Although Mac users generally don’t have to worry about viruses and spyware, we’re not immune to the occasional glitch.  Some of these can be scary: the blank screen, the sad Mac symbol, the blinking question mark, and strange beeping and flashing — I’ve seen them all in the 24 years I’ve been working on Macs.  Fortunately, repair is usually pretty easy.  Ironically, after reading about Tony’s Powerbook trouble at GenEx last week, my Powerbook suffered a similar fate. Fortunately, I travel with my disk utilities, and a couple of hours later, I was back in business. Apple includes a Disk First Aid program with every computer, but
third-party repair programs are better.  The best I’ve
used is DiskWarrior, rescuing damaged drives when nothing else would. My second line of defense has been TechTool Pro, although in writing this, I’ve just read better things about Drive Genius. I just ordered it. All three (plus Buyer’s Advantage) are the best computer insurance you can have.