steam beta must be running

"steam beta must be running to make use of find servers"
"error steam beta must be running"
"steam beta must be running mac"
"steam beta must be running tf2"

It's a pain, it's ambigious, and not only is the error message confusing, but it actually is wrong. But once you know the solution you might understand part of how this error shows up.

But it's so simple.

Most of the time this is fixed by restarting steam. The next best thing is to check for an update in order to update steam.

In fact do that first since it will restart if there is an update.

SOLUTION:
[Check for an update + Restart]
On mac this means going to the Steam menu at the very top of your screen and choosing "Check for Updates"
In windows you will find the check for update option under the tools menu.

If there wasn't an update, restart. If there was an update it will ask to restart by itself.

If neither of those work try validating your game files by right clicking on the game in your game list, choosing "Properties" followed by selecting the "Local Files" tab and you should see a button that mentions validation.

If all three of these do not resolve your issue it's time look for other causes for your problem.

What's happening:
The game you are trying to find servers for isn't happy with the version of steam you are running. So it either isn't up to date or something is preventing the game from properly shaking hands with Steam, hence the restart.

Forum threads to watch
http://forums.steamgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1306946
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=824497

kleptomaniacal "Open With..." OS X menu

"clean OS X open with menu"
"reset open with menu"
"organize os x open with menu"
"remove adobe photoshop open with menu"
"how do I clean up the os x open with menu

If you're looking for a solution to this problem, you either have a lot of applications, use various Adobe products that come with rarely used droplets, or are just tired of looking at applications you deleted long ago in the "Open With..." menu. Thankfully there are simple solutions. (If you're main problem is a massive list of adobe actions or droplets in your "Open With..." list, skip down to the "Adobe Droplet Invasion" section first, then come back up and follow these steps.)

Etch a sketch method
Start with the basics, we are going to force the Finder to forget its "Open With..." list so that it will create a new one. Find your way to the local user's Preferences folder under /YOUR_USERNAME/Library/Preferences. In here there should be a file named com.apple.LaunchServices.plist, delete or rename this file and perform a restart. Try it out by right-clicking or ctrl-clicking on a file to see if you're "Open With..." has fixed itself. If that didn't work open up a Terminal window (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal) and copy paste the following command into it by highlighting from "user" at the end up.

/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Once again restart your computer. Neither of these restarts are necessary, however for some users it is needed to take affect, why is not known, but it can't hurt to ensure that things get cleaned out and reset. Once your computer comes back up go ahead and right-click or ctrl-click on something and see if the "Open With..." problems have gone away. Keep in mind that some applications can keep adding themselves back, but these two methods should deal with any lingering applications listed that you have deleted.

Adobe Droplet Invasion
If your "Open With..." menu is slow and cluttered with Adobe actions, then its time to take action against them. Open up the Adobe folder where you have it installed, and you're going to need to look for those items listed in the "Open With..." list. For Adobe Photoshop this is will either be /Adobe Photoshop/Presets/Droplets/ or /Adobe Photoshop/Samples/Droplets/. Delete the droplets folder if it contains those items listed in your "Open With..." list. If you ever want to bring them back you can re-install photoshop, or a better solution is to simply make an archive or zip file of the droplets folder before deleting it. Now go back to the top of this post and follow the steps for cleaning the "Open With..." list itself.

Additional control, more refined solutions
Programs exist that give you more control over the "Open With..." list and other parts of OS X. Examples are
Cocktail
Onyx

Further reading and sources
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24770?viewlocale=en_US
http://macapper.com/2007/10/08/tutorial-clear-the-finders-open-with-menu/
http://macosx.com/forums/howto-faqs/50890-howto-removing-extra-photoshop-open-options.html
http://macosx.com/forums/mac-os-x-system-mac-software/306807-cleaning-open.html
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030730161311391

Every Nth data point on a spreadsheet

Possible searches

• "How to Select Every nth Row in Excel?"
• "Select every other row in excel"
• "Select every other cell in excel"
• "Select every other column in excel"
• "Select every other row in a spreadsheet"
• "Select every other cell in a spreadsheet"
• "Select every other column in a spreadsheet"
• "Access every other row in excel"
• "Access every other cell in excel"
• "Access every other column in excel"
  
• "Access every other row in a spreadsheet"
• "Access every other cell in a spreadsheet"
• "Access every other column in a spreadsheet"
  
  

The following pertains to excel versions OLDER than 2007 and iWork Numbers program

Consolidating data

So you've got a massive or complex set of data in a column or row in excel, and you want to grab every other, every third, etc. item. No problem, there's a quick and dirty method. Assuming your desired data is in column A, type the following formula in any cell that is in the same row as the first data value (usually A1, though it could be A2, A3 etc.)

