Swear by your computer, not at it.
978-502-7672
978-502-7672
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Swear by your computer, not at it.
Swear by your computer, not at it.
Stuff we like.
Stuff we like.
We recommend these products, services and vendors. They will enhance your Apple product experience.
Apple Store for Business
Because we have expertise with Apple products, TekBasics has been selected for the Apple Business Affiliate Program. You benefit from our advice and product experience and we assist you in purchasing from the Apple Store for Business. Order online by clicking the link above, or we can engage a member of the business sales team at Apple to assist personally with your purchasing and financing questions.
Backblaze
Backup before you wish you had. There are many good reasons for backing up in the cloud (read about offsite backups in the Backup Tutorial on this website). Backblaze backs up an unlimited amount of data for just $5.00 a month. No file size limits. No limits on network speeds. Back up anywhere you have an Internet connection. Restore your data by downloading or receive your restored files on a flash drive or hard disk that is FedEx’d to you. Backblaze operates continuously and automatically, and your files are encrypted for security. We use this ourselves. Download the Backblaze 15-day free trial to see for yourself how easy it is (no credit card required).
BookLightning
Create a booklet from a PDF file in just a second. Drop the PDF file onto the BookLightning icon. The booklet will be printed half the size of the paper you use, so your booklet will be 8.5 x 5.5 inches if you use letter size 11 x 8.5 inch paper. Very useful for printing the Take Control Ebooks.
Carbon Copy Cloner
Carbon Copy Cloner makes a duplicate copy of your startup disk so that when your startup disk fails, you can quickly start up your Mac from the duplicate backup and continue working right away. We recommend that you have two duplicate backups and store one at an off-site location in case of a disaster such as theft, fire, electrical surges and natural disasters.
Checkbook Pro
Looking for a replacement for Quicken? This personal finance manager is simple, yet powerful. Search your transactions based on any combination of criteria. Change the date or description for a group of transactions in a single stroke. It has powerful data management tools. Not for tracking investments. Available from the Mac App Store.
CleanMyMac
Clean up and organize your Mac, removing files that slow it down. Perform a detailed system cleanup, optimize your photo collection, organize old files, applications and extensions. Doing it yourself is less expensive than hiring a consultant. Simple and powerful. A free trial is available.
Turn your photos into comic layouts or even entire comic books. We have used Comic Life the past few years to create a not-boring end-of-year family newsletter. Turn a grandparent’s memories into a graphic novel, or your child’s first year into a photo story book to enjoy forever. From the Mac App Store.
ContentBarrier
The Internet is a great resource for kids, but strangers and inappropriate websites lurk just a click away. ContentBarrier acts as your child’s digital guardian whenever they go online. It allows you to set up customized profiles that monitor Internet habits and restrict adult content. You can easily personalize the settings for each family member and set limits on Internet time. Keeps a history of websites visited for each user account. View the history of recorded chats, including the content of the chat and the ID of the chat partner. Much more including activity reports via email, recorded screens, optional ’monitor only’ mode to record a user’s activity without any protections or blocking, blocks inappropriate emails, game servers, streaming music and video.
Day One
A simple way to journal. Easily enter your thoughts and memories and have them synced and backed up to your iPhone or iPad. Slick design, has a calendar view and a built-in reminder system. From the Mac App Store.
Excalibur Data Recovery
If you’re not heeding our backup recommendations then you may someday require the services of Excalibur. You can ship your hard disk, solid state disk, flash drive or camera card to them or drop it off at their office in Salem, New Hampshire. TekBasics participates in the Excalibur Partner Program, so ask us for a discount coupon for $100 off the restoration fee. Unlike some other data recovery companies, Excalibur does not charge an evaluation fee.
Gemini
Find and remove identical files on your Mac with this handy app that makes pleasant work of the process of searching for and removing duplicates. Apple featured Gemini as one of the best Mac apps of 2012. Click the image to view a demo video. A free trial is available.
Hider
Hide your confidential files from prying eyes. Keeping your data private couldn’t be easier -- it is intuitive and doesn’t require special technical knowledge. Your Mac’s file structure is untouched and safe. Click the image to learn more and to access the free trial.
