When you’re writing a blog post or email newsletter, you’ll eventually hit the question of how to capitalize words in a title. There is no one right way, but just as with poor spelling and grammar, randomly capitalized titles can reduce reader trust in your knowledge, competence, and expertise. The trick is to pick a capitalization form and style guide to follow. There are two capitalization forms: title case (where important words are capitalized) and sentence case (which is capitalized like a normal sentence). Then there are a handful of major style guides, including the Associated Press Stylebook, The Chicago Manual of Style, and The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage. It’s never a bad idea to pick one and learn its rules, but for a quick shortcut, turn to the Capitalize My Title Web site. Click a style guide tab at the top, select a capitalization form, and paste or type your title. The site automatically applies the appropriate rules to your title. Press Return to copy it to the clipboard for pasting into your document.

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

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 superior. Still, I’ve talked to friendly local bean counters that have trouble getting past those low upfront prices.

However, unless you’re Rancho Gordo, the goal isn’t to count beans, it’s to get work done, and that’s a different scenario. Let’s look at a few ways that Macs are not just worth the money but can also be cheaper than comparable systems. We’ll start with a Forrester Research study commissioned by Apple that compared the total economic impact of Macs and PCs in large companies with employee-choice programs. In such programs, every employee gets to choose between a Mac and a PC, providing a sizable group across which to compare numbers, but the conclusions apply to large and small organizations alike.

Deeper Cost Analysis

Although the Forrester Research study found that the upfront acquisition cost of Macs was indeed $500 higher than comparable PCs, when additional factors were taken into account, Macs ended up costing about $50 less.

That’s in part because Macs have a higher residual value after 3 years, meaning that you can resell a 3-year-old Mac for more than a 3-year-old PC. Pay more up front, but get more back later on.

Macs also don’t need operating system licenses, and the Mac’s better security eliminates the need for additional licenses for security software.

Reduced IT Support Costs

It has long been thought that Macs required less support than PCs, but only in the past few years have there been organizations with enough Macs and PCs to compare. At IBM, one of the largest Apple-using companies with 290,000 Apple devices, a 2016 study found that the company was saving up to $543 per Mac compared to PCs over a 4-year lifespan. Forrester Research came up with an even higher number, showing that Macs cost $628 less over a 3-year lifespan.

What accounts for these reduced support costs? It takes less time to set up a new Mac, Macs are easier to manage, Macs users open fewer service tickets, and many fewer IT staff are needed. All that adds up to paying for fewer support resources. In another 2018 study, IBM found that it needed just 7 support engineers per 200,000 Macs, compared to 20 support engineers per 200,000 Windows machines.

Improved Employee Productivity and Engagement

Beyond reduced support costs, Mac users turn out to be more productive, more engaged, and more likely to stay with the company than PC users. Forrester Research found that over 3 years, Mac-using employees posted 48 hours more productivity (in part due to reduced downtime). That’s likely thousands of dollars more benefit to the company, per employee.

Even still, it can be hard to quantify that benefit, which is why Forrester Research compared users in sales positions. In its study, Forrester found that Mac-using employees showed a 5% increase in sales performance. That’s nothing compared to IBM, which found that its Mac-based salespeople closed deals worth 16% more than their Windows-using counterparts.

Finally, both Forrester Research and IBM discovered that Mac users were less likely to leave the company—20% less likely in Forrester’s study and 17% less likely in IBM’s research. That’s not just an indication of loyalty. There are significant costs to replacing employees who leave, so the higher the retention rate, the better it is for the bottom line.

Improved Overall Security

Few would argue with the belief that Macs are more secure than PCs. In Forrester’s research, the interviewed organizations said that the Mac has a fundamentally more secure architecture than Windows. In today’s world, criminals employ malware to steal information. Data breaches are costly, with a 2019 study by IBM Security and the Ponemon Institute pegging the average cost of a data breach at $3.9 million. The amounts vary by industry and the size of the breach, of course, but the average cost per data record was nearly $150.

