Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Angie H.: Hi Rick. My Dell Inspiron N5010 laptop is loaded down with viruses and all sorts of other bad stuff. I really need to re-install Windows but I don’t have a Windows 7 CD.
I know I can order a Windows CD from Dell but I’d rather not if I can avoid it. My daughter said she thinks I can re-install Windows without the CD. Is that true? If it is how do I do that?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Question from Rhonda F.: Rick, I have a question for you. Why do the photos I take with my phone always turn out blurry? I often have to take a dozen shots to end up with just one that’s clear.
I must be doing something wrong but I can’t figure out what it is. My phone is an Android (Samsung Galaxy S II). Thanks for your help!
Rick’s answer: Hi Rhonda. It’s impossible to know for sure without seeing how you’re taking the photos, but I have a strong hunch that you aren’t letting your phone’s camera finish focusing the shot before releasing the shutter button. [Read more…]
Question from Danielle H.: I have a 5 year old HP Envy 13 laptop that works fine when it’s plugged into the wall with the charger, but if I unplug the charger it shuts off almost immediately.
Do you think replacing the battery would fix the problem or do you think there’s something else wrong?
Rick’s answer: Yes Danielle, the problem is almost certainly a bad battery. If the charger was bad it wouldn’t run the laptop at all, and if the laptop itself was bad it wouldn’t run regardless of whether it was using battery power or AC power.
You have several options available to you for buying a replacement laptop battery for your HP Envy 13: [Read more…]
Question from Howard L.: Rick, I’m hoping you can help me out. After Microsoft stopped supporting Windows XP I decided to install Windows 8.1 on my HP Pavilion dv4000 CTO laptop. I really love this computer and I hate to give it up!
Since this PC is so old I didn’t know how well it would work with Windows 8.1, but I was very pleasantly surprised. It actually seems to run faster than it did with XP. But there’s one problem. [Read more…]
Question from Tina L.: When I read a message in WhatsApp on my iPhone 6 it tells the person who sent it that I have read it.
I don’t like that because there are times when I’d rather the person not know that I have read their message. Can you tell me how to disable Read Receipts in WhatsApp? My phone has iOS 8 on it.
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]