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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Used G-5?

muchkneaded - Oct 13, 2007 - 8:28 pm

Not long after I bought my G-5 from CompUSA, I went to the Avery templates to address an envelope. To my surprise, the name "Elizabeth Bedzis" was already on the envelope - not a generic name like "John Q. Public" or "Jane Doe", but a real name.

Suspecting that CompUSA sold me a used computer at a brand new price, I asked one of their techs how Elizabeth Bedzis' name got on my brand new computer. The tech blew me off with some BS answer, something to the effect that "oh, you know how computers are...they pick up stuff from e-mail addresses and websites...."

Now, almost 2 years since I first bought this computer, for some reason known only to God and maybe a few of you techies, ALL of my Word documents have been "formatted" (I think that's the term) sometime during the last month. What I created to be a sign advertising free Quantum-Touch (QT) sessions now shows up as text, with several pages of this crap underneath the simple sign:

Default Paragraph Font
Default Paragraph Font
Hyperlink
Hyperlink
Elizabeth Bedzis]Macintosh HD:Users:rickgarzanitiocuments:Microsoft User Data:AutoRecovery save of Document2
Elizabeth Bedzis]Macintosh HD:Users:rickgarzanitiocuments:Microsoft User Data:AutoRecovery save of Document2
Elizabeth Bedzis@Macintosh HD:Users:rickgarzanitiocuments:Brief Intro to QT.doc
Elizabeth Bedzis@Macintosh HD:Users:rickgarzanitiocuments:Brief Intro to QT.doc
Elizabeth Bedzis^Macintosh HD:Users:rickgarzanitiocuments:Microsoft User Data:AutoRecovery save of Brief Intr
Elizabeth Bedzis^Macintosh HD:Users:rickgarzanitiocuments:Microsoft User Data:AutoRecovery save of Brief Intr
Elizabeth Bedzis@Macintosh HD:Users:rickgarzanitiocuments:Brief Intro to QT.doc
Elizabeth Bedzis@Macintosh HD:Users:rickgarzanitiocuments:Brief Intro to QT.doc
Elizabeth Bedzis@Macintosh HD:Users:rickgarzanitiocuments:Brief Intro to QT.docÿ__
Times New Roman
Times New Roman

As you can see, Elizabeth Bedzis' name has now spread to ALL of my Word docs, showing my name as a "User".

I now have 2 questions:

1. Did CompUSA sell me a used computer and charge me full price?

2. How do I change all my docs back to the way I originally created them?

Thanks,
Rick Garzaniti
Tallahassee, FL

DeltaMac - Oct 13, 2007 - 9:10 pm

1. Your Mac was set up, and a name is in your system "Elizabeth Bedzis" before you purchased it. Whether it was actually sold, then returned, or someone simply added a user to update the system software before being sold to you - that's a question that even CompUSA likely won't be able to answer after two years... Your computer might have been set up for a sale, then the customer changed their mind - not unusual at a large store.
Our shop would always restore the original system completely to original, and it sounds like CompUSA did not do this.
2. Your documents are not really changed, but it sounds like you have printed one with all the formatting turned on, which you don't usually need. Elizabeth Bedzis has always been there in the internal document properties. There's likely nothing that you can do about the internal file information, especially if you have a large number of documents on your Mac. Just choose to print, and don't select the option to print the document properties.

Check in your System Preferences/Sharing pref pane. If you find that the computer name is Elizabeth Bedzis, change it to something else.
The other place to check for that name is Address Book. If that name is there, it is probably listed as the default address for the system, or My Card, You should make sure that your address card is listed as My Card (choose your record, and then choose Make this My Card, from the Card menu). Those two items should prevent Elizabeth Bedzis from showing up anywhere after now. You can also delete the Eliza Bedzis address record, if you want to do that.

Hope this helps you...
- Dale

muchkneaded - Oct 14, 2007 - 10:30 pm

My thanks to Dale for the quick response. Actually, when I first saw Elizabeth's name in my computer, I looked for (and found) Liz's name in the Tallahassee phone book, but I never called her.

I checked the computer name - it's mine. And Liz's name is nowhere in my Address Book, and my name is on My Card.

Also, it turns out that I recently changed the "Enable" box in Word to "Recover Text from Any File". I discovered that AFTER I wrote to you. When I switched it back to "All Word Documents", everything looks EXACTLY like I composed it - without all that crap beneath it.

I'm a happy dude

Thanks again, Dale.

Peace,
Rick