Rick's Daily Tips

Tech Tips, Tricks and Tutorials

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Today’s Daily Deal: CyberPower 1500VA/900W PFC Sinewave UPS

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Today’s Daily Deal features the awesome CyberPower 1500VA/900W PFC Sinewave UPS.

I consider this to be the best consumer-grade battery backup/UPS device on the market today.

Now that we’re heading into winter most of us can expect occasional power outages and flaky power grids.

This powerful UPS will protect your sensitive electronic devices from transient power fluctuations and keep your computer powered up while your neighbors are staring at a black screen!

Click here to read more about the CyberPower 1500VA/900W PFC Sinewave UPS at Amazon.

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

Schedule text messages to be sent at a later time with your Android phone

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Have you ever wished you could schedule a text message to be sent at a future date and time?

I have, and there are plenty of situations where such a capability would come in handy.

For example, let’s say you have a friend whose birthday is coming up in a few days and you want to make sure you don’t forget to send him a “Happy Birthday” text.

Or perhaps you need to remind your wife about an upcoming doctor appointment but you’re afraid you might forget about it yourself before the appointment date arrives.  [Read more…]

Q&A: I received a bunch of emails telling me to change my passwords. What do I need to do?

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Question from Sue:  Yesterday I started getting emails from several websites that I mostly infrequently use or don’t use at all, such as Microsoft, Walmart, and Instagram.

But now I’ve received two more emails from two websites (AirBnB and eBay) that I DO use.

These emails were all in regard to resetting my password – either the password was already changed or a request to change it.

One email stated the request came from Malaysia and one from Russia, both of course I’m not visiting.

The requests definitely appear to be from the legitimate website – no misspelled words, correct internet and physical addresses, privacy statements, etc.

I changed the passwords on all the websites and updated and ran my Avast antivirus. But now I’m getting really concerned that “they” will figure out my passwords for more important websites such as banking, credit cards, etc.

I assume that I went on a bad website or something else. What happened and how can I fix it (preferably without changing each password separately as I’m pretty lazy) and prevent it from happening again?

Rick’s answer:  [Read more…]

Q&A: Is there an easy way to fix an iMac that’s hard to turn on?

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Question from Iris L:  I bought a brand new 27″ iMac back in January 2019.

This is my first Apple computer and I really like it, but a few days ago I started having problems getting it to turn on.

Basically, nothing happens when I press the power button. But if I keep pressing the button over and over it’ll eventually start up after about 10 – 12 button presses.

I contacted Apple and they told me this is likely a hardware problem and I need to return the iMac and let them fix it.

My question is since they said it’s “likely” a hardware problem that must mean there’s a possibility of it being a software problem, right?

Can you tell me something to try to fix it on my own? There’s no Apple store near me so I’d have to ship it off for the repair and I hate the thought of having to do without my computer for several weeks.

And on a separate note, I’m also looking to replace my aging MacBook with a new one.

Can you recommend a good MacBook that’s reasonably priced and relatively compact (for easy traveling), yet powerful enough to get serious work done?

Thanks for your help in advance.

Rick’s answer:  [Read more…]

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