Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: Can I connect my Samsung Galaxy S4 to my router via USB?

Posted on November 17, 2013

Question from Devon P.: Rick, I have Charter Internet, and I access it through a Belkin wireless router that the Wi-Fi has stopped working on. That’s fine for me because I only have one computer, and since it’s a desktop I just keep it plugged in to the router via an Ethernet cable.

The problem I have is I also need to connect my Samsung Galaxy S4 to the router via the Micro USB connector since there is no Wi-Fi available and there is no usable cell service out here in the boondocks where I live.

I can’t seem to get a straight answer as to whether I can do this or not, and I’d really appreciate it you could give me a yes or no (and if the answer is yes, the steps I need to take to do it). I’d like to avoid having to buy a new wireless router if I can.

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Crucial to being selling DDR4 RAM by the end of December

Posted on November 16, 2013

DDR3 memory has been the standard for years, but that will soon change. Our friends over at Crucial Technology have just announced that they’ll begin selling DDR4 RAM some time before the end of December 2013.

DDR4 promises to be a major upgrade over DDR3. The new memory standard doubles the speed of its predecessor while also doubling the maximum storage capacity per module from 8GB to 16GB. And just as important, the new DDR4 RAM will operate on a meager 1.2 volts of electricity which means it should run cooler and save energy. [Read more…]

Q&A: How do I change the formatting of a word everywhere that it occurs in a MS Word document?

Posted on November 13, 2013

Question from Keith D.: Rick, I write rather lengthy documents in Microsoft Word on a regular basis, and I often go back and manually change the formatting of every instance of certain words or phrases (i.e. font color, italics, bold, etc.) to make them stand out from the rest of the text.

It would save me a ton of time if there was a way to change the formatting of every instance of a word or phrase at once. Is there a way to do that?

Rick’s answer: There sure is Keith, and it’s a fairly simple process: [Read more…]

Great deal: SanDisk Ultra Plus 256 GB SSD for about $100 w/free shipping

Posted on November 11, 2013

sandisk-256-gb-ssd No other upgrade will speed up your computer as effectively as replacing the hard drive with a Solid State Drive (SSD). But there are a couple of caveats with such an upgrade:

1 – When comparing their relative costs per gigabyte, SSDs are considerably more expensive than traditional hard drives.

2 – Most affordable SSDs are quite limited in the amount of data they can store.

Right now you can get a great deal on the SanDisk Ultra Plus 256 GB SATA 6.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch SSD that helps mitigate both of the caveats mentioned above. Not only will they sell you one for about $100, they’ll also ship it to you for free! [Read more…]

How to protect yourself against the insidious CryptoLocker ransomeware

Posted on November 11, 2013

CryptoLocker is an especially insidious form of “Ransomeware” – malware that basically locks up all the user data on your computer’s drives until you fork over some cash to a far-away crook.

What makes CryptoLocker so bad is the way it encrypts the user data on your hard drive using a super-strong encryption method. This makes it literally impossible to access your own data without forking over a bundle of cash in exchange for the unlock key.

The key to protecting yourself from CryptoLocker lies in prevention because even though there are several “cures” being hawked on the Internet, their effectiveness varies when they work at all.

Here are are a few things you can do to prevent your PC from getting infected with the CryptoLocker virus, and recover from it if you still end up getting hit: [Read more…]