Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Microsoft has announced that as of today they’re no longer be supporting Windows 8 with Security patches and bug fixes.
In essence, the folks in Redmond are abandoning Windows 8 and leaving its users to fend for themselves in the wild, wild west of the Internet.
This essentially means if you’re running still running Windows 8 on your PC you’ll need to upgrade to either Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 ASAP in order to keep your PC safe from future malware attacks. [Read more…]
It seems that free public Wi-Fi networks are everywhere these days. In fact, you’ll probably need to look no further than the nearest fast food joint.
The widespread availability of public Wi-Fi networks is great for when we’re traveling or the rare times when the Internet is down at home for whatever reason, but they do have one serious downside: They are typically unsecured.
To keep things as simple and non-intrusive as possible, the owners of most public Wi-Fi networks make them available as open, non-encrypted networks that don’t require a password. Unfortunately, these networks can leave your sensitive data wide open to hackers. [Read more…]
Question from Michelle K.: I’m the office manager for a small local insurance agency, and I need your help in finding an 8 port wired router (if they even exist).
We have a total of 6 employees who need to access the Internet though our LAN. Right now we’re using two 4 port wired routers, one connected to the cable modem and the other piggybacking off of that one.
We’ve been having some intermittent connection issues of late and we’re wanting to replace the two routers with a single 8 port wired router if at all possible. I can’t seem to find one though. The only thing I can find are 4 port routers.
If hope you can help me find an 8 port wired router. Do you have any idea where we might be able to find one? We don’t want Wi-Fi, therefore the request for a wired router.
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Question from Sean P.: I have a twin brother and our birthday is coming up soon. Our grandfather has agreed to buy us a new router and we can pick the one we want.
What we’re looking for is the best (fastest) router to connect our gaming PCs and Xbox to the Internet (and to one another). Our family also has several TVs, phones and tablets that we use a lot. We do a lot of streaming on Netflix and Hulu too.
We have a Verizon FiOS Gigabit Internet connection and we’d like to be able to use all of the available bandwidth. Can you recommend a router that will work best for us?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
If you’re a gamer you’re probably eagerly awaiting the expected June release of the awesome Oculus Rift Virtual Reality Headset.
The question is, will your computer be able to handle it?
Your PC will need some pretty beefy hardware in order for it to work well with the Oculus Rift headset.
Here are the minimum system requirements: [Read more…]