Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
The inexpensive Google Chromebooks have been gobbling up laptop market share like gangbusters, but this nice little Windows 10 laptop from HP aims to take back a good chunk of it.
Like a Chromebook, the HP Stream (#ad) is primarily a cloud-based laptop that leverages the flexibility of cloud storage to make all of your documents and files available to all of your devices regardless of where you might be at any given moment. [Read more…]
This is an interesting era in the world of laptop computers. Gaming and business laptops just keep getting faster and more powerful while ultrabooks keep getting smaller, thinner and lighter.
And at the same time, it seems that the laptops in the middle are becoming more or less forgotten.
That being said, I believe these mid-range traditional-style laptops still have a valid place in the world. I recently had the opportunity to check out one such laptop, and came away thinking pretty highly of it. [Read more…]
Question from Lois P.: My computer (HP laptop with Windows 10) was working fine until it installed an update about a week ago.
Ever since that update was installed the computer won’t automatically connect to my Wi-Fi network when I turn it on.
I can connect to the network manually and it works perfectly until I shut the computer down. It just won’t connect automatically no matter what I do and I really miss having it do that.
I’ve searched Google from top to bottom and I haven’t found a solution to this that works. I even used System Restore to remove the update but that didn’t help either.
A friend told me about your website but I couldn’t find anything you’ve written about this topic on there. Do you know of a fix for this? You’re my last hope!
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Question from Kenny V.: I watched a Youtube video that showed how to build a gaming PC and it really intrigued me.
I decided to build one for my son so I asked the guy at Fry’s Electronics for recommendations on the parts. This is what he recommended (and what I ended up buying):
I put everything together according to the instructions but when I turn on the computer a light on the motherboard flashes and then everything immediately shuts down. According to the manual the light that flashes is the “CPU Warning Light”.
Just to be sure it’s not a bad connection I re-seated the RAM sticks and CPU. There were no bent pins that I could see. I also disconnected and reconnected all the power cables.
Do you think I might have received a bad CPU? That’s the only thing I can think of that could possibly be wrong. I don’t want to go back to Fry’s claiming they sold me a bad CPU unless I’m sure they really did.
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Laptops are getting thinner and lighter all the time, and that’s a great thing. After all, when it comes to portability, smaller and lighter is always better.
That being said, PC manufacturers face a real challenge when trying to find ways to keep reducing their latest laptops’ size and weight without drastically sacrificing features, performance and durability.
With their fantastic Zenbook line, ASUS seems to be meeting that challenge better and better with every new laptop they design. [Read more…]