Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
If your PC was either purchased used or “inherited” as a hand-me-down system, you probably keep seeing the previous owner’s name pop up from time to time as the “Registered Owner”. And I’m guessing that you probably find that a bit irritating.
It’s actually pretty easy to change the Registered Owner setting in the Windows Registry. But before I show you how to do that, it is incumbent upon me to tell you the following… [Read more…]
Question from Devon A.: Hi Rick. I have a Compaq Presario SR2163WM that still works great, but I went to turn it on yesterday morning and the power switch broke. The button is still more or less in place but it doesn’t activate the switch when you push it.
I actually have two questions for you:
1 – Can the switch be replaced?
2 – If so, can I do it myself or should I take it to a shop?
Rick’s answer: Devon, you can indeed replace the power switch on your PC yourself, but finding one might be a problem since that’s such an old model. But I have a hunch that you won’t need to replace it at all. [Read more…]
Technorati can be a great source of high quality traffic to your blog, but only if they are aware that your blog exists. You can submit your blog to the Technorati Blog Directory via a process called “claiming” your blog.
Claiming your blog will add it to the Technorati Blog Directory and ensure that it shows up when users click on the tags that you have designated as being relevant to your blog. Your claimed blog(s) will also show up on your Technorati profile page.
Although it’s not very difficult to “claim” your blog on Technorati, there are a number of steps involved: [Read more…]
Question from Mika T.: I have an older Compaq EVO D510 desktop PC with 2GB RAM, 120GB hard drive and Windows XP Professional. I love this computer because it’s the first one I ever owned and I’d really like to keep it running if at all possible.
Here’s the problem: It was working fine till I turned it on one morning and it refused to boot up. It gives one short beep followed by two long beeps, then nothing. Is this a problem that can be fixed without shelling out a ton of cash?
Rick’s answer: Mika, the beeps you hear after pressing the power button are actually an error code that’s being output by your computer’s Power On Self Test (aka POST). That beep code on a Compaq PC typically indicates a problem with the video circuitry. [Read more…]
Question from Antonio V.: I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 660s desktop PC from Amazon. It came with Windows 8 and I am very unhappy with it. I love the computer though.
I have installed a second hard drive and I was wondering if can install Windows 7 Pro (full retail version) on the second drive without losing any of my photos and other files that are on the Windows 8 drive?
After I transfer everything over I’ll remove Windows 8 and use Windows 7 exclusively. Thanks for your help in advance.
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]