Great Mac Documentation: Flashing Icons and SSL
July 21, 2006 | 3 Comments
On two occassions this week I went looking for documentation on how to do “stuff” on my Mac. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of documentation I found from Apple with simple Google search strings.
I wanted to setup SSL on the web server that runs on my OS X.4 desktop. So, I searched for “mac ssl web server”. This turned up Using mod_ssl on Mac OS X, which is a detailed guide which acts as a cookbook for getting this up and running using the infrastructure already in place on your Mac.
Later I was helping a co-worker who was experiencing difficulty with starting up his Mac. The symptom was a flashing globe. So, again a Google search: “mac flashing globe”. This turned up another article straight from Apple, Mac OS: Flashing Globe When Computer Turns On. Again the document immediately explained that the network disk must have been mistakenly selected for startup. The solution: be patient, it’ll eventually time out and switch back. Perfect!
Of course, after being patient, we got a new symptom… The flashing globe was replaced with a flashing question mark. Back to Google for a final run: “mac flashing question mark”. This time the Apple document was second in the list, but equally helpful. It also told us to be patient, but listed a bunch of steps to take if this did not work out.
All I can say is that Google combined with the really good Apple Mac documentation is a powerful combination. I’m under the impression that a monkey with an internet connection could support a pile of Macs and still have time to screw around.
Tags: apple, documentation, flashing, flashing globe, flashing question mark, globe, google, google search, mac, macintosh, question mark, SSL, support, web, web server