Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: Does my camera have a bad memory card?

Posted on March 18, 2019

Question from Kelsey W.: I bought my wife a brand new Pentax K-50 camera back in 2014 and now she’s having a problem with it.

After she first got the camera she used it almost every day for a couple of months, then she had a stroke and was unable to use it for quite some time.

Her recovery from the stroke was long and difficult, but she is now finally able to resume some of her most loved activities, including taking pictures.

The problem is the camera doesn’t work now. When she turns it on it says there’s no memory card. But there is one and it’s inside the camera.

I read the manual and it said to format the SD card, but every time I try to format it the “no memory card” error pops up.

It’s hard to believe this is happening because she was only able to use the camera for a couple of months before she had the stroke.

Do you think the problem is a bad camera or a bad memory card?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Review: Samsung T5 Portable 1TB USB 3.1 External SSD

Posted on March 16, 2019

If you’re like me, you have probably dreamed about having a portable USB flash drive that can store as much data as a hard drive yet transfer data back and forth at SSD-like speeds.

Up until now, that dream was little more than a fantasy.

Well, you can stop dreaming…

The new (and totally awesome) Samsung T5 Portable 1TB USB 3.1 External SSD (#ad) provides a whopping 1TB of storage, and when plugged into a USB 3.1 port it’s so fast that you’ll be hard-pressed to tell that you aren’t using an internal SSD! [Read more…]

Q&A: Which VaultPress subscription do you recommend to backup my WordPress blog?

Posted on March 14, 2019

Question from James A.: I read your post about why you use VaultPress to back up your blogs and I’d like to give it a try.

I usually publish from 3 to 5 new posts every day, and my posts tend to be pretty in-depth. That means recreating them if they were to get lost would be both difficult and time-consuming.

As I understand it if I choose the cheapest plan then my blog would only be backed up once each day. What concerns me is losing any posts that were published since the last backup was created.

My question is which of their three subscription options should I choose? I don’t want to over-pay but I definitely want to protect my hard work.

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: Why does my laptop keep going into ‘Sleep’ mode after just 2 minutes?

Posted on March 13, 2019

Question from Brad: I have a Dell laptop with Windows 10 and it has a problem that’s driving me up the wall.

Ever since it installed the latest Windows Update it’s been going into sleep mode every time the machine is idle for exactly two minutes (I timed it).

I’ve went through the power settings several times and changed every setting that could possibly place the machine in sleep mode to make it go to sleep after 45 minutes.

But still it goes to sleep after just two minutes. It’s like Windows 10 is completely ignoring my power settings!

Can you tell me how to fix this?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Yes, you do need to update your Chrome browser right now!

Posted on March 12, 2019

Several people have messaged me this morning asking if the viral notice to update their Chrome browser to the latest version is real or a hoax.

Well, as you know, hoaxes abound on Facebook, but this isn’t one of them.

If you haven’t done so already, you really do need to install the latest update for Chrome in order to prevent hackers from exploiting a very dangerous security flaw.

And you need to install this update right now because the flaw is actively being exploited as we speak!

[Read more…]