Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Denise P.: Rick, I moved a while back and ended up losing the CD for my Epson Stylus Photo 1280 printer. This is one of the many reasons why I hate moving so much!!
Anyway, now I need the disc to install the printer driver on my new laptop. I can probably order a replacement CD but I need the printer ASAP.
Is there a driver site where I can just download the driver? I don’t mind paying. I just need the driver right away. Thanks!
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Most folks are now aware of the nasty CryptoLocker ransomeware virus and have learned how to avoid it, but now its equally nasty successor has arrived on the scene.
Like CryptoLocker before it, CryptoWall takes over your PC and encrypts all the files on the hard drive, then demands that the user pay a hefty ransom in order to have the files un-encrypted. Only this time the ransom is even higher.
The CryptoWall ransom starts out at a whopping $500, then doubles every three days until the user finally gives in and pays the ransom.
To prove that they can indeed un-encrypt your files, the hackers behind CryptoWall will offer to un-encrypt just one of your files for free.
The best way to deal with the CryptoWall threat is to avoid getting it in the first place and be prepared just in case you fall victim to it anyway. Here’s how: [Read more…]
Question from Sylvia M.: Rick, I have a womens’ book review blog that I’m trying to promote. I’ve been writing at least one post every day for 7 months, but my traffic is still just a trickle compared to where I would like it to be.
I was doing some research on the Internet about how to grow blog traffic and I discovered a service called BlogUpp. Since there’s no sign-up of any kind required and you don’t have to give them any personal information, I’m seriously considering adding their widget to my blog.
I have a couple of questions that I’d like to ask you before I start using the BlogUpp widget:
1) Is it really effective at driving traffic to a blog?
2) Will using BlogUpp cause me any problems with the search engines ranking my blog posts?
Thanks in advance for your help Rick!
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
I had been on the lookout for an inexpensive Android tablet for a while when I learned about the Quantum Axis A23, a 7″, dual core, dual camera model with 512MB of DDR3 RAM.
To be honest, the low price tag concerned me a bit, but since I had heard good things about it I thought I’d give it a try.
The very first thing I noticed when I picked it up for the first time was how well built this tablet is. I expected a tablet that costs so little to feel cheep and fragile, but the feel of this Axis A23 is neither. The attractive molded plastic case firmly holds the screen in place with no bending or cracking sounds. [Read more…]
Last month Comcast announced that they plan to place a monthly cap on users’ Internet data usage, then charge their customers an extra fee if they exceed it. They also announced that the data cap will be rolled out across the country over time.
Well, the company has just released a list of the unlucky regions that will be subjected to the cap first, and here it is: [Read more…]