Rick's Daily Tips

Picture of the Day: “Star Trails over Southwestern Virginia”

Posted on December 9, 2025

Today’s POTD features the night sky as photographed with an extremely long shutter speed. This image was taken in rural Washington County, Virginia. I love how it perfectly illustrates how our amazing planet spins on its axis.

Have lots of treasured photos of your own that you’d love to display in your home but you have limited wall space? A digital picture frame (#ad) is an excellent solution. Check them out!

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How to clone a hard drive or SSD by simply pushing a button

Posted on December 8, 2025

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Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

I have written several posts that explain how to clone a hard drive or SSD, and every time I think I’ve found the simplest method possible I eventually discover an even easier way to do it.

Well, I’ve found yet another way, and I honestly don’t think cloning a drive could be any simpler than this.

The Sabrent USB 3.0 to SATA Dual Bay External Hard Drive Docking Station literally makes the process of cloning a hard drive or SSD onto a target drive as simple as pushing a button!

This is all you have to do to clone a standard SATA hard drive or 2.5″ SATA SSD using the Sabrent docking station: [Read more…]

How to make your phone charge as quickly as possible

Posted on December 7, 2025

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Do you often find that your phone’s battery is running low but you don’t have much time to charge it up?

If so, there’s an easy way to ensure that you’ll get as much charge in the short time available as possible. All you have to do is put your phone in airplane mode.

You probably know that putting any device into airplane prevents it from ringing or making other sounds, but this handy setting actually goes much further than that… [Read more…]

How to use (and pay for) Amazon Prime only when you need it

Posted on December 6, 2025

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By now you probably know that Amazon Prime members get fast and free shipping on Prime-eligible products plus a bunch of other awesome perks.

It truly is one of the best deals around if you enjoying shopping at Amazon and want to take advantage of all the awesome Prime perks.

That being said, you might be reluctant to sign up for a Prime membership due to the $139 annual fee, especially if you tend to cluster your Amazon shopping at various times of the year.

Well guess what? You can sign up for Amazon Prime one month at a time if you only need it for a short time (such as shopping for Christmas gifts). [Read more…]