This page contains things you should know how to do to avoid problems.

More will be added, so check back.

• Force Quit Applications
  Sometimes and application just will not respond (you get the spinning pizza, as it is called). You may be tempted to power off your Mac, but this may cause disk damage. To force quit an application, from the Apple menu choose Force Quit and then select the misbehaving application from the list. You can also bring up this window by pressing Command-Option-Esc. Always Shut Down normally (from the Apple menu) if you can.
• Verify Time Machine Backups
  You may think Time Machine is backing up your Mac, and it may be telling you it is. But there are some errors that will result in Time Machine telling you it made a backup when it did not do so. I have witnessed this with the error "failed to resolve alias to backup volume". A Restart fixed that problem for the next backup, but the problem had been ocurring for two days of missed backups that Time Machine said it had. I could enter Time Machine and see those supposed backups, but upon further inspection no changes were actually backed up. Where do you find these potential Time Machine errors? Open up the Console Application (in Applications > Utilities) and do a search on "backupd" (which is Time Machine).
  
  This may get more complex than you want, but one easy thing everyone should do is periodically enter Time Machine and look for a recently added file to make sure it is there. You want to make sure your Time Machine is working properly, when you need it you really need it. Time Machine can fully recover your Mac if your hard drive dies (for example), but only if your backups were working properly.
  
  Also, do not rely on Time Machine as your only backup (everyone should have more than one backup strategy). Take a flash drive and backup your critical files now and then, or use another external drive or DVD.