Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Daneen: Hi Rick. I bought a couple of USB Flash Drives last night to put baby pictures on and give to my mom and mother-in-law, but I noticed after I got home that they’re USB 3.0 drives.
Will these drives work in USB 2.0 sockets or should I return them and buy USB 2.0 drives? I don’t want to damage my computer, and I REALLY don’t want to damage theirs! Thanks a lot for your help.
Rick‘s answer: [Read more…]
If you’ve been using Microsoft Windows for a while you have surely seen the “USB Device Not Recognized” error balloon pop up after plugging in a USB device.
This happens fairly often, and most of the time unplugging the device and plugging it back in will fix the problem. But what if you start getting this error every time you plug in a USB device?
If all of your USB devices start generating this error when you plug them in, there is an easy fix: [Read more…]
Do you open the “Computer” utility and navigate to the same folder on a regular basis? If so, why not create a shortcut to that folder and place it on the Desktop?
One the shortcut to your favorite folder is on your desktop, you can double-click on it Windows will open that folder immediately instead of you having to navigate to it every time.
This might seem like a trivial matter, but if you open the same folder several times a day, having a shortcut to it can be a real time saver.
Here’s how to create a Desktop shortcut to a specific folder: [Read more…]
It happens to all of us on occasion: the dreaded hung program. After spending the better part of an hour typing in a long text document or editing an important photo, the program window freezes and we get the infuriating “Not Responding” error message.
All of that hard work has been for naught, right? Well, maybe not… A nifty little Windows utility called Resource Monitor just might save the day.
But before I explain how to try freeing up your stuck programs, let me explain a little bit about why programs stop responding in the first place. Programs running under Microsoft Windows do not run in a vacuum. They typically interact with a number of Windows processes, and even other software programs.
If one of the processes or programs that the program you’re working with encounters a problem, it will often cause the program you’re working with to just sit and wait while it tries to finish the task at hand. The problem is the task at hand will sometimes never be completed, hence the stuck program.
The next time a program stops responding before you’ve had a chance to save your work, try this: [Read more…]
Has Microsoft finally learned the value of listening to their customers? It appears that they just might have. Losing sales and market share by the boatloads will usually spur some soul-searching.
Reports leaking out of Redmond indicate that Windows 8.1 (aka Windows Blue) just might have a Start Button/Start Menu as well as an option for booting directly to the Desktop instead of the highly unpopular Start Screen. I for one hope the leaked information is true.
Many great companies have made major blunders (Is anyone reading this old enough to remember the “New Coke”?), but the smart ones eat a bit of crow and reverse course. It appears that the powers that be at Microsoft just might have a clue after all.
What do you think? Will they add these much-in-demand features back to Windows 8.1? Should they? I’d love to hear your opinions.