MacMedics is the ONLY Apple Authorized Service Provider and the only independent Apple Authorized Value Added Reseller In Prince George’s County, Maryland. MacMedics’ office in Lanham is also one of the closest Apple Authorized Service Providers to the Annapolis Apple Store. (The other being the MacMedics office in Millersville, MD.) So if you’ve got a tough Macintosh repair problem that the Apple Store could not solve, then we are one of the closest places to come get a second opinion.

(The only other Apple Reseller in PG county, other than MacMedics is Best Buy in College Park, MD.)

If you need Macintosh help, training, Apple Authorized Service, or Apple Authorized Sales assistance without the hassle of:

D. Trying to first get an appointment with an Apple Genius, and then not really getting enough time to really pick their brains for expert Macintosh advice.

It’s also important to know that the Apple Store does not perform data recovery. If you think your data is at risk, setting up your computer on the Genius Bar to copy your data, is not a good idea. As hard drives fail, they generate heat, and as the generate heat they fail more. We’ll remove the drive from your computer and put it right on our data recovery equipment to try and rescue your data. Our fee for this type of recovery is only $199. Read more here.

(Plus as an added bonus ALL Macintosh laptop repairs are performed locally right here in or shop. The Apple Store will often send your laptop away for Apple Depot Service)

Our expert Apple Certified employees stand ready to help at anytime. We are super proud to be an award-winning Apple Authorized Service Provider and Authorized Apple Reseller AND Certified Members of the Apple Consultants Network (and MacMedics is the ONLY ACN member located in Prince Georges County, Maryand. We’re a great alternative to either buying a new Mac or bringing a sick Mac computer to the Mall. MacMedics is also a multiple repeat winner of Apple’s “Commitment To Excellence Award”. In fact, we’re the only Apple Authorized Service Provider In Anne Arundel or Prince Georges counties to win this award according to Apple. This award recognizes us for several things, but most importantly for accuracy and speed of Macintosh repairs. There’s a reason that MacMedics is the most frequently referred service firm for tough Mac service cases, like LCD replacements, liquid damage, vintage or obsolete Mac equipment, and Macintosh data recovery. With well over 50,000 in-lab and on-site service cases and our staff’s combined Mac experience of over 200 years, MacMedics IS the place to bring your sick Mac!

We also perform Hard Drive Upgrades (under warranty or not) and expert Macintosh Data Recovery, two things you simply can’t get at ANY Apple Store. Plus, if you do need a new hard drive, we can upgrade the size, speed, and you get a 3-year warranty, compared to like-for-like hard drive swap at the Apple Store, plus there you only get a 90 day warranty.

Come visit either of our TWO fully-staffed and stocked Macintosh Service & Sales locations in Lanham, MD (1 Mile from I-495/I-95 just inside the Beltway of off Rt 50 and Martin Luther King Hwy.) or in Millersville, MD (near BWI Airport 1/10 of a mile from I-97).

For folks that live in Anne Arundel County or more specifically, Annapolis, Davidsonville, or Bowie and work in the Washington DC metro area, MacMedics in Lanham, Maryland IS the most convenient option for Apple sales and service. We stock all of the most common Apple, computers, iPads, iPods, and Apple accessories, like MacBook & MacBook Pro batteries, G4 and MagSafe power adapters, back up hard drives, and FireWire & USB cables. Also, in comparison to the Apple Store, our Apple Warranty and AppleCare service is the fastest. Most Apple warranty repairs are generally complete within 24 hours. With our Lanham office being 1 minute from RT 50, it’s super easy to get to us and drop off your repairs quickly. Pull up right at our office door and you can be inside in 10 steps.

Got a problem? Wanna’ talk about it? Just pick up the phone and call your nearest MacMedics office. It’s unlikely that you can get anyone at the Apple Store on the phone, and most other places just send you to voicemail. You will only get voicemail here if everysing phone line we have is tied up (and that does happen).

