Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: My Task Manager is disabled. How can I get it back?

Posted on April 14, 2013

Question from Eric: My computer slowed to a crawl and I found out that it was eaten up with Spyware and viruses. I spent the better part of a day cleaning it all up but now I can’t load the Task Manager. It’s grayed out on the menus and I can’t click it. How can I get it back?

Rick‘s answer: Hi Eric. The miscreants who create spyware and viruses use all kinds of tricks to prevent us from discovering and disabling their insidious creations, and a couple of their favorite tricks are disabling the System Restore and Task Manager utilities. [Read more…]

Q&A: Why is Internet Explorer 10 slow to load the first page?

Posted on April 13, 2013

Question from Randy F:. Rick, I took your suggestion and upgraded to I.E. 10 and it was a great move. It’s a lot faster than I.E. 9!

But there is one problem: When I.E. is loaded the first time it takes forever to load the first web page. But after that, every other page loads in a jiffy. This started when I installed I.E. 10. Do you know how I can fix this? Thanks!

Rick‘s answer: Randy, this is a common problem with Internet Explorer that goes way back to the earliest versions. For some reason some I.E. installations have trouble initially detecting the PC’s Lan settings. Here’s how to fix the problem of I.E. hanging on the first page load: [Read more…]

Super Control Panel – Access all Control Panel tools and settings from one screen!

Posted on April 12, 2013

super-control-panel The Windows Control Panel contains dozens of tools and settings for tweaking the way Windows performs many of its numerous tasks.

Most of these tools and settings are nested underneath a plethora of menus, making it difficult to find exactly what you’re looking for without doing a bunch of clicking and searching.

Lucky for us, there’s a very simple way to create a handy Super Control Panel app that lists every single Control Panel tool and setting on a single page, neatly filed under one of several easy-to-understand categories. Here’s the simple two-step process for creating your very own Super Control Panel: [Read more…]

Q&A: Can I really drop my cable and watch TV online?

Posted on April 12, 2013

Question from Carla J.: I keep hearing how lots of people are dropping their cable TV and watching all their TV shows online for free. I only really watch 3 shows on a regular basis – Duck Dynasty and HGTV’s Curb Appeal and House Hunters.

It seems like I’m paying way too much just to watch 3 shows! I’d love to be able to tell Charter to stop my service and start watching my shows online, but this just sounds too good to be true. Is it?

Rick’s answer: No Carla, it isn’t. Millions of people around the world now watch their favorite TV shows over the Internet. And yes, many of those shows are absolutely free (not counting the cost of your Internet connection) and many others are available for a modest fee.

But before you call Charter and ditch your cable service, there are some things you need to consider: [Read more…]

How to set multiple home pages for your web browser

Posted on April 11, 2013

multiple-home-pages Most people have several websites they visit throughout the day. For example, I check my email at Outlook.com fairly often while occasionally checking for updates on Facebook and Twitter.

If you do the same, it’s easy to have several of your favorite websites load automatically in separate tabs every time you load your web browser. That way you’ll be ready to get down to business just as soon as the browser finishes loading.

Here’s how to set multiple homepages in Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Firefox (simply skip to the appropriate section): [Read more…]