Home Inventory
Create and maintain an inventory of the items in your home. Use the companion iPhone app to wander around your home adding snapshots of your items via Wi-Fi. Whether you need to file an insurance claim or look up the warranty information for a broken appliance, Home Inventory keeps your stuff at your fingertips. Available from the Mac App Store.
iPhoto Library Manager
NOTE: This app is for iPhoto only. If you’re using the new macOS Photos app, see the PowerPhotos app below. There is now a single license that can be used with both iPhoto Library Manager and PowerPhotos.
iPhoto becomes sluggish if you have too many photos in your iPhoto library. Speed it up by organizing your photos into several smaller libraries using iPhoto Library Manager. Also remove duplicate photos. iPhoto Library Manager has many features including: create and manage multiple libraries, browse and search all libraries without having to open iPhoto, copy photos between libraries without losing their metadata (keywords, ratings, faces, etc.), find duplicate photos, merge iPhoto libraries, rebuild corrupted libraries. Amazing.
Linotype FontExplorer X Pro
This tool is invaluable for managing your fonts, obtaining font information, handling missing fonts, and much more. Click the link to download the 30-day trial version.
Linotype Fonts
Linotype is one of the leading producers of digital fonts, with a long tradition of creating, distributing and licensing fonts. Linotype provides superior quality typographic products and is home to legendary typefaces including the Helvetica, Frutiger and Univers families.
Lynda.com
Access over4,000 online video-based courses for all skill levels in specialty subjects including 3D, Animation, Audio, Business, Design, Photography, Video, and Web. As low as $20.00 per month. Membership provides unlimited access. That’s less than $1.00 a day! These courses can be streamed over the Internet or downloaded to your device. Click the icon to the right to get a free 10-day free trial pass.
Mac Internet Security
This software includes both VirusBarrier and NetBarrier. Macs have a good track record in the virus department, but if you want active protection VirusBarrier is a good choice. It scans files 24/7 and automatically checks for the latest updates to make sure you’re protected from the newest threats. To the bad guys your Mac is just another IP address. NetBarrier blocks unsolicited visitors from accessing your Mac.
Macsales.com
TekBasics is proud to be affiliated with Macsales.com (previously named Other World Computing), a top-quality supplier of products for the Mac since 1988. OWC’s service and warranties are among the best. We especially like their Mercury Solid State Drives (SSD), which are among the fastest available.
PDFpen
Who said a PDF file can’t be edited? With PDFpen you can add signatures, text and images to PDF files. Make changes and correct typos. Change scanned pages into documents you can edit. Fill out forms. You can even convert PDF files into Microsoft Word documents! A free trial is available.
PhoneView
Browse the contents of your iPhone or iPad and save it to your Mac. Archive your iPhone voicemail. View and search your texts. Make an archive of your call history. Grab your entire contacts list. Download your photos, videos, songs and podcasts. Access your app data. And drag Mac files and folders to your iPhone or iPad.
PowerPhotos
NOTE: This app is for macOS Photos only. If you’re using iPhoto, see the iPhoto Library Manager app above. There is now a single license that can be used with both iPhoto Library Manager and PowerPhotos.
From the developer of the powerful iPhoto Library Manager, PowerPhotos allows you to split up your photos among multiple Photos libraries rather than storing all of your photos in one giant library. Easily switch between libraries or just browse and search your libraries directly from PowerPhotos. If you use iCloud Photo Library to sync photos among your devices, splitting up your library can help save on iCloud storage costs. You can use a single library to hold a smaller collection that you sync with iCloud Photo Library, while keeping the bulk of your photos in separate libraries on your Mac so they don’t take up space on iCloud. Capabilities include create and manage multiple photo libraries, copy photos and their metadata, merge Photos libraries, find duplicate photos, browse and search, and migrate your iPhoto libraries.
Rapidweaver
If you want to build a website, Rapidweaver makes it simple. Choose from over 45 attractive themes and 11 built-in page types from blogs to contact forms to site maps, all without coding. There are hundreds of add-ons available that extend Rapidweaver’s functionality, so you can do almost anything. This is the app we use to build the TekBasics website. From the Mac App Store.
Road Trip Planner
We have used this remarkable app to plan a 4-week trip in Spain that involved travel by car, air, train, and hiking. Place a pin on a worldwide map for each location you want to visit, then see your route. Enter trip details for each location and create a complete trip itinerary. There is a companion app for viewing your itinerary on your iOS device. From the Mac App Store.
ScreenCastsOnline
New video tutorials every week, designed to help you get the most from your Mac, iPad, iPhone and Apple Watch. Keep up-to-date with new apps and access a huge archive of 800+ video tutorials for less than $6.00 per month. The 10-day free trial does not require a credit card.