Security breaches can have other costs as well. With a compromised account, attackers have often been able to pose as executives and get accounting departments to wire money to offshore accounts. Plus, when news of a data breach hits, it can result in the loss of customers. In the IBM Security study, healthcare companies suffered from a 7% customer turnover after a breach.

So yes, Macs do have higher upfront costs than PCs. But savvy managers know to look past such simplistic comparisons to the bigger picture, where equipping employees with Macs both saves far more than the difference in cost between a Mac and a PC and enables employees to produce more for the organization.

(Featured image by freestocks on Unsplash)

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 Sure You Have Decent Lighting

Natural light is best, but room light is generally fine too, especially if it’s coming from the side. Overhead light isn’t quite as flattering, but whatever you do, avoid light that comes from underneath your face or you’ll look like an old-time movie villain. Also, avoid sitting in front of a window because the bright light behind you will make you look way too dark. Pull a shade or try to put your computer against the window so the light hits your face instead.

Arrange for a Decent Background

You may not have many choices for where your computer is located, and thus for what’s behind you when you’re on a video call. If you’re using Zoom or Skype, you can employ a virtual background (pick one that’s appropriate for the context, and for goodness sake, don’t use an animated background). Otherwise, make sure that what’s behind you is tidy and wouldn’t embarrass you if the people on the call were to visit in person. Or, take it up a level and put a pleasing arrangement of art or photos on the wall behind you. Even if they are too small to be seen well, they will break up a monotonous blank wall.

Wear Appropriate Clothing

Yes, it’s tempting to schlub around all day in pajamas or ratty old sweats. Resist the urge and wear the same type of clothes you’d put on if you were meeting with these people in person. That includes pants—if you get up in the middle of the call without thinking, you don’t want to advertise your taste in boxers. You don’t want your boss and colleagues to have a mental image of you as a total slob. For bonus points, avoid tops that are bright white, black, or have distracting patterns.

Think Like a Movie Director

Particularly if you need to use a phone, tablet, or laptop to participate in a video call, think about your camera angles. It’s best to have the camera at roughly the same height as your face, if possible, so if you can avoid it, don’t put your laptop in your lap or hold your phone at your waist. And if you’re using a phone, don’t walk around such that the changing background distracts everyone else.

And Like a Movie Star

It’s sometimes hard to remember that everyone can see you even though they’re not in the room, but you’ll come off as more alert, confident, and engaged if you sit up straight, get close enough to the camera so your face fills the screen, and smile. Seriously, you’re on Candid Camera, so act like it. You’ll almost always have a thumbnail that shows what you look like, so make sure you like what you see. Oh, and don’t touch your face repeatedly.

Look at the Camera, Not the Other Participants

This one is tough. The camera is usually at the top center of your screen, so if you look anywhere else, it seems like you’re avoiding eye contact. It can make you look shifty or inattentive. But it’s hard not to look at the other people or at your own video thumbnail. The best trick is to resize and position your video window so the person you’re most likely to look at is right under the camera.

Pay Attention and Don’t Multitask

Look, we get it—a lot of meetings are boring. But it’s both rude and distracting to the speakers if you are clearly doing something else or worse, leaving and coming back. Focus on the screen, and show that you’re paying attention by nodding your head, smiling, and all the other little things you’d do if the meeting were taking place in person. If you truly can’t stay engaged, turn off your audio and video so no one has to see and hear you. If you need an excuse for that, say that your Internet connection is being a little wonky, so you want to cut down on bandwidth usage.

Mute Your Mic When Not Talking

The more people on a call, the more important this tip is. All videoconferencing apps have a Mute button you can click so others in the call aren’t distracted by you coughing or sneezing, your children playing in the other room, or other extraneous noise. Just remember to unmute before you start talking. It’s hard to remember at first, but you’ll get good at it.

All this may seem like a lot to think about, but once you get your environment set up properly, you’ll be a bright spot in the video grid at your regular meetings. And then maybe you can forward this article to your family, friends, and colleagues so they can up their video game too.

