Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Do you find yourself opening a ‘File Explorer’ window and navigating to the same folder(s) on a regular basis?
If so, you can easily place a shortcut to your frequently used folders right in ‘File Explorer’ so you won’t have to navigate to them every time.
I have several folders listed in the ‘File Explorer’ dialog on my work PC, and it’s a real time saver!
Follow these steps to add your favorite folder(s) to ‘File Explorer’ on your own Windows 10/11 PC: [Read more…]
Many of the tips I post on this blog involve typing something into a Command Prompt window.
In a nutshell, a Command Prompt window allows you to run extremely useful “DOS” style commands by typing them directly into the system to bypass the limitations imposed by Windows’ graphical user interface.
There are several ways to open a Command Prompt window, and I always explain how to open one when a tip requires it.
If you find yourself opening a Command Prompt window on a regular basis, it’s easy to create a Desktop shortcut that will open it for you with a double mouse click. [Read more…]
Unless you enjoy “popping the hood” on your PC and getting to know its innards on a first-name basis, you probably have no clue what all is inside there.
Sure, you know there’s a CPU, a motherboard, a hard drive or SSD, RAM sticks and a number of other components, but you probably don’t know many of the technical details about those components.
Computer parts such as the ones listed above vary greatly in terms of speed, capacity, and software compatibility so it pays to have a handy reference just in case you ever need to call Tech Support or install a new piece of software (or even upgrade to a new version of Windows). [Read more…]
Let’s face it, computer viruses, trojans and other forms of malware are a fact of life.
Regardless of how carefully you try to avoid it there’s a good chance that your PC will become infected sooner or later.
Most pieces of malicious code can be quickly removed with a normal virus scan and cleanup, but some infections are so insidious that they are difficult to detect and remove with a regular scan.
Even worse, some strains of malware can even render your PC incapable of connecting to the Internet in order to download an updated virus definition file.
Others still will prevent your PC’s installed antivirus program from loading at all.
This is why you need a plan “B” – an emergency virus removal USB flash drive. [Read more…]
If the hard drive in your computer is typical, it makes a distinctive sound that you probably learned to recognize once you had used your computer for a day or two.
The sound coming from your hard drive might be a quiet, smooth hum that you can barely hear (if you can hear it at all) or a slightly louder sound, but whatever sound it makes it should make consistently with very little deviation. [Read more…]