MacMedics has been in business and fixing Macs all over town since before the Apple Store or anyone else. We are very proud to have just celebrated our 21st anniversary servicing the Baltimore, Annapolis, and Washington DC areas.

One other great thing about coming to visit us, is the fact that parking is here is not an issue, and it’s free and 10 easy steps right into our office. So, avoid the time consuming search for parking when you’re trying to find someplace to park the Mall.

Be sure to read one of our most popular Blog posts about why coming to MacMedics makes so much sense at http://www.NOappointments.com.

If you turn up at the Apple Store with a PowerBook G4, they can’t help you. A client came in recently with an original Clamshell iBook, and said when he had taken it into Apple, the Genius had never even seen one before and did not even recognize it as an Apple product at first. We’ve seen them before, owned them, and worked on them many, many times.

In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that MacMedics has the largest collection of vintage Apple service parts in Maryland. We’ve got new parts, used parts, third-party after market parts, power supplies, batteries, memory, hard drives, AirPort cards, keyboards, LCDs, and just about any other crazy part you might need (right down to the screws that hold them together!).

Today we help a new client with her PowerBook G4 which had some minor trouble. We had it checked out, fixed, and on her way in just a short amount of time.

The person who we helped today, was kind enough to take a moment to leave us a nice review on-line. Here’s a copy for you to check out here:

“This was my first visit to Macmedics in Baltimore. Initially I made contact via phone, the person that answered was friendly and knowledgeable and invited me to come in to have my computer checked out. That is exactly what I did, I jumped in my vehicle and went over to the repair shop. The technicians were friendly and knowledgeable, and most importantly I immediately felt comfortable with them. My situation was solved during my visit and I was on my way home with my laptop in hand within 45 minutes. Macmedics will be my choice when I need my laptop serviced in the future. I am from Cleveland, Ohio and recently made Baltimore my home. I had no idea where to go, but I found them on the internet and checked out their website and everything else was easy. “Thanks everyone for your great service.” Sincerely, Charmaine”

Apple has released Snow Leopard 10.6.5. This is a MAJOR software update and it should installed ONLY if you have a TESTED and WORKING back up system, and that you’re not in the middle of a production deadline.

Our advice for MacMedics clients regarding this update, is NOT to install it right away. We recommend waiting at least a few days before installing it. Also, if you have multiple Macintosh computers that need this update, just install it on one computer to start. If you’re a MacMedics client that we see on a regular basis, we will install this update for you when it has been fully vetted.

URGENT: Every time Apple releases a software update, we see several dead hard drives the next day. Please read our UPDATE WARNINGs page which can be found here, before you install this software update.

The 10.6.5 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 reliability with Microsoft Exchange servers

Address performance of some image-processing operations in iPhoto and Aperture

Address stability and performance of graphics applications and games
Resolve a delay between print jobs

Address a printing issue for some HP printers connected to an AirPort Extreme

Resolve an issue when dragging contacts from Address Book to iCal

Address an issue where dragging an item from a stack causes the Dock to not automatically hide

Resolve an issue with Wikipedia information not displaying correctly in Dictionary

Improve performance of MainStage on certain Mac systems

Resolve spacing issues with OpenType fonts

Improve reliability with some Bluetooth braille displays

Resolve a VoiceOver issue when browsing some web sites with Safari 5

For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4250.

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

We just had full moon, and it seems like it brought a ton of new Data Recovery jobs into the MacMedics offices. Spooky!

Now that it’s Halloween, I offer you the perfect metaphor for your Mac’s (or iPhone’s) Back Up. Don’t play “Trick Or Treat” with your valuable data.

When we have clients show up at our Mac Lab with data we can’t recover it just breaks our hearts. We’ve got a great track record for Recovering AND Rescuing data for folks, but there are cases we we can’t help with. We will refer these jobs off to Clean Room recovery firms, and often they can save your data in exchange for fees as high as $2500. But, not all data can be saved, and about 10% of the cases we refer, there’s not a positive result, and that data is gone forever.