(Featured image by Marcus Aurelius from Pexels)

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 Control Center

To open Control Center in iOS 11 and later on an iPhone X or later (the models with Face ID), swipe down from the top-right corner of the screen. For iPhones with a Home button that use Touch ID (including the just-released iPhone SE and the iPod touch), swipe up from the bottom edge of the screen.

On an iPad, you’ll swipe down from the top-right corner of the screen if it’s running iOS 12 or iPadOS 13; if it’s still running iOS 11, swipe up from the bottom edge of the screen.

If you swipe down to invoke Control Center, you can close it by tapping a blank area of the screen or by swiping up from the bottom of the screen. If you swipe up to show Control Center, close it either by tapping the top of the screen or pressing the Home button.

Interacting with Controls

In Control Center, you can interact with the various controls in two ways: tap or press and hold. Unfortunately, the interface provides no clues to alert you to how you should interact with any given item.

Start with a tap, but it’s always worth pressing and holding to see what options Apple might have hidden behind that button. Some buttons, like Camera, Do Not Disturb, and Flashlight, even react to both a tap (launching the app or turning on) and a press-and-hold (providing extra useful options).

What happens when you tap a button varies, but here are some guidelines:

• Apps: A number of buttons, like Camera, Magnifier, and Stopwatch, open other apps instantly. Alas, you can’t pick just any apps to open in this way.
• Toggles: Some Control Center buttons, like Screen Lock and Low Power Mode, are simple on/off toggles. Tap the button once to turn it on; tap it again to turn it off.
• Sliders: Drag the sliders for Brightness and Volume to adjust the intensity of the setting.
• Option screens: With a few of the buttons, like Screen Mirroring and Text Size, a tap opens another screen with more options.

What happens when you press and hold is more predictable. If you press and hold a button that has more options (or if you press and hold a “card,” which is what Apple calls the collection of buttons for networking and audio controls), another screen opens, showing controls for those settings. Some of those screens provide even more options—press and hold the networking card to expand it from four buttons to six, and then press and hold the Wi-Fi, AirDrop, or Bluetooth button to switch Wi-Fi networks, choose who can send you files via AirDrop, or connect to Bluetooth devices.

Customizing the Controls

To change which buttons are available in Control Center, go to Settings > Control Center > Customize Controls. The Customize screen is split into two sections: Include lists controls that are showing in Control Center, and More Controls contains inactive controls you can add.

Here’s how to switch things up:

• Add a button: Tap its green plus button. It moves to the Include list. You can add as many buttons as you like. If you add so many that they don’t fit on the screen, you’ll have to swipe in Control Center to see the extras.
• Remove a button: Tap its red minus button, and tap Remove. The button moves to More Controls.
• Arrange buttons: For any button in the Include list, drag the grab handle on the right side up or down.

Pay attention to which buttons you find yourself actually using in Control Center and how often you use them. Then you can adjust which ones appear and where they’re located, so you can find them quickly whenever you open Control Center.

Interesting Buttons

Apple has a full list of all the controls in Control Center, but here are a few of our favorite optional buttons, and what to expect from them:

• Apple TV: This button opens an Apple TV remote control that can replace your Siri Remote. It’s especially useful when you need to type a search string or password into the Apple TV.
• Clock Options: Need to keep track of the time? Three buttons—Alarm, Timer, and Stopwatch—each open their corresponding screen in the Clock app so you can complete a timing task quickly. Timer is the most useful because it has a press-and-hold option that lets you start a timer without switching to the Clock app.
• Magnifier: Tapping the Magnifier button takes you to a camera-like app designed to zoom in on something in the physical world so you can see it better. It’s helpful for seeing tiny type, such as serial numbers on electronic devices.
• Notes: Tap to start a new note in the Notes app. Or press and hold to bring up a menu of choices for starting a new note with a checklist, a photo, or a scanned document.
• Screen Recording: Want to make a movie of something you see on your iPhone or iPad’s screen? Tap the Screen Recording button to start a recording, then tap the red button in the upper-left corner of the screen to stop.
• Text Size: This button brings up a slider for adjusting the size of the system font—this is the text in places like the Messages and Settings apps.
• Voice Memos: This button opens the Voice Memos app when you tap it, but if you press and hold instead, you can start a new recording immediately or access recent recordings. If your yoga instructor doesn’t mind, recording a class is a handy way to recap workout instructions.

