Rick's Daily Tips

How to quickly find out what your used computer is worth

Posted on December 31, 2024

Want to get my easy to follow Tech Tips in your email?

Do you have a used computer that you’re planning to sell?

If so, you might be wondering about what it’s worth so you can determine how much you should ask for it.

Or perhaps you’re planning to buy a used computer and you want to make sure you don’t over-pay?

Determining the actual value of an item used to be pretty difficult, but the Internet has given us a great tool that can give us that info in a hurry: Ebay. [Read more…]

How to preview a link in the Chrome Android app before you actually open it

Posted on December 30, 2024

Want to get my easy to follow Tech Tips in your email?

I have four different web browsers on my Android phone, and I use all of them at various times for different purposes.

The browser I prefer to use when reading articles and blog posts is Chrome because it has several features that I happen to find extremely useful.

One feature that I absolutely love (and use often) is “Page Preview“, a nifty little tool that allows you to preview the web page a link is pointing to before you actually open the page in a browser tab. [Read more…]

Q&A: Will installing an SSD void my new laptop’s warranty?

Posted on December 29, 2024

Want to get my easy to follow Tech Tips in your email?

Question from Markus: Hi, Rick. I recently bought a new laptop that came with a 1 year manufacturer’s warranty, but I paid extra for a 3 year extended warranty.

I’d really like to swap out its 1TB hard drive for an SSD (as you often recommend).

I have not read anything anywhere about potential consequences if one does this. Could this possibly be considered an “unauthorized” activity and therefore void either the laptop manufacturer’s warranty or the extended warranty that I purchased? [Read more…]

How to recover an accidentally deleted Gmail contact

Posted on December 29, 2024

Want to get my easy to follow Tech Tips in your email?

Have you ever accidentally deleted a Gmail contact that you didn’t intend to delete?

Even worse, have you ever logged into your Gmail account and discovered that all of your contacts had mysteriously disappeared?

Unfortunately, these things happen from time to time, and we often don’t realize it until several days have gone by.

Luckily, it’s very easy to recover any Gmail contacts that were deleted within the last 30 days. [Read more…]

Review: ‘Windows 11 For Dummies’

Posted on December 29, 2024

Rick’s Tech Tips Newsletter

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

Folks often ask me to recommend a good book for helping them learn some new computer topic, and I almost always steer them towards the “for Dummies” series of books if there is a title available on the topic in question.

Although the titles in this series include the word “Dummies”, these books don’t speak down to readers or assume they are absolutely “clueless”.

Instead, they present the material in a clear, easy-to-understand way so that anyone can learn what they need to learn about the topic as quickly and easily as possible, even if the reader does happen to be “clueless” about the topic.

[Read more…]