bSmart™ is BestMacs’ answer for anyone who wants to be a little smarter about working with and supporting Apple devices. Here you’ll find training videos on Mac support basics, detailed how-tos on Apple and other IT topics, and our favorite quick tips.
If you need some advice beyond this, drop Brian a note at brian@bestmacs.com or schedule a free consultation.
bSmart™ members can also get threat and failure monitoring from their Macs and PCs using our Early Warning System – the same one we use to warn us about problems on our BNO™ and Best Practices™ client computers. You can install it on unlimited devices for $60/month. Contact us to get set up.
Audiovisual Tips for Better Videoconferencing
Whether for work or socializing, we’re all spending a lot more time in video calls these days. But—surprise!—it turns out that many of our group video calls could be more pleasant, less embarrassing, and overall better if we follow a few basic audiovisual tips. Make...
Forrester Research and IBM Studies Show Macs Are Cheaper than PCs
It’s taken as gospel that Macs are more expensive than PCs. A quick look at the Dell Web site reveals laptops for as low as $300. Sure, we can say that the configurations aren’t comparable, that macOS is better than Windows, or that Apple’s hardware quality is...
Want to Push Some Buttons? Make the Most of Control Center in iOS
Starting back in iOS 11, Apple made Control Center significantly more useful by letting you customize it more to your liking by adding and rearranging buttons. You can even remove a few of the default buttons if they’re just taking up space. Opening and Closing...
Use the Mac’s Built-In Screen Sharing to Provide Remote Help
Are you the person your friends and family members turn to for questions about the Mac? In normal times, those questions might come over dinner or at another in-person gathering, such that you could look directly at their Mac to see what was going on. Now, however,...
Tips for Setting Up a Comfortable and Effective Home Work Space
Vast numbers of people who previously reported for work at an office every day are now working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s sensible, and if you’re included in that group, there was probably even a little thrill of “I get to work from home!” at...
Need to Stay in Touch? Try One of These Videoconferencing Apps
With many people under stay-at-home orders, videoconferencing is going mainstream. If you work in a sufficiently large organization, you probably have already been indoctrinated into a recommended solution, whether it’s the built-in videoconferencing features of Slack...
Create Your Own Chat Group Via Slack
Whether you’re working from home or just stuck at home, it can be tough to communicate with colleagues, friends, or family. Sure, there’s email, but that gets hard to manage quickly, and it can be difficult to stay focused with so much news rolling in. For friends and...
Having Mac Troubles? Running Apple Diagnostics May Help Identify the Problem
If your Mac is acting up and you suspect a hardware problem, there’s an easy first step that you can—and should—try before calling for Apple technical support in Kansas City: Apple Diagnostics. (On Mac models released before June 2013, Apple instead included a similar...
MacBook Air Update Features Magic Keyboard, iPad Pro Gets a Trackpad
Here’s some good news! Apple has introduced a new MacBook Air with a better keyboard and faster processor for $200 less. And there’s a new iPad Pro with trackpad support. Seriously!
Preparing Your Organization for a Possible COVID-19 Quarantine
As of this writing, the respiratory disease COVID-19 has caused nearly 3000 deaths and infected over 80,000 people worldwide. There are relatively few cases in North America currently, but that could increase significantly. For high-quality information about COVID-19,...