Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: Does ‘Tax Free Weekend’ apply to Amazon purchases?

Posted on July 29, 2020

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

Question from Stella H.: Our state will be observing its annual back-to-school “Tax Free Weekend” starting this Friday.

I know that certain items can be purchased tax-free at local stores during Tax-Free Weekend, but what about things we buy online at Amazon?

I usually buy most of my kids’ back-to-school stuff from Walmart to take advantage of the tax savings, but there are a few relatively expensive items I’d prefer to buy from Amazon if I can still get the tax savings.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Scam alert: These 16 malicious apps are spawning pop-up ads on Android phones and tablets

Posted on July 28, 2020

I recently wrote about two groups of malicious Android apps that you need to delete from your phone or tablet.

If you missed them you can read those posts here and here.

Well, it’s just been confirmed that yet another group of malicious apps is actively spawning numerous irritating pop-up ads on Android devices as we speak.

[Read more…]

How to quickly change a block of text (or code) that appears on every post (and page) of your WordPress blog

Posted on July 22, 2020

If you have a blog there will likely come a time when you need to change some block of text or PHP code that’s contained on every post and page.

A while back I enabled TLS encryption on this very blog, and one very important step in that process was changing all the URL references in the database from https:// to https:// to force WordPress to display the secure version of each post/page.

I could have made those changes manually but it would have been a long, drawn-out process and chances are I would have made a serious mistake along the way.

And as you probably know, ANY mistake can be serious when you’re dealing with your WordPress database.

Luckily, I found an easy way to quickly make that critical global change (plus a couple of other minor changes) on over 5,000 posts/pages in one fell swoop! [Read more…]

Q&A: How do I connect a second display to my iMac?

Posted on July 14, 2020

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

Question from Kelley: I recently bought this 21.5 inch iMac and I’d like to connect a second display to it.

I have a really nice 1 year-old 27 inch HP monitor with two HDMI connectors that I used with my old Windows computer.

I’d love to use that monitor if I can.

My goal is to have Photoshop running on the 27 inch screen and everything else on the 21.5 inch screen.

Can you tell me if the HP monitor is compatible with the iMac? If it is, how do I connect it to the computer and set it up in the software?

If it won’t work with the iMac can you recommend a good 27 inch monitor that will?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Scam alert: One of these 25 popular Android apps could be stealing your Facebook login info!

Posted on July 13, 2020

I often write about malicious mobile apps that were designed to cause all kinds of problems on Facebook, but I usually write about just one or two of them at a time.

But now a group of 25 very popular Android apps that were all written by the same company have been removed from the Google Play Store for stealing the Facebook login credentials of millions of unsuspecting users.

[Read more…]