Rick's Daily Tips

Why you should buy a laptop with both an SSD and a hard drive

Posted on June 4, 2013

laptop If you’ve been shopping around for a new laptop recently, chances are you’ve seen several models that come with both a small solid state drive (SSD) and a traditional hard drive. If so, you might be wondering if it’s worth paying extra to buy a model that has both. In my opinion, it is.

Although relatively small, the SSD in a dual drive laptop will hold the operating system at the very least, providing boot-up times that are up to three times faster than what you’re used to seeing, and any programs that are stored on the SSD will load at lightning speed. [Read more…]

Q&A: Can I install 64 bit Windows on my Dell OptiPlex 775?

Posted on June 3, 2013

Question from Lars K.: Rick, I have a Dell OptiPlex 775 desktop PC that is maxed out at 4GB RAM. I bought it for practically nothing from a friend and it has Windows 7 – 32 bit installed on a 160GB hard drive. I bought a 1TB drive to replace the old drive with and I plan to do a clean install of Windows when I swap out the drives.

My question for you is can I install the 64 bit version of Windows 7 on this machine? Thanks in advance for your help!

Rick’s answer: Yes, you sure can Lars. The Optiplex 775 has a 64 bit CPU and the 4GB of RAM and 1TB hard drive are more than adequate. The only possible issue that might arise is finding 64 bit drivers for any older expansion cards and peripherals that you might plan to attach to the computer. But as far as the PC itself is concerned, you’re good to go!

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Free download: “Windows 8 End User Training Brochure”

Posted on June 3, 2013

Windows 8 is vastly different from previous versions of Windows, and there is indeed a learning curve involved with learning the new Metro user interface. If you have recently bought a new PC or upgraded your existing PC to Windows 8, Microsoft has a gift for you…

The “Windows 8 End User Training Brochure” is actually a pretty decent guide to learning the basics of Windows 8, and you can download the PDF file from this page on the Microsoft website for free.

Microsoft stopped providing printed user manuals with their boxed software years ago, and this free guide is certainly no substitute for one. That being said, I still believe it’s a useful download (and you can’t beat the price). It’ll help you get started navigating your way around Windows 8 and performing the most basic tasks. If you use Windows 8 it’s definitely worth a look!

Q&A: How can I remove the toolbars from Internet Explorer?

Posted on June 2, 2013

Question from Luella S.: Hi Rick. I made a big mistake and downloaded a free game onto my PC. After I installed it my computer started running really slow and my Internet Explorer had 7 toolbars attached to it!

I was able to remove 4 of the toolbars via the “Remove a program” thingy, but the rest don’t even show up in there. I tried to do a System Restore, but there were no Restore Points! Can you please, please help?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]