SmugMug
SmugMug is our favorite photo and video sharing site. Unlike other sites, your photos are never compressed. The basic subscription provides storage for an unlimited number of photos and videos with many options for customization, sharing, privacy and security. One of the best things SmugMug offers is fast response from their support team.
Take Control Ebooks
Highly practical, tightly focused ebooks covering macOS, Macintosh applications, iOS devices and more. These PDF-format ebooks provide excellent technical help. The publisher offers free samples of all books and a money-back guarantee.
Undercover
Apple’s Find My Mac feature in iCloud is useful, but it doesn’t compare to Undercover for recovering a stolen Mac. Capture photos of the thief using your Mac, take screen shots while the thief is using it, identify the thief’s network address, even record what the thief is typing. If you have more than one Mac get the Household License.
1Password
Too many passwords to remember? 1Password creates strong passwords, remembers them, and syncs them with your iPhone or iPad so they’re always with you. Use the 1Password menu in your browser to securely enter your username and password, all with a single click. 1Password also secures your other sensitive information (credit cards, accounts, notes, licenses, passports, memberships, etc.). Once you start using it you’ll wonder how you ever got along without it. From the Mac App Store.
Apple Store for Business
Because we have expertise with Apple products, TekBasics has been selected for the Apple Business Affiliate Program. You benefit from our advice and product experience and we assist you in purchasing from the Apple Store for Business. Order online by clicking the link above, or we can engage a member of the business sales team at Apple to assist personally with your purchasing and financing questions.
Backblaze
Backup before you wish you had. There are many good reasons for backing up in the cloud (read about offsite backups in the Backup Tutorial on this website). Backblaze backs up an unlimited amount of data for just $5.00 a month. No file size limits. No limits on network speeds. Back up anywhere you have an Internet connection. Restore your data by downloading or receive your restored files on a flash drive or hard disk that is FedEx’d to you. Backblaze operates continuously and automatically, and your files are encrypted for security. We use this ourselves. Download the Backblaze 15-day free trial to see for yourself how easy it is (no credit card required).
BookLightning
Create a booklet from a PDF file in just a second. Drop the PDF file onto the BookLightning icon. The booklet will be printed half the size of the paper you use, so your booklet will be 8.5 x 5.5 inches if you use letter size 11 x 8.5 inch paper. Very useful for printing the Take Control Ebooks.
Carbon Copy Cloner
Checkbook Pro
Looking for a replacement for Quicken? This personal finance manager is simple, yet powerful. Search your transactions based on any combination of criteria. Change the date or description for a group of transactions in a single stroke. It has powerful data management tools. Not for tracking investments. Available from the Mac App Store.
CleanMyMac
Clean up and organize your Mac, removing files that slow it down. Perform a detailed system cleanup, optimize your photo collection, organize old files, applications and extensions. Doing it yourself is less expensive than hiring a consultant. Simple and powerful. A free trial is available.
Turn your photos into comic layouts or even entire comic books. We have used Comic Life the past few years to create a not-boring end-of-year family newsletter. Turn a grandparent’s memories into a graphic novel, or your child’s first year into a photo story book to enjoy forever. From the Mac App Store.
ContentBarrier
The Internet is a great resource for kids, but strangers and inappropriate websites lurk just a click away. ContentBarrier acts as your child’s digital guardian whenever they go online. It allows you to set up customized profiles that monitor Internet habits and restrict adult content. You can easily personalize the settings for each family member and set limits on Internet time. Keeps a history of websites visited for each user account. View the history of recorded chats, including the content of the chat and the ID of the chat partner. Much more including activity reports via email, recorded screens, optional ’monitor only’ mode to record a user’s activity without any protections or blocking, blocks inappropriate emails, game servers, streaming music and video.
Day One
A simple way to journal. Easily enter your thoughts and memories and have them synced and backed up to your iPhone or iPad. Slick design, has a calendar view and a built-in reminder system. From the Mac App Store.
Excalibur Data Recovery
If you’re not heeding our backup recommendations then you may someday require the services of Excalibur. You can ship your hard disk, solid state disk, flash drive or camera card to them or drop it off at their office in Salem, New Hampshire. TekBasics participates in the Excalibur Partner Program, so ask us for a discount coupon for $100 off the restoration fee. Unlike some other data recovery companies, Excalibur does not charge an evaluation fee.
