*Save $20* on the Otterbox case and Hammerhead Stylus for iPhone 5 with free shipping!

As reliable as they are, Macs are not immune to slowing down. Here are some tips that will help speed up your Mac.

This first is a fix for many problems that arise in the computer business: *restart your machine!* It is super simple and simply powering down can cause any apps running in the background to turn off to free up your valuable and finite system resources.

The next is to *monitor your system resources.* Simply launch *Activity Monitor* from *Applications > Utilities* and keep an eye on your CPU usage, System Memory and Disk Activity when you notice things getting slow. It might just tell you who the culprit is.

The next is just as simple as the first: *quit any apps you aren’t using.* It’s like how my mom always told me to turn the lights off when I left the room. With fewer apps running your computer, there are more resources to delegate to what you are working on.

The next few solutions, unfortunately, are not free ones, but it’s the least expensive: *upgrade your RAM.* The prices for memory have significantly dropped for Macs in recent years, and going from a measly 2GB to 8 or 16GB (if your computer can take it) will do the trick.

The next may be two-fold: *upgrade your hard drive.* If you upgrade from a standard hard drive (with spinning platters) to a solid state drive, you’ll see a few speed improvements. Alternatively, if you have run out of room on your hard drive, increasing its capacity can give you machine the wiggle room it needs.

The final tip is a whopper: *buy a new computer.* Technology advances so quickly these days that the moment you buy a computer, something better comes along. If you are the kind of person who can afford to drop the big bucks on new tech all the time, we’re jealous! For everybody else, sticking to a 3-5 year upgrade plan seems to work.

These are just a few of many tips out there that could potentially lead to your machine running faster. I encourage everyone reading this to send me your tips on how you like to speed things up.

It has been just over a year and a half since Steve Jobs passed away, and in that time, books and documentaries have been released that delve into the life and legacy of Jobs. This week, a short-ish film written and directed by Ryan Perez gives us a different take at the man behind Apple. In this parody biopic dubbed “iSteve”, some familiar faces like Justin Long (Jeepers Creepers, Dodgeball, and all those Apple commercials) and Jorge Garcia (Lost) take aim and has fun with the life of Jobs.

I have to admit, I made it about half way through this before I had to take a break. It really wasn’t capturing my attention, and the humor was minimal. In fact, the beginning half really just made me feel bad for Woz. The lack of over-the-top funny stuff made me wonder if the inaccuracies were intentional or just ignorance.

In any case, I paused it and read some comments to see what others were saying. Most agreed that the movie was lackluster, while a small number of others really enjoyed the flick. One comment mentioned this movie was written in 3 days and shot in 5. I cannot confirm or deny this statement, but I figured that I’d watch the rest for that reason alone!

I am glad I did.

The second half that I watched really picked up in terms of the comedic elements and had much less Woz bashing (thank goodness). I felt compelled to keep watching so I could see what crazy things they would do next. Without giving anything huge away I loved when Justin playing Jobs basically discovers himself (being played by Anthony Gioe) as an actor, and directs “Justin” in an Apple commercial.

I don’t expect everyone to like this one, and in fact, most reviews have confirmed this. That said, I would watch it again. It definitely isn’t for the younger audience (at least my mom wouldn’t have let me watch it) and borders somewhere between PG-13 and R, so consider yourself warned before showing it to your little ones.

If you’re looking for a funny history lesson that you should take with many grains of salt, check out iSteve. At worst, it’s only 80 minutes of your life, anyway!

You can find iSteve on Funny or Die’s website or check out the movie directly “*here.*”:http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/d2e0f617e3/isteve

For all of you looking for something to do tomorrow in the southern New Hampshire area, our friends at Stonyfield will be hosting their annual 5K race and Earth Day Fair.

bq. “Celebrate Spring and Earth Day in this morning-long festival featuring a walk/run 5K followed by a FREE Earth Day Fair on Saturday, April 20th. Bring the family, as there will be booths and activities for all ages.”

We’re a proud sponsor of this year’s event, and we will have a tent and table set up, so come see us and get some free stuff. We’ll also hold a few giveaways during the event!

In addition, the first 1,250 registrants will receive a ticket to a Fisher Cats game on April 23, 2013 from Stonyfield and the first 1,500 runners to register will receive a special Life is good/Stonyfield t-shirt.

The race Start/Finish, Celebration and Sustainability Fair will all take place at the Stonyfield Farm Yogurt Works, located at 10 Burton Drive in Londonderry, New Hampshire 03053.

If you want to run and haven’t yet registered, or if you want to find out more about the event, “*visit their website here.*”:http://stonyfield5k.com

Our most popular refurbished MacBook Pro is the 15-inch MacBook Pro 2.4GHz i5 4GB/320GB.

For a total of $1199.99, you’ll also get a free sleeve from Tucano, a Small Dog Keyboard Shortcuts mousepad, and a Microfiber Cleaning Cloth ($30 value)!

_Dear Friends,_

We were all shocked and dismayed to learn of the bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday. I hope I am never “conditioned” to reports of senseless violence like this. To see innocent people killed and maimed by a berserker with or without a political agenda is truly terrifying. Our thoughts go out to the victims and their families but also to the brave first responders and ordinary citizens, that in the face of danger, rushed to help the victims.

I was able to get my motorcycle out this week and took the long circuit to visit both Burlington and Rutland. Our Rutland store is getting close and we are putting the finishing touches on it in preparation for our Grand Opening on May 4th. One of the nice features of the new store is a beautiful classroom to do trainings and seminars.

Sometimes the Mac operating system is so intuitive that people just get to work and start using their Macs without learning some of the basics of the operating system. I know that was the case early in my career. I found that when I put a Mac on an employee’s desk, they produced useful work at the end of the day. On the other hand, if I put a PC on an employee’s desk, it would take a week.

Recently, I have been working with a friend who was accustomed to using PCs, and when I convinced her to buy a Mac, she just got to work. However, since she never really took the time to learn the Finder and its features, there has been some confusion. I figure that I will start at the beginning and go through all the features of the Finder and the System Preferences, since they are so powerful!

Our Hammerhead Case division just got the Capo case for the iPad mini in stock. This form-fitting hard plastic case is built to protect your iPad mini. We made several improvements from the larger Capo case for the full-size iPad including beefing up the hinge and latch and installing thicker inner material. We also had our manufacturer perform drop testing. They did 100 drops from 4 feet without damage to the case. I think you will find this to be a great case for your iPad mini. I have been using one on mine for the last several months (but haven’t done any drop testing yet!).