Phone Medics

In the early days of the iPhone, users enjoyed service plans for AT&T (and later Verizon) that promised unlimited data. Unfortunately, it was too good to last. After a few years, the carriers decided that giving smartphone users unlimited data was either technologically problematic or insufficiently profitable (there’s some debate on this point), and they began to be replaced by limited data plans. Once that happened, we had to start worrying about how much data we used, because the last thing anybody wants is to burn through their monthly allotment and start being charged by the gigabyte. With that in mind, we’re going to spend the next couple posts talking about some of the ways you can manage your cell phone’s data usage, so that you still have some data left at the end of your month. In today’s post, we’re going to talk about how to handle data usage on your iPhone. Next time we’ll cover Android. Turn Off Wi-Fi Assist When you go looking for ways to reduce your data usage,

As parents, it’s important that we train and guide our children in all sorts of ways, and that where possible, we protect them from the things they aren’t ready for yet. When it comes to technology that can be a particularly tricky challenge to navigate. In our previous two posts, we’ve talked about some of the ways you can do that on iPhone and Android devices. Today, we’ll wrap up the series with a look at some of the things you can do on your PC. User Accounts: Windows 10 One of the first things you should do if your child is going to be using a computer is creating a separate user account for them. This allows you to implement various parental controls including browser content filtering, screen time limits, app restrictions, and more. It also prevents your child from accessing or modifying important system settings. Giving a child access to a user account that has administrator privileges is a recipe for disaster. Fortunately, both Windows 10 and macOS make it pretty easy

In our previous post we talked about the need to have a little control over what your kids do on their devices, and some of the best ways to implement that on the iPhone (and other Apple devices). Today we’re going to go over how to accomplish some of the same things on Android devices. Fair warning: the variability of Android devices on the market means that some features, settings, and options might not be available on your particular device. With that caveat in mind, here are some of the things you can do to keep your kids safe when using Android devices. System Settings While Android lacks an equivalent to the device restrictions settings on the iPhone, there are still some things you can do to control what your kids do on their phones. For one thing, any tablet running Android 4.3 or newer offers you the option of creating restricted profiles - separate user profiles for your kids that limit their access to certain apps, the Google Play store, etc. Phones running Android 5.0

A parent’s most important (and sometimes hardest) job is keeping their kids safe. That’s as true when they use technology as it is when they do anything else. With technology, though, the process can sometimes be tricky and confusing. It can be hard to know the best way to protect our kids from unsavory content on the internet, and our wallets from accidental in-app purchases. Fortunately, Apple offers some great options for managing your kids’ activity on their iPhone. In today’s post, we’ll walk you through some of those. Restrictions Your first line of defense is the Restrictions section of your iPhone’s settings app. You can find it by opening up Settings, tapping General, and then tapping Restrictions. When you turn restrictions on, you’ll be asked to set up a passcode. Of course, you’ll want to pick something that’s different from the passcode that unlocks the phone, and something the child who will be using the phone doesn’t know and won’t be likely to guess. Once you get i

Anybody who’s ever suffered a data loss knows the importance of keeping your stuff backed up. In a previous post, we gave you a basic guide to keeping your computer backed up using a combination of on-site backups and cloud-based backups. Today we’re going to go a little more in-depth on the cloud backup piece of the equation. There are a lot of cloud backup services out there, so today we’re going to take a look at some of the best options. What To Look For The two main factors to consider when you’re looking for an online backup service are storage capacity and price. The first thing to do is figure out how much data you want to backup and decide how much (if any) more space you might need in the future. Once you’ve done that, you can start looking at prices for the amount of storage you need. Of course, there are other factors to consider. You want to make sure that the service offers a software client for your operating system, and look into how they plan to get your data