Open your Buddy List and find your own name at the top. You will probably see the word Available with a small arrow pointing down next to it. Click on that and scroll down to the bottom of the options and you will see an option for "Invisible". Click on it once and a check mark will appear.
As long as you leave it set that way, it will appear that you are not actively online in iChat.
To change it, just go back to that window and select one of the other options.
Nancy
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( 2.9 / 52 )Do I sound a little testy? Thats because I am. However it reminds me of a basic Mac beginner premise. Sometimes the best solution to a problem is turn it off and start over. Sometimes you can worry a problem to death and still not solve it because you don't know enough to solve it and trying will never get it done.
Sometimes just turning off the computer, or phone, or touch or whatever and starting over will take care of it. Sometimes it really isn't your fault.
The cause of this little temper tantrum? I finally got an iPhone. A nice little second-hand 2G iPhone. It is really nice to have friends who owe you favors and who always have to have the latest toys. I got a really, really good deal.
It took me two days and three trips to the phone store to get my iPhone working. I'll spare you the gory details and skip to the punch line. Actually two punch lines. First of all, if you get a second-hand phone and have it set up, you may well need to turn it off and turn it back on to get the service going. Note: it is not necessary to wait 20 hours and 37 minutes to take this step.
Second, there really are times when you can and should punch the button and turn off your machine, wait a few moments, and turn it back on. You do it as a last resort because you always want to let a computer go through a normal shut-down process, but sometimes you can't. When those times happen, just do it.
Like I said -- sometimes, more often than not, whatever is going on is not your fault and you aren't going to be able to fix it. Sometimes, turning it off and back on will let it fix itself. If it doesn't then you can get outside help.
Nancy
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( 3 / 50 )MobileMe (.Mac) accounts cost U.S. $99 a year. If you have one and are getting ready to renew or if you are getting one for the first time, check out Amazon.com.
I just purchased a renewal of mine for $34.99 plus shipping. Not a bad deal. Mine is not up for renewal yet, but this new purchase will kick in when the other expires. The seller has an excellent customer rating and Amazon backs up their sellers.
It's worth checking out. Amazon.com
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( 2.9 / 42 )If you look at your Dock some day and see a big question mark where an application icon is supposed to be you are probably going to wonder what it means and what to do about it.
The icons resting on your Dock are alias' that link to the location on your hard drive where the applications are actually stored. In most cases that means your Applications Folder.
If you recall, you added something to the Dock by dragging the icon image from the location folder (Applications) to the dock and released it. That "links" the alias icon to the application itself.
When that big blue question mark suddenly shows up, that means the alias icon on your Dock can no longer find the application. It has lost it's reason to exist and says "help, why am I here?"
You might as well pull it off the dock and release it because it no longer functions.
What to do about it depends on what caused the problem in the first place. If you discarded the application, then throwing away the question mark solves the problem. Everything is neat and tidy and you are ready to move on.
If you moved the application somewhere else, such as to a backup external drive or just to some other folder, then find that location and pull an alias icon back down to the dock and you should be set to go.
Nancy
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( 3 / 75 )If you use the Mail application as your email program there is a quick maintenance step you should take periodically that will help keep your various email accounts in good order. It is really simple.
In Mail, click on the small triangle next to your Inbox so that it is pointing down. Doing so will reveal all your different email accounts. Even if you only have one you want to take this step because you want to be able to click on the email account itself.
So if your first email account is janedoe@mac.com, you click on that name once to highlight it. Then select the Mailbox Menu and choose Rebuild. Depending on how many messages you have the process may take a few moments or a minute or more. Either way, everything gets put back in its proper place and your Mail app continues to run smoothly and your saved messages don't get lost or garbled.
Do this step for each of your accounts.
Nancy
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( 2.8 / 58 )
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