Rick's Daily Tips

BlueScreenView – Find out what caused your PC to crash – And how to fix it!

Posted on May 3, 2013

For many, the most dreaded “feature” of Microsoft Windows is the infamous “Blue Screen of Death” that tells you that Windows has crashed, without giving you the reason why it happened.

Yes, the Blue Screen provides you with a cryptic code that offers a subtle hint as to where to start looking, but that’s about all.

Windows 7 and Windows 8 are much more stable than previous versions of Windows, but the occasional Blue Screen still rears its ugly head from time to time. A wonderful free utility called BlueScreenView sheds light on the cause of a system crash by scanning the minidump file that was created when the crash occurred and helping you track down the particular driver that caused the crash. [Read more…]

Q&A: How do I stop receiving duplicate notification emails on new blog comments?

Posted on May 3, 2013

Question from Connie D: Hi Rick. I recently set up a WordPress blog using your excellent instructions. You made it so easy! Thank you very, very much!

I’m having one issue that’s driving me batty though. Every time someone leaves a comment on one of my posts I receive two identical emails letting me know about the comment. How can I make WordPress send me just one email?

Rick’s answer: Connie, when I first started blogging with WordPress I had the same problem, and it drove me batty too until I finally figured out what the problem was. The duplicate notification emails result from using two different email addresses when you post under a different user name than the one assigned to the primary Administrator account. Here’s how to fix it: [Read more…]

DiskLED – Add a virtual hard drive activity light to your system tray

Posted on May 2, 2013

diskled Back in the golden age of personal computers virtually every PC had a Light Emitting Diode (aka LED) that would light up and flash every time a program accessed the hard drive. But many modern PCs don’t have a hard drive activity light. DiskLED is a free Windows utility that places a virtual hard drive activity light in your Windows system tray.

Why do you need to know when the hard drive is being accessed? There are actually several reasons: [Read more…]

Free texting apps have paid texting plans on life support

Posted on May 1, 2013

heywire In 2012 more text messages were sent via free texting apps on smart phones than by traditional SMS Text Messaging services, and the number of free texts vs. paid texts is growing at a fast rate. This is a great thing for consumers, but the cell carriers are taking a major financial hit because of it.

SMS text messages have always been a major source of easy profit for the carrier. They cost virtually nothing to transmit but bring in boatloads of cash.

But the immense popularity of apps such as Heywire, iMessage and WhatsApp have cut those profits by huge margins. And the bleeding is likely to continue and even pick up the pace as more users find out about these apps and begin using them. [Read more…]

Q&A: Why can’t I watch Youtube videos full screen?

Posted on April 30, 2013

Question from Anita P.: Hi Rick. I hope you can help me. I’m semi-addicted to Youtube and I watch it every day.

I like watching the videos full screen but about a week ago the full screen feature stopped working. Is there any way I can get it to work again? I use Google Chrome as my web browser.

Rick‘s answer: Hi Anita. I haven’t encountered this problem before, but after doing a quick Google search I found out that lots of other people have. Here is the solution that seems to work for most people: [Read more…]