Rick's Daily Tips

Apple apologizes for intentionally bricking customers’ iPhones (and releases a fix)

Posted on February 23, 2016

iphone-6-plus A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post explaining how you could brick your iPhone 6 by having it repaired by anyone other than Apple’s own techs.

To recap, Apple recently released an update to iOS that caused any iPhone 6 that was repaired by a third-party repair shop to freeze up and display a permanent “Error 53” the next time it was booted up.

Apple’s response to the thousands of customers who asked the company to fix the error was, in effect, “Sorry, but you’ll have to buy a new phone”. [Read more…]

Q&A: How can I remove old Wi-Fi networks from my laptop in Windows 10?

Posted on February 19, 2016

Question from Cindy P.: I love your blog Rick, and I really appreciate all the great info you provide.

I’ve been following RicksDailyTips for a long time, and now I have question for you.

My company is expanding rapidly and I’ve spent the last 5 months travelling from city to city helping train all the new hires in our stores.

My laptop now has a long list of Wi-Fi networks from the hotels I’ve been staying in. I know I’ll never be staying in most of those hotels again so I’d like to remove those wireless networks.

Can you tell me how to do that? My laptop is a Dell and it’s running Windows 10.

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

ATTN MacBook Owners: Apple might have just recalled your USB-C Charge Cable

Posted on February 16, 2016

macbook Did you purchase a MacBook with an included USB-C type charge cable prior to July 2015? If so, your charge cable might have just been recalled.

According to Apple, some of the USB-C charge cables that were shipped with MacBooks through June of last year have a design flaw that prevents them from reliably charging any attached devices.

They also say that some cables that were purchased as stand-alone accessories are also included in the recall.

If you have a MacBook that was shipped with a defective USB-C charge cable, how you can request/receive your free replacement cable will depend on a couple of factors: [Read more…]

Great news: SourceForge has abandoned the ‘Sneakware’ business

Posted on February 15, 2016

For many years SourceForge was my favorite site for downloading free software because they didn’t bundle third-party add-on programs (aka sneakware) with their installation files.

Well, that all changed in July 2013 when the folks at SourceForge decided to follow in the footsteps of their competitors by joining the widely-despised DevShare program.

In a nutshell, the DevShare program allows download sites to earn extra cash by bundling additional software with the programs that users download from the site.

The problem is the “extra” (and almost always unwanted) software will usually be installed by default along with the downloaded program unless the user unchecks one or boxes to “unbundle” the add-on programs. And those check boxes are typically pretty hard to notice, or even find. [Read more…]

Google to pull the plug on Picasa on March 15

Posted on February 15, 2016

Do you (or someone you know) use Google’s Picasa? If so, there’s a bit of news that you need to know about…

Google is planning to stop supporting the Picasa desktop application on March 15, 2016, and they’ll be shutting down their Picasa Web Albums service on the first day of May. [Read more…]