As virtual schooling becomes more common, Chromebooks have become the device of choice for schoolwork at home. While many schools offer devices for students to use at no extra charge, these are often times very low budget machines that aren’t always the best tools for the job. If you or your child could use a device upgrade for virtual schooling this year, check out the infographic below to find tekRESCUE’s recommended Chromebooks for children of all grade levels and college students alike.

If you’re using a screen reader or would prefer to read our recommendations in text form rather than an image, scroll below the infographic for a transcription of its content. Note that tekRESCUE is not affiliated with or sponsored by any of the brands or products featured here.

What is a Chromebook?

A Chromebook is a simple-to-use laptop that runs on Google’s Chrome operating system. They’re streamlined for online work and recreation, but offer less versatility and power than Windows laptops and MacBooks.

Chromebook Pros (Compared to Windows & Mac Devices)

• Lower Prices
• Faster Startup Times
• Easier to Learn and Use the Operating System
• Fewer Distractions from Schoolwork

Chromebook Cons (Compared to Windows & Mac Devices)

• Limited App Support (limited to Google Play Store and web apps)
• Less Computing Power (CPU / GPU / RAM memory)
• Limited Support for Hardware Accessories

Features to Consider

When considering a Chromebook for yourself or your child, it’s a good idea to consider the following features / specs and ask yourself these questions:

Practicality

• How portable is it?
• Can the keyboard detach to create a tablet?
• How durable is it?

Screen

• How large is the screen?
• How good is the display quality and resolution?
• Is it a touch screen with stylus compatibility?

Style

• Is the casing metal or plastic?
• What colors are available?
• Would a teen use it, or would they be embarrassed to be seen holding it?

Power

• What processor is inside?
• Can the device multitask?
• Can it play games after homework is finished?

Storage

• How much internal storage space does it have?
• Is the drive a solid state drive (SSD)?
• Can its storage be upgraded, or are more expensive variations with more storage available?

Extras

• Does it come with or support any notable accessories?
• Does it have any special features to its design, such as a swiveling screen?
• Does it have extra USB drives for connecting accessories?

For Elementary School Students: Lenovo Chromebook Duet

Small and lightweight, this 2-in-1 tablet is perfect for small hands to carry. It includes plenty of storage space and features like front and rear facing cameras to support the latest kids’ education apps.

• Great Practicality—Being a small and lightweight tablet, this device maximizes portability. It includes a keyboard attachment for track pad and keyboard navigation.
• Modest Screen—While a resolution of 1920 x 1200 is impressive for a 10.1-inch touch screen, this LCD display doesn’t offer the best picture quality on the market.
• Modest Style—While there are no colorful variations available, kids can express their personality through the variety of case / stand accessories this tablet works with.
• Modest Power—While an off-brand MediaTek Helio P60T processor won’t provide the same kind of multitasking as an Intel chip might, 4GB of system memory is good enough to run most Chromebook apps with no trouble at all.
• Great Storage—If the already impressive 128GB of internal flash storage isn’t enough, this device comes with a free 100GB Google One trial for backing up files in Google’s cloud servers.
• Great Extras—A combination of front and rear-facing cameras allow for all kinds of possibilities from video calls with family members to augmented reality education apps. A lack of an audio jack is made up for with an included adapter if headphones are needed.

Find this device on BestBuy.com.

For Middle School Students: Acer Chromebook Spin 11

A lack of power and storage is made up for with lots of unique features and accessories all rolled into a portable package that’ll make classmates jealous.

• Great Practicality—This laptop’s compact, portable size is supplemented by a hinge design that allows for 360° rotation, allowing it to be used as a versatile tablet or laptop.
• Modest Screen—With an unimpressive 1366 x 768 resolution, its 11.6-inch LED backlit screen won’t provide the greatest display quality. On the other hand, touch functionality and stylus compatibility make this a substance-over-style screen.
• Great Style—A sleek, attractive design and the above-mentioned 360° screen rotation give this device a real “wow” factor—an asset that might come in handy when trying to impress a middle schooler.
• Modest Power—With Intel’s budget Celeron N3350 processor and the standard Chromebook 4GB of system memory, this laptop can run most supported apps flawlessly, although it isn’t the best when it comes to multitasking.
• Modest Storage—A lackluster 32GB of internal flash memory is offset by a 128GB SD card that comes packaged with the device. Plenty of storage as long as your child doesn’t lose the card.
• Great Extras—This Chromebook comes packaged with all kinds of accessories, from a protective case to extra USB ports and even a supported Wacom stylus.