Only Apple can provide new controls for Control Center right now, so you won’t find any options for working with independent apps. But who knows—as with Siri, perhaps Apple will open Control Center up to developers in the future too.

(Featured image by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash)

In a move that completes the transition of the MacBook line from the troubled butterfly keyboard to the Magic Keyboard, Apple has released a new 13-inch MacBook Pro. The company also doubled the amount of storage in each of the standard configurations while keeping prices the same, and it ramped up the specs in the model with four Thunderbolt 3 ports.

Like the MacBook Air that Apple released several months ago, the most notable change in the new 13-inch MacBook Pro is the replacement of the butterfly keyboard with the new scissor-key Magic Keyboard introduced last year in the 16-inch MacBook Pro. So far, that keyboard has been well-regarded. Unlike the MacBook Air, however, the 13-inch MacBook Pro continues to include Apple’s Touch Bar, though now with a physical Escape key and a separate Touch ID sensor.

Apple doubled the onboard storage across all base configurations, so the 13-inch MacBook Pro now starts at 256 GB, and you can choose from configs that include 512 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB, and even a whopping 4 TB.

As in the past, there are two models of the 13-inch MacBook Pro, one with two Thunderbolt 3 ports on the left side and another with four Thunderbolt 3 ports, two on each side. The two-port model receives the Magic Keyboard and additional storage, but is otherwise unchanged from last year’s model. It still features 8th-generation quad-core Intel Core i5 and i7 processors running at 1.4 GHz and 1.7 GHz, respectively (the faster processor is a $300 option), and 8 GB of RAM, upgradeable to 16 GB for $100.

However, Apple beefed up the four-port model with faster 10th-generation processors, either a 2.0 GHz quad-core Core i5 or, for $200 more, a 2.3 GHz quad-core Core i7 that should provide even better performance.

These new processors also feature updated Intel Iris Plus Graphics that Apple claims improve graphics performance by up to 80% and can drive the company’s 6K Pro Display XDR screen.

Finally, the four-port model now starts at 16 GB of RAM (up from 8 GB) for the same price, uses faster memory than before, and can be upgraded to 32 GB of RAM for an additional $400.

The two-port model of the 13-inch MacBook continues to start at $1299, and the price of the four-port model still starts at $1799. Both are available now in silver or space gray.

If you’re looking for a new laptop, which should you choose? With its new processors, more and faster RAM, and improved graphics performance, the four-port model provides a particularly attractive package for the price.

For those who would prefer something less expensive, however, the new MacBook Air may be more compelling than the two-port model of the MacBook Pro—it largely comes down to whether you would prefer the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar or the MacBook Air’s function keys. Contact us for help choosing the right Mac for your needs!

(Featured image by Apple)

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, with everyone staying at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, answering those questions has seemingly gotten harder. But it doesn’t have to be that way, thanks to a built-in feature of macOS that you may not have known about: screen sharing.

With the Mac’s built-in Screen Sharing app, you can either observe or control another person’s Mac, anywhere on the Internet. They don’t even need to enable Screen Sharing in System Preferences > Sharing. (Don’t worry—there are multiple ways that Apple ensures that this feature can’t be used surreptitiously.)

Initiate the Connection

There are multiple ways to connect to a remote Mac for screen sharing, but two stand out as being particularly easy.

First, if you communicate in Messages with the person whose Mac you’re trying to control, make sure your conversation with them is selected, and then choose Buddies > Ask to Share Screen. The other person can also initiate the connection with you by choosing Buddies > Invite to Share My Screen.

Second, if Messages doesn’t work for you (those commands are often dimmed), or the other person doesn’t use Messages, there’s another option. Press Command-Space to open Spotlight and type “Screen Sharing”. The Screen Sharing app should be the top hit—press Return to launch it. (For future reference, it’s stored in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/Screen Sharing.)

