Rick's Daily Tips

How to format a USB flash drive that doesn’t show up in Windows Explorer

Posted on March 3, 2015

I frequently receive emails and messages from folks asking why their USB flash drive isn’t showing up in Windows Explorer (File Explorer for Windows 8 users).

This typically occurs after something happens to the drive’s file structure that makes the drive unrecognizable as a valid drive to the Windows Explorer utility.

Luckily, this can be fixed as long as there isn’t a problem with the physical drive itself. Follow these steps to format a USB flash drive that doesn’t show up in Windows Explorer: [Read more…]

Coming soon: A massive, super-fast 200GB microSD card from SanDisk

Posted on March 3, 2015

It’s a simple fact of modern life that as mobile devices become increasingly more powerful, they also need increasingly more storage capacity.

Flash memory maker SanDisk has been selling an already huge 128GB microSD card (#ad) for about a year now, but they aren’t about to stop there. In fact, the company has just announced a brand new microSD card that almost doubles that amount of storage space. [Read more…]

Lenovo promises to start releasing new PCs without ANY adware or bloatware

Posted on March 2, 2015

Last week I wrote about the incredible Lenovo Superfish fiasco, and it appears that the company just might have learned a valuable lesson from the incredible backlash they received from it.

The folks at Lenovo have released a statement explaining how customer security and privacy are among the company’s top priorities (Really? Could have fooled me!) [Read more…]

Q&A: How do I join a Facebook group while I’m signed into my business page?

Posted on March 1, 2015

Question from Ella: I’m a member of over a dozen Facebook groups that I joined using my personal Facebook account. I also have a business page that I use to promote my poetry blog.

I’d like to join those groups using my business page and close my personal account, but I can’t find a way to join the groups while I’m signed into my page.

Simple question: How do I re-join my groups using my Facebook page instead of my personal account?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Firefox releases update to patch 16 security flaws, some of them critical

Posted on February 28, 2015

Mozilla has just released a major update to the popular Firefox browser that patches 16 security flaws, three of them rated critical.

This latest version is 36.0, and if you have Firefox set to update automatically you don’t have anything to worry about as it will all be taken care of for you.

But if you have it set to allow you to install updates manually, I recommend that you update to version 36.0 immediately. And by the way, if you have Firefox set to never check for updates…well, it would probably be a good idea to change that.

Follow these steps to check if you’re running the latest version of Firefox: [Read more…]