Rick's Daily Tips

Warning: Chrome and other browsers might soon stop trusting your blog’s SSL/TLS certificate!

Posted on March 13, 2018

Is your blog encrypted with an SSL/TLS certificate? If it isn’t, it really needs to be, and quick!

But that’s a story for another day. This post is a warning about the security certificate that you could be using on your blog right now.

Google has announced that their Chrome browser will soon stop trusting certificates issued by Symantec and several Symantec-owned companies (Thawte, VeriSign, Equifax, GeoTrust, and RapidSSL).

In a nutshell, if your blog is secured by certificates that were issued by one of these companies your blog won’t be displayed in the upcoming versions of the Chrome browser.

What’s more, the other major browsers are expected to quickly follow Chrome’s lead.

Instead of seeing your blog, your visitors will see this warning in Chrome (or something similar if they’re using a different browser): [Read more…]

Q&A: Would replacing 64 bit Windows with 32 bit Windows make a machine run faster?

Posted on March 12, 2018

Question from Ronnie G.: I bought a pallet of what appeared to be mostly junk for $28 at a storage auction. To my surprise, one of the boxes on the pallet had a like-new Microsoft Surface 3 in it.

This device came with 2GB of RAM and 64GB of flash storage. I know the RAM can’t be upgraded so I should never really need a 64 bit Windows.

My question is would replacing the Windows 10/64 bit that’s on it with 32 bit Windows 10 speed things up any? This machine isn’t a snail, but I’d like to make it run faster if I can.

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

5G mobile Internet coming to laptop and desktop PCs in 2019

Posted on March 12, 2018

If you’re a frequent traveler you probably own a 4G mobile hotspot device for connecting your laptop to the Internet when there’s no reliable Wi-Fi or wired Ethernet connection available.

Those hotspot devices sure come in handy when you need one, but it can be a hassle traveling with an extra piece of hardware just to ensure that you’ll always be able to get online when you need to. [Read more…]

Review: Inateck BP2001 Bluetooth Stereo Speaker

Posted on March 6, 2018

The quality of the sound emitted from the tiny speakers in most mobile devices leaves a lot to be desired, especially on budget model devices.

A good set of headphones or earbuds can help tremendously, but there are times when you need to use an honest-to-goodness real speaker system.

A couple of days ago I received an Inateck BP2001 Bluetooth Stereo Speaker for review, so I decided to check it out. [Read more…]

How to prevent others from recovering your files from a formatted drive

Posted on March 2, 2018

I’ve written several posts in the past explaining how you can recover files that have been accidentally deleted from your storage devices.

It’s actually quite easy to recover deleted files using a free file recovery program such as Recuva.

But did you know that files can even be recovered from drives that have been formatted? Well, it’s true, and it’s just as easy as recovering files that have been “deleted”. [Read more…]