As soon as you buy a new Mac, or get an old Mac’s hard drive repaired, you need to have a back up program running. On any Mac that is running Leopard (10.5) or Snow leopard (10.6), use Time Machine! It’s very, VERY powerful, and has been used to save lots of our client’s data.

The important thing is to PLAN AHEAD. Your back up is not complete if it’s not:

1. Automatic (Use Time Machine and this point is covered)
2. Redundant (Double your back up with a clone of your data and this point is covered)
3. Off-Site (Take your double back up off-site or get Mozy and this point is covered)

See how easy it is to be 100% covered! Now think of how much better you’ll feel knowing this little project has been taken care of and that your back up has been certified! If you need help getting a back up in place, we can help. On-site, In-lab, or even Remote Desktop Support, we’re there, and we’ll help get your back up configured and tested!

While all of us at MacMedics are HUGE fans of Time Machine, it’s not 100% infallible. MacMedics recommends that you ALSO back up your hard drive via a “clone” use Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner, as that way you can “test” your back up to insure you have a good, bootable copy. With a “clone” back up AND a Time Machine back up, you’re covered for TWO types of back ups, and you’re DOUBLING your chances for a successful recovery.

This might also be a good time to enhance your back up plan by adding an off-site back up. MacMedics is now a Mozy partner, so click here if you’d like to sign up for that (this like usually has the current Mozy discount coupon codes on it as well). You can get a free account that will back up 2 Gigabytes of data. It’s silly not to take advantage of that. We had a client in with a bad MacBook hard drive just a few days ago, and she was mostly backed up, but she was working a major project for her employer that had huge amount of Excel data in it. All she wanted was that one folder. Sadly we could not get it for her. If she had set up Mozy, even if she did not have a back up drive *a common problem for portable computers), her data would have been “automatically” backed up AND “off-site” thus completing two points of the golden triangle of data protection. Best of all, it would have been 100% free!

We also work with CrashPlan for on-line backups, so if you’d like to check out their current off-site back up plans see this link.

We have tons of posts on Time Machine and we even have a free White Paper on it If you’d like a copy, let us know. If you’re not using an automatic backup, your data is at risk!

Also, don’t forget that hard drives don’t last forever. Our rule of thumb for hard drive retirement is as follows. In Apple laptops the hard drive should be proactively replaced after 2 to 3 years years. In Apple desktops the hard drive should be proactive replaced after 3 years. You can find out more about this on our website http://www.HardDrivesDie.com.

There’s one more thing I would like to mention here. iPhones and iPod touch models also need to be backed up. All you have to do is to sync with you Mac from time to time. People are starting to treat these portable Apple products as stand alone devices, and when you think about it, many people are generating data on their iPhones and iPods just like they do on a computer.

You’ve got photos, e-mails, text documents, bookmarks, files, contacts, calendars, and videos that all can be generated or sent to your mobile device. All you have to do is connect to iTunes, and it will back up your device.

There are not too many ways to get mission critical data off a dead iPhone. We can often do it, but the data is all stored on the logic board of your iPhone or iPod touch. If it gets wet, gets dropped, or gets lost or stolen, then there goes your data. If we can’t get your logic board to fire up, then we don’t have access to your data.

We thought our readers would enjoy this take on Iron Man as Mac Man. We’re not 100% sure if this is commercial or not. It looks home made. We like how the Apple logo was styled to fit the art work.

After seeing the above picture, one of our clients sent a picture of his Mac in:

This MacBook Pro Batman was spotted at Create Baltimore conference.

Judging by the number of Mac laptops (and iPhones & iPods) that come into MacMedics with coffee spilled into them, we’ve sort of figured out that Macs and coffee often go hand-in-hand. Well, I guess they sort of go together and it usually does not work too well when the coffee goes INTO the MacBook or MacBook Pro. If you’ve got a liquid spill be sure to read this before you do anything else!

