Some Sage Advice

If you are the last remaining user of QuarkXpress, please stop and switch to InDesign. Quark is the worst company on the planet right now and they don’t deserve to be in business anymore. Case in point, our last phone call to Quark. We had to reinstall Quark on a machine and it wouldn’t activate over the internet (what a surprise…). So I had to call Quark. When you call the toll-free number given on the activation screen, you are presented with 3 options:

1. press 1 for Quark’s fee-based support and be prepared for a $39 fee on your credit card
2. press 2 for Customer Service
3. press 3 for Sales

So I pressed 2 for Customer Service. I was greeted with, “Thank you for call Quark Customer Service. Please be prepared for a $39 fee to speak to customer service.”

What!!! So I have to pay to talk to customer service?? So I held on a got an obviously “not-American” customer service rep with a distinctive accent. I explained to her about not being to activate Quark and I needed an activation code. She replied with, “That will be $39.”

“WHAT!!! YOU WANT TO CHARGE ME $39 TO ACTIVATE SOFTWARE THAT I OWN???”

“Yes.”

So I asked to speak to her supervisor. I was given the same lame answer. So I asked to speak to her supervisor. She said she didn’t have one. “So you own Quark??” “No.” “Then let me talk to someone above you.” “There is no one else.”

This went on for several minutes until my blood pressure reached critical levels. She finally offered me email activation that would only take 15 minutes or so. So I tried it.

Well, three hours later, the activation came through. Three hours. That is three hours with a machine out of production because of Quark’s arrogance and lack of customer support.

So please Quark, do us all a favor, and close your doors.

Apple has released a knowledge base article describing the key commands and what they enable when pressed during start-up:

• Press C during start-up: Start from a bootable CD/DVD, such as the Mac OS X Install disc.
• Press D during start-up: Start the Apple Hardware Test when the Install DVD 1 is inserted in your Mac’s drive.
• Press and hold (Command + Option + P + R) until you hear two beeps: Reset the NVRAM.
• Press Option during start-up: Loads Startup Manager, enabling users to select which volume they would like to boot from. Pressing N will show the first bootable Network volume as well.
• Press the Eject button, press F12, or click and hold the mouse or trackpad button: Ejects any removable media.
• Press N during start-up: Attempt to start from a compatible network server (NetBoot).
• Press T during start-up: When two Macs are connected via FireWire, this will start one in FireWire Target Disk Mode (two Macs with FireWire ports are required).
• Press Shift during start-up: Starts your Mac in Safe Mode, temporarily disabling log-in items.
• Press (Command + V) during start-up: Starts in Verbose Mode.
• Press (Command + S) during start-up: Starts in Single-User Mode.
• Press (Option + N) during start-up: Start from NetBoot server using the default boot image.

Apple recommends pressing the start-up key combinations immediately after hearing the start-up tone.