Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Callie: I bought a new Windows laptop (an Acer) that has a camera built into it.
I don’t ever plan to use the camera for anything and I’d like to completely disable it.
I don’t want to just prevent apps from accessing the camera. I want to disable it completely.
Is it possible to do that? If it is, can you tell me how to do it? [Read more…]
Safe Mode is a powerful tool that can help resolve software and hardware issues that are often difficult to identify while a full-blown Windows installation is running.
In a nutshell, booting a machine into Safe Mode typically loads only the operating system kernel plus just a few basic hardware device drivers.
This is basically a stripped down version of the operating system that isn’t affected by any auto-loading programs or advanced device drivers. [Read more…]
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Question from Thomas: I have a little cash to spend to upgrade my desktop computer and I need your advice on how best to spend it.
Right now it has 16GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive (which is close to being full).
My question is should I use the money to double the RAM on this machine by adding another 16GB or would I be better off replacing the hard drive with a 1TB SSD? [Read more…]
Rick’s Tech Tips Newsletter
Question from Caleb: I hope you can help me with a browser issue, Rick.
Google Chrome is the only browser I use and I always use it in Incognito Mode. I might be the only one lol.
Is there any way to have Chrome open in Incognito Mode by default so I can skip the step of manually opening an Incognito tab every time? [Read more…]
Question from Michael: I’ve noticed that every Windows computer I’ve ever owned runs lightning fast when I first take it out of the box, but before long they always seem to start slowing down.
Why do they do that? Do the parts just wear out or what?
Is there anything that can be done to reverse the slowdown and get the PC running like new again? [Read more…]