Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Of all the upgrades you can make to a modern PC, the one that will provide the most bang for the buck, by far, is replacing your existing hard drive with a Solid State Drive (SSD).
If you’ve never used a computer that has an SSD, you’ll be absolutely amazed at how much faster your PC will boot into the operating system and load your programs.
Samsung’s 840 EVO-Series 250GB SSD (#ad) 
Inexpensive Android tablets are selling like hotcakes because of their affordable sub-$100 purchase price.
But a new generation of low-priced Windows tablets has arrived, and they are quickly becoming the tablet of choice for budget-minded consumers. A great example is the attractive 32GB HP Stream 7 Windows 8.1 Tablet. (#ad)
The 7 inch screen makes it easy to carry this tablet in a pants pocket, yet it comes packed with plenty of power. In fact, its speed and versatility rivals that found in some entry-level laptops.
Although it’s quite inexpensive, this tablet comes equipped with a beautiful 7 inch 1280×800 color touch display, a 1.8 GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB of DDR3 RAM, 802.11bgn Wi-Fi, and two USB ports.
Windows 8.1, a complimentary 1 year subscription to Windows 365, and 1TB of Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage is also included!
What’s more, this isn’t some cheap tablet with an unpronounceable name. It’s made by HP, one of the most trusted brands in the tech world. [Read more…]
These days it seems that we have files stored everywhere. Such is life in our high-tech world.
Many of us find ourselves switching between our computers and mobile devices, working on the same files on multiple devices and trying our best to manage those files and keep them up-to-date as we go along.
In an effort to make that juggling act a little easier to manage, I recently began checking out a file sync software utility from the folks at EaseUS that keeps all of your files updated automatically on all of your devices, plus any cloud storage that you use. It’s called EverySync 2.0, and I am extremely pleased with how well it performs. [Read more…]
In my opinion, Windows 8.1 is a vast improvement over Windows 8 because of the tweaks Microsoft has made in order to make it work more like previous versions of Windows.
But even after all the tweaks, the look and feel of the Windows 8.1 Start Screen as well as the new menu structures ensures that Win 8.1 still comes with a fairly steep learning curve.
I have read several great books on configuring and using Windows 8.1 in recent weeks, and as expected, Windows 8.1 For Dummies
I have always liked the way the “Dummies” series of computer books cuts through the fog of all the tech jargon that’s out there and explains things in ways that are easy to understand and follow. I can tell you that this excellent volume on Windows 8.1 follows that same tried and true recipe. [Read more…]
Most folks probably think FAXes are about as obsolete as Morse Code in today’s digital world, but the fact is there are still times when we need to send and/or receive an occasional FAX.
But that doesn’t mean we need to keep a physical FAX machine plugged in and waiting 24/7.
In fact, we no longer need a FAX machine at all in order to send the occasional FAX. Instead, we can use one of several popular online FAXing services.
I recently found myself needing to send a FAX for the first time in years, and since I had ditched my old FAX machine several years back I found myself scrambling to find a good online FAX service. One that really stood out to me was a service called HELLO FAX, so I decided to give it a try. [Read more…]