Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: Will a new battery fix my laptop?

Posted on January 30, 2015

Question from Danielle H.: I have a 5 year old HP Envy 13 laptop that works fine when it’s plugged into the wall with the charger, but if I unplug the charger it shuts off almost immediately.

Do you think replacing the battery would fix the problem or do you think there’s something else wrong?

Rick’s answer: Yes Danielle, the problem is almost certainly a bad battery. If the charger was bad it wouldn’t run the laptop at all, and if the laptop itself was bad it wouldn’t run regardless of whether it was using battery power or AC power.

You have several options available to you for buying a replacement laptop battery for your HP Envy 13: [Read more…]

Q&A: Where can I find Windows 8.1 Wireless LAN Drivers for my HP Pavilion dv4000?

Posted on January 29, 2015

Question from Howard L.: Rick, I’m hoping you can help me out. After Microsoft stopped supporting Windows XP I decided to install Windows 8.1 on my HP Pavilion dv4000 CTO laptop. I really love this computer and I hate to give it up!

Since this PC is so old I didn’t know how well it would work with Windows 8.1, but I was very pleasantly surprised. It actually seems to run faster than it did with XP. But there’s one problem. [Read more…]

New computer? Prepare for having it serviced by creating an info packet!

Posted on January 27, 2015

pc-data-card Does this scenario sound familiar? You buy a new computer, take it home, set it up and begin using it.

Everything works just fine for several months, but then one morning it just refuses to boot into Windows. Try as you might, you can’t get the system to come up. Oh well, time to send it on for repair, right?

But then a question pops into your mind: Is the computer still under warranty? You know you’ve had it close to a year, but is the warranty still in effect? Did you spring for the extended warranty when you bought it? No problem, you’ll just get that information right off of the receipt.

Uh-oh, you can’t find the receipt! What to do now? [Read more…]

Call Control – Stop telemarketing and nuisance calls with this free Android app

Posted on January 27, 2015

Have you started receiving SPAM calls from unscrupulous telemarketers? Are you being called at the most inopportune times by bill collectors? Or perhaps you’re getting harassing calls in the middle of the night from someone who has made it his/her mission in life to make yours as miserable as possible?

If so, you need Call Control, a free Android app that automatically blocks calls from known “bad” numbers such as telemarketers, scammers, debt collectors and more. You can even add numbers on your own to prevent absolutely anyone at all from calling you if you simply would rather not talk to them.

With Call Control, you can set your phone to handle unwanted calls in one of three ways: [Read more…]

Review: EaseUS EverySync 2.0 File Synchronization Software

Posted on January 26, 2015

These days it seems that we have files stored everywhere. Such is life in our high-tech world.

Many of us find ourselves switching between our computers and mobile devices, working on the same files on multiple devices and trying our best to manage those files and keep them up-to-date as we go along.

In an effort to make that juggling act a little easier to manage, I recently began checking out a file sync software utility from the folks at EaseUS that keeps all of your files updated automatically on all of your devices, plus any cloud storage that you use. It’s called EverySync 2.0, and I am extremely pleased with how well it performs. [Read more…]