Then, in the dialog that appears, enter the person’s Apple ID, which is likely their email address, and click Connect.

Accept the Connection

Needless to say, macOS doesn’t allow anyone to connect to a Mac like this without permission. The other person needs to accept the connection request, which they do by clicking Accept in the notification that appears, likely in the upper-right corner of the screen. Obviously, clicking Decline immediately terminates the connection.

After clicking Accept, the other person gets yet another permission request, this time with additional options. They can once again choose to Accept or Decline, and choose between allowing you to control the screen or just observe them using it. And, of course, if you ever get a screen sharing request from someone you don’t know, you can always click Block This User to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Next, a little popover appears to alert the other person to the new icon on the menu bar. The blue menu bar icon constantly flashes while the connection is active so there’s no question that screen sharing is taking place.

So what’s in that menu? Commands for switching between controlling and observing (choose “Allow Name to control my screen” to toggle), mute the microphone (more on that shortly), pause screen sharing, and end the session.

Use the Connection

The Mute Microphone command in the remote Mac’s Screen Sharing menu is a hint—when you’re sharing the screen, the connection also provides full audio communication. This seems helpful, but in many cases, you’re already talking on the phone, at which point it’s helpful to mute the microphone on both sides. Or hang up the phone and stick with Screen Sharing’s audio.

For the most part, once you’re controlling someone’s Mac remotely, it’s just like using the Mac while sitting in front of it. You can move the pointer around, select icons and menus, open apps and documents, and so on. You may notice a slight lag or jitter as the screen draws, since updating it over an Internet connection is much, much slower than in person.

You do have a few special capabilities based largely on the buttons in the toolbar, however:

• Toggle Control/Observe: When you’re controlling the remote Mac, you may find yourself competing for the pointer and keyboard with the other person. To let them “drive,” click the binoculars icon in the toolbar to switch to Observe mode. Click the arrow pointer to return to Control mode.
• Resize the window: If you’re on a 13-inch MacBook Pro and trying to control a 27-inch iMac screen, it simply won’t fit. Luckily, Screen Sharing lets you resize the window so it does, although some interface elements may become too small to use easily. If that’s a problem, you can disable scaling by clicking the left-most Scaling button, after which everything on the remote screen will appear at normal size. You’ll have to scroll the window to see parts of the screen that are out of view.
• Share Clipboard: By default, you’re sharing the Clipboard, so anything you cut or copy on your Mac will be transferred to the other Mac’s Clipboard, and vice versa. If that’s awkward, you can disable it and then use the commands in the Clipboard menu to get or send the Clipboard contents manually.
• Take a screenshot: Normal screenshot controls don’t work for taking a screenshot of the remote screen, or rather, they’ll work on the remote Mac. To take a screenshot of what you see and keep it on your Mac, click the Screenshot button.
• Transfer files: It’s not obvious, but you can move files back and forth between the two Macs merely by dragging them to and from the remote Mac’s window. You sometimes have to pause slightly for Screen Sharing to realize your pointer has left the remote Mac and is on your Mac, but as soon as you let up on the mouse button, the file copies. A File Transfers window shows progress and history.
  

When you’re done with your screen sharing session, you can shut it down by choosing End Screen Sharing from the remote Mac’s Screen Sharing menu or just close the window or quit the Screen Sharing app on your Mac. Remember that as soon as you do that, the audio connection will drop as well, so make sure you’ve said goodbye first!

(Featured image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)

Apple’s credit card, the Apple Card, offers a nice mix of integration with Apple Pay, daily cash back, and an elegant interface in the Wallet app on your iPhone. Until recently, however, it was impossible to get your transaction data out of Wallet except in PDF form. Apple has now added exports in either CSV or OFX format. CSV is appropriate for importing into a spreadsheet, whereas many financial apps can import OFX files. To export your data from Wallet, tap your Apple Card and then tap Card Balance. Under Statements, tap the statement you want to export, tap Export Transactions at the bottom, and choose a format. For CSV, tap the Share icon in the file preview, and for OFX, Wallet automatically opens a share sheet. Use AirDrop, Messages, or Mail to send the file to your Mac, where you can work with it in whatever you use to track your finances.

