Follow these maintenance and prevention suggestions to stay out of trouble:

Build a good foundation (Learn before you are burned).

1. ✓    Stay informed and join a user group.
   

Ons and Offs:

1. ✓Use the “Shut Down” command to turn off your Mac.
   

2. ✓Be sure to eject firewire or USB hard drives and flash drives before unplugging them.
   

3. ✓It’s better to turn your Mac on and leave it on when you plan to use it again.
   

4. ✤Avoid repeatedly turning a computer on and off if only a couple of hours passes between uses as the most wear and tear occurs with the surge of power when you turn it on.
   

Use a true, grounded and warranted surge suppressor/power strip.

1. ✓Some companies back up their product with a $1000 to $500,000 guarantee.
   

2. ✤Consider it “life insurance” for your Mac. One good brand is Panamax.
   

3. ✓Make sure the electrical outlet in your wall is a grounded, 3-prong outlet.
   

Keep your disks locked and away from magnets.

Keep your Hard Disk well organized.

1. ✓    Use aliases to store a file in more than one place (if needed.)
   

K.I.S.S.E.R. ( = Keep it simple and save everything regularly.)

1. ✓Stay lean and mean for a speedy System.
   

2. ✤Keep extraneous add-ons to a minimum.
   

3. ✓Use the “Command-S” keyboard shortcut often!
   

Use the latest version of an anti-virus program.

1. ✓Scan your Hard Drive(s) on a regular basis.
   

2. ✤    Yes. Macs at present aren’t affected by viruses but you can avoid passing on windows viruses to PC users.
   

Make back-ups.

1. ✓Make duplicates of the work (documents) you produce.
   

2. ✓Make duplicates of the original System and application master disks.
   

3. ✓Install from copies of those disks.
   

4. ✓Make and work from back-up copies of anything you can’t afford to lose.
   

Do regular maintenance on your Mac..

1. ✓Use the freeware program OnyX or MainMenu to do routine maintenance.
   

2. ✓Look into an optimization program to defragment your hard drive when your Mac
   seems to be slowing down.
   

Save your screen and energy

1. ✓Use a screen saver or turn off your monitor when the computer is left on.