Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: What should I do with 168 identical Dell computers running Windows XP?

Posted on September 14, 2015

Question from Eddie V.: The county I live in had a massive auction of surplus items and I ended up buying 168 Dell OptiPlex 755/SDT desktop computers. They all appear to be identically configured with these specs:

1.8 GZ Dual Core Pentium CPU
1 GB RAM
80 GB Hard Disk
DVD-RW Drive
19″ Dell Monitor (older CRT type)
Windows XP Pro

I know that older computers aren’t worth a lot these days, but I thought these were worth a bid simply because there were so many of them. I ended up winning the auction and paying $216 for the lot.

My big concern is they might not be worth anything at all since Microsoft has officially killed off Windows XP. What do you think I could do with these computers to make a little bit of money from this deal?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: Why can’t I access my blog’s CPANEL or connect via FTP after enabling Cloudflare?

Posted on September 14, 2015

Question from Evelyn: I started a women’s issues blog about a year ago, and at first the pages would load really fast. But as I added posts and photos and the site started getting more traffic, it started loading slower and slower.

I read about a service called Cloudflare that speeds up your site by placing copies of it on servers located in multiple places around the world. I decided to sign up and give it a try, and you wouldn’t believe how much it reduced the page load times on my blog pages!

But I have a problem. After enabling Cloudflare I can’t log in to CPANEL or connect to the blog via my FTP client (Filezilla).

Can you tell me what I need to do to fix this issue? I really need access to CPANEL occasionally and I use FTP every day! My blog is running on WordPress and it’s hosted by Hostgator.

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Keep your Facebook messages private by encrypting them with Cryptocat

Posted on September 10, 2015

Between the NSA’s increasingly intrusive snooping and hackers intercepting our web traffic, we can no longer take Internet privacy for granted.

But if you use Facebook’s messaging system, there are a number of simple and free ways to keep your private messages private. A great example is a handy free service called Cryptocat.

Once you add Crytocat’s browser extension to your computer’s web browser(s) and/or install the app on your iPhone, all of your Facebook messages will be encrypted before they even leave your computer. [Read more…]

Q&A: Why won’t my LG G3 phone connect to the Internet?

Posted on September 8, 2015

Question from Gina: Hi Rick. I need help!!! I have an LG G3 phone with 4G-LTE. For the last few days I’ve been unable to connect to the Internet over the Sprint network.

The phone gives me an error message stating that it’s unable to connect to the network. I can make and receive phone calls just fine and I can use the Internet with Wi-Fi. It just won’t connect to the Sprint network.

I’ve checked all the settings and nothing seems to be set incorrectly. Can you tell me how to fix this?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]