Rick's Daily Tips

How to block your name from being used with Facebook Social Ads

Posted on March 17, 2013

If you’ve been on Facebook recently you might have noticed your name being used in one of Facebook’s new “Social Ads”. It usually looks something like “Rick Rouse likes AT&T” in close proximity to an ad for the AT&T Facebook page.

Basically, they’re promoting a page that you have “Liked” to your friends with the hope that your friends will take notice and visit the page. Personally, I don’t mind my friends knowing which pages I have “Liked”, but I’m not too fond of having that info used in conjunction with an ad!

If seeing your name used as part of an ad irritates you as much as it does me, you can easily opt out. Here’s how: [Read more…]

Mac users pay more than Windows users when shopping on the web

Posted on March 16, 2013

mac-users-pay-extra Are you a Mac user who shops online? If so, you probably end up paying more than Windows users when shopping for the same products and services.

Want proof? The travel site Orbitz recently disclosed to the Wall Street Journal that Mac users tend to spend 30% more when booking hotel rooms than Windows users.

What’s more, in order to help them spend that extra cash, the site checks to see which web browser the customer is using and adjusts the prices of the rooms that he/she is offered accordingly. If Orbitz detects Apple’s Safari browser, they’ll offer rooms with prices that are approximately 30% higher than would be offered to Internet Explorer users.

And Orbitz isn’t alone in their use of selective pricing. Some of the largest commercial websites on the Internet do the very same thing. Personally, I don’t use a Mac. But if I did I’d keep a windows PC handy just for shopping on the web! If you’d like to read the Journal article for yourself you’ll find it right here.

How to disable the annoying ‘Snap’ in Windows 7

Posted on March 14, 2013

windows-7 Windows 7 includes a feature that allows you to expand open windows and rearrange them on the screen by dragging them hither and yon with the mouse. Some people like it, others despise it.

I happen to be among those who find it irritating when a window suddenly expands to fill the entire screen when all I’m trying to do is move it over just a bit. If you find it irritating as well, here’s how to disable it (refer to the screenshot below): [Read more…]

Microsoft tries discounting Windows 8 in order to boost sluggish sales

Posted on March 13, 2013

Microsoft released Windows 8 in October with high hopes of enticing users to either upgrade their older versions of Windows to Windows 8 or simply buy a new Windows 8 based PC outright, but that has turned out to be a pipe dream.

Most consumers and businesses seem intent on skipping the upgrade this time around thanks to several major blunders Microsoft made while planning and designing Windows 8.

First of all, people are pretty happy with their current Windows version. Both Windows XP and Windows 7 are quite stable as Windows goes and the computer hardware they run on are more than capable of running the current generation of software. In short, there is simply no pressing need for most of us to upgrade right now. [Read more…]

Outlook.com Web-Based Email – My thoughts and recommendations

Posted on March 12, 2013

Microsoft recently announced the release of their brand new web-based email service Outlook.com, and the press release made it sound too good not to take for a spin.

Since I love the thought of being able to access my POP3 email accounts via any web browser on any PC and Outlook.com sounded like it might be a great solution, I signed up for an account and imported all of my POP3 email accounts into it.

After putting Outlook.com through its paces for a week, here are my impressions and recommendations: [Read more…]