Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: How can I determine the total up time for my PC since I bought it?

Posted on August 17, 2013

Question from Ron K.: Rick, this might seem like a frivolous question (and I admit that it is), but is there any way to determine the total number of hours and minutes that my Dell desktop computer has been powered on since I bought it in May 2008? No biggie if there isn’t, I’m just curious.

Rick’s answer: That isn’t a frivolous question at all Ron. Now you have me curious about how long my PCs have been powered up as well.

To answer your question, I don’t know of any way to use Windows itself to determine the total uptime of a computer, but I do know of a way to get a fairly accurate estimate: [Read more…]

How to center the open windows in Ubuntu

Posted on August 17, 2013

As I explained in this post, Ubuntu Linux is definitely worthy of consideration as a replacement operating system should you ever decide to ditch Microsoft Windows, but it does have a few quirks. Most of those quirks can easily be mitigated however.

One example is the way Ubuntu insists on placing every program window you open in the top left-hand corner of the screen and leaving it there. But there is a simple way to break those windows free of their constraints and move them to the center of the screen (a location that makes infinitely more sense in my opinion). Here’s how: [Read more…]

Q&A: How can I keep my 4 year old from exiting Internet Explorer?

Posted on August 16, 2013

Question from Andrea L.: Hi Rick. I have a problem and I’m betting you might be able to help me solve it.

My 4 year old daughter likes playing the games on the PBS Kids website (http://pbskids.org). The problem is she isn’t the best at controlling the mouse yet and she sometimes accidentally leaves Internet Explorer and starts click in places where she doesn’t need to be clicking. Last night I caught her clicking around the Control Panel!

Is there a way to force her to stay within the confines of the web browser? The computer runs Windows 7 if that makes a difference. Thanks so much for your help!

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Microsoft to release Windows 8.1 on October 18

Posted on August 15, 2013

windows-8-1 If you purchased a new PC with Windows 8 pre-installed or upgraded an existing computer to Windows 8 from a previous version, chances are you are unhappy with Microsoft’s new operating system. Well, there’s light at the end of the tunnel, and the end of the tunnel is rapidly approaching.

I wrote a post a while back explaining how Windows 8.1 would eventually be released as a free upgrade to make Windows 8 work more like Windows 7. Thankfully, we now know when “eventually” will be. [Read more…]

Memo to Microsoft: Users just aren’t that interested in touch screens on laptops and desktop PCs

Posted on August 13, 2013

touch-screen-laptop I found it odd when Microsoft decided to make the touch screen-friendly tiles of the new Start Screen the primary selling point of Windows 8.

To this day I still haven’t figured out why the folks in Redmond thought of laptop and Desktops PC users would ever prefer “touching” their computer screens over using their mice and keyboards.

Well, it turns out that I’m not the only person who feels that way. [Read more…]