Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: Is it safe to carry a laptop in a bag while it’s running?

Posted on October 27, 2021

Question from Carla: Is it safe to leave a laptop running in it’s laptop bag while I’m on my way to work?

I often find myself finishing up a project at the last minute and leave my computer running and crunching numbers during my commute.

A co-worker told me it’s a bad idea to carry a laptop while it’s running. Is she right?

Rick’s answer: Yes, I’m afraid your co-worker is right, Carla.

Laptops need proper air circulation or else they’ll eventually overheat and burn up. The damage done to the internal components can be gradual, but if they keep over-heating they WILL fail at some point. [Read more…]

Q&A: Which is better in a new PC, a hard drive or a much smaller SSD?

Posted on October 27, 2021

Question from Ellen: I need to purchase a new laptop. What are your thoughts on an SSD drive vs a regular hard drive?

Costco has two HP computers going on sale both with 12GB of memory. Both come with an Intel i5 CPU.

The difference between the two machines is the first one comes with a 512GB SSD and the other one comes with a 1TB hard drive.

They both are coming with Windows 11 (which I’m not thrilled about).

Which drive do you recommend? [Read more…]

Q&A: How can I stop receiving so many notifications in Windows 10?

Posted on October 26, 2021

Question from Charley: Before I ask my question I want to thank you for everything you do to keep us informed and help us use our computers better.

You really are such a great help to people who are clueless like I am.

Now, I have a problem I hope you can help me with.

I recently bought my first Windows 10 computer (an HP laptop). I like it ok except for all the notifications that pop up in the lower right corner of the screen.

Is there a way to limit the notifications to just the ones that I really need to see? [Read more…]

Q&A: Why does Windows 10 use more RAM on my new PC than it did on my old one?

Posted on October 24, 2021

Question from Bill: I have an Acer desktop PC with 4 GB of RAM that I updated to Windows 10 back when the update was free.

When I have all the programs and browser tabs that I normally use open at the same time the Task Manager says there is approximately 1.2 GB of RAM not being used.

I recently bought a brand new Dell desktop with 8 GB of RAM and Windows 10.

When I have the same exact configuration of programs and browser tabs open on the new machine it says there is still less than 2 GB of RAM that’s not being used.

How can this be? [Read more…]

Review: D-Link USB 3.0 AX1800 Dual Band WiFi 6 Adapter

Posted on October 23, 2021

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

WiFi 6 offers several important improvements over the earlier 802.11 b/g/n/ac generations of WiFi technology so I was eager to give this D-Link USB 3.0 AX1800 Dual Band WiFi 6 Adapter a try as soon as I found out it was available.

[Read more…]