Rick's Daily Tips

How to force Windows 10 to show file extensions in File Explorer

Posted on July 18, 2021

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For whatever reason, the folks at Microsoft have decided it’s a good idea to hide file extensions when using the File Explorer dialog in Windows 10.

I really don’t understand the thinking behind having file extensions hidden since they’re so useful for quickly determining a file’s type when viewing its filename.

In case you’re wondering how viewing a file’s extension can help you, here’s a great example (and it’s an important one).

Luckily, it’s very easy to force Windows 10 to display the file extensions when you view the names of files in File Explorer. Here’s how: [Read more…]

How to disable automatic app updates on your smartphone or tablet

Posted on July 17, 2021

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Do you have an iPhone, an iPad or an Android device?

If so, you probably know that by default your device will update your apps automatically as soon as updates become available.

Auto-Updates are fine if you are comfortable with accepting every app’s “permissions” and you are almost always in a place where there’s a strong cellular or Wi-Fi signal available.

But if you prefer to review the permissions before allowing your apps to update (yes, permissions are updated at times) or if you are often in places with weak signal coverage, you’d probably be better off setting Auto-Updates to “Off”.

[Read more…]

Q&A: Why is my PC giving me a ‘Disk Boot Failure’?

Posted on July 15, 2021

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Question from Oliver: I bought a new graphics card and the guy at Best Buy told me I’d need to replace the power supply in my computer before I install it.

The power supply that was in there was 350 watts and the one I replaced it with is 750 watts.

Everything seems to be powering up correctly but now I’m getting a “Disk Boot Failure” message.

How can I fix this? Do I need to change a BIOS setting or maybe move a jumper somewhere to get the hard drive to work with the new power supply?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Review: WP Rocket (WordPress Caching Plugin)

Posted on July 15, 2021

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

I’ve been blogging for the better part of a decade and I thought I knew pretty much everything I needed to know about the technical side of working with WordPress.

One of the most important things I’ve learned over the years is how critical it is to have a good caching plugin installed on your blog.

Simply put, if your blog doesn’t have a caching plugin working 24/7 to serve static pages to its visitors it’s going to lag behind its competitors in two very important ways: [Read more…]

Q&A: Would it be worthwhile to double the amount of RAM in my PC?

Posted on July 14, 2021

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Question from Pete: I have a Dell desktop computer that came with 8GB of RAM and Windows 7. I have since upgraded it to Windows 10.

Per your recommendation I went to Crucial.com and ran their System Scanner on this machine and it says it can use up to 16GB of RAM.

I know that adding more RAM to a computer makes it run faster. My question is would doubling the amount of RAM in this particular computer to 16GB make it run a LOT faster?

[Read more…]