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A Story of Data Loss and What Could Have BeenI repaired a friend's machine's hard disk failure only to discover something much, much worse.2024-07-26 |
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How Do I Stop Outlook.com from Putting Legitimate Messages in the Junk Mail Folder?Outlook.com, like most email services, tries hard to keep spam out of your inbox. Sometimes it gets a little too aggressive. I'll look at how to tame it.2024-07-25 |
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What’s the Difference Between an Email Domain, Account, Address, and Alias?Email comes with its own set of terminology. I'll review how email addresses, accounts, domains, and aliases relate.2024-07-24 |
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How Do I Recover My Hacked Facebook Account?Unfortunately, Facebook account hacks are common. I'll look at the process Facebook uses to recover a hacked Facebook account.2024-07-22 |
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Why Doesn’t Microsoft Dump the Registry?The registry is a database that is needed for the complex issues Windows tries to solve. With that complexity, though, comes the potential for error.2024-07-20 |
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How Do I Find Someone’s Email Address?It can be extremely difficult to find the email address of someone you want to contact. To begin with, they must want to be found.2024-07-19 |
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Where Can I Download Word For Free?You can download Microsoft Word from Microsoft, but not for free. The good news is that there are several free alternatives.2024-07-18 |
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“Deleted Files Are Removed Everywhere” — What Does It Mean?It's a scary warning that doesn't quite mean what it says but is important to understand. I'll explain.2024-07-17 |
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Should I Switch to Linux?Linux is a viable alternative to extend the life of older machines or if you're just fed up with Windows. I'll look at some of the issues involved in switching to Linux.2024-07-15 |
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The World Won’t End!I reflect on the realization that Windows XP's end-of-support date came and went and nothing happened, and the implications of that for Windows 10's end of support.2024-07-13 |
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How Do I Get Rid of Copilot?Microsoft's AI, CoPilot, has received mixed reviews. Here's how best to get rid of it... for now.2024-07-12 |
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8 Ways Spammers Get Your Email AddressSpam is annoying. What's more annoying are all the ways spammers have to get our email addresses in the first place.2024-07-11 |
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What to Do About Kaspersky AntivirusAny software company with ties outside the U.S. comes under scrutiny. Should you be worried?2024-07-10 |
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How Do I Unsubscribe from All These Unwanted Emails?There are emails from which you should certainly unsubscribe if you no longer want them. However, there are emails that you absolutely should never unsubscribe from. I'll review the difference.2024-07-08 |
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Get Better, Faster Answers by Reading What’s in Front of YouI vent a little about people missing what's right in front of them (including myself) and then discuss why taking the time to read what your machine is telling you is so important to a less frustrating experience with your technology.2024-07-06 |
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How Do I Move My Address Book From One Provider to Another?Taking your contacts with you when moving from one platform to another is a clumsy process.2024-07-05 |
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Using Startup Repair in Windows 10 and 11Startup repair is a useful tool built into Windows setup media and recovery disks. I'll walk through how to use it and what to do if it fails.2024-07-04 |
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What is S-Mode and How Do I Get Rid of It?S-mode is an additional set of restrictions in Windows that is intended to protect you. Most people want it off.2024-07-03 |
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Changing Your Password After a Hack May Not Be EnoughChanging your password is a common response to account hacks. Unfortunately, it isn't enough.2024-07-01 |
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What If There’s a Passkey on My Lost Phone?Losing a device with a passkey isn't a disaster at all. I'll describe why that is.2024-06-29 |
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Are Zip Files Safe to Open?ZIP files are useful for compressing and containing collections of files. Unfortunately, they're also useful to hackers, spammers, and scammers.2024-06-28 |
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Are We at Risk of Losing Our Digital Information Over Time?Technologies change, media wears out, and hardware that we once took for granted becomes difficult to find. How does all this impact the archives of our digital lives?2024-06-27 |
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Does Technology Isolate or Connect?There are those who feel that technology isolates us from the world. I maintain that, while it's certainly a tool that can be misused, it can still be a tool for connection.2024-06-26 |
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Should I Partition My Hard Disk?Partitioning, or splitting a single physical hard drive into multiple drives, has pros and cons. I'll look at those and make a recommendation.2024-06-24 |
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Why Are They Saying I’m Sending Too Much Spam?How your email can get blocked for spam you didn't send, and what to do about it.2024-06-22 |
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The Technology Behind Ask Leo!Over the years, the technology that runs Ask Leo! has changed a little. I'll give you an overview of the current state of affairs.2024-06-21 |
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Can I Make C: Bigger by Taking Space From D:?Changing the layout of the hard disk make the C: partition bigger requires a few steps and occasionally special tools.2024-06-20 |
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What Backup Software Should I Use?Deciding what backup software to use relies on understanding what kind of backup you want to create. I'll review the options.2024-06-19 |
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Why Don’t Companies Answer My Email?It's not uncommon for email messages to companies to disappear into a black hole. I'll look at why that might be and steps you can take to reduce the odds of it happening to you.2024-06-17 |
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How Do I Turn Off UAC (User Account Control) in Windows?User Access Control, or UAC, prompts you each time an application requires administrative access. Annoyance or feature?2024-06-15 |
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Do We Really Need to Get Used to Things?"Getting used to it" might not always be ideal, but being open to it can result in surprising improvements. Besides, you're doing it already almost every day.2024-06-14 |
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Unsupported Software Survival Guide: Mitigate Risks and Stay ProtectedWhile using unsupported software is discouraged, sometimes it's the only option. I'll discuss the ramifications, alternatives, and what you need to do to stay safe.2024-06-13 |
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Managing Files on Your PC and in the CloudDocument management can be complex and confusing, particularly when cloud storage is involved. I'll review why that is and suggest how to manage it.2024-06-12 |
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Free Is Not FreeFree downloads, free scans, free trials -- so many things on the internet are free! Or are they?2024-06-10 |
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How to Deal When Unsubscribe Doesn’t WorkWhen a legitimate email sender doesn't respond to an unsubscribe request, they're no longer legitimate. Here's what to do.2024-06-08 |
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Are You Giving Away Your Privacy?We rail against intrusions into our private affairs and private information and then post our private information publicly. Where's the logic in that?2024-06-07 |
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What’s the Difference Between Outlook.com, Hotmail.com, Msn.com, and Live.com?Like many Microsoft products, Hotmail's name has changed a time or two and caused a great deal of confusion. I'll try to make sense of it all.2024-06-06 |
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One-Time Code Contradiction: When to Share and When to BewareYou're told not to share your two-factor or other authentication code. And then you're asked for it.2024-06-05 |
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Can Someone Install Something on My Computer When It’s Not Logged In?If your computer is not physically secure, someone could install something even if you're not logged in.2024-06-03 |
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Optimizing Video Playback: How to Choose Between Streaming and DownloadingStreaming video sites have some features that make the answer more complicated than it would seem.2024-06-01 |
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What’s a Dynamic Disk?You probably have a basic disk and don’t need the functionality offered by dynamic disk support... even if that functionality is kind of cool.2024-05-31 |
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How Do I Save Emails Locally in Outlook?You can store email offline