Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Deidra: I have grounded my 13 year old daughter for a month for getting into some pretty serious trouble at school.
Part of her “grounding” is a total ban on cell phone and Internet use of any kind.
To enforce that, I’ve had her iPhone shut off and I’ve also turned off the Wi-Fi on our router.
The problem is she’s still finding a way to get on Facebook and talk to her friends because I can see her “liking” stuff and leaving comments. How is that possible? [Read more…]
Question from Gwendolyn: I write a WordPress blog where I talk about women’s issues and I always update LinkedIn with the URL to every post I write.
I’ve been doing this for over two years and LinkedIn has always displayed a photo from the post along with the title and text snippet, but lately it’s been omitting the photo about half the time.
Is there a setting that I might have inadvertently changed to cause the photo not to be displayed on some updates? Am I doing something wrong? [Read more…]
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Question from Kevin: I have 3 computers that I’m planning to place in my bedroom and my two sons’ rooms. We’re going to use these computers for just one thing, and that’s for playing games over a private LAN.
After doing some research I went to Best Buy and bought a 5 port switch and three 50ft Ethernet cables to run up into the attic and then down into each of the rooms.
These computers will NOT be connected to a modem, only to each other through the switch. We won’t need (and I don’t want) to have these computers connected to the Internet.
Now, my question – Since there will be no Internet access we won’t be able to update our virus software. Will that be a big problem or do your recommend going wireless and connecting the machines through our router so they’ll have Internet access? [Read more…]
Question from Trevor: The integrated sound has gone out on my ancient, but beloved HP Pavilion Slimline s5680d PC’s motherboard (model # MSI MS-7613).
Can you recommend a cheap replacement motherboard that’ll fit inside this computer’s case and work with its power supply? [Read more…]
Question from Don: I have a 2TB external hard drive that I’ve used to back up my MacBook for a while. I just bought a 6TB drive to replace it.
I want to give the old drive to my nephew because he needs one and he can’t really afford to buy one.
How can I securely wipe that drive to make sure it’s completely empty before I give it to him? [Read more…]