Rick's Daily Tips

Microsoft tries discounting Windows 8 in order to boost sluggish sales

Posted on March 13, 2013

Microsoft released Windows 8 in October with high hopes of enticing users to either upgrade their older versions of Windows to Windows 8 or simply buy a new Windows 8 based PC outright, but that has turned out to be a pipe dream.

Most consumers and businesses seem intent on skipping the upgrade this time around thanks to several major blunders Microsoft made while planning and designing Windows 8.

First of all, people are pretty happy with their current Windows version. Both Windows XP and Windows 7 are quite stable as Windows goes and the computer hardware they run on are more than capable of running the current generation of software. In short, there is simply no pressing need for most of us to upgrade right now. [Read more…]

Outlook.com Web-Based Email – My thoughts and recommendations

Posted on March 12, 2013

Microsoft recently announced the release of their brand new web-based email service Outlook.com, and the press release made it sound too good not to take for a spin.

Since I love the thought of being able to access my POP3 email accounts via any web browser on any PC and Outlook.com sounded like it might be a great solution, I signed up for an account and imported all of my POP3 email accounts into it.

After putting Outlook.com through its paces for a week, here are my impressions and recommendations: [Read more…]

2 super-fast ways to open the Windows Task Manager

Posted on March 8, 2013

If you’ve been using Microsoft Windows-based PCs for a while you’re probably quite familiar with the Windows Task Manager. It is in fact one of the most-used Windows utilities.

After all, who among us has never had to open the Task Manager in order to kill a stuck program that simply refused to go away when you clicked the little X in the top-right corner? [Read more…]

Q&A: Why does my Yahoo email account keep getting hacked?

Posted on March 7, 2013

Question from Theresa: Rick, I have a serious problem and I desperately need your help! Someone keeps hacking into my Yahoo email account by changing my password and I don’t know how to prevent it. I contacted Yahoo support over a week ago but they haven’t responded. I’m pretty sure it’s my ex-boyfriend who’s doing it but he denies it.

Is there any way I can stop him from changing my password? I’d just abandon the account an open a new one but I use it for EVERYTHING and changing email addresses would be a major hassle! I’d GREATLY appreciate any help you can give me. Thanks!

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Create a desktop shortcut to the System Restore utility

Posted on March 6, 2013

I download, test and review a lot of software and I always create a new System Restore Point before I install every new program just in case something goes wrong. System Restore has saved my bacon on several occasions, and chances are it has also saved yours at least once in the past.

If you use the System Restore utility as much as I do, I recommend creating a shortcut to it and keeping it on your Desktop. Here are instructions for creating a shortcut to System Restore in Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8 (just skip to the section that’s applicable to you): [Read more…]