(Featured image by MARK S. on Unsplash)

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 tech support: Apple Diagnostics. (On Mac models released before June 2013, Apple instead included a similar set of diagnostics called Apple Hardware Test.)

Apple Diagnostics is a set of hardware test routines that Apple bakes into every Mac. It tests numerous internal subsystems in your Mac, including the CPU, memory, and firmware; displays and graphics adapters; connectivity via USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Thunderbolt; batteries and power adapters on laptops; and more.

Before you run Apple Diagnostics, prepare your Mac with these steps:

• If you have a firmware password enabled, turn it off before proceeding.
• If possible, pick a situation when the Mac is most likely to experience the problem (such as right after turning it on for the day, or when it’s unusually warm).
• Disconnect all external devices with the following exceptions: the keyboard and mouse or trackpad, display, Ethernet cable if you use it, and power adapter for laptops.
• If you’re testing a laptop, make sure it’s on a flat, well-ventilated surface.
• Shut down your Mac.

Once you’re ready, turn your Mac on while holding down the D key. (If that doesn’t invoke Apple Diagnostics, try again, holding down Option-D to attempt to start Apple Diagnostics over the Internet.) Keep holding down until you see a screen asking you to choose your language. Once you’ve done that, you’ll see a bar showing the progress of the diagnostic tests, which should take only a few minutes.

What to do if Apple Diagnostics reports an issue

If Apple Diagnostics finds any issues, it suggests solutions and provides reference codes. Write the reference codes down so you can share them with tech support later, if necessary. Apple publishes a full list of reference codes, but the list generally doesn’t tell you much beyond what the Apple Diagnostics report explains.

After you’ve read about the issues and solutions, you have four options.

• For a second opinion, click the “Run the test again” link. It’s not a bad idea to make sure that multiple tests come up with the same results. If they don’t, that’s useful information for tech support too.
• To get more information, including details about service and support options from Apple, click the “Get started” link. Doing so causes your Mac to start up in macOS Recovery, open Safari, and display a Web page for Apple Support. It asks for your location along with permission to read your Mac’s serial number and reference codes before providing additional details. If your Mac can’t access the Internet at this time, none of this will work.
• To restart your Mac normally, click the Restart button.
• To shut your Mac down normally, click the Shut Down button.

With a few exceptions, most problems identified by Apple Diagnostics require service from an Apple Authorized Service Provider or Apple itself.

• If you get a note about USB or Thunderbolt hardware, make sure you’ve disconnected any devices other than the keyboard and pointing device and test again. If you have another wired keyboard or pointing device, swap those in and test again.
• If Apple Diagnostics complains about your laptop’s power adapter, disconnect it from both the wall and the computer, reconnect it to both, and rerun the test.
• One of the battery errors (PPT004) may require updated diagnostic information. To confirm the problem, run Apple Diagnostics over the Internet: shut down the Mac and start it up again while holding Option-D.

What to do if Apple Diagnostics doesn’t find any problems

With any luck, you’ll see the coveted “No issues found” message. While that doesn’t mean you’re imagining any problems, it does suggest that they’re probably related to software and won’t require a hardware repair. However, some infuriating problems are intermittent due to solder connections being warm or cold, which is why it’s important to test when they’re most likely to occur.

One final note: If you want to see the results of the last run of Apple Diagnostics, open the System Information app and click Diagnostics under the Hardware section.

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

When Apple released iPadOS 13.4 recently, it came with an unexpected feature: trackpad and mouse support. Apple plans to release a Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro that has a built-in trackpad in May as well, but in the meantime, you can control an iPad entirely via a Magic Trackpad 2 (the wedge-like one that recharges via a Lightning port). Pair it in Settings > Bluetooth, and look for settings in Settings > General > Trackpad. Apple did an impressive job with integrating a cursor into the iPadOS experience: the small, circular cursor shifts colors subtly depending on the background, becomes a highlighted selection rectangle when over objects, expands icons on the Home screen, and morphs into a thin insertion point when in text. Plus, Apple built in oodles of two- and three-finger gestures to mimic what you can do directly on the iPad screen—see the full list at TidBITS.