MacMedics continues our ongoing Coffee House tour, and we’ll again be enjoying the excellent java with our coffee and Mac friends at The Big Bean right down the road from our Millersville office in delightful Severna Park, Maryland.

We’ll be there Thursday October 7th from 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM to show off the latest Macintosh models and to talk about the Macintosh sales, service, and on-site consulting that MacMedics offers. We’ll also be available to talk about our repair service for iPhones (3G, 3G S, and iPhone 4) as well as all iPod repairs.

We’ll be handing out MacMedics discount cards good for $25 off any NEW Mac or $25 off any in-lab or on-site MacMedics service as well as coupons for $10 off an iPod or iPhone repair.

Anybody that stops in can get any size brewed coffee for free, compliments of your fellow coffee lovers at MacMedics.

Stop by our table to chat or just rush in to get your coffee, either way you get free coffee, our discount card, and a free entry in our drawing for an iPod shuffle (if you want to drop your business card).

Questions? Just call Dana or Jason at 410-987-8588.

See you there!

While Hurricane Earl will most likely spare the Mid-Atlantic area (MacMedics territory), it will hit somewhere and it will destroy some data in some way.

Here in the Mid-Atlantic area, MacMedics clients and friends should un-plug their computer and remove and store back up hard drives in a dry place if you’re not going to be around when the rain and wind hits us.

Power surges via power lines and lightning hits via Comcast’s network seem to be the leading cause of damages to our client’s Macintosh computers.

This might also be a good time to enhance your back up plan by adding an off-site back up. MacMedics is now a Mozy partner, so click here if you’d like to sign up for that.

For our friends north of the Mid-Atlantic, MacMedics recommends that you back up your hard drive via a “clone” use Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner, as that way you can “test” your back up to insure you have a good, bootable copy.

Take that back up put it in a Ziploc bag and have it ready to go with you, if you should need to evacuate. Also, hurricanes bring the rain with them, so plan ahead to protect your computer AND your back up. If you have to leave, put a garbage bag over your computer. If you have a light roof leak, that might be enough to save your computer.

The important thing is to PLAN AHEAD. Your back up is not complete if it’s not:

1. Automatic
2. Redundant
3. Off-Site

We have tons of posts on Time Machine and we even have a free White Paper on it If you’d like a copy, let us know. If you’re not using an automatic backup, your data is at risk!

P.S. If you are going to be where the hurricane is, then you DO need to go get a Ziploc bag right now, and put it with your iPhone. That way if you get caught outside or you’re checking out the surf at the beach, your iPhone is protected. Take my word for it, and you’ll thank me later!!

We recently helped a new client from New York with a pretty tricky data recovery situation. She had visited the Apple Store to have her hard drive replaced. They were not able to do anything with her old hard drive. They ran some tests and told her her hard disk had “failed and lost all data”. She asked them if she was able to hang onto her old drive, which our Apple colleagues graciously static bagged for her. She then securely packed it and shipped it to us for data recovery.

On our first attempt, we were not able to grab any data, but we stuck with it and was able to recover all of her data.

Below is what she had to say about sending her hard drive to MacMedics:

ECSTATIC! FROM “ZERO DATA” TO FULL RECOVERY!

Sincerely,
Susan Henderson,
author of UP FROM THE BLUE
http://LitPark.com

You can read more about this including comments from her Blog readers and MacMedics at this link. You can read more about the MacMedics 5 rules of data protection and preservation at http://www.HardDrivesDie.com.