[excel]
=INDEX(A:A, ROW()*2)
[numbers]
=INDEX(A, ROW()*2)

For Excel 2007 some suggested directions can be found at
http://www.lytebyte.com/2009/06/02/how-to-select-every-nth-row-in-excel/
I have not tried these.

Hide what's open when screensaver activates

"screen saver hide running programs"
"screensaver hide running programs
"xp password screen saver"
"xp password screensaver"

So you've chosen a screensaver off the internet or wherever but it shows your program windows rather than hiding them. Well there's a one step fix

1. Right click on the desktop and choose properties
2. At the top of the window that appears choose the "Screen Saver" tab
3. Near the middle check the box that says "On resume, password protect"

This will make your desktop wallpaper appear rather than your icons or open windows. However, when you awaken the computer it will ask for a password, which most likely is blank if you didn't set one, so just hit enter. If you do have a user password make sure you remember it.

i. Good free screen savers
Here are some clean running and well done screen savers that are completely free. Also feel free to look around their websites for other software they have made.

http://www.laconicsoftware.com/fire-screensavers.php

http://www.meticulous-software.co.uk/

ShapeShifter can't find the Finder

"ShapeShifter won't theme Finder"
"ShapeShifter preferences reset"
"ShapeShifter not applying to Finder"

Frustrating as it can be, this problem for many can be a forehead slap once fixed, and fits perfectly into the Bum Scoop Rescue objective of answering the often asked and rarely answered questions.

So you've just updated something somewhere in OS X and ShapeShifter no longer themes Finder and/or other Apple applications.

If you've started searching you've probably already gone through all kinds of file dumps, though we will go over those steps later, if this simple first step doesn't fix everything.

1. Are you up to date?
Always, always make sure you've started with the simple things first. Make sure that both ShapeShifter and Application Enhancer are up to date. Go ahead and just use google to get to Unsanity's download pages and grab the latest installers for each of these and run them. Restart your computer, and most likely everything will be fine. The problem on this machine occurred after a Quicktime update, and it was found that 2.0.3 of Application Enhancer was installed, and the latest version available was 2.5. Needless to say there was a large gap in fixes that were the key to fixing this problem.

2. Not so easy? Don't worry.
If updating didn't fix the problem, or you were up to date, not to worry, it should still be a simple fix. Bring up the ShapeShifter preference pane and hit restore defaults under the "Apply" tab. This restores the aqua theme, quit system preferences once this is done. Go ahead and open a new finder window or hit CMD-F and start searching for anything containing "shapeshifter" in the name. What we're looking for are any files that end in ".plist". These are preference files and must be deleted to bring ShapeShifter back to it's starting state.
NOTE: This will unregister your copy of ShapeShifter, so make sure you have your password, activation code, and name handy to re-register it once this is done.
Now search for "finder," again looking for a file that ends in ".plist". It should be located in /Users/[YOURUSER]/Library/Preferences, once you find it, delete it. Now restart the computer and see what's what.

3. No luck?
Once you've double checked that all of your Unsanity installations are up to date, and have deleted the preference files, you still have applications that refuse to be themed you're going to have some deeper OS X troubles going on. It also can't hurt to check that you're running the latest version of OS X itself, though that shouldn't usually affect things.

Mac OS X Expose failure

All of a sudden you cannot use Command-Tab to switch applications, expose keys and hot corners are doing nothing, and the dock is acting incorrectly. It's frustrating, and almost feels like your keyboard has been crippled, and multitasking comes to a screeching halt. But the fix is easy and this should not remain a permanent problem.