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

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 family, Facebook might seem to be the digital town square. However, many people avoid Facebook due to its impressive record of abusing its users’ privacy, failure to protect that user data from hackers, and exploitation by foreign governments. And it’s wildly inappropriate for most business communications.

For an alternative that doesn’t involve relying on overloaded email inboxes or handing everything about your online life over to a corporate Big Brother, consider the group messaging tool Slack, which has become popular with small and large firms, non-profits, academic departments, student project teams, and government agencies. Although it’s aimed at organizations that pay a monthly fee for every active user, Slack offers a free tier with all the features you would need to create your own online community for your workgroup, family, or friends. Everyone can join in since Slack has apps for macOS, iOS, Windows, and Android, and it can be used in any desktop Web browser.

Conceptually, Slack is similar to Apple’s Messages, in that you can communicate with others by typing short messages and sharing graphics and other files. You can even have one-on-one voice calls (group calls, screen sharing, and videoconferencing are limited to the paid plans).

What sets Slack apart from Messages, WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, and the like is that it lets you segment discussions into “channels,” which can either be public, such that everyone in the group can see them, or private, so only invitees can participate. Plus, you can have “direct message” conversations with one or more individuals.

The beauty of Slack channels is that they’re easy to create, and they bring together all communications relevant to a particular group, project, client, or topic. Channels help focus discussions, so those who are interested in only certain channels aren’t overwhelmed by irrelevant chatter.

For an extended family, you might create channels by branch (so your brother can ignore your in-laws’ conversations), parts of the country (so relatives who live elsewhere don’t have to see the local family members’ dinner plans), and events (like Hanukkah or a family reunion). Or, in a design team’s Slack group, you might want channels for each major client or project, along with channels for financial or human resources topics. There’s no one right answer—the goal is merely to keep discussions relevant and focused.

How do you keep up on discussions? Slack has flexible notifications, letting you choose at the top level to be notified about everything; just direct messages, mentions, and keywords; or nothing—at which point you can check in manually. You can also choose to be notified of replies to threads you’re in. Then you can override those defaults for any channel or conversation, which lets you ensure you’re notified only by people or topics that interest you. Plus, if you leave your Mac, Slack can repoint notifications to your iPhone automatically, with separate settings to make sure you aren’t overly nagged while at your kid’s track meet.

Slack provides tons of other features that can prove useful in groups of any size. You can share and comment on files of any type, which is far more effective than sending attachments around in email. You can create “posts” and get others to edit them collaboratively—a boon when trying to craft the perfect bit of text for some purpose. And you can integrate hundreds of Internet services into Slack so it can act as a single dashboard for many other apps, including the likes of the videoconferencing tool Zoom.

Getting started with Slack is fairly easy, and we recommend the following basic steps.

• Create a Slack workspace. Slack provides instructions for basic setup.
• Set up channels. Create a few channels to help people feel like they’re in the right place. You can always make more channels later.
• Invite people in. You can invite users to your Slack during setup, but it’s better to wait until you’ve set up your channels. Make sure to use everyone’s preferred email address when inviting them.
• Help people install Slack apps. For those who are tech-savvy, installing Slack’s client apps isn’t hard, but you might need to provide support for those who are less experienced.
• Provide name advice. Slack lets each user set a full name and a display name, and you might want to recommend a particular format (first name only, or first name and last initial) that makes display names unique and easily understood and typed.
• Help people configure notifications. Perhaps the hardest part of using Slack is getting notifications adjusted right for each person. Slack offers guides for desktop, email, and mobile notifications, along with additional help.

For additional advice on setting up and using Slack, consider Glenn Fleishman’s book Take Control of Slack, which goes beyond Slack’s help to provide real-world setup and configuration advice. We’re also happy to help provide setup and configuration advice—just get in touch.

(Featured image by Pankaj Patel on Unsplash)