Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Does it seem like it takes forever for your phone’s battery to fully charge when it’s plugged into your PC?
Well, it isn’t your imagination. If you have an older computer it probably has the older USB 2.0 ports, and USB 2.0 supplies a paltry amount of current to devices that are connected to it.
If you like the convenience of charging your phone by plugging it in to your PC, you can easily add several USB 3.0 ports to your existing PC and your phone will charge a lot faster. [Read more…]
Question from Anthony J.: Rick, I have a custom built PC with an ASUS motherboard that supports DDR3-1333MHZ RAM. It’s about 5 or 6 years old as best I can recall.
I want to upgrade the memory from 4GB to 8GB, but the only RAM sticks I could find locally are DDR3-1600MHZ. Will they work with my motherboard without damaging anything?
Rick‘s answer: [Read more…]
If you’ve recently been shopping for a new camera you’ve probably noticed how few new models of compact cameras there are in the stores these days.
Well, there’s a reason for that: The proliferation of smart phones with high-quality cameras has virtually killed the demand for compact cameras.
And it’s easy to understand why. After all, there’s really no reason to bother with carrying a small camera around when you already have a great one inside your phone! [Read more…]
Question from Cindy T.: I just found out that my ex is somehow causing all of my Gmail messages to be forwarded to his own email account.
I know he had the password to my account for a while because I let him use it when he was looking for a job (the lazy bum never did find one). I guess that’s when he set up the forwarding.
Anyway, how can I stop my emails from being forwarded to his account?
Rick’s answer: Cindy, what you’ll need to do is log into your Gmail account and disable “Forwarding” in your account settings. Here’s how: [Read more…]
Sometimes corporations make decisions that are so bone-headed you just have to wonder what they were thinking. The most recent example comes to us courtesy of Verizon.
As you probably know, first responders in California are currently fighting dozens of major wildfires across the state.
And as you can imagine, fire-fighters and other emergency personnel rely heavily on their smartphones for critical communications between themselves and the folks who are directing the campaign to put out the fires and save the lives and property of thousands of California citizens.
One large fire department that’s been hard at work fighting the blazes had their devices’ Internet data speeds severely throttled by Verizon because every device they were using had exceeded the data limit allowed under their “Unlimited Data” contract. [Read more…]