Rick's Daily Tips - Page 3 of 517 - Tech Tips, Tricks and Tutorials

Process Explorer – A powerful free replacement for the Windows Task Manager

Posted on June 20, 2018

The native Windows Task Manager has long been the go-to utility when we need to see which programs are running on our PC or kill a “hung” process.

While Microsoft has really expanded the features and power of Task Manager in recent years, it still has some serious limitations.

Luckily, Microsoft also offers a free program called Process Explorer that takes the concept of the Task Manager to a whole new level.

Process Explorer displays every process currently running on your PC in an easy to visualize “tree” structure. [Read more…]

Q&A: How do I decide which programs to install on my new SSD?

Posted on June 20, 2018

Question from Lacie G.: I read your post explaining the advantages of installing an SSD a while back and I’ve wanted one ever since to go in my HP desktop PC.

I ended up buying a 120GB SanDisk SSD and installed it as the boot drive in my HP desktop computer. I left the 750GB hard drive in there for extra storage.

I installed Windows 10 from scratch on the SSD and now I’m ready to install my programs. The thing is with only 120GB of space on the SSD it won’t hold anywhere near all of my programs.

I have a couple of questions for you:

1 – Which programs should I install on the SSD and which ones should I leave on the hard drive?

2 – Should I leave the original Windows 10 files on the hard drive or is it safe to delete them to free up that space?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: What’s the best way to clean my computer screen?

Posted on June 20, 2018

Question from Clara: I’ve been cleaning the screens on my MacBook Pro and iPhone with a micro-fiber cloth covered with glass cleaner, but someone told me I shouldn’t do that because the glass cleaner could damage the screen. What’s the best way to clean them?

Rick’s answer: The person who told you that was right Clara. Many glass cleaner solutions can cause discoloring and other forms of damage to the screens in modern flat panel displays and mobile devices.

As a general rule, it’s best to use wipes that are pre-moistened with a solution that was designed specifically for flat panel display screens in order to keep them clean and prevent the devices from being damaged. [Read more…]

Review: Carbonite online backup service

Posted on June 19, 2018

If you’ve ever had a laptop stolen or suffered a hard drive crash, you already know that losing your precious photos, music, Word documents and other critical files is even worse than having to replace the hardware.

If you didn’t have a current backup, you most likely lost every scrap of your irreplaceable data. That’s why always having a current backup of your hard drive on hand is absolutely critical.

But did you know that just backing up your data onto an external hard drive isn’t enough? What happens if a fire or flood destroys your home and everything in it? In addition to your computer being destroyed, you’ll lose your backup drive too! [Read more…]