Gemini
Find and remove identical files on your Mac with this handy app that makes pleasant work of the process of searching for and removing duplicates. Apple featured Gemini as one of the best Mac apps of 2012. Click the image to view a demo video. A free trial is available.
Hider
Hide your confidential files from prying eyes. Keeping your data private couldn’t be easier -- it is intuitive and doesn’t require special technical knowledge. Your Mac’s file structure is untouched and safe. Click the image to learn more and to access the free trial.
Home Inventory
Create and maintain an inventory of the items in your home. Use the companion iPhone app to wander around your home adding snapshots of your items via Wi-Fi. Whether you need to file an insurance claim or look up the warranty information for a broken appliance, Home Inventory keeps your stuff at your fingertips. Available from the Mac App Store.
iPhoto Library Manager
NOTE: This app is for iPhoto only. If you’re using the new macOS Photos app, see the PowerPhotos app below. There is now a single license that can be used with both iPhoto Library Manager and PowerPhotos.
iPhoto becomes sluggish if you have too many photos in your iPhoto library. Speed it up by organizing your photos into several smaller libraries using iPhoto Library Manager. Also remove duplicate photos. iPhoto Library Manager has many features including: create and manage multiple libraries, browse and search all libraries without having to open iPhoto, copy photos between libraries without losing their metadata (keywords, ratings, faces, etc.), find duplicate photos, merge iPhoto libraries, rebuild corrupted libraries. Amazing.
Linotype FontExplorer X Pro
This tool is invaluable for managing your fonts, obtaining font information, handling missing fonts, and much more. Click the link to download the 30-day trial version.
Linotype Fonts
Lynda.com
Mac Internet Security
Macsales.com
PDFpen
PhoneView
Browse the contents of your iPhone or iPad and save it to your Mac. Archive your iPhone voicemail. View and search your texts. Make an archive of your call history. Grab your entire contacts list. Download your photos, videos, songs and podcasts. Access your app data. And drag Mac files and folders to your iPhone or iPad.
PowerPhotos
NOTE: This app is for macOS Photos only. If you’re using iPhoto, see the iPhoto Library Manager app above. There is now a single license that can be used with both iPhoto Library Manager and PowerPhotos.
From the developer of the powerful iPhoto Library Manager, PowerPhotos allows you to split up your photos among multiple Photos libraries rather than storing all of your photos in one giant library. Easily switch between libraries or just browse and search your libraries directly from PowerPhotos. If you use iCloud Photo Library to sync photos among your devices, splitting up your library can help save on iCloud storage costs. You can use a single library to hold a smaller collection that you sync with iCloud Photo Library, while keeping the bulk of your photos in separate libraries on your Mac so they don’t take up space on iCloud. Capabilities include create and manage multiple photo libraries, copy photos and their metadata, merge Photos libraries, find duplicate photos, browse and search, and migrate your iPhoto libraries.
Rapidweaver
If you want to build a website, Rapidweaver makes it simple. Choose from over 45 attractive themes and 11 built-in page types from blogs to contact forms to site maps, all without coding. There are hundreds of add-ons available that extend Rapidweaver’s functionality, so you can do almost anything. This is the app we use to build the TekBasics website. From the Mac App Store.
Road Trip Planner
ScreenCastsOnline
New video tutorials every week, designed to help you get the most from your Mac, iPad, iPhone and Apple Watch. Keep up-to-date with new apps and access a huge archive of 800+ video tutorials for less than $6.00 per month. The 10-day free trial does not require a credit card.
SmugMug
SmugMug is our favorite photo and video sharing site. Unlike other sites, your photos are never compressed. The basic subscription provides storage for an unlimited number of photos and videos with many options for customization, sharing, privacy and security. One of the best things SmugMug offers is fast response from their support team.
Take Control Ebooks
Highly practical, tightly focused ebooks covering macOS, Macintosh applications, iOS devices and more. These PDF-format ebooks provide excellent technical help. The publisher offers free samples of all books and a money-back guarantee.
Undercover
Apple’s Find My Mac feature in iCloud is useful, but it doesn’t compare to Undercover for recovering a stolen Mac. Capture photos of the thief using your Mac, take screen shots while the thief is using it, identify the thief’s network address, even record what the thief is typing. If you have more than one Mac get the Household License.
1Password
Contact Us
Learn Apple Products
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