Bluetooth, that is. As I wrote in a blog post a few days ago, my iMac was on a rampage again, the screen freezing up, and both the wireless track pad and keyboard seemed to have taken on minds of their own. It seemed like all I had to do was look at the track pad and the cursor would jump all over the place; if I moved it anywhere it opened everything it passed over, or else deleted them. If I was typing, the cursor would jump up or down a few lines, suddenly delete everything I had just typed, or land in the middle of a line I had already typed and insert random characters. I tried the mouse that came with my iMac, as well as Terry’s track pad, all with the same results.
A couple of people said the problem might be the Bluetooth on the iMac acting up, and I tried several things they suggested, as well as things I found online on the Mac forums. Nothing worked and it was getting worse by the moment. I could actually sit here and watch the cursor moving around with my hands in my lap, like it was possessed. And that may not be far from the truth.
One of my author friends has a sister who works at the Genius Bar at an Apple store, and after hearing my description of the problem, she said she thought it was the Bluetooth receiver in the iMac, and that I was looking at over $500 to replace it. (By the way, she told me that none of her personal computers are Macs.)
Friday night I went to WalMart and bought a cheap Logitech wireless mouse and keyboard, plugged the little receiver that came with them into a USB port on the back of my iMac, and turned off the computer’s Bluetooth. Both the new mouse and keyboard worked fine, the computer did not lock up all day long, and I was back in business. All for a lot less money than Apple charges to fix the problem! I’m with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to Apple’s Tim Cook: Screw you!
Today is your last chance to enter this week’s Free Drawing for an audiobook of Crazy Days in Big Lake, the third book in my Big Lake mystery series. To enter, all you have to do is click on the Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn this evening.
Speaking of books and authors, my friend Ella Medler just added a new romantic suspense book titled Trial Run to her popular Addicted To Love Romance Collection. After reading it, I think you’ll understand why most of Ella’s book have solid 5 star ratings from the folks who leave reviews online.
Another book that has the critics and reviewers talking is USA Today bestselling author R.E. Blake’s Less Than Nothing, the story of a young street musician in San Francisco who suddenly finds herself in a cross-country race against time. Check it out and leave a review.
Thought For The Day – I’m not short, I’m a people McNugget
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Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Glad you seem to have a solution to the problem!! I well understand how maddening it all is….mine has done the same sort of thing. Much cheaper laptop (Toshiba) getting old…and no Bluetooth. I am not computer literate at all….so no idea why this all happens. But I was considering jumping up and down on the stupid thing and see if it worked any better. Hubby messed with it some and it is better…but still waiting till we can afford something new!! Like I tell my sewing pals….if sewing machines worked so poorly in such a short time as do computers, none of us would be sewing!! ARGH!!
Glad you solved the computer problem for now, my keyboard on my Gateway just up and quit, I mentioned it to my son and he told me to do the same thing that you did since my computer is 6 years old and money is tight and I do need it he suggested to get the wireless keyboard and new mouse, and it works just fine. I plan to replace the computer after the holidays but for now this works great
Nick,
I’ve been using a USB Logitech mouse and USB Microsoft keyboard on my iMac for many years without incident, but you never know when computers will start acting-up. I appreciate you sharing the solution to your iMac nightmare. You never know who may be experiencing the same problem.
Hope you and Miss Terry are loving your new fridge!
Best regards from Williamsburg.
think maybe greg was right??? lol
Best and first thing you can do to a laptop when having problems is unplug it, pull out the battery. Open all the little panels on the back. do not touch anything inside with your hand unless you hold on to some metal around you to discharge any static in you first. Once that is done blow it out really well with a can of air or even a compressor set at 20 lbs. If you have animals in and around the computer blow it out more often. Then put the panels back on and the battery etc. It will do wonder for it. dust and hair or fur cause heat. Computers do not like extra heat. Also blow your keyboard out but only with canned air. HTH
Dave
Just finished Big Lake Mystery, Nick. Loved it. Now I need to get the next book in the series. Big Lake Lynching.