MacMedics is an Apple Authorized Value Added Reseller and an Apple Authorized Service Provider, as well as being Certified Members of The Apple Consultants Network and Apple Developers. With two offices in the State of Maryland, and one in Philadelphia, we are well positioned to provide our famous, award-winning support and service to the Baltimore and Washington DC areas, as well as Northern Virginia, Wilmington, Delaware, Philadelphia Metro area, and Southern New Jersey.

The Apple Value Added Reseller authorization is top tier reseller designation by Apple. Apple Value Added Resellers and Apple Specialists are the same level of Apple sales authorization. Apple VARs generally have a deeper focus on Apple solutions as well as consulting and service. Apple Specialists usually have more of a retail sales focus. Both Apple VARs and Specialists are Apple Authorized to resell Macintosh computers, Apple software and accessories, as well as iPads, iPods, and Apple TV. Neither are permitted to resell the iPhone.

With MacMedics’ 22-years of service and support to the Washington DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia areas, we’re proud to be authorized by Apple for both Apple sales AND service. As an Apple Authorized Value Added Reseller, we are authorized by Apple to resell Macintosh computers, the Apple iPad, the Apple iPod, and the Apple TV.

Here’s more information on Apple Authorized Value Added Resellers from Apple:

Independent Apple Value Added Resellers (VARs) are professionals authorized by Apple to deliver customized, market-specific solutions. Combining their technical knowledge with industry experience, Independent Apple Value Added Resellers can help you simplify and enhance your technology—leading to improved business processes and increased success.

Working with an Independent Apple Value Added Reseller, you gain:

• Customized multi-platform solutions
• Professional, industry experience
• Apple trained and certified expertise
• Proficiency in Apple and complementary products
• Additional services to support your business

Specialized Solution Expertise

Trained in Apple and complementary technology, working with independent Apple Value Added Resellers means that you’re getting high quality service and expertise. In addition to providing technology solutions, many independent Apple Value Added Resellers also provide additional services, such as: strategic planning, system design, and training.

Things to consider when choosing an Independent Apple Value Added Reseller:

• What is their specialized expertise
• What are their qualifications and certifications?
• Are they an Apple Authorized Service Provider?
• What other services do they offer?
• Will they integrate third-party products you need?
• Do they provide on-site services?
• Will they provide customer references?

This brand new iMac 27″ showed up from Apple here at MacMedics a few days ago. We heard a weird noise coming from inside the box. It took us a second to figure out what was going on.

See our video from YouTube for the details and the answer:

Update 6/25/11: Apple has released 10.6.8 that fixes the issues listed below and preps your machine for upcoming release of Lion. See this post for more info.

Update 4/1/11: MacMedics is recommending that you hold off on this update until a fix for the font problem is released: See this MacMedics Blog post for more info.

The 10.6.7 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes that:

• Improve the reliability of Back to My Mac
• Resolve an issue when transferring files to certain SMB servers
• Address various minor Mac App Store bugs

For owners of the new model “Thunderbolt” MacBook Pros it also resolved the following:

• Address minor FaceTime performance issues
• Improve graphics stability and external display compatibility

For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4472.
For information on the security content of this update, please visit: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222.

Before you install this or any other software update, be sure to check out the MacMedics Software Update Warnings webpage.

You can grab the Combo updater from Apple at this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1361

A letter from Craig Hirai / Amy Wooden of macUpgrades:

Dear Former macUpgrades Customer,

We are pleased to let you know that MacMedics, in Lanham, Maryland, has purchased all the assets of macUpgrades. Dana Stibolt, President, and Kory Barrett, Vice President, have been a real pleasure to work with, as we have completed this rather complicated transaction. Their professionalism and competence have been most refreshing. We would encourage you, your friends and neighbors, and your business to work with MacMedics as you would have worked with macUpgrades.

Thank you, again, for all your support over the years. We hope you will give MacMedics the same loyal support.

Kindest regards,

Craig Hirai and Amy Wooden

–

You can jump to the newest information available as it is now posted on the MacMedics website by clicking here.

macUpgrades of Bethesda, Maryland, a long-time Apple Authorized Specialist lost their lease, and sadly they have closed their doors after supporting the Bethesda and Washington DC area’s Macintosh community for more than 20-years. In an effort to continue and preserve their long standing legacy of Apple service and repair and to provide outstanding support to their long-time clientele, we enthusiastically welcome former macUpgrades clients to MacMedics!

macUpgrades has endorsed MacMedics as their recommended Macintosh sales and service provider. We are proud to have earned their endorsement and pledge to do our very best to provide previous macUpgrades customers with the high level of support that MacMedics and macUpgrades are both famous for.