For High School Students: HP Chromebook 15

With a beautiful display, backlit keyboard and lots of power, this option doesn’t sacrifice on style or versatility—great for school work and after-school recreation alike.

• Modest Practicality—While this laptop offers lots of power for the price, its relatively large and heavy build make it much less portable than the other devices featured here.
• Great Screen—With a full 1920 x 1080 HD resolution, its 15.6” WLED-backlit touch screen offers excellent display quality and touch input versatility all in one package.
• Great Style—A sleek and colorful design set this machine apart from the solid grays of most Chromebooks, and an LED-backlit keyboard offers a stylish coat of icing on the already attractive cake.
• Great Power—While 4GB of system memory may not be impressive, an honest-to-goodness Intel Core i3-8130U processor really shows what it’s capable of in a device that runs the lightweight Chrome OS.
• Great Storage—If the onboard 128GB of internal flash memory isn’t enough, a 100GB Google One trial allows for a versatile, cloud-based option for extending your storage capacity.
• Modest Extras—While this laptop doesn’t come with any unique or flashy accessories, it does boast a full keyboard with a numeric key pad as well as an audio jack adapter—two things that most Chromebooks forego in favor of portability.

Find this device on Amazon.com.

For College Students: Samsung Chromebook 4

This no-frills, no-nonsense option offers a large full HD (FHD) screen at a low price. It’s great for note-taking as well as using all of the web apps you need to stay organized throughout the semester.

• Great Practicality—While this laptop may have a large screen, it still manages to be thin and lightweight. The fact that it has no extra frills or features means you’ll get an excellent device at a very low price.
• Great Screen—This huge 15.6-inch screen boasts full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 and a minimal bezel, allowing for a beautiful, distraction-free display.
• Modest Style—With a standard gray body and a no-nonsense, basic design, this laptop isn’t going to turn any heads. Its thin, sleek build, on the other hand, ensures that you’ll have an attractive design, even if it is basic.
• Modest Power—With a standard 4GB system memory and Intel’s budget Celeron N4000 processor, this Chromebook won’t be up to too much multitasking—which may end up being a good thing if you’re trying to focus on class work without any distractions.
• Modest Storage—A humble 32GB of internal flash memory should be enough for storing class notes and project files, but more expensive device models with more built-in storage are available if you need more room.
• Modest Extras—This laptop keeps its price low by minimizing its extra features, but it still offers 2USB-C ports for hardware accessories as well as Gigabit Wi-Fi compatibility—useful for virtual meetings with classmates during group projects.

Find this device on Samsung.com.

We hope you found these recommendations helpful in your search for the right virtual schooling device. If you know anyone who could benefit from this sort of information, feel free to share this article or repost the infographic on whatever channel or platform you prefer. And if you need more technology advice or recommendations like these, don’t hesitate to contact a technician at tekRESCUE.

Due to lockdown orders and social distancing efforts, many of us have had to start working from home in the past few weeks. For those who are used to an office environment and haven’t had to work remotely before, it can be a bit intimidating to make the switch to working remotely. How do you know what equipment you’ll need? If you live with others, how will you stay focused and not let your normal home life distract from your work?

While many of the specifics depend on your particular job, we wanted to offer some general tips that can help everyone get started with a productive and enjoyable at-home work environment. Check them out in the infographic below, or keep scrolling to read the tips in article form. We’re all in this together!

Get Situated

The first step is to set up your at-home workspace. This doesn’t mean you need to clear out an entire room to set up a new home office. All you really need is a distraction-free area that’s dedicated to work—try not to work in the same space that you use for recreation. Below are some tips for setting up your at-home workspace.

• Dedicate Some Space—Create a dedicated work space and keep it clean and free from distraction.
• Get Comfy—Set up an area that is comfortable, but not so comfy that you forget you need to work!
• Set the Tone—Depending on the type of work, set up a work/study music playlist that can play in the background.
• (Attempt to) Wrangle the Pets—Keep cats off your laptop if possible. If not possible, learn to type around them! (It’s an acquired skill.)

Gear Up

Once you’ve found a good workspace, the next step is to make sure you have everything you need to get your work done. This includes having a good internet connection, the right software, and plenty of drinks and snacks! Below are a few of the most important things to consider when gearing up to work from home.

