Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
In times past, loading the BIOS Setup Utility on most any PC was as simple as pressing a special key at the beginning of the boot process.
With some modern laptops and ultrabooks running Windows 8.1 however, it isn’t quite that easy.
But as long as you can boot the PC into Windows, you can load the UEFI (BIOS) Setup Screen from there. Here’s how: [Read more…]
As you probably already know, Twitter has never allowed their users to send direct messages (DMs) to other users who don’t follow them. But as of today, that is no longer the case.
A new security setting is being rolled out right now that will let any Twitter user opt to receive DMs from any other Twitter user, whether they follow them or not.
If you prefer not to receive DMs from non-followers you won’t have to do a thing because the new feature is disabled by default.
If, on the other hand, you would like to change the setting and start receiving DMs from people you don’t follow, here is how to do it: [Read more…]
Microsoft effectively killed off Windows XP in about a year ago, and many XP users are trying decide whether to upgrade their PCs to Windows 8.1, dump Windows altogether and switch to Linux, or simply replace their old PC with a new one.
Personally, I think switching to Ubuntu Linux is a great way to go if the PC is used primarily for email and Internet access, but as long as the hardware is new enough to support Windows 8.1, that’s a great choice as well.
If you decide to upgrade Win XP to 8.1, it’s a good idea to prepare for the upgrade before jumping into it. Here are my recommendations: [Read more…]
If you prefer using the Desktop instead of the Metro Start Screen in Windows 8, you might be wishing you had a shortcut to the ‘Computer’ dialog sitting right on the Desktop. Well, you can. and it’s very easy to set up. Here’s how:
1 – Right-click on the Windows 8 Desktop.
2 – Click Personalize.
3 – Click Change desktop icons.
4 – Check the box beside Computer and click Apply.
5 – Click Ok.
There are icons for several other familiar Windows features there as well. Feel free to check or uncheck the boxes as desired.
To date, the Windows 10 Technical Preview has introduced a number of awesome new features that will likely be included in the upcoming commercial release of Windows 10, and one that I like quite a bit is the handy new Quick Access view in File Explorer.
In a nutshell, Quick Access view displays the most recently used files, folders and related data by default every time you open the File Explorer window. This really speeds up your work flow if you tend to use the same files and folders over and over again.
As mentioned above, I personally like the new Quick Access view, but plenty of others think it’s the worst thing since the introduction of Windows Vista. If you don’t particularly care for it either, you can easily turn it off. Here’s how: [Read more…]