Like MacMedics, macUpgrades had been serving the area’s Macintosh community for more than 20-years. We hope to be able to continue their tradition of outstanding support to Apple customers no matter where they are located. MacMedics is both an Apple Authorized Service Provider, and an Apple Authorized Value Added Reseller, so MacMedics is a logical and natural fit for long-time Macintosh clients who have been serviced over the years by macUpgrades.

As was the case with macUpgrades, MacMedics is Apple Authorized to resell the entire Apple line of products. That means that MacMedics can supply Apple Macintosh computers, Apple iPads, Apple iPods, and the Apple TV. The only item not available from Apple Specialists or Apple Authorized Resellers is the Apple iPhone. That item must be purchased from Apple, AT&T, Verizon and a small handful of other retailers like Radio Shack and WalMart.

Click on the picture below to see pictures of the MacMedics Washington DC office:

We welcome former macUpgrades clients to contact the Washington DC office of MacMedics for Macintosh service, sales, and support.

We can be reached by telephone Monday – Friday 8:30 to 5:00 at:

1-888-4-DC-MACS (1-888-432-6227)

or anytime via e-mail at: DCservice@macmedics.com

Please stay tuned to http://www.macmedics.com/macupgrades for more information as it becomes available.

Thinking of stopping by one of The Apple Stores in Bethesda or Georgetown for a Mac Repair? We offer a number of compelling reasons to visit MacMedics instead. Our clients tell us that the number one reason that people come visit MacMedics for Mac service vs. The Apple Store is that no appointments are ever required to receive expert Mac repair. Also we offer 24-hour warranty repair (for most warranty repairs), Low cost rental computers (if needed), 1-year parts and labor warranty on all out-of-warranty repairs (The Apple Store only offers a 90-day warranty), Hard Drive upgrades (The Apple Store will only replace your drive with the same size), Advanced Macintosh Data Recovery, and we repair all Apple computers right here in our shop. We do not ship units out for “Depot Repair” as is the practice for many cases at The Apple Store. Plus, we offer a VIP repair program for Walk-In service that blows the doors off of Apple’s One-To-One, Joint Venture, or even AppleCare. Our VIP repair program can cover your future repairs for as little as $99 (Mac Pros and MacBook Pros are $149).
Also, we love to talk on the phone. You do not need to be a client to call and talk shop. Call us to discuss your Mac problem or purchase a new Mac today: 1-888-4-DC-MACS

Noha Edell of Adobe will speak about Adobe Digital Publishing Solutions – Presented by the Greater Baltimore InDesign User Group – Sponsored by MacMedics

MacMedics is pleased to be able to sponsor an upcoming meeting of the Greater Baltimore InDesign User Group. We have long been a sponsor of the Washington DC InDesign User Group, so naturally we were thrilled to be invited to sponsor the Baltimore chapter as well. We hope you will be able to attend this meeting, as we’re giving away an Apple iPod as a door prize.

When:
Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Agenda:
6:00 p.m. Registration, Raffle Sales, Networking, and Refreshments sponsored by MacMedics
6:30 p.m. Welcome, Group Business, and Adobe News
6:40 p.m. Featured Presentation: Digital Publishing with Noha Edell
7:30 p.m. Break (last chance to buy raffle tickets in support of your chapter)
7:40 p.m. Digital Publishing with Noha, continued
8:15 p.m. Questions & Answers
8:30 p.m. Selecting Raffle Winners
8:40 p.m. Adjourn

Where:
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
11100 Johns Hopkins Road
Parsons Auditorium and Cafeteria, Building 1, Main Campus (Enter at Lobby 1)
Laurel, MD 20723

The URL for the Greater Baltimore InDesign User Group is located here, and is where you can register for the meeting.

Can I upgrade my Adobe educational version of my software I bought when I was a student?

The short answer is yes!

If you’re an owner of Adobe Educational software you bought when you were a student and you want to upgrade it to a non-educational version of Adobe’s software, you can.

In order to qualify for the upgrade, you can’t give your educational software to your current employer and have them upgrade it. But, if you were a student, and now you work for yourself and you need the latest Adobe software, you can qualify for an upgrade.

Just call your local MacMedics office and we can help get you upgraded to the current commercial version of Adobe CS5.

