Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Chad: I’m in desperate need of a USB external hard drive that I can plug in to my Mac when I’m at home and then take it to work with me to plug into the Windows 7 PC I use there. The larger the better, but 2TB or larger will suffice.
I’ll be using this drive to transfer large video files that are several gigabytes each. Can you tell me where I can find a drive that meets this requirement? I’ve checked all over the web with no luck. Thanks! [Read more…]
Question from Tina F.: Every time Windows Update tells me I have updates available it lists an optional update for Bing Desktop. I don’t use Bing Desktop and I probably never will. Is there any way to delete it so it’ll stop showing up on the Windows Update list?
Rick’s answer: Tina, there are a couple of unwanted optional updates that are always available for my computer too, and I agree that it’s rather annoying. While you can’t actually delete them, you an easily hide them to keep them from showing up along with other available updates. Here’s how: [Read more…]
Question from Renita: Rick, I have a Dell Inspiron 620 desktop computer with 4GB of RAM in it. It’s running Windows 7.
A friend told me that I should upgrade the memory to the maximum that it’ll hold because it’ll speed up my computer. I actually have two questions:
1 – Is he right?
2 – If he is, how much memory will this computer hold? [Read more…]
Question from Jennifer K.: Hi Rick! I have an older Dell desktop PC running Windows XP that I absolutely love, but due to a virus I had to re-install Windows from scratch. Now when I try to use Windows Update it fails and I get this error message:
“The website has encountered a problem and cannot display the page you are trying to view.”
I’m stuck at Service Pack 2 and I get any updates to download at all. I can’t even get Bitdefender to install because it says I need Service Pack 3, so the computer is currently running without anti-virus protection. Can I fix this or should I just recycle the computer and use my laptop for everything (NOT my first choice!)? [Read more…]
Question from Camille: I have a 2 year old Sony Vaio Z laptop that works great but I recently noticed that the fan never comes on anymore. It does seem to get hotter than usual but it never gets too hot to touch. Since it’s over 2 years old I hate to spend a lot of money on getting it fixed. Do you think it’ll be ok to run it with a bad fan?
Rick’s answer: Camille, if I were you I’d spring for the repair bill and have the fan checked out and replaced if it indeed turns out to be defective. My guess is that it is, but there are other problems besides just a bad fan that can cause it to stop spinning. [Read more…]