Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: How do I turn off the keyboard sounds on my Samsung Galaxy S4?

Posted on May 12, 2013

Question from Miranda P.: Hi Rick. I just bought a Samsung Galaxy S4 and I love it, but the annoying clicking sound the keyboard makes when I’m typing is driving me crazy.

I’ve searched the menus from top to bottom and I can’t find a setting to disable the keyboards sounds. Can you please, please, please tell me how to do it?

Rick‘s answer: Indeed I can Miranda. The setting for turning off the key click sound on the Galaxy S4 is hidden under a set of nested menus. Here’s how to find it:

1 – Open the Settings screen, then scroll down and select Language and Input.

2 – Find Samsung keyboard and tap the gear-shaped icon.

3 – Tap Advanced.

4 – Uncheck Key-tap sound. Note: If you’d like to turn off the equally annoying Key-tap vibration, you can do that while you’re on this screen as well.

Here’s a screenshot: [Read more…]

Preview the web page behind a link without having to click the link

Posted on May 12, 2013

coolpreviews I use the Internet a lot both for work and recreation, and I encounter numerous links throughout the course of a day that interest me for one reason or another. But instead clicking each link to open the underlying page, I simply hover my mouse pointer over the link and hold down the Shift key to display a small preview window.

How do I do it? By using a fantastic Chrome extension called CoolPreviews. [Read more…]

Adobe Creative Suite moves to the cloud

Posted on May 8, 2013

adobe-creative-cloud Back in January I wrote a post about how Microsoft was beginning the gradual transition of Office from a suite of desktop applications to a suite of cloud based apps.

Now Adobe has announced that they plan to end the development of new features for the popular Adobe Creative Suite desktop software package altogether and transition as many Adobe software users as possible to the cloud as well.

The new cloud-based bundle of Adobe software will be aptly named Adobe Creative Cloud.

Beginning with the launch of Adobe Creative Cloud on June 17, Adobe Creative Suite will no longer be updated. You’ll have to subscribe to the Cloud version in order to continue upgrading to the latest and greatest Adobe products when they become available. All the bundled apps in the Adobe Cloud suite will bear the CC moniker instead of the now familiar CS.

The Adobe Creative Cloud suite will include all of the following: [Read more…]

Q&A: How can I access files on my USB thumb drive that were hidden by a virus?

Posted on May 6, 2013

Question from Mike D: Rick, a few days ago my Acer laptop running Windows 7 caught a couple of nasty viruses, but I was able to remove them by following the instructions in your great virus removal post. Thanks for the help!

Now that the viruses are gone however, I have a different, but related problem. The viruses apparently “hid” all the files on a very important USB thumb drive that was plugged into the PC when the viruses struck. These are documents that I use at school, and I really need to get them back if at all possible. I’m not really concerned about the drive itself. I just need the files back! Any ideas?

Rick‘s answer: [Read more…]