Rick's Daily Tips

Does your phone have an unlimited data plan? If not, you need this!

Posted on October 2, 2015

Sprint, Verizon and the other major cellular service providers are trying their best to move all of their customers from unlimited data plans to metered plans, and it probably won’t be too long before we are all lose our unlimited deals.

If you’re one of the millions of cellular customers who are already on a metered plan, you know how important it is to carefully watch your data usage in order to avoid expensive overages at the end of every month.

Luckily, there is an outstanding app that makes the task of monitoring your data usage very easy. [Read more…]

iPhone users: Turn off ‘Wi-Fi Assist’ NOW to avoid paying a HUGE cellular phone bill!

Posted on September 28, 2015

If you’re one of the millions of iPhone owners who have already installed iOS 9, chances are you are pretty happy with it. But there’s something you might not be aware of…

If you tend to use Wi-Fi a lot because you have a limited data plan, you could be in for a major shock when your next cellular phone bill arrives.

By default, a new iOS 9 feature called “Wi-Fi Assist” automatically switches your phone from Wi-Fi to your carrier’s 4G network whenever it detects a weak Wi-Fi signal. [Read more…]

Q&A: What’s the best external hard drive to use with a Dell docking station?

Posted on September 25, 2015

Question from Linda S.: I have a Dell 6430u Ultrabook and a Superspeed USB 3 Dell Docking Station. I am trying to decide on an external drive to back-up all my data and photos continuously.

Could you suggest an external USB hard drive that would be good to use?

I’m also worried about power overload for the docking station because when I plugged in a LaCie external drive I received a warning that it overloaded the USB port. Can you advise about that as well?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Facebook: How to bookmark a post that contains a shared link with just two clicks

Posted on September 25, 2015

If you’re been using Facebook for a while, I’m sure you’re familiar with this scenario:

You’re scrolling through your Facebook news feed when an interesting post catches your attention. You make a mental note to come back and read it later when you have more time, but when you search for it later you can’t find it again.

A while back I wrote a post explaining how to bookmark an individual post on Facebook. That process isn’t complicated and it works extremely well, but now Facebook has added a new feature that makes bookmarking posts that contain shared links a quick two-click process. Here’s how to do it: [Read more…]

Is your device running iOS 9? If so, you need to install this update.

Posted on September 25, 2015

Do you have an Apple device that’s running iOS 9? If so, Apple has just released a new update that you really need to install.

iOS 9.0.1 isn’t categorized as a critical update, but I believe it’s an important one because it fixes a number of bugs that cause various features and apps on your device(s) to behave in strange ways.

This update also fixes a bug that prevented some users from even being able to update their devices to iOS 9 in the first place.

Follow these steps to install the iOS 9.0.1 update: [Read more…]