Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Belinda D.: I’m thinking about buying a refurbished iPhone 4 directly from Apple. If I do, will it have iOS 7 on it or will I have to upgrade it to iOS 7 after I buy it?
If I have to upgrade it myself I might just go with a new iPhone 5c. I’m really not very tech savvy lol. Thanks in advance for the info. I LOVE your site by the way!!
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
If you’re a Microsoft Windows user you probably know that you’ll need the 25 digit Windows Activation Key (also called the PID) if you ever need to re-install Windows on your PC.
The Activation Key / PID was easy to find with Windows 7 and previous versions since it was written either on the CD/DVD packaging or somewhere on the computer itself.
But if you have recently purchased a PC with Windows 8 or 8.1 pre-installed, you’ll likely find that the Windows Activation Key / PID is nowhere to be found. Why Microsoft decided not to provide it to us with the new versions of Windows is beyond me, but there is a very easy way to retrieve it from the Registry. Here’s how: [Read more…]
When disaster strikes, one of the first things we all try to do is contact our family and friends to let them know we’re ok – and make sure they are too.
What typically happens in situations like this is the cell towers get clogged up with all those frantic voice calls and text messages, making it difficult for many folks to get through to their loved ones. Not a good thing!
Well, now there’s an easier way to reach out to others in an emergency. A wonderful free service from Microsoft called HelpBridge makes it easy to contact all of your family members and friends immediately – and all at the same time – when you’re caught up in a disaster. Here’s how it works: [Read more…]
As you probably know, poorly designed battery packs can overheat, catch on fire, and even explode. And while these problems most often affect cheap knock-offs, every now and then a batch of name brand batteries will be afflicted as well.
Lenovo has just announced that they are recalling a total of approximately 37,000 laptop batteries in the US and Canada because they present a potential fire hazard.
If you own one of laptop models on the list below, you should immediately contact Lenovo immediately and request a replacement.
Here are the Lenovo laptops that use the recalled batteries: [Read more…]
Question from David K.: I upgraded Malwarebytes to version 2.0 last night, and now every time I try to run a scan it gives me this error message:
Error: Malwarebytes was unable to load the Anti-Rootkit Driver. Error code: 20026
Do you want to continue the scan without anti-rootkit support?
And then it follows up that error message with this one before I can choose to scan without rootkit support:
Scanner Failed with Error Code: 20026
My computer is an HP ENVY TouchSmart 15-j009wm laptop running Windows 8.1.
What do I need to do in order to fix this error? I’ve re-installed Malwarebytes 2.0 three times with no success. Thanks for your help!
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]