Rick's Daily Tips

Heads-Up: Yahoo is preparing to give your inactive account to someone else

Posted on June 13, 2013

Yahoo has just announced that come mid-July, all Yahoo accounts that haven’t been logged into within the past 12 months will be shut down.

That means any data contained within those accounts will be deleted, and the account IDs (i.e. usernames) will be made available to other users.

Of course if you have an account that you haven’t logged into in over a year, chances are you won’t really be too upset about losing it.

But what if the account ID contains your real name or some other bit of personal or financial info that you’d rather not see fall under someone else’s control? [Read more…]

How to keep your cell phone charged during a blackout while away from home

Posted on June 12, 2013

cell-phone-glasses A while back I wrote a post explaining how to use a battery backup unit (UPS) to keep your cell phone charged during extended power outages, and it turned out to be one of my most popular tips ever.

Since then I have received questions from a number of readers asking if there’s a way to do it if you’re caught in a blackout while away from home. And as it turns out, there sure enough is! [Read more…]

Q&A: How do I add a Facebook ‘Like Box’ to my WordPress blog?

Posted on June 12, 2013

Question from Brenda K.: Hi Rick. I have created a Facebook page for my WordPress blog where I post about ladies fashions. I’d like to add a Facebook “Like Box” similar to the one you have on this site to the blog. I’ve searched Facebook from top to bottom and I can’t find and instructions for adding one. Can you tell me how to do it?

Rick‘s answer: Brenda, when I decided to add a ‘Like Box’ to RicksDailyTips.com I had to search high and low for the instructions as well. Find them I did however, and basically all you have to do is fill out a short form and then copy and paste the code provided into the theme of your WordPress blog wherever you want the ‘Like Box’ to appear (usually in the sidebar).

Here’s how to add a Facebook ‘Like Box’ to your WordPress blog: [Read more…]

Would you buy a full-size PC running Android?

Posted on June 11, 2013

Android smart phones and tablets are selling like there’s no tomorrow, and more people are switching from iPhones to Android phones than the other way around. This means that Android based devices are extremely popular, and apparently getting more so all time.

Could Android also succeed as an operating system powering full size computers? Well, we’re about to find out because Acer and Gateway are in the process of testing prototypes of all-in-one PCs running Android. Which of course begs the question: Would you buy one? [Read more…]

Preview websites and thumbnail photos before you click with SwiftPreview

Posted on June 8, 2013

How would you like to be able to see a preview of the web page a link will take you to before you click on it?

Or how about being able to quickly preview the images in online photo galleries just by hovering your mouse over the thumbnails?

A wonderful free Google Chrome extension called SwiftPreview will let you perform both of these tricks!

SwiftPreview is extremely simple and easy to use. Simply install the add-on, then whenever you hover your mouse over a link or thumbnail image, a preview image will be displayed on the screen. If you like what you see, simply click the link or photo and it will open in your browser as usual. If you decide the content being linked to doesn’t interest you, simply remove the mouse from the link or thumbnail and the preview goes away. [Read more…]