Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: How do I make the Windows 8 Maps app display distances in kilometers?

Posted on April 15, 2013

Question from Joyce B.: Hi Rick. I just moved from Des Moines, Iowa to Vancouver, British Columbia and of course I brought my new laptop with me.

I love the Windows 8 Maps app, but now that I’m living in Canada I need for it to display distances in kilometers instead of miles. How do I make it do that? Thanks.

Rick‘s answer: Hi Joyce! I hope you enjoy your new home north of the border. I have a feeling that you will since Canada is such a beautiful country and the people are sooooo nice!

To answer your question, here’s all you need to do to make the Windows 8 Maps app display distances in kilometers: [Read more…]

Microsoft to stop supporting Windows XP in April 2014

Posted on April 14, 2013

It’s been a long time coming, but Microsoft has announced that they will no longer support or release security updates for Windows XP after April 8, 2014, a move that will effectively kill off what has been arguably the most popular version of Windows ever released.

The company had originally planned to end support for XP years ago, but for various reasons they pushed back the “kill” date several times. It appears that the April 2014 date is set in stone however. [Read more…]

Q&A: My Task Manager is disabled. How can I get it back?

Posted on April 14, 2013

Question from Eric: My computer slowed to a crawl and I found out that it was eaten up with Spyware and viruses. I spent the better part of a day cleaning it all up but now I can’t load the Task Manager. It’s grayed out on the menus and I can’t click it. How can I get it back?

Rick‘s answer: Hi Eric. The miscreants who create spyware and viruses use all kinds of tricks to prevent us from discovering and disabling their insidious creations, and a couple of their favorite tricks are disabling the System Restore and Task Manager utilities. [Read more…]

Q&A: Why is Internet Explorer 10 slow to load the first page?

Posted on April 13, 2013

Question from Randy F:. Rick, I took your suggestion and upgraded to I.E. 10 and it was a great move. It’s a lot faster than I.E. 9!

But there is one problem: When I.E. is loaded the first time it takes forever to load the first web page. But after that, every other page loads in a jiffy. This started when I installed I.E. 10. Do you know how I can fix this? Thanks!

Rick‘s answer: Randy, this is a common problem with Internet Explorer that goes way back to the earliest versions. For some reason some I.E. installations have trouble initially detecting the PC’s Lan settings. Here’s how to fix the problem of I.E. hanging on the first page load: [Read more…]

Super Control Panel – Access all Control Panel tools and settings from one screen!

Posted on April 12, 2013

super-control-panel The Windows Control Panel contains dozens of tools and settings for tweaking the way Windows performs many of its numerous tasks.

Most of these tools and settings are nested underneath a plethora of menus, making it difficult to find exactly what you’re looking for without doing a bunch of clicking and searching.

Lucky for us, there’s a very simple way to create a handy Super Control Panel app that lists every single Control Panel tool and setting on a single page, neatly filed under one of several easy-to-understand categories. Here’s the simple two-step process for creating your very own Super Control Panel: [Read more…]