• Check Your Internet Speed—It’s time to ditch the dial-up modem and throw it away along with those old shorts from junior high.
• Enter the Chat—Find a good team messaging app that can accommodate work discussion as well as leisurely chat among co-workers. Try not to spam too many emojis!
• Meet Virtually—Find a good video conference app to fill in for in-person work meetings. Just make sure your webcam doesn’t puck up anything embarrassing!
• Sustain Yourself—Be sure to have lots of snacks on hand, and stay hydrated (preferably with a drink that has a lid).

Find a Routine

As with most things in life, working from home will feel much more natural once you’ve established a routine. This of course doesn’t mean just blocking out 8 hours a day for nothing but work. Below are some things that you should include in your work routine to improve your mood and productivity.

• Move Your Body—Alternate between sitting and standing, and be sure to move around regularly to increase bloodflow.
• Get Some Air—Go outside for some fresh air and sun throughout the day. Think of it like a smoke break without the smoke.
• Take a Break—Be sure to take scheduled breaks in their entirety, and try your best not to think about work while on break!
• Communicate—Share your routine with other members of your household so they know when to leave you alone.

Stay Secure

Working remotely means sending and receiving a lot of data between your computer and the internet. Without the usual IT infrastructure of your office to help protect your data, good personal cybersecurity practices become more important than ever before. Below are a few tips to get you started on the road to a more secure at-home workspace.

• Up Your Password Game—Make sure your passwords are both strong and unique. Use a password manager (such as LastPass) to help your brain out.
• Add Another Layer—When possible, use 2-factor authentication to add an extra layer of protection to your online accounts.
• Stay Updated—Now would be a good time to finally invest in good antivirus software and make sure your operating system and apps are all on the latest version.
• Know Who to Call—Cybersecurity can be tricky even for the most knowledgeable of us. It’s always a good idea to have an IT company you can call to help you out if you’re ever in doubt!

As mobile devices increasingly become the de facto way to access the Internet, a website’s loading speed has become more important than ever before. If your potential customers feel like your website is taking too long to load, they’ll likely leave and visit a competitor’s site instead. Additionally, search engines are increasingly using page load speeds as a ranking factor—meaning your site’s presence in search engines might suffer if it isn’t optimized for speed.

Whether you’re a business owner or a web developer, understanding page speed and how to improve it has become extremely important. To help familiarize you with this tricky subject, we’ve put together an infographic detailing why page speed matters, how web pages are loaded, and tips for making your site faster. If you’d prefer to read the info in text form, scroll past the infographic for an article summarizing its content.

Why Page Speed Matters

Did you know that 43% of website visitors will leave a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load? The average load time of a web page is 3.21 seconds, meaning that the majority of websites are losing nearly half of their potential customers and driving up their bounce rates simply due to poor load time optimization.

If your website is slower than average, the bounce rates only get higher. For every additional one-second delay in page load times, visitors are 11% more likely to leave a website before the page is fully loaded in. This effectively makes your visitor retention rate nonexistent if your landing page takes 8 seconds or longer to load.

On the other hand, faster load times will help retain website visitors much longer. On average, website users will visit 9 pages on a site if the load times are under 2 seconds per page. If a potential customer stays on your site this long, it’ll greatly increase their chances of moving forward with a purchase.

Website Load Time Benchmarks

Before we get into techniques to help your website load faster, it helps to understand the steps it takes for a browser to render a web page on your visitor’s screens. We’ll be breaking down a web page’s rendering process into four seconds and giving you an idea of where an ideal web page should be at the end of every second.

1. First Paint—1 Second
   After the first second, an ideal website should be showing the “first paint” or the initial visuals visible to the browser. First paint should include the web page’s background color as well as header elements that appear at the very top of the page.
2. Contentful Paint—2 Seconds
   Two seconds in to the loading process, your web page should have started to load actual page content such as text and images. Ideally, the above-the-fold content should be fully rendered even if the rest of the page’s content isn’t finished being rendered yet.
3. DOM Loaded—3 Seconds
   After the third second, an ideal web page should be fully parsed by the browser and have all content understood and rendered. This includes all HTML and style sheets. Your web page should feel as though it’s finished loading at this point.
4. Onload—4 Seconds
   After the third second, the page should be fully loaded and begin executing JavaScript and other advanced widgets that could otherwise delay content to load in. It is important that these scripts load last, after the page’s content and style sheets are already completely finished loading.