Pre-Press Tips to Improve Productivity and Your Bottom Line Presented by the Greater Baltimore InDesign User Group – Sponsored by MacMedics

MacMedics is pleased to be able to sponsor an upcoming meeting of the Greater Baltimore InDesign User Group. We have long been a sponsor of the Washington DC InDesign User Group, so naturally we were thrilled to be invited to sponsor the Baltimore chapter as well. We hope you will be able to attend this meeting, as we’re giving away an Apple iPod as a door prize.

When:
Tue, October 19, 2010, 6:00 PM

Where:
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
11100 Johns Hopkins Road
Parsons Auditorium and Cafeteria, Building 1, Main Campus (Enter at Lobby 1)
Laurel, MD 20723

The URL for the Greater Baltimore InDesign User Group is located here, and is where you can register for the meeting.

There will be three speakers at this meeting, all production experts from local printing companies.

Our first Presenter is Martin Nibali, from KM Printing, which started out as a single Minuteman Press franchise and has grown to become “not your typical quick printer”. KM Printing is full service communications company offering marketing consulting, graphic design, print production, promotional products, and direct mail. Martin will give us many useful pre-press tips including creating InDesign preflight profiles to preflight your document as you design and choosing the correct PDF profiles, just to name a few.

Our second two presenters, Jim Hogan and Joe Wagner, are from The Whitmore Group, a commercial printing and communications company serving the mid-Atlantic region providing innovative prepress, manufacturing, and print management solutions that maximize technology and talent. Jim and Joe will demonstrate the INSITE Creative Workflow, a web-based system that enables teamwork and improves efficiency of creative development. This process allows for proof and approval of files over the internet, will track project status and support creative professionals while tracking costs and time.

Agenda:

6:00 p.m. Registration, Raffles, Networking, and Refreshments sponsored by MacMedics
6:30 p.m. Welcome, Group Business, and Adobe news
7:00 p.m. Feature Presentation I: Pre-Press Tips by Martin Nibali
7:30 p.m. Break (and final raffle sales)
7:40 p.m. Feature Presentation II: Increase Productivity with INSITE Creative Workflow, by Jim Hogan and Joe Wagner
8:10 p.m. Questions & Answers
8:25 p.m. Selecting Raffle Winners
8:35 p.m. Adjourn

Our thanks to the DC Photographers Resource for cross promoting this event on their Blog!

MacMedics is proud to be a sponsor of the Washington DC area InDesign User Group’s Adobe CS 5 release event for the third time!

The DC-Area InDesign User Group is once again holding an all-day, special event heralding the introduction of the latest version of Adobe’s leading creative software, CS 5. The featured presenters are:

CHRIS CONVERSE, author of the new book “Bringing Your Web Design to Life”

NOHA EDELL of Adobe Systems

MICHAEL MURPHY, creator and host of “The InDesigner” podcasts

The all-day event will be held TUESDAY, MAY 25 At the U.S. Navy Memorial Auditorium, 701 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC.

This year’s venue is smaller then the Shakespeare Theatre where it was held for the CS 4 roll out event, so reserve your seat early! You can register right here!

Update 6/26/11: MacMedics is hiring for both Baltimore, MD AND Washington, DC offices.

Are you looking for a new Macintosh tech support job in the Washington, DC Metro area? Are you stuck in a cubicle support job with little to no Mac excitement? Do you love fixing Macs? How about helping people who use their Macs for professional graphic design? Do you still have all of your old Macs networked together and bound to active directory in your basement? Did you hard-wire your iPod directly into the dashboard of your car? Do you have an iPod for every occasion? Were you the first person in line at the Apple Store when Snow Leopard was released? Do you regularly stump the folks at the Apple Genius bar? Do you have an Apple tattoo? Does your Macintosh start your coffee maker full of organic, free trade brew in the morning with the help of Apple’s Automator? If this sounds like your modus operandi, then we’d love to hear from you!

MacMedics (an Apple Authorized Service Provider & Apple Authorized Value Added Reseller), an award-winning regional Macintosh consulting and service company, with offices in Baltimore, Washington, and Philadelphia is seeking more on-site Macintosh engineers to join our Washington, DC service and support team. As a MacMedics Macintosh Consultant/Engineer, you will be directly involved in providing and recommending Macintosh service and solutions for our thousands of on-site Macintosh clients. Some of the markets we service are; graphic design freelancers, small graphic design studios, large scale advertising agencies, in-house advertising departments, commercial printers, video production houses, colleges, universities, as well as federal, state, and local government agencies.

