Rick's Daily Tips

How to make full-screen YouTube videos always fill the entire screen

Posted on March 13, 2022

Rick’s Tech Tips Newsletter

Do you enjoy watching YouTube videos on your smartphone or tablet?

If so, you’ve probably noticed how some videos don’t fill the entire screen even when you’re watching them in full-screen mode.

Most videos are formatted to cover the entire screen, but the ones that aren’t show up with black bands on at least two sides.

You can always use the “pinch and zoom” technique to expand the video to fill the screen, but there’s a simple setting in the YouTube app that will automatically force oddly formatted videos to cover the entire screen by default. [Read more…]

Q&A: How do I remove those annoying check boxes from File Explorer?

Posted on March 12, 2022

Question from Calvin: I just bought a new computer and every time I select some files in File Explorer it places those annoying check boxes beside the files I selected.

I don’t need those check boxes since the files I select are highlighted anyway.

My old computer didn’t have those check boxes. I’m hoping you can tell me how to remove them from the new one? [Read more…]

Q&A: Should I use Windows’ unzipping tool or install 7-Zip?

Posted on March 10, 2022

Question from Carla: My boyfriend is currently working overseas and he sends me lots of photos in zipped folders.

On my old computer I used a program called 7-Zip to unzip those folders and extract the files.

I just bought a new Windows computer and I noticed that there’s an option to unzip folders on the right-click menu.

Is there an advantage to using 7-Zip instead of the Windows tool? [Read more…]

How to reduce the thickness of the Taskbar in Windows 11

Posted on March 10, 2022

If you recently purchased a Windows 11 PC or upgraded an existing machine to Windows 11, you’ve probably noticed that the Taskbar is thicker than it was in previous Windows versions.

And if you went looking for one, you probably noticed that there’s no setting in either the Control Panel or the Setting app to change the Taskbar’s thickness.

Personally, I like having my Taskbar as thin as possible to ensure that I have as much of the usable part of the screen in view as possible.

If you’d prefer a thinner Taskbar as well, I have some good news for you… [Read more…]