Sunday, October 7, 2007

Problems ejecting CDs because of not closing a program the right way

I got a question from Scott, who recently joined my Gold Club. He wrote:

> Hi Worth I got the CDs today. I listened to part of
> one of them, and now Im having a problem ejecting the
> disc. A window keeps popping up stating " being used".
> How do i eject It?
>
> Thanks Scott

OK, this is a problem people run into occasionally, but it's nothing big.

The problem is that you haven't completely closed out of whatever program you're using to listen to, or watch, the CDs.

This applies to any CD you might use on your computer, not just my CDs, but we'll use mine as an example since that's what Scott is asking about.

You can almost think of it as if you're trying to move a rug. If you're still standing on the rug, it's "in use" so you can't move it. If you step off the rug (and move any furniture off it, etc.) it is no longer in use, so you can move it.

So you need to make sure you completely exit out or quit out (same thing) of the program before trying to eject the disk.

If you were listening to one of the audio CDs that comes with the Gold Club, it may have opened up in iTunes, or maybe a different program, depending on what you're using on your computer.

In Scott's case, it would almost definitely be iTunes, since he's using a Mac.

On the other hand, if you're watching one of my video lesson CDs, like the "Sampler CD" that also comes as part of the $47 package, then it would have opened up in a web browser.

On a Mac that's usually Safari, on a Windows PC that's Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox most commonly. (As a side note, I'll just repeat that if you're running Windows and you're using Internet Explorer (the blue E) then you should stop using that and switch to Firefox since Explorer is very insecure and can cause many problems for you)

Whatever the case is, the problem is caused because you didn't completely exit or "quit out" of the program.

On a Windows PC you can exit out of programs 99% of the time by closing all of the open windows from that program.

On a Mac, on the other hand, closing the window might not close the program. I see a lot of people do this -- they click the red X button in the corner of the window and it closes the window, but leaves Safari (or whatever program) open and running.

What you want to do is Quit out of the program by going to the application menu (the menu that has the name of the program, like Safari, iTunes, etc.) and go to the bottom option in that menu: Quit.

This closes the program completely, so it's not taking up memory and not "holding on to" the CD.

Once you're out of the program, you should be able to eject the CD normally.

I cover the right way to close programs in one of the easy video computer lessons on the computer basics video lesson CDs that come with the bundle of easy video lesson CDs available on my site.

Until next time, enjoy,

Worth Godwin

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Worth Godwin has been giving people computer help
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