Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
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Question from Janeesa: My company allots every employee $1000 every 2 years to buy a new laptop, and I have until January 28 to pick one out and put in the request for it.
I’ve checked out some laptops online and I’m really confused about what I should buy. Even though the company is paying for it, this laptop will be mine to keep. The problem is there are so many to choose from!
Can you point me in the right direction? [Read more…]
Question from Angie: I have an older Dell desktop computer that came with Windows but was long ago converted into an Unbuntu Linux machine.
I love this computer dearly and I don’t want to replace it with a new one until I absolutely have to.
The problem is I think that time might have come because the keyboard has a couple of essential keys (Backspace and Space Bar) that have stopped working.
I’ve checked at Walmart, Best Buy and Office Depot, but the only keyboards they sell connect to a USB port instead of the old-style PS/2 connector used by my existing keyboard. Will a USB keyboard work with this computer or am I simply out of luck? [Read more…]
Question from Margaret: Hi, Rick. I have a question for you about my options for getting a new computer.
What are your thoughts on having someone build a custom computer for me vs. buying a name brand computer at a computer store?
My young cousin Kevin is a computer geek and he says he can build me a PC that’s better than one I can buy at a computer store for the same amount of money. Do you think I should let him? [Read more…]
Question from Keith: I always ‘eject’ my USB flash drives before removing them from the computer because I heard that not doing that could cause the drive to get corrupted.
Someone saw me eject a drive the other day and said we don’t have to do that anymore.
My question is, can we now just pull the drive out of its socket or do we still need to eject it first? [Read more…]
Question from Gretchen.: My daughter started college this fall and she’s living on campus.
When she received her dorm assignment they also gave her a list of rules that she must follow.
One of those rules is she cannot use her own router in her dorm room. They told her she has to use the campus Wi-Fi network instead because a private router could cause problems with the school’s network.
Why is that? [Read more…]