Gadget Techie

Macs are known for their ability to just work. Software seems to behave very well and for the most part, you don’t get as many crashes or freeze ups as on a Windows machine. However, the more I use my Macbook Pro the more I realize that, while it is true that you get less lock ups and crashes on a Mac, when something weird does happen, it is VERY hard to find a solution.

My first problem of this sort with my Macbook Pro was with the wifi. Whenever I would put my Mac to sleep and wake it up in an area with a different wifi network, it would not acquire a proper IP address until I turned off the firewall. Then, after it acquired a proper IP address, I could turn the firewall back on and go about my business. I spent hours on the phone with Apple Tech Support (which by the way is amazing!) trying to get this fixed. In the end, I upgraded to Snow Leopard and that seemed to make the problem go away.

Now enter my second issue: not being able to minimize windows. This time in Snow Leopard, although judging by forum posts it doesn’t really matter what version of Mac OS you have. This appears to be a random event and is not isolated to just one application or window. The yellow minimize button would be grayed out as well as the minimize option under the Window menu. The shortcut key (Command+M) doesn’t work either. Quite a few people seem to be having this issue and yet I found it extremely difficult to find a solution for it. Therefore, I am posting it here so as to increase the chances of someone finding it.

Turns out that it has to do with Quicktime. If you run Quicktime, open a movie file, make it full screen, and then quit Quicktime, the problem should be fixed. Like I said, when there is an issue on a Mac, it is very difficult to track down the culprit just because most of the time the root cause makes no sense.