Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Margaret: Hi, Rick. I have a question for you about my options for getting a new computer.
What are your thoughts on having someone build a custom computer for me vs. buying a name brand computer at a computer store?
My young cousin Kevin is a computer geek and he says he can build me a PC that’s better than one I can buy at a computer store for the same amount of money. Do you think I should let him? [Read more…]
If your PC is running Windows 10 you might have noticed ads for apps and various other things on the Lock Screen.
Microsoft has started running these ads as a way of making a few extra bucks to help replace the millions of dollars they are forfeiting by making Windows 10 basically free.
I’ve spoken to lots of folks who don’t mind the ads or begrudge Microsoft trying to recoup some of their lost revenue, but I’ve also heard from plenty of others who find the ads annoying.
If you happen to dislike the Windows 10 Lock Screen ads, you can easily disable them. Here’s how: [Read more…]
Question from Keith: I always ‘eject’ my USB flash drives before removing them from the computer because I heard that not doing that could cause the drive to get corrupted.
Someone saw me eject a drive the other day and said we don’t have to do that anymore.
My question is, can we now just pull the drive out of its socket or do we still need to eject it first? [Read more…]
The Olympic Games are a worldwide spectacle that attract the attention of billions of people around the globe during the two week period when the games are underway.
Unfortunately, that two week period is also one of the most lucrative times for hackers and scammers to practice their dirty deeds.
Chances are you’ve already received emails and seen social media posts with links to Olympics related web pages and videos. If so, I hope you haven’t clicked on the links because virtually all of those emails and web pages are fraudulent and dangerous. [Read more…]
Question from Gretchen.: My daughter started college this fall and she’s living on campus.
When she received her dorm assignment they also gave her a list of rules that she must follow.
One of those rules is she cannot use her own router in her dorm room. They told her she has to use the campus Wi-Fi network instead because a private router could cause problems with the school’s network.
Why is that? [Read more…]