Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Ron A.: Rick, I have a laptop (HP Pavilion dv4170us) with 1GB of RAM that is currently running Windows Vista. I looked it up online and found out that it will hold up to 2GB.
I’d like to max out the RAM at 2GB but I have a question. Do you recommend replacing the RAM modules that are already in there with all new RAM or just adding an additional 1GB to boost the total to 2GB?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Do you use your mobile device primarily for texting? If so, a free app called HeyWire will let you text until the proverbial cows come home for free!
With HeyWire you can purchase a cellular plan that comes with a very low number of included minutes and texts and save a ton of money each month.
HeyWire uses your device’s data connection to send and receive SMS messages. The user interface is very attractive and easy to use (it works pretty much like the one you’re using now) and you can learn to use it in 2 minutes flat!
It doesn’t matter whether you use an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Windows Phone or an Android device, there is a free HeyWire app ready and waiting for you to download, install and begin using it in minutes. You can even use HeyWire to text from your laptop or desktop computer’s web browser! [Read more…]
Former Republican Congressman and Presidential candidate Ron Paul has learned the hard way why it is so important to register your own domain name.
The domain name RonPaul.com has pointed to a website promoting Congressman Paul’s political causes and career for years, but the domain is not owned by Mr. Paul himself. Instead, it is owned by a friend of one of his political supporters, and that man is refusing to hand over control of the domain to Mr. Paul now that his political career has apparently come to an end.
The RonPaul.com debacle is only the latest in a long line of high profile domain disputes, and it illustrates with crystal clarity why it’s so important for website owners to control their own domain names. [Read more…]
Chances are you use the Windows Task Switcher utility by pressing Alt+Tab in order to scroll through a series of thumbnails representing all the open windows, then switch to a different task.
If so, you are probably aware of how difficult it can be to find the task you want to switch to if there are more than just two or three windows open.
A while back I began using VistaSwitcher, a free replacement for the Windows Task Switcher, and it has turned out to be a major timesaver!
I usually have over a dozen windows open at once, and VistaSwitcher makes it easy to quickly find the one I want to switch to and get me there in a jiffy.
Once running, VistaSwitcher can be called up in one of two ways: [Read more…]
Question from Alex G.: Hi Rick. Love this site and all your tips!! I hope you can help me with a problem I’m having.
I just bought an ebook filled with Windows 7 tweaks and several of the ones I really want to try require running a program called Group Policy Editor. The instructions say to type gpedit.msc into the Search box, but when I do I get this error message:
“Windows cannot find ‘gpedit.msc’. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again.”
What am I doing wrong? My computer is a Dell laptop running the upgrade version of Windows 7 Home Premium. It originally came with Windows Vista.
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]