Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: Why is my Windows 10 laptop acting like it has Windows 8 on it?

Posted on August 19, 2021

Click here to sign up for my free Rick’s Tech Tips Newsletter!

Question from Betty: I have an Acer laptop that came with Windows 8 but was later updated to Windows 10.

It works great except for one problem.

This computer always booted to the Desktop after I installed Windows 10 but this morning it booted to what looks very similar to the old Windows 8 “Start Screen”.

My friend came over and used my computer last night and he must have done something to make it start doing this.

I really, really, REALLY want to use my computer with the Desktop instead of a stupid Start Screen. How can I fix it?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: Can you recommend a good camera repair service?

Posted on August 17, 2021

Click here to sign up for my free Rick’s Tech Tips Newsletter!

Question from Barbara T.: Rick, I have a Canon DSLR camera that I absolutely love, but I need to have it repaired.

My 4 year old got her hands on it somehow when I was out of the room and she broke the door to the battery compartment off.

The memory card slot seems to be damaged as well because the card won’t stay in place.

I bought this camera from a local camera store that has since gone out of business, and the nearest camera repair shop is 110 miles away.

Do you know of a place I can ship my camera to in order to have it repaired? [Read more…]

Q&A: How do I view a web page’s source code with Chrome?

Posted on August 17, 2021

Click here to sign up for my free Rick’s Tech Tips Newsletter!

Question from Garry: Rick, I was a faithful Internet Explorer user for years (I guess you can say I’m a creature of habit) but after switching from Windows 7 to Windows 10 I decided to give Chrome a try.

Now that I’ve tried it for a few weeks, I have to agree with all the good things I’d heard about Chrome because it doesn’t crash all the time, and it seems to really be a lot faster than IE too.

I knew there’d be a learning curve, but it wasn’t all that bad really.

But there’s one thing I just can’t figure out. How the heck do you display a web page’s HTML source code? [Read more…]

How to log into any Windows 10 PC with your fingerprint

Posted on August 16, 2021

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

Would you enjoy the convenience of logging into your Windows 10 laptop or desktop computer with a quick touch of your finger?

Windows 10 now has a feature called Windows 10 Hello that adds fingerprint login capability to any computer it’s running on.

But there’s a problem: Not every computer running Windows 10 has a fingerprint reader.

Well, now you can get an inexpensive fingerprint reader that adds fingerprint recognition and login capability to any PC running the latest versions of Windows 10. [Read more…]

Q&A: Can I remove the taskbar from one of the screens when using dual displays?

Posted on August 16, 2021

Click here to sign up for my free Rick’s Tech Tips Newsletter!

Question from Penny N.: I have a laptop with a 23 inch external monitor attached to it. The laptop is a Lenovo IdeaPad with Windows 10 on it.

I use the laptop’s built-in screen to display my Gmail and the larger external monitor for everything else.

I never use the taskbar on the laptop’s screen so I’d like to disable it and have the taskbar displayed on the external monitor only. That would give me a little extra usable screen space on the smaller screen.

Is it possible to disable the taskbar on the laptop’s screen even though that’s the primary display? [Read more…]