Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Well, here we are in mid-April, and that means summer will be here before we know it.
We just had a late blast of wintry weather here in Virginia, but we’ve already had some really nice “summer” days and there will be plenty more coming down the pike real soon.
Here’s something you need to remember as you’re out and about enjoying the heat of the coming summer: If you get hot, your mobile devices will too. [Read more…]
Question from Bill: Yesterday morning I took the cover off my computer to see if the fans were running because the machine has been sounding quieter than usual.
They appeared to be running just fine but I think I might have really messed up. I dropped a screw onto the motherboard and the computer immediately shut down.
I removed the screw and pressed the power button and Windows started to boot up. But then it gave me an error message stating that Windows didn’t shut down correctly. It did finish booting up though and everything seemed to be working ok.
Should I be concerned? [Read more…]
Question from Milton: I’ve been looking for a really wide monitor for my desktop computer, but they’re really expensive.
I can’t afford to spend several hundred dollars for a monitor so I started looking at some refurbished monitors (Amazon calls them “renewed).
I found a really nice 34 inch LG widescreen that caught my attention. It looks like just what I’ve been looking for.
My question is do you recommend buying refurbished monitors? [Read more…]
Question from Andrew: I have a Toshiba Dynabook Satellite Pro C50-H laptop that I bought new just 3 months ago, and it already has a problem.
When I turn the laptop on I can smell a faint burning smell and see faint whiffs of smoke coming out of the keyboard.
The thing is it boots up normally and works fine and no part of the laptop seems to get hotter than it should (to the touch at least).
My question is do you think this might be something I can fix myself or do you recommend that I just go ahead and send it back? [Read more…]
Question from Connor: I’m thinking of swapping out all of my RAM for a better set, and I was wondering if I would need a fresh Windows install to make it work.
If reinstalling Windows isn’t required, but recommended, please tell me why that is. Thanks!
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]