Rick's Daily Tips

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Get detailed information about your PC’s hardware with HWiNFO

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There are several handy free utilities out there that will tell you what hardware’s inside your PC, and one of the best I’ve ever used is HWiNFO.

Like Speccy, HWiNFO is a free program that provides tons of details about your system’s CPU, motherboard, memory and such.

But HWiNFO also provides a live snapshot of the CPU temperature and various system voltages, great information to have if you’re a computer tech or system builder.

Here’s a screenshot of the HWiNFO Summary page:  [Read more…]

How to quickly eliminate several of Facebook’s most irritating annoyances

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Do you use Facebook on a laptop or desktop computer?

If so, you’re probably familiar with one or more of these common annoyances:

  • Facebook is constantly switching your Newsfeed from “Most Recent” to “Top Stories”
  • You keep seeing the same “Sponsored Posts” over and over again
  • Political posts (and the arguments they generate) get your blood boiling
  • You receive an important message from someone who isn’t on your friends list but Facebook hides it from you by placing it in the “New Message Requests” folder
  • One of your Facebook friends “unfriends” you but you don’t find out about it until much later because Facebook didn’t let you know that your friend had unfriended you

All of these annoyances (and many more) have irritated me at one time or another, and I’m guessing they’ve irritated you as well.

Luckily, there’s a very easy way to eliminate all of these Facebook annoyances and more in one fell swoop… [Read more…]

FastStone Image Viewer: A powerful free replacement for Windows 10’s native ‘Photos’ app

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Do you have a laptop or desktop PC that’s running Windows 10?

If so, you surely know how frustrating the native Photos app can be.

I happen to like Windows 10 overall, but the Photos app leaves a lot to be desired due to its dearth of features and capabilities.

After my most recent photo viewing session I decided that I really needed to find myself a better app!

[Read more…]

Easily recover accidentally deleted photos and other files with a free tool called Recuva

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recuvaHave you ever accidentally deleted a photo, Microsoft Word document or some other file that you actually had no intention of deleting? The fact is we have all done it at one time or another.

A fantastic free program called Recuva will scan your internal or external hard drive, USB thumb drive or the memory card from your camera or smart phone and give you the option to “undelete” any deleted files that it finds.

And guess what? It works like a charm!  [Read more…]

Q&A: Is there any way to change a file’s creation date in Windows 10?

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Question from Gary:  I’m getting ready to turn over a bunch of files to another party and I don’t want him to know when these particular files were created.

Don’t worry, there’s nothing illegal or immoral going on here, we’re just doing a business deal and I don’t want the files’ creation dates to become an issue.

Is there any way to change a file’s creation date in Windows 10? I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t find a way to do it.

Rick’s answer:  [Read more…]

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