Rick's Daily Tips

Is your Samsung 840 EVO SSD running slower than it should? Here’s how to speed it up.

Posted on October 23, 2014

samsung-840-evo-series-250gb-ssd A while back I purchased a 120Gb Samsung 840 EVO solid state drive (SSD) for my desktop PC, and I love it.

At first this drive was lightning fast, but before long I noticed that it had slowed down to the point where it was really no faster than a traditional spinning hard drive.

I double-checked all the settings and made sure there was plenty of free work space available on the drive, and nothing seemed to be amiss. Frustrated, I did a Google search to see if anyone else was having problems with their Samsung SSDs, and sure enough, they were. [Read more…]

Q&A: Can you recommend a good program for adding speech commands to Windows 8.1?

Posted on October 20, 2014

Question from Belinda Q.: Hi Rick. I had a stroke a while back, and although I’m recovering nicely, my right arm and hand are still very weak and I have great difficulty using the trackpad on my laptop.

Can you recommend a good program that will allow me to control the computer using my voice?

Price is an issue because I’m on a fixed income, but I need something that works well even if it costs a little more. I need for it to work with Windows 8.1. Thanks in advance for your advice!

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

How to make Windows 8.1 ‘forget’ unused Wi-Fi networks

Posted on October 19, 2014

windows-8-1 If you’ve done some traveling with your laptop you have probably built up a long list of Wi-Fi networks that you’ve connected to while you were out on the road.

Chances are you’ll never have occasion to connect to many of those networks again, yet they still keep popping up every time you need to establish a Wi-Fi connection.

If your laptop is running Windows 8.1, it’s easy to remove those old Wi-Fi networks from your list of remembered networks. Here’s how: [Read more…]

Review: Kindle Fire HD 6

Posted on October 16, 2014

A while back I tested and reviewed the Kindle Fire HDX from Amazon, and to put it mildly I was very impressed.

That being said, I must say that when Amazon announced the release of the Kindle Fire HD 6 (#ad) at such a fantastic price, I was more than a little skeptical.

But as it turns out, I shouldn’t have been.

While putting the Kindle Fire HD 6 through its paces, it quickly became evident that this was far from just another bottom-dollar junk tablet. [Read more…]

Q&A: What’s the difference between a Public IP Address and a Private IP Address? And how do I find out what mine are?

Posted on October 16, 2014

Question from Keegan L. I read an article on Internet security last night and they kept talking about a computer’s “Public IP Address” and its “Private IP Address”. I never could figure out exactly what those terms mean.

Can you tell me the difference between the two types of IP addresses? And how do I find out what those IP addresses are on my computer?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]