Computer Tips Archives - Page 195 of 227

Is your Samsung 840 EVO SSD running slower than it should? Here’s how to speed it up.

Posted on October 23, 2014

samsung-840-evo-series-250gb-ssd A while back I purchased a 120Gb Samsung 840 EVO solid state drive (SSD) for my desktop PC, and I love it.

At first this drive was lightning fast, but before long I noticed that it had slowed down to the point where it was really no faster than a traditional spinning hard drive.

I double-checked all the settings and made sure there was plenty of free work space available on the drive, and nothing seemed to be amiss. Frustrated, I did a Google search to see if anyone else was having problems with their Samsung SSDs, and sure enough, they were. [Read more…]

Q&A: Can you recommend a good program for adding speech commands to Windows 8.1?

Posted on October 20, 2014

Question from Belinda Q.: Hi Rick. I had a stroke a while back, and although I’m recovering nicely, my right arm and hand are still very weak and I have great difficulty using the trackpad on my laptop.

Can you recommend a good program that will allow me to control the computer using my voice?

Price is an issue because I’m on a fixed income, but I need something that works well even if it costs a little more. I need for it to work with Windows 8.1. Thanks in advance for your advice!

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

How to make Windows 8.1 ‘forget’ unused Wi-Fi networks

Posted on October 19, 2014

windows-8-1 If you’ve done some traveling with your laptop you have probably built up a long list of Wi-Fi networks that you’ve connected to while you were out on the road.

Chances are you’ll never have occasion to connect to many of those networks again, yet they still keep popping up every time you need to establish a Wi-Fi connection.

If your laptop is running Windows 8.1, it’s easy to remove those old Wi-Fi networks from your list of remembered networks. Here’s how: [Read more…]

How to create a Recovery Disc or USB key in Windows 8.1

Posted on October 15, 2014

windows-8-1 One of the first things we need to do after setting up a new PC is to create a Recovery Disc in case something ever goes wrong with the Windows installation (and trust me, at some point it probably will).

The process for creating recovery media in Windows 8.1 is different from the one in previous Windows versions. Here’s how to do it: [Read more…]

Feeling adventurous? Install the Technical Preview version of Windows 10 today, for free!

Posted on October 2, 2014

If you’re the adventurous type you can download the “Technical Preview” version of Windows 10 and install it on your PC today, for free!

The Windows 10 Technical Preview is basically an alpha version of the operating system.

That means it has plenty of rough edges and bugs that will need to be squashed before the “finished” version of the updated O.S. is ready to be released to the general public.

Microsoft is always seeking individuals to help check out Windows’ new features and put them through their paces in order to identify bugs and make suggestions for possible improvements in the way the user interface and other parts of the O.S work. [Read more…]