You have been working away and saving the article that is due tomorrow every five minutes—and—then it happens. The screen freezes and you can’t navigate to another page or do anything else until you can unfreeze the screen. This phenomenon doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, try this sequence:

1. First of all, try the force-quit command by holding down these 3 keys at the same time: [option], [command] (with the little square flower symbol), and escape [esc] key;
2. When the “force-quit” window appears, click on each application listed (one-at-a-time);
3. After you select each application in sequence, click on the “force-quit” button, and continue this procedure until all applications have been forced to quit;
4. When all the applications have been quit, the last option in this open window will show the [Finder] and when it is selected, the button changes to [Relaunch];
5. Go head and relaunch the Finder—did that cure the problem?
6. If “force-quitting” doesn’t work, hold down the [Power] button until the Mac shuts down;
7. Wait at least 10 seconds, then restart the Mac;
8. In the most extreme case—cross your fingers, and;
9. Unplug the power cord and wait 30 seconds;
10. Then, plug it back in and restart the Mac;

Note: if you are working on a laptop you should also do the following:
11. Remove the battery;
12. Hold down the [shift], [control], [option], and [power] keys for 10 seconds;
13. Then, plug the laptop back into the power outlet, replace the battery, and push the power button.

If this sequence doesn’t work, give John a call at 828-777-8639. We don’t want no stinkin’ frozen screens!