Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
One of my biggest pet peeves is audio that starts blaring from my computer’s speakers just as soon as I visit a web page.
It makes no difference whether its coming from an ad, a cute video or simple background music, if it starts playing on its own, I don’t like it.
In fact, I dislike it so much I immediately hit my browser’s “Back” button when music or some other sound starts playing just as soon as the page loads unless I REALLY want to view the content on the page. [Read more…]
I have often wondered why so many companies and individuals continue to pay big bucks for Microsoft Office when there are a number of outstanding free alternatives to choose from.
I haven’t owned a current version of either Microsoft Word or Excel for over a decade, and the free software on my PC can read and write those files just fine.
I have used Apache OpenOffice for some time and highly recommend it, but I recently downloaded and began testing Kingsoft Office. So far I find myself very impressed. Here’s why: [Read more…]
Regular readers of this blog know that I’m a huge fan of two-factor authentication for online accounts.
For those who might have missed them, I have already written posts explaining how to enable it on Facebook and Twitter.
Two factor authentication is a security measure which requires you to enter a verification code that’s sent to your mobile phone before you’ll be allowed to log in to your account.
This effectively locks your online account as tight as a virtual drum since a hacker would need physical access to your cell phone in order to break into your account.
The steps below explain how to quickly and easily enable two-step verification on your Dropbox account: [Read more…]
CCleaner has been one of my favorite Windows cleanup tools for years, and I’ve recommended it to countless other folks during that time.
Unfortunately, CCleaner’s maker Piriform has just announced that hackers have somehow managed to break into one of their servers and add malicious code to a recent build of the CCleaner software.
That means if you recently downloaded CCleaner to your PC or installed a recent update, your computer could well have malware on it. [Read more…]
Question from Linda: My 4 year old got her hands on my iPad and now the onscreen keyboard is split into two halves.
I tried typing with it like this but I just can’t because it feels so unnatural.
I’ll be forever in your debt if you can tell me what I need to do to get it back to normal! Can you?
Rick’s answer: This actually happens a lot Linda, and it’s almost always by accident based on the desperate pleas for help I receive on a fairly consistent basis.
Your message prompted me to finally write this post explaining how to fix the split keyboard issue. [Read more…]