Rick's Daily Tips

How to protect your computer from lightning strikes during the storm season

Posted on June 21, 2021

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As you probably know, spring is just around the corner.

And as always that means warmer weather and lots of beautiful spring flowers will soon be headed our way as well.

Unfortunately, the arrival of spring also brings with it the risk of severe electrical storms in most areas of the country.

There’s really nothing you can do to keep the storms at bay, but there are several things you can do to ensure that a lightning strike doesn’t damage your expensive computer equipment.

Here are a few tips for protecting your computer from lightning strikes: [Read more…]

Why I love using Keyboard Shortcuts

Posted on June 21, 2021

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Regular readers of this blog know that I’m a huge fan of keyboard shortcuts.

I spend several hours every day working with a variety of computers so I’m always looking for ways to work more efficiently.

Using the keyboard to accomplish common tasks saves me a ton of time because I rarely have to take my hands off the keyboard.

In a nutshell, keyboard shortcuts let you accomplish tasks that would often take several mouse clicks with just a single tap of a key (or key combination).

They also save you time by not requiring you to move your hand from the keyboard to the mouse, then back to the keyboard again.

There are dozens of keyboard shortcuts for the various versions of Windows, and I know that remembering all of them would be pretty close to impossible.

But the good news is you don’t have to. [Read more…]

Review: InMotion Hosting (website and blog hosting provider)

Posted on June 21, 2021

In the spirit of full transparency, let me state up-front that I’m a long-time customer of InMotion Hosting, for reasons that will be clear to you after reading this review.

I have used several web hosting companies over the years, with various levels of satisfaction.

This review is basically a contrast between the products, service and support I received from those other companies and what I’ve received from InMotion. [Read more…]

Reminder: Today is Amazon Prime Day (your chance to save big!)

Posted on June 21, 2021

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Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

Just in case you missed the news, today is Amazon Prime Day.

If you’re unfamiliar with Prime Day, it’s basically just a short two-day period of time when Amazon Prime members can get huge discounts that aren’t available to non-Prime customers on thousands of popular items.

Another way to think of Prime Day is sort of like an early preview of Black Friday.

Anyway, if you’ve been planning to make a major purchase or simply stock up on a few things you use on a regular basis, today is the perfect time to do it if you have a Prime membership.

If you aren’t a Prime member you can sign up right here and take advantage of these special Prime Day savings plus get all the other awesome benefits that Prime members enjoy!

In case you’re wondering, you don’t have to pay for a full year’s Prime membership to take advantage of the awesome Prime Day savings.

You can simply sign up for the monthly plan instead and then cancel your membership at any time.

Bottom line: Millions of Amazon customers stampede to Amazon.com every year on Prime Day to snag some great bargains.

Today is that day so be sure not to miss out!

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Q&A: How can I find out which program is using tons of data in Windows 10?

Posted on June 20, 2021

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Question from Gary M.: My ISP has notified me that I have exceeded the monthly data allotment for my Internet plan and that I might have to pay extra this month.

I don’t understand this because I only use the Internet for about 1 to 2 hours per day and I don’t do much streaming at all other than watching an occasional YouTube video.

I only use one computer on my Internet connection (Dell laptop with Windows 10) and I don’t have anything whatsoever connected to Wi-Fi. I’m hoping that’ll make it easy to find out why I’m using all that data.

Can you tell me what I need to do to find out what’s going on?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]