Phone Medics

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 ...

When you walk into our repair facility, one of the first things you’ll notice is that we have an open floor plan. Just standing in the doorway, you can see nearly the entire shop. What you may not realize is that this is pretty unique in the repair industry. When you take your phone, tablet, or computer to most other repair shops, they take it away into the back to fix it. At Phone Medics Plus, we prefer to do everything out in the open. So, why do we do it this way? Well, it’s pretty simple: we believe that it’s the best way to serve our customers. When you can watch the work that’s being done do your device, you can feel more confident that our repair technicians are showing the utmost respect for your device and for your privacy. We also believe that by doing our repair work out in the open, we can provide our customers with peace of mind throughout the repair process. It’s human nature to want to see and understand what’s going on, especially in a stressful situation like when ...

In a previous article we talked a lot about passwords - how to create strong passwords, how to recover lost passwords, and why you should use a password manager. In today’s post, we’re going to elaborate on that last point a little bit by giving you a rundown of some of the best password management options out there. Browsers Before we get into popular third party password management options, it’s worth taking a moment to talk about some of the password management options that are built into software you’re already using. The major web browsers all have built-in password managers that work with both their desktop and mobile versions. If you have Google Chrome remember a password on your laptop, then it will also be available when you use the mobile version of Chrome on your phone or tablet. The same goes for Apple’s iCloud Keychain service (which also lets you auto-fill passwords on some iOS apps), for Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft’s Edge browser. Unfortunately, there are a few ...

In a world where we are increasingly dependent on electronics, water has become the boogeyman. We live in constant fear of dropping our phones into our pools, sinks, and toilets. But while water damage is scary, everybody knows that the best way to fix it is to just drop your phone into a bag of rice, right? Unfortunately this is one of those times when what “everybody knows” isn’t really true. The reality is that putting a wet phone into rice won’t help at all, and might actually hurt. You see, the common wisdom is that since rice is a dry food that absorbs water as it cooks, then it must be able to absorb the water out of a wet phone, but that isn’t actually the case. Yes, we cook rice by forcing it to absorb hot water, but that doesn’t mean that the rice will actually absorb the water out of your phone just because it happens to be nearby. In fact, rice doesn’t absorb water out of the air very efficiently at all (that’s why we boil it). To make matters worse, rice is also dusty,...

We’ve talked a lot in previous posts about how to keep yourself safe when you browse the internet. We’ve talked about avoiding malware , what to do if you get malware , and how to avoid phishing scams . In today’s post we’re going to go a little more in-depth with some of the tools you can use to protect your computer by giving you a quick rundown of some of the best antivirus software available for your computer.  All of the programs we’re talking about today are completely free, full-featured anti-malware programs. There are plenty of other paid programs out there that are as good or better, and that have more features, but today we’re focusing on ways you can protect your computer for free. Bitdefender Bitdefender is excellent at detecting and removing malware, it offers real-time virus protection, and protects you from fraudulent websites and phishing scams. That said, there are a few features you might like that are missing from the free version, including a password mana...

We live in an increasingly DIY-focused world. When something goes wrong, we tend to want to take care of it ourselves, rather than pay someone else to take care of it for us, and the age of the internet makes that easier than it's ever been. If you want to learn to do it, chances are there’s somebody on YouTube who’s eager to teach you. We’re big fans of DIY solutions at Phone Medics Plus, but the truth is that when it comes to your electronics, DIY repairs can get pretty tricky. The truth is, sometimes you're just better off bringing your phone or computer problems to a professional. In today’s post, we’ll tell you a few reasons why that's the case. Identify the problem quickly We’ve seen it all, so if you’re not sure exactly what’s wrong, we have the experience and knowledge to quickly troubleshoot the problem. Help you understand the problem and the best way to fix it Some problems have more than one solution, and some solutions are easier or cheaper than other...