Tips for Fast Web Speeds

Now that we’ve taken a look at an ideal web page’s rendering process, what can you do to make your website’s pages closer to this ideal? While not everything about a page’s load speed is under your control (your visitors could have slow connection speeds, outdated browsers, or slow hardware), most of it is determined by the way your pages are built and served. Below, we’ll go over a few tips on building and serving a page that loads faster.

1. Prioritize Above-the-Fold Content
   Borrowing from the language of print design, “Above-the-fold” refers to the first content visitors will see on their screen as they visit a web page. This includes the website’s header, page title, and any hero image or content a page might have. It’s important that this content is rendered before anything else, as any delay in its loading will make the page feel sluggish and poorly put together.
2. Optimize Images
   Images are often the most data-intensive part of a web page’s content. While it’s inevitable that pages with large, beautiful hero images will take longer to load than those with simple text content, there are a number of strategies you can use to keep your image file sizes as low as possible without sacrificing too much quality. The most important of these strategies is choosing the right file type for your image—refer to our previous infographic for a full break down of the various image file types you can use on a web page.
3. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
   Finally, you can improve your website’s load speed by optimizing the way it’s served to visitors. One strategy that’s increasing in popularity is to use a CDN, or a network of servers with shared data covering a broad geographic range. This not only improves the time it takes for the servers to get your website data to your visitors, but it also makes visitor’s connection to your site more secure. We use Cloudflare as our CDN at tekRESCUE, but there are many options available in this growing market.

In Conclusion, it’s time to start taking page speeds seriously. Between visitor bounce rates and search engine penalties, the consequences of having a slow website are impossible to ignore. We hope you found this information helpful, and we hope it gets you started on your way to a faster website and more conversions.

As always, feel free to contact the experts at tekRESCUE if you have concerns with your website’s page speeds. We’ll be happy to consult with you and help build you a faster website.

A “responsive” website is one that rearranges itself to display optimally on any device or screen size. Since 2013, phone use rose by 78% while desktop use fell by 10%. Because of this, it is very important for businesses to keep up with the internet trend and make their site mobile responsive. The average person spends 20% of their day on their smartphone, which is about 2.8 hours a day!

Google uses mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal that affects all mobile searches worldwide so that users find it easier to get high quality results optimized for their devices. Also, 70% of mobile searches lead to action within one hour while it takes nearly a full month for the same percentage for desktop users to catch up.

Some of the additional benefits of having a mobile responsive site are:

• Saves time
• Save money
• Wider Browser Support
• Improves SEO
• All pages available on every device
• No need to zoom on smaller devices
• One URL, One Code, All Devices

We are big fans of SEO, but sometimes the desired results can take a while to achieve (especially in competitive markets and industries where you’re up against a lot of competitors with well-established web presences), so sometimes it’s a good idea to run some paid traffic campaigns for more instantaneous results.

The first paid traffic source most people think of is usually Google AdWords. While this is a great source of traffic, it’s often expensive. It’s crucial to choose the right keywords so you don’t wind up paying $10-20+ per click (though you can make those keywords profitable too with some work).

We’ve compiled a list of several high-quality paid traffic sources where you can quickly set up targeted campaigns, along with a few pros and cons for each. We hope you enjoy! If you find it useful, please feel free to share it on your social media platform(s) of choice!

Of course, when you drive paid traffic, it’s wise to properly track your campaigns to ensure you’re getting leads/phone calls/sales. It’s also a good idea to drive visitors to a landing page instead of directly to your site so you can quickly ask for action, instead of letting them wander around and leave without leaving contact info, making a purchase, or calling you for more information.

If you need help setting up a paid traffic campaign, give tekRESCUE a call to discuss your needs! We can discuss keyword targeting, geolocation targeting, budgeting, and more. We can also help craft landing pages for your campaigns, set up funnels, and more.

It’s more important than ever to ensure your business has a powerful digital presence. The odds of someone researching your business online before calling or walking through your doors are pretty high, so establishing a strong, positive presence is crucial. In the infographic below, we’ve outlined powerful ways to strengthen your brand’s presence, including: website audits, website design, content creation, backlink & market research, pay-per-click advertising, social media, and more.

If your business needs help managing any of these aspects of your online presence, give us a call today to discuss your needs and we’ll help come up with the perfect custom plan for your budget. We can help with content creation, brand reinforcement, pay-per-click campaigns, website redesigns, competitor analysis, SEO, and more.