The functions of this position would include: on-site Macintosh hardware and software consulting and troubleshooting, networking, cross platform integration, and backup & server configuration. Qualified individuals must have EXTENSIVE knowledge of Mac OS X (OS 9 is helpful too!) and long-term experience with the Macintosh product line with a strong emphasis on the use, configuration, and troubleshooting of graphic design applications. Experience with Quark, Photoshop, InDesign, and font management is absolutely essential!

A strong compensation package with performance incentives, a Macintosh MacBook computer, company paid high-speed Internet access and Apple iPhone (with plan) are all provided. Other valuable benefits such as company paid Apple and Adobe technical training and certification; low-cost heath/dental insurance and a 401k plan with company matching are also included.

If you’re interested in being part of a well-established consulting company and making new and exciting and things happen, you’ll love working with MacMedics! Our service team members are focused on helping our customers and doing whatever it takes to do so. If you’re being held back, finding yourself doing more Windows work that you were planning on, tired of red tape and politics, and you want your efforts and contributions to count for something, then this position would be perfect for you! If you’re an under-appreciated/under-paid Mac fanatic, then MacMedics is where you need to be!

If you’re a current or former Apple Store Genius and you’re investigating on how to take your Macintosh support career to the next level, we’d love to speak to you. We offer a wide range of different types of Macintosh work (hardware, software, servers, iPods, iPhones, back up systems, large store devices, Xsan, and data recovery) without the crazy retail hours, or having to eat in the mall everyday.

http://www.macmedics.com/jobs

Please e-mail resume and cover letter to jobs @ macmedics.com.

AT&T updates it’s policy on upgrading to new iPhone 3G S for customers who already have iPhone 3G.

http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=1574

An Update for Our Customers:

Some customers have had questions about our plans and policies for iPhone 3G S, and we’d like to provide you with answers. We’d also like to announce a change to the date when some iPhone customers are eligible for our best upgrade pricing to iPhone 3G S.

Pricing:

Importantly, we want our customers to better understand our wireless device upgrade program. Like most U.S. carriers, we offer a variety of phones that we sell below our actual cost when customers agree to sign service agreements. In general, the more a customer spends with us, the quicker they become eligible for a price break on a new device. For example, iPhone customers who spend more than $99 a month per line with us generally are eligible for an upgrade between 12 and 18 months into their contract.

We also currently offer early upgrade pricing only for iPhone 3G S and iPhone 3G.

All of that said, we’ve been listening to our customers. And since many of our iPhone 3G customers are early adopters and literally weeks shy of being upgrade eligible due to iPhone 3G S launching 11 months after iPhone 3G, we’re extending the window of upgrade eligibility for a limited time.

We’re now pleased to offer our iPhone 3G customers who are upgrade eligible in July, August or September 2009 our best upgrade pricing, beginning Thursday, June 18.

If you’re one of the many customers who will benefit from this change, please note that our upgrade eligibility tools will reflect this change on Thursday, June 18.

We invite you to come to our stores beginning Friday during normal store hours, although please be aware that customer demand may exceed supply in some of our stores. You may also preorder online on June 18 at www.att.com/iphone, and your iPhone 3G S will arrive in 7 – 14 days. Or you can purchase iPhone 3G S at Apple’s retail and online stores, as well as at other popular retailers.

If you’re one of the customers who benefits from this change, and you’ve already preordered from an AT&T store, we’ll adjust the price of the device when you pick it up. If you benefit from the change and you pre-ordered from AT&T online, we’ll send you an e-mail and issue you a credit.

If you pre-ordered an iPhone 3G S through Apple’s online store, your upgrade eligibility will be reassessed based on AT&T’s new upgrade policy for iPhone 3G owners. If you are eligible for the lower price, Apple will issue you a credit for the difference as applicable.

So, what if you still aren’t eligible for our best upgrade pricing and you still want iPhone 3G S now? You do have options:

You may qualify for the iPhone 3G S early upgrade price of $399 (16GB) or $499 (32GB).
You can pay full retail—and not have to sign a 2-year contract—at $599 (16GB) or $699 (32GB).
You can wait until you’re eligible for our best upgrade pricing. We invite you to check your upgrade eligibility by visiting www.att.com/iphone, calling *NEW# (*639#) on your AT&T device (we’ll send you a text with upgrade information), or visiting any of our over 2,200 stores.
If you want more details on our pricing and upgrade policy, check out our FAQs. And as always, you may visit one of our stores to talk with a representative.

In Summary:

We’ve listened to our customers — and hope our response helps answer some of your questions and concerns.

We are incredibly proud to be the U.S. carrier for the new iPhone 3G S and will work around the clock to be ready on June 19 to serve customers who are interested in the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet.