Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Kandi: I bought my 9 year old son a new laptop for his birthday. He loves it and uses it every day.
The problem is I have already had to take it to the Geek Squad twice to fix issues he caused by changing some system settings.
I know that’s what he’s doing because I saw him using the Settings app.
Is there a way to disable the Settings app on his computer to prevent that from happening again? I really need to preserve my sanity! [Read more…]
Question from Marilyn: Rick, I’ve bought several new computers over the years and they all came with an antivirus program pre-installed.
I’ve always just kept using what was already on there because I figured it was probably the best antivirus program for that particular machine, but I now have doubts about that after reading some of your stuff on your blog.
Hence, this question: Is it best to stick with the security software that comes pre-installed on a new computer or replace it with something else?
Question from Diane: Hi, Rick. Maybe it’s just me, but as a fairly new subscriber, I have been going through all your tip pages, one by one.
Of course, there’s no way to read all 700+ plus pages in one sitting since there are 6 posts on each page, so I’ve been going through a few a day.
The thing is, it’s really hard to pick up where I left off on a certain page after constantly clicking “Next Page”.
If there’s a fairly simple way for you to add a feature to go to a specific page…. for other OCD’s / newbies like me, it would really be appreciated. Or, then again, maybe I am missing an easier way to do it? [Read more…]
Question from Arlen: I bought a new laptop in August 2022 and paid the people at Best Buy to install Webroot antivirus on it.
This machine has always worked great but a few weeks ago it locked up on me with a message saying it had been taken over by a hacker.
I was finally able to shut it down by holding the power button in but when I turned it back on it went right back to that same screen.
I took it to Best Buy and the technician said it had a virus and they were going to charge me $150 to remove it. [Read more…]
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Question from Nina: I have what’s probably a really basic question about networking.
I just bought a new router that has 1 Gb wired Ethernet ports on it. My kids and I have three desktop PCs that were all wired to an older (and much slower) router.
Do I need to buy new Ethernet cables and network adapters for the PCs in order to take advantage of the much faster speed supported by the new router? [Read more…]