Tech Questions & Answers Archives - Page 247 of 258

Q&A: How can I determine the total up time for my PC since I bought it?

Posted on August 17, 2013

Question from Ron K.: Rick, this might seem like a frivolous question (and I admit that it is), but is there any way to determine the total number of hours and minutes that my Dell desktop computer has been powered on since I bought it in May 2008? No biggie if there isn’t, I’m just curious.

Rick’s answer: That isn’t a frivolous question at all Ron. Now you have me curious about how long my PCs have been powered up as well.

To answer your question, I don’t know of any way to use Windows itself to determine the total uptime of a computer, but I do know of a way to get a fairly accurate estimate: [Read more…]

Q&A: How can I keep my 4 year old from exiting Internet Explorer?

Posted on August 16, 2013

Question from Andrea L.: Hi Rick. I have a problem and I’m betting you might be able to help me solve it.

My 4 year old daughter likes playing the games on the PBS Kids website (https://pbskids.org). The problem is she isn’t the best at controlling the mouse yet and she sometimes accidentally leaves Internet Explorer and starts click in places where she doesn’t need to be clicking. Last night I caught her clicking around the Control Panel!

Is there a way to force her to stay within the confines of the web browser? The computer runs Windows 7 if that makes a difference. Thanks so much for your help!

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Memo to Microsoft: Users just aren’t that interested in touch screens on laptops and desktop PCs

Posted on August 13, 2013

touch-screen-laptop I found it odd when Microsoft decided to make the touch screen-friendly tiles of the new Start Screen the primary selling point of Windows 8.

To this day I still haven’t figured out why the folks in Redmond thought of laptop and Desktops PC users would ever prefer “touching” their computer screens over using their mice and keyboards.

Well, it turns out that I’m not the only person who feels that way. [Read more…]

Q&A: Why is ‘Burn disc image’ missing when working with ISO files?

Posted on August 12, 2013

Question from Nathan E.: Hi Rick. I have a problem that I can’t seem to figure out. I’m hoping you can help me.

I work with a lot of ISO files that I download from the web and then burn onto writable CDs and DVDs. Until recently I could right-click on an ISO file and click “Burn disc image” and Windows’ built-in CD/DVD burner utility would create a bootable disc.

Alternatively, I could get “Burn disc image” to show up as a menu item in Windows Explorer by simply clicking on the name of the ISO file.

I don’t know what happened, but starting a few days ago the “Burn disc image” option fails to appear regardless of which of the above-mentioned methods I try. Can you help me get it back? I’ll be much in your debt if you can! My laptop is running Windows 7. Thanks!

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: How do you kill a stuck process in Ubuntu Linux?

Posted on July 31, 2013

Question from Keith: I recently built a computer from scratch and I decided to install Ubuntu Linux on it instead of buying a copy of Windows. It’s a pretty steep learning curve for me, but I’m enjoying it immensely.

I have a problem that I hope you can help me with. I’m using Firefox for my web browser and every now and then it hangs up, causing me to have to reboot the computer to clear it. Back in my Windows days I used the Task Manager to kill a stuck process, but something tells me that it won’t be quite that simple with Linux.

My question is this: How do you kill a stuck process in Ubuntu? Is there a Linux utility that I can download that works something like the Windows Task Manager?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]