Also, don’t assume that when someone tells you your hard drive has “failed and lost all data”, that that is the gospel. Many folks don’t have the time, knowledge, or the energy to really know what’s up with your hard drive. At least 50% of the people that come into our shop with a “dead” hard drive don’t need clean room data recovery. If you send your drive away to “clean room” recovery for a free evaluation, and they can recover your data easily, you are still going to pay a pretty penny. Can you risk your data to our process, in almost all cases, yes. You can can do further damage by using the wrong process to try and recover the data, but if we suspect that your drive needs the clean room treatment, we’ll refer you to one of our partners. You data is worth a second opinion. If your data is worth $150, then it’s worth letting us have a crack at it.

Also, the data recovery firms pay a commission to the folks that refer business to them (including us). Many people would rather just have that commission, rather then trying to take the trouble of trying to recover your data. If your data is super critical, then you may want to go right to a clean room firm. If you’re not sure, please call us and ask us how we think your case should be handled. We do this every single day, so we do have a good deal of Macintosh Data Recovery experience we can share with you.

I recently helped a new client, Jet Stream Girl; deal with a terrible data loss issue. We did our best with her hard drive recovery from a 12” PowerBook. Sadly we were not able to get her data. She had an older iBook that was sick, but still had some of her data on it, so we migrated that unit to a new computer for her.

It was a bad situation, as she lost a large amount of data and photos. This is unfortunate reminder of why backups are SO important. See our web site: www.harddrivesdie.com for more info.

She gave us a nice shout out in her blog, which can be found here.

My 30-second elevator pitch has evolved to include ATM repairs.

So someone in the elevator will see my MacMedics jacket, shirt, or tool bag and asks, “What exactly is MacMedics?”

I say, “MacMedics is an Apple Authorized Macintosh service and consulting business. We service and maintain Macs at ad agencies and other places where pre-press and graphic design happens on a Mac like at corporate graphics or marketing departments. We like to say we’re in the ATM repair business, because when your Mac is broken or slow, you’re not making money.”

I got a huge dose of this wisdom this recently. A guy who lives and works near our shop has a video production business. He’s been asking about maybe getting a new Mac for the last year or so.

We exchange e-mails every so often when he has a question about his Mac or to ask if we need any video production help. I saw him at Subway not too long ago and he let me know that he might be getting a new Mac soon.

He came into the shop with his older MacBook Pro that was really sick. He had tried to run a Firmware update while he was in the middle of a project and it failed, thus making the unit inoperable. It’s not a common occurrence, but we do see it from time to time. As soon as it happened he ordered a new MacBook Pro from somewhere else, and then brought that in so we could transfer his data from the old unit to the new unit. Sadly, we could have saved him even more time if he had purchased the new Mac from MacMedics.

Normally this is not a big deal. We set it up the new MacBook Pro to migrate and it failed about 75% of the way thru. We tried a few other things and tried again, and it failed a second time. We then began to suspect the drive might be failing as it was getting kind of noisy and it was getting pretty hot as well.

I decided to go ahead and clone the drive on our data recovery equipment, so I could copy the data off the drive quickly. I then had to fix that data in order to get it into to shape to migrate it. His hard drive was a huge mess. The report on the drive was seven pages long! The total process ended up taking several hours and it delayed him over 24 hours from the point where his old unit blew up.

So, he’s a professional guy who makes his living with this MacBook Pro, and he had no back up, and he’s never had the unit serviced or looked at. This MacBook Pro is really his ATM cash machine as it provides him with all of his bread and butter for his business.

This is a fantastic case study in why a little preventive maintenance goes along way. If you treat your Mac like your very own ATM machine, you’ll never have these problems. Let’s get real here? Are you going to let your ATM degrade to a point where it stops dispensing cash.

1. This client’s MacBook Pro is well over two years old, so if we had seen it at any point recently, we would have most likely replaced the unit’s hard drive proactively and serviced the unit.

4. A little bit of annual maintenance and an automatic and tested back up system pay for themselves very quickly.

We’re friendly with this fellow, so if had stopped and called us on the phone, we would have been able to tell him all of this. We love to talk shop. If you have questions about how to treat your Mac like your very own ATM machine, just pick up the phone and give us a call!