Rick's Daily Tips

ATTN MacBook Owners: Apple might have just recalled your USB-C Charge Cable

Posted on February 16, 2016

macbook Did you purchase a MacBook with an included USB-C type charge cable prior to July 2015? If so, your charge cable might have just been recalled.

According to Apple, some of the USB-C charge cables that were shipped with MacBooks through June of last year have a design flaw that prevents them from reliably charging any attached devices.

They also say that some cables that were purchased as stand-alone accessories are also included in the recall.

If you have a MacBook that was shipped with a defective USB-C charge cable, how you can request/receive your free replacement cable will depend on a couple of factors: [Read more…]

Great news: SourceForge has abandoned the ‘Sneakware’ business

Posted on February 15, 2016

For many years SourceForge was my favorite site for downloading free software because they didn’t bundle third-party add-on programs (aka sneakware) with their installation files.

Well, that all changed in July 2013 when the folks at SourceForge decided to follow in the footsteps of their competitors by joining the widely-despised DevShare program.

In a nutshell, the DevShare program allows download sites to earn extra cash by bundling additional software with the programs that users download from the site.

The problem is the “extra” (and almost always unwanted) software will usually be installed by default along with the downloaded program unless the user unchecks one or boxes to “unbundle” the add-on programs. And those check boxes are typically pretty hard to notice, or even find. [Read more…]

Google to pull the plug on Picasa on March 15

Posted on February 15, 2016

Do you (or someone you know) use Google’s Picasa? If so, there’s a bit of news that you need to know about…

Google is planning to stop supporting the Picasa desktop application on March 15, 2016, and they’ll be shutting down their Picasa Web Albums service on the first day of May. [Read more…]

Love Bluegrass Music? Check out WorldWideBluegrass.com!

Posted on February 10, 2016

Bluegrass is the music of choice for many who enjoy the magical combination of acoustic music and fine vocal harmonies.

In my humble opinion, anyone who has never heard good Bluegrass music performed live is surely missing out on one of life’s greatest pleasures.

Many artists who have already achieved great success in Country and other genres of music are now crossing over into Bluegrass, joining Rhonda Vincent, Doyle Lawson and countless other Bluegrass greats in helping to promote the sounds of this wonderful music to the masses.

With that in mind, I’d like to introduce you to World Wide Bluegrass, an awesome (and absolutely free) Bluegrass-only Internet radio station created by my friend Gracie Davis. [Read more…]

Review: EaseUS Todo Backup Free

Posted on February 9, 2016

These days our computers are loaded down with programs, apps, photos, videos and other files that we simply could never replace if something were to happen to our hard drive.

That’s why it’s so important to always have a current backup of your system at the ready.

All recent versions of Windows have decent backup capabilities built-in, and I have written several posts explaining how to use them. That being said, there are times when it helps to have something a lot more powerful and easier to use than Windows’ integrated backup tools. [Read more…]