, OH
- 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
- Smaller Review Sections: Cult fit Mac and Ars Technica
- 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
- 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.
- 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 IP converter
- Check to see if an IP number is blacklisted at MXToolbox or SenderScore
- Router Emulators
- PFSense – Open Source Firewall
- Configure wireless router as an access point
- 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
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
- Download older versions of QuickBooks from Find Pro Advisors
- Office 2011 for Dummies, Daily Dose of Excel
- 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 installers for older Adobe Creative Suite and other products
- Download trial versions of Creative Suite
- Adobe anonymous FTP server (Acrobat 9 and other stuff)
- Blog about Acrobat update
- Lion – known issues with Adobe products
- Mountain Lion compatibility with Adobe Creative Suite
- Creative Suite compatibility with OS X Mavericks (10.9)
- Extensis Suitcase Fusion compatibility info
Color Calibration
- Using Apple’s Color Calibration Assistant
- Monitor calibration explained
- Choosing Adobe Color Workspace Settings
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
“If you’ve ever wished you had tech support I’d highly recommend you consider Tim Hannon of Sound Support & Solutions. I’d been limping along on my own for years, paying attention to articles to try and keep up to date but truthfully, tech for me is just a means to an end. It is not something I love or have an affinity for, so it always comes last on my list. Yet with data security such a huge concern these days, and fraud, phishing and malware getting so sophisticated. I finally hit a wall. My computer got infected with a Bing hijack, which was relatively benign as malware goes but was incredibly cumbersome to deal with and after months of doing work-arounds I finally contacted Tim, based on a recommendation from a friend.He removed the malware remotely in about 30 seconds. And he did it, as well as quite a bit of other “housekeeping” I was in need of, while keeping up a very easy to understand explanation of what he was doing, and why, as he was doing it.Long story short, I signed on with Tim for ongoing remote monitoring to catch anything unintended that ends up on my computer, for what I think is a pretty reasonable fee. I also had him help me reconfigure how I was managing my data in preparation for buying my new computer, and he assisted with the data migration process. Tim is very pleasant to work with, an excellent communicator, and happy to customize his services based on my preferences and needs. Everything beyond the remote monitoring service is based on a (prorated) hourly consult fee. Given the stakes of what we’re working and potential consequences, Tim’s services are a great value and I am really glad he is in my corner!”
Read more testimonials.