Rick's Daily Tips

How to enable Battery Saving GPS mode in Android 4.4 ‘KitKat’

Posted on November 20, 2013

android-kitkat By now you probably know all too well that the GPS radio on your smart phone sucks battery juice almost as fast as ice melts in the middle of the Sahara. But if your phone is running Android 4.4 “Kitkat” there’s a simple way to keep using the GPS feature without draining your battery quite so fast.

Android 4.4 has a new “Battery Saving GPS” mode that can help extend your battery life considerably over what you’d get by enabling GPS in normal mode. In my opinion, this is one of the most useful enhancements to Android in some time.

Battery Saving GPS mode works by limiting the number of reference points the phone uses to pinpoint your location on the earth’s surface. Checking fewer reference points means the GPS radio works less, which in turn means less current is drawn from the battery. [Read more…]

Q&A: How do I get my phone to display the full name on Lock Screen messages after updating to iOS 7?

Posted on November 19, 2013

Question from Sara T.: My iPhone used to display the sender’s full name on the Lock Screen when I receive a message, but after updating to iOS 7 it only displays the first name. How can I change it back?

Rick’s answer: I’ve had several other people ask me about this Sara, so this change must really be annoying to a lot of people. That’s why I figured I might as well turn the answer to your question into a tip.

Here’s how to get the full name back on your Lock Screen message notifications: [Read more…]

Q&A: Why does Systeminfo close immediately after it opens?

Posted on November 18, 2013

Question from Beverly: My friend is trying to help me troubleshoot a problem with my laptop. He told me to type Systeminfo into the Windows 7 “Search” box and send him the “BIOS version” listed there.

I tried that several times, but the window closes immediately after it opens. He says it works fine on his computer. What am I doing wrong?

Rick’s answer: Beverly, you’re having this problem because you can’t run a command line utility such as Systeminfo from the “Search” box. You’ll need to run it from a command prompt instead. Here’s how: [Read more…]

How to reclaim 6GB of wasted disk space after upgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1

Posted on November 17, 2013

windows-8-1 If you have recently upgraded your Windows 8 installation to Windows 8.1, you can reclaim 6GB of hard drive space by removing the old Windows 8 files. Here’s a little background info for you…

When you upgrade to a newer version of Microsoft Windows, the version being replaced is retained in a folder called Windows.old just in case the upgrade fails or you wish to revert back to the previous version for some reason.

The amount of space required to store the previous version of Windows varies depending on the versions involved. Since you have just upgraded from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1, you now have roughly 6GB of old (and now useless) Windows 8 system files just sitting there taking up valuable disk space. [Read more…]

Q&A: How do I block those annoying Bitstrips cartoons on Facebook?

Posted on November 17, 2013

Question from Randy E.: Hi Rick. Are you familiar with those Bitstrips cartoons that pop up on Facebook now where your friends are the characters in the cartoons? Well I hate them, and I’d love to be able to block them. Can you tell me how?

Rick’s answer: Randy, I sure am familiar with the Bitstrips, and to be honest I sort of like them. But I can certainly see where others might find them annoying if they aren’t really into that sort of thing.

There are two ways to block Bitstrips and prevent them from showing up in your newsfeed. [Read more…]