Multiple Monitors? Screensaver?
Depending on your answer to two questions will determine the cause and correction to your problem. Do you have more than one monitor? Did you recently wake your computer from its screensaver?
If yes then you may have also noticed when you try to Command-Tab or use expose commands your computer makes the error sound. For an as of yet undiagnosed problem OS X still thinks the screensaver is active. If you try to start the screensaver now it will fail, and furthermore opening the screensaver system preferences may or may not crash System Preferences itself. So what do you do?
Solution:
Put the computer to sleep, that's it. Once you're sure it's fully asleep (indicated by the power light going in and out, wake it again and all should be well.

Dock is unsafe for landing
If the above does not apply or the fix didn't work, you may be having trouble with your Dock (that handy bar that holds your active applications and favorite shortcuts). This too should be a quick fix, first try relaunching the Finder application. Hit Command-Option-Escape, select Finder and click Relaunch. Try your expose, Command-Tab, and Dock functions.

Leopard OS X 10.5
Still no luck? Then open up your downloads folder (Macintosh HD/Users/YOURNAME/Downloads) and check for any corrupt files, especially JPEGs. This is also an undiagnosed symptom, most likely it has to do with the 10.5 Dock displaying folder contents. So it tries to show the corrupted file on the folder stack on the Dock, and this brings the Dock and Finder to a halt.

If all else fails
If the above solutions still don't solve your problem, it's time to reboot, and most of you should know this. When it comes to little nagging things that don't destroy your work, it's best to just save everything you're doing and restart. This avoids the possibility of something worse occurring, and brings everything back up to speed and makes your operating system happy.


An ear to the ground
There may be other causes for this problem, it seems to show up in different ways in different versions of OS X. Some forum threads to keep an eye on if you didn't find a solution here or are curious are below.
macosxhints forums
macosxhints forums
macrumors forums
macrumors forums
macworld forums
apple discussions

Multiple Monitor Blackout

So you've got several monitors plugged in various ways to your computer, something happens or changes, and now when you boot up you may or may not see the Windows XP booting bar but after that you have black screens, or even more frustrating, you see blue or a wallpaper and a mouse but no login screen, desktop, or taskbar.

STEP 1: First and foremost, try the stupid thing first.
Reach back there and move one of the monitor cables to any unoccupied VGA or DVI ports and see if you get what you need. If you're lucky you'll find where your primary screen got sent and be able to juggle the monitor settings.

If you have no luck with that, keep going

Step 2: Second, the tedious and frustrating part.
Begin moving cables around and rebooting the computer until you find the BIOS, watching for what key your particular BIOS uses to open up the setup menu. Once the BIOS comes up your going to want to look for a section pertaining to VIDEO and then something like Primary Video. This menu should have an Auto setting and an Onboard setting. Dell BIOS has Auto set to default to your graphics card, while Onboard defaults to the motherboard VGA port UNLESS a PCI card is installed. Here's where you get complications, but go ahead and set your BIOS to whatever Onboard setting it has, save the changes and exit.

STEP 3: Almost done.
Power down the computer and look at your PCI/AGP card positioning. Whichever one is positioned closest (assuming you have multiple graphics cards) to the top of the openings is going to have a "higher" addressing as far as the computer cares (keep in mind you're motherboard might have the lowest slot as the highest address, the only thing that is guaranteed is the highest address is at the top or bottom of the rows of ports). Make sure something is plugged in to one or all of the ports on that card and startup the computer. Also make sure a monitor is plugged into the motherboards VGA port if you can.

Step 4: Configuration and the end of the problem
By now you should have your primary output visible on at least one of your monitors, but before we go setting up the monitors, make sure you have the latest versions of your graphics card's software suite (either ATI Catalyst or nVidia Control Panel). If you do download and install either of these then reboot once more.
Now you can proceed as normal with logging/booting XP and then setting up your monitors as you like using either the Windows monitor settings or your graphics cards software suite.

If you're still having problems, open up your case and remove your graphics cards completely, rebooting with a monitor plugged into the motherboard VGA port and nothing else.

If all else fails, you've got more serious problems or something very simple but overlooked.