Rick's Daily Tips

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…]

Reset your forgotten Windows password with the free Trinity Rescue Kit

Posted on June 5, 2013

If you ever find yourself locked out of your Windows PC’s Administrator account because you forgot the password, you’ll be extremely limited in regards to what you can do with your computer. You won’t be able to install or remove software, add or remove hardware devices, change system settings that affect other users or even access certain files on the PC. Not a good situation to be in!

Luckily, there is a free tool that will allow you to reset your forgotten Windows password. It’s called the Trinity Rescue Kit, and while it performs many other handy tasks, its most popular feature is the Password Reset utility.

Before I explain how to download and use the Trinity Rescue Kit to reset your lost Windows password, I must first tell you the following:

1 – I strongly recommend that you only use the Trinity Rescue Kit on your own PC or on someone else’s PC with their explicit permission. Using it on a work PC that has been password protected by the IT department can get you fired. Even worse, using it on another person’s PC without their explicit permission could land you in jail.

2 – At this point in time, the Trinity Rescue Kit will not reset passwords on PCs running Windows 8, but it works great with Windows XP, Vista and 7.

Now that the “fine print” is out of the way we can get started… [Read more…]

Q&A: Can my hard drive be repaired?

Posted on June 5, 2013

Question from Michael: I have an HP Pavilion dv5t laptop with a 500GB hard drive which recently began making clicking and clunking sounds. After reading your article about hard drives making unusual sounds I realize that the drive is probably in the process of failing.

My question is can hard drives be repaired? This is a 7200RPM model which I understand to be one of the best. (By the way, I have backed everything up so I’m not worried about losing any programs or data.)

Rick‘s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: Where are screenshots stored on my computer?

Posted on June 4, 2013

Question from Belinda L.: Hi Rick. I remember reading somewhere that if you press key combination Ctrl+Print Screen the computer will save a screenshot image of whatever is on the screen at the time. But when I press those keys nothing happens.

I’ve searched my documents folder, the desktop and everywhere else I can think to look but I can’t find a screenshot image. What am I doing wrong? My PC uses Windows 7.

Rick‘s answer: You’re not doing anything wrong Belinda, you’re just not finishing the procedure.

When you press the Ctrl+Print Screen key combination (Note: the Print Screen key is sometimes labeled PrtScrn or something similar) it saves an image of the screen contents to the Windows Clipboard which is nothing more than a small section of RAM set aside as a buffer.

In order to convert that screenshot into an actual image file you’ll need to open your favorite image editor (Paint, Photoshop Express etc.) and paste the contents of the Clipboard into it.

Once you have the screenshot displayed in the image editor, you can crop it, resize it or edit it just like any other image and then save it as a JPEG, BMP or other type of image file.

Since you’re using Windows 7 you have Microsoft Paint already installed on your system by default. Here’s how to use the Ctrl+Print Screen key combination and MS Paint in order to capture a screenshot and save it as an image file: [Read more…]

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…]