Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Alex: I used to be able to plug my Android phone into my Windows laptop and copy the photos from the phone to the computer.
However, I tried that this morning and when I opened the phone in File Explorer it said “This folder is empty.”
I haven’t changed any settings on either the laptop or the phone so I don’t know why File Explorer can’t see the photos that are on the phone (there are tons of them).
What am I missing here? [Read more…]
Rick’s Tech Tips Newsletter
By default, when people call you on your smartphone the ringtone will sound the same regardless of who is calling you.
And that can be a problem if your phone starts ringing while it’s sitting on a table on the other side of the room.
The caller could well be someone you really want to talk to, but it could also be a call you’d rather skip for the time being.
Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to stop what you’re doing and go pick up the phone.
Well, there’s an easy fix or this problem… [Read more…]
Question from Angie: I started dating a guy a few months ago. I really liked him but he had an annoying habit of picking up my phone and looking at my called logs.
I think he was checking up on me to see if I was calling other guys. I didn’t like him spying on me that way and I told him so, but he kept on doing it.
I finally put a PIN on my phone so he wouldn’t be able to get into it.
We recently broke up so I no longer need the PIN. The problem is it won’t let me remove it (that option is grayed out).
What do I need to do to remove the PIN from my phone? [Read more…]
Does it seem like the battery in your Android phone dies a lot sooner than it should? If so, you’re certainly not alone.
A while back I wrote a post listing 7 tips for extending your Android phone’s battery life, and they all help quite a bit.
Well, here’s a bonus tip that will make your battery last even longer. All you have to do is change your phone’s wallpaper to one that’s solid black!
You’re probably wondering why using a black background can save battery life, and that’s a good question. And the answer is really pretty simple: The brighter the screen, the more current the battery must supply to keep it lit up.
Bottom line: Changing from a light colored background to a solid black one allows your phone to operate with less current being drawn from the battery.
Switching your phone to a solid black wallpaper is easy. Here’s how: [Read more…]
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One of the great things about modern smartphones and tablets is their ability to run apps that perform a wide variety of useful tasks.
If you can think of something for your device to do on your behalf, there is probably an app for it.
In reality, smartphones and tablets are in fact tiny computers, and the apps they run are actually computer programs, and there’s a downside to that…
Any device that can run a computer program is subject to being attacked by hackers. [Read more…]