Ejecting a disc that’s stuck in your Mac

If a CD or DVD refuses to eject, and it’s definitely not in use by any programs, try restarting the Mac whilst holding down the left mouse button. This should force the opening of all optical drives and eject your troublesome disc. You could also open Terminal and type drutil tray open, then hit [Enter]. If other devices like USB or FireWire hard drives, memory sticks or iPods refuse to eject, the safest course of action is to shut down the Mac, disconnect the device and then restart. Often, a device will then behave normally.

via Quick fixes for 10 common Mac problems | News | TechRadar UK.

Basic & New Mac Facts

If you have a Mac you want to upgrade or improve some way, or are in the market for a new Mac, here is what I recommend for all Mac users:

1. Buy extra RAM. It’s (usually) cheap, and it provides speed you never thought your Mac had.
2. Buy Applecare. At pennies per day for your new, probably expensive, Mac, it will be well worth it if you need repair.
3. Watch the Apple Training Videos
4. Unless a Software Update provides a fix for a problem you are having, wait a week or two before installing it. Let others “beta test” Apple’s software updates for you.
5. If you came from a Windows background, remember the “Mac” way is different, and not to be ashamed of having to ask for help.

Mac Keyboard Shortcuts (useful during machine startup)

Startup
Keystroke	Description
Press X during startup	Force Mac OS X startup (if there are other operating systems on the disk)
Press Option-Command-Shift-Delete during startup	Bypass primary startup volume and seek a different startup volume (such as a CD or external disk)
Press C during startup	Start up from a CD that has a system folder
Press N during startup	Attempt to start up from a compatible network server (NetBoot)
Press T during startup	Start up in FireWire Target Disk mode
Press Shift during startup	start up in Safe Boot mode and temporarily disable login items and non-essential kernel extension files (Mac OS X 10.2 and later) (note this takes a LONG time!)
Press Command-V during startup	Start up in Verbose mode. Very useful if your machine isn’t booting, at least to techy-types. It lets you see everything the Mac usually hides from you during startup.
Press Command-S during startup	Start up in Single-User mode. Be very careful here!