Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Rick’s Daily Tips Tech Update for Tuesday, September 21, 2021.
• How to keep library ebooks past the “due date”
• Q&A: Can a damaged laptop keyboard be replaced?
• Want a version of Linux that looks just like Windows 11?
• Q&A: Are modern encryption methods so strong they’ll never be broken?
• More people live in one U.S. state than the entire country of Canada.
• Info about my photo / file recovery service
I’m often asked which version of Linux looks and works most like Windows, and my usual answer is Linux Mint with the Cinnamon Desktop.
Now that Windows 11 is here, you Linux aficionados might be wondering when a Windows 11 look-alike version of Linux will show up.
Well, guess what? It’s already here!
Rick’s Tech Tips Newsletter
Question from Carlos: I have an older laptop that’s still running Windows XP and I have question about it.
I read your post about replacing Windows with Linux, and since XP has been orphaned by Microsoft I’d like to do that so I can keep using this machine.
My laptop is a Dell Latitude D620 that has been upgraded to 4GB of RAM and 320GB hard drive. I’m not sure about the video card if that matters.
Can you recommend the best version of Linux to install on this computer? There are so many Linux versions to choose from and I have no idea which one to pick.
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Question from Earnie: I’ve been following you on Facebook for a long time Rick, and I’ve learned a lot from the great info you post.
One post that really helped was the one where you basically said we need to ditch Windows 7 because it’s no longer being supported. I had no idea!
After reading that post and pondering my options for several days I finally took your advice and replaced the Windows 7 on my laptop with Linux Mint, and I believe it was a good move.
I checked your list of Linux replacements for Windows programs (very helpful, thanks!) for a screen recorder app but I didn’t see one listed.
I searched Google for Linux screen recorder apps and found several but all the ones I tried are too complicated for what I need.
All I need is a very simple app that can record everything that happens inside the active window.
Is there one that you can recommend?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Question from Brad: I recently replaced Windows Vista on my old Dell desktop computer with Linux Mint based on your recommendation in this post.
I’m happy with the upgrade (and it really is an upgrade), but I need your help with something.
On my Windows systems I have the DNS server settings all pointing to Open DNS because it seems to work so much better.
I’d like to change the DNS settings on this machine too but I’m afraid I might mess something up if I just go in there changing things without knowing what I’m doing.
Can you give me step-by-step instructions for changing the DNS server to Open DNS in Linux Mint?
Thanks in advance for your help. PS. Love your blog!!!
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]