Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: Does a laptop need a surge protector?

Posted on September 23, 2026

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Question from Della: I just bought my son a new laptop at our local big box store.

As we were walking up to the register to pay, I asked the salesman if he could recommend a good surge protector for it.

He said laptops don’t need surge protectors because they aren’t connected to the power grid while you’re using them and the chargers that come with them have surge protection built into them.

That just didn’t sound right to me. Was he right or do I need to go ahead and buy a surge protector for my son’s new laptop? [Read more…]

Why you need to lock down your email account tight

Posted on September 22, 2026

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Have you ever stopped to consider just how important your email account is?

Like most people you probably use email to send messages to friends and family members and receive updates from the various services you’ve signed up for.

But did you know your email account is one of the most import online accounts you’ll ever use?

In fact, after your online banking and other financial accounts, your email account is probably THE most important account you have. [Read more…]

How (and why) to run Windows’ Disk Cleanup tool

Posted on September 21, 2026

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Over time Windows PCs can gather a lot of clutter, and all that junk takes up valuable disk space.

And on rare occasions it can cause the Windows installation itself to slow down and become unstable.

As you can see, it’s very important to keep your machine as free of clutter as possible.

Luckily, all recent versions of Windows come with a handy tool called Disk Cleanup that will quickly and easily remove most of the accumulated digital clutter for you. All you have to do is run it. Here’s how: [Read more…]

6 tips for speeding up a sluggish Windows PC

Posted on September 20, 2026

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Do you ever find yourself wishing your computer wasn’t running like a snoozing slug?

Have you noticed that it now runs a lot slower than it did when you first bought it?

As you probably know, computers tend to slow down over time due to clutter on the hard drive and other software-related issues.

This is simply a fact of life, especially with Windows-based machines. [Read more…]

How to instantly view the browser history in any browser

Posted on September 19, 2026

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All major web browsers maintain a list of the web pages you have visited in the past. This list is called the “Browser History”.

There are a number of reasons why you might want to view your browser history (or someone else’s), so knowing how to do it is sure to come in handy at some time in the future.

[Read more…]