Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Due to a potential over-heating issue, Microsoft has announced a voluntary recall of the power cords for some models of their popular Surface Pro devices.
The recall only applies to the power cords, not the Surface Pro devices themselves or their power supply “bricks”. [Read more…]
Much to the chagrin of the Postal Service, the number of emails sent each day far exceeds the number of “snail mail” letters sent during the same time period. And for good reason…
Instead of writing a letter, stuffing it in an envelope, putting a stamp on it, mailing it, and waiting to see if it ever arrives at its intended destination at some point in the future, you can simply type out an email, click “Send” and have it land in the recipient’s inbox in seconds.
But the convenience and low cost (virtually free) of email comes with one major drawback: It is completely insecure. Since they are not encrypted, email messages can be intercepted and read at any “stop” along their digital routes.
As luck would have it, it’s easy to encrypt emails before they are sent using most any of the major online email providers (Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc.) with a browser add-on called Enlocked.
Follow the steps below to check it out: [Read more…]
Regular readers of this blog know I’m not a huge fan of password managers, but many folks seem to to love them. And that’s fine – to each his/her own as they say.
If you happen to use a password manager, there’s a good chance that you us LastPass, the most popular password manager out there by far.
If so, I strongly recommend that you enable two-factor authentication to prevent crooks and hackers from breaking in to your account and stealing all of your important passwords.
Follow the steps below to set up two-factor authentication on your LastPass account: [Read more…]
Last July I wrote a post about how Solid State Drives (SSDs) would soon be competing with traditional hard drives in terms of storage capacity and cost, and sure enough, they are starting to do just that.
With that in mind, it appears that SSDs are now ballooning in capacity as well.
The Japanese-based Fixstars Corporation is planning to release a massive SSD in February 2016 that contains a mind-boggling 13TB of storage space.
Yes, you read that right: That’s indeed 13TB – over twice the size of current SSDs. [Read more…]
Question from Tilda J.: I finally got around to upgrading my computer to Windows 10, and at least once a day I get a message asking me how I like it.
I haven’t used Windows 10 long enough to form a firm opinion, but all these nagging feedback messages aren’t helping me form a good one.
How can I stop Windows 10 from pestering me for feedback?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]