Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Amber: After my Windows computer has been sitting idle for a few minutes the hard drive just shuts down.
When I get back on the computer and press a key or move my mouse I can hear the drive starting back up again and I have to wait several seconds before I can do anything.
This is extremely irritating. I don’t mind the hard drive shutting down when the computer goes to sleep but I want it to remain active while the computer is up and running.
How can I fix this? [Read more…]
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Question from Darryl: Several years ago I paid a friend of mine to build me a desktop computer.
This machine has an Intel CPU and 8GB of RAM. There is no video card because it’s using the integrated video on the motherboard.
This machine has worked perfectly for years but now it’s started overheating and shutting down on me. The CPU temperature reached 170 degrees before it shut down last time.
What could be causing this? [Read more…]
Question from Ray: I know that Microsoft Defender disables itself if it detects a second antivirus is running but that it’s supposed to automatically turn back on if you remove the other antivirus program.
Well I recently uninstalled McAfee expecting Windows Defender to turn back on, but it didn’t. I keep getting a message saying my computer is unprotected.
Why is this happening and how can I fix it? [Read more…]
Question from Linda: I have a quick photography question for you, Rick. I hope you don’t mind.
I take lots of pictures with my phone and then transfer them to my computer.
When I right-click on a photo and look at the properties (metadata) it always displays the name of my phone but my name is nowhere on there as the photographer.
I’ve seen lots of photos other people have taken that have their name in the metadata as the”Author”.
How can I add my name to the metadata on the photos I take? [Read more…]
Question from Pat: When I first got my Android phone it would put an icon on the Home screen every time I installed a new app, but it’s stopped doing that.
Now I have to find every new app’s icon in the app drawer and drag it onto the Home screen manually.
I know it must be a setting that needs to be changed but I can’t find it. Can you help? [Read more…]