Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: Is my computer’s RAM really running at half-speed?

Posted on February 28, 2022

Question from Jimmy: A few years ago I paid a computer tech to build a gaming PC for me.

This machine has a Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3-CF motherboard and 8GB of Patriot Viper DDR4-3000 RAM in it.

That means the RAM should be operating at 3000 MHz, right?

After reading your post about Speccy I decided to install it and run it just to see all the specs of my system at a glance.

Speccy is reporting the DRAM speed to be 1496 MHz instead of 3000.

Is my RAM actually operating at that speed or is Speccy just reporting it wrong? [Read more…]

Scam alert: Beware the many ‘Ellen DeGeneres’ scams on Facebook

Posted on February 27, 2022

As you probably know, lots of celebrities use Facebook to keep in touch with their fans and share news of upcoming events with them.

Unfortunately, lots of scammers are busy piggy-backing off the success of those celebrities by cloning their accounts and using those fake accounts to scam the celebrities’ fans.

One of the scammers’ favorite targets is Ellen DeGeneres because of her well-known penchant for giving things away, both on her show and via her social media accounts. [Read more…]

How to safely disinfect your smartphone

Posted on February 26, 2022

Unless you’ve recently been rescued from a deserted island, you’re surely aware of the dangers posed by the Covid-19 virus.

I won’t go into the sad details here, but the path of destruction this pandemic is leaving its wake is nothing short of mind-boggling.

The federal government has put out a wide variety of guidelines for us to follow in order to stay safe from the virus, but there’s one detail that I haven’t really seen addressed as well as it should be…

[Read more…]

Q&A: How can I protect the files on a flash drive from accidental deletion?

Posted on February 25, 2022

Question from Tim: I have three semesters worth of very important notes stored on a USB flash drive.

My friend wants to borrow that drive so he can use the notes to study for a certification exam.

I can’t afford to lose those files for any reason because they cannot be re-created or replaced.

Is there some way to prevent my friend from accidentally deleting the files from the drive? [Read more…]

Q&A: How do I cancel my ‘Amazon Music Unlimited’ subscription?

Posted on February 25, 2022

Question from Iris: A while back I signed up for Amazon Music Unlimited and I used it every day for a while.

One of my wo-workers turned me onto Spotify and now I prefer using that instead.

Can you tell me how to cancel my Amazon Music Unlimited subscription?

I just don’t see the point in subscribing to two music services. [Read more…]