Rick's Daily Tips

How to immediately contact all of your family and friends at once in an emergency

Posted on April 3, 2014

When disaster strikes, one of the first things we all try to do is contact our family and friends to let them know we’re ok – and make sure they are too.

What typically happens in situations like this is the cell towers get clogged up with all those frantic voice calls and text messages, making it difficult for many folks to get through to their loved ones. Not a good thing!

Well, now there’s an easier way to reach out to others in an emergency. A wonderful free service from Microsoft called HelpBridge makes it easy to contact all of your family members and friends immediately – and all at the same time – when you’re caught up in a disaster. Here’s how it works: [Read more…]

Lenovo recalls 37,000 laptop battery packs

Posted on April 2, 2014

lenovo-laptop-battery As you probably know, poorly designed battery packs can overheat, catch on fire, and even explode. And while these problems most often affect cheap knock-offs, every now and then a batch of name brand batteries will be afflicted as well.

Lenovo has just announced that they are recalling a total of approximately 37,000 laptop batteries in the US and Canada because they present a potential fire hazard.

If you own one of laptop models on the list below, you should immediately contact Lenovo immediately and request a replacement.

Here are the Lenovo laptops that use the recalled batteries: [Read more…]

Q&A: Why am I getting a Rootkit Driver Error with Malwarebytes 2.0?

Posted on March 31, 2014

Question from David K.: I upgraded Malwarebytes to version 2.0 last night, and now every time I try to run a scan it gives me this error message:

Error: Malwarebytes was unable to load the Anti-Rootkit Driver. Error code: 20026
Do you want to continue the scan without anti-rootkit support?

And then it follows up that error message with this one before I can choose to scan without rootkit support:

Scanner Failed with Error Code: 20026

My computer is an HP ENVY TouchSmart 15-j009wm laptop running Windows 8.1.

What do I need to do in order to fix this error? I’ve re-installed Malwarebytes 2.0 three times with no success. Thanks for your help!

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

How to transfer files from your computer, digital camera or other device to your Nexus 7

Posted on March 30, 2014

nexus-7 Google’s Nexus 7 is an awesome tablet, but it does have one major drawback: the lack of an SD card slot. But that doesn’t mean you can’t transfer files from other devices onto it using an SD card!

In this post I’m going to explain how you can easily use an SD card to copy files onto your Nexus 7. And while this solution isn’t free, it won’t cost you an arm and a leg either.

First, start with the following:

1 – Purchase an inexpensive OTG USB cable. You can buy these locally at most any electronics store, but this one from Amazon is dirt cheap and it works quite well.

2 – Purchase a small, inexpensive card reader. Most any of them will do, but this one from Amazon is also dirt cheap and works well. [Read more…]

Step-by-step guide to installing the free Windows 8.1 update on a Windows 8 machine

Posted on March 29, 2014

windows-8-1-update Several of my recent posts have discussed the importance of updating a Windows 8 installation to Windows 8.1.

After receiving a number of requests for instructions for installing the update, I thought it might be a good idea to publish them as a tip. As you’ll soon find out, it really isn’t all that difficult to install the free Windows 8.1 update.

The first thing you need to do is make sure that all available Windows Updates have been applied to your existing Windows 8 installation. Here’s how: [Read more…]