Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
To wrap up 2013 I thought it might be fun to take a look at my blog stats to see which post was read the most over the course of the past year. What I discovered astounded me.
The most popular post of the year wasn’t number one by just a hair. It actually had a whopping 22% more page views than the runner up. [Read more…]
Question from Ameet J.: I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 and really like it. The apps that came pre-installed work fine, but I downloaded the Instagram app from the website, but I can’t get it to load. In fact, I can’t even find it in the apps list! What’s wrong?
Rick’s answer: Hi Ameet. Many people have run into this very problem. I recommend installing the Instagram app from the Google Play Store instead of the Instagram website. In fact, it’s best to install ALL apps from the Play Store whenever possible.
Here’s all you need to do:
1 – Open the Play Store app on your Galaxy Tab 3 and log in to your Google account.
2 – Search for Instagram, then tap on the app to install it.
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Question from Edward K.: The Windows installation on my Toshiba Satellite C660-195 laptop is trashed thanks to a major virus infestation.
I believe the only way to fix it is to restore everything back to the way it was when it left the factory, but I can’t figure out how to do that since it didn’t come with a restore disc.
I’m pretty sure there’s a recovery partition on the hard drive, but I have no clue how to access it. I can’t see it in Windows Explorer and I can’t find any info on the Toshiba website. Can you tell me how to restore this laptop back to the factory defaults? Thanks!
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Question from Lee: Rick, I have a problem that I just can’t figure out. I got an email from Gimp yesterday morning letting me know that there’s a new version available, but I can’t seem to download it.
Every time I click on the download link my Avast Anti-virus keeps blocking it. Do you think it would be ok to turn off Avast long enough to download and install the new version of the software?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Some computers (especially laptops) have trouble with Youtube videos because they simply don’t have the “muscle” required to display them smoothly. I’ve discovered that using a different web browser will often improve the viewing experience considerably, and the one that I recommend most often is Opera.
Thanks to the speed at which it renders video, Opera seems to work better with Youtube than any other browser that I’ve tried. If your Youtube experience is less than desirable, why not download it and give it a try? Simply visit this page and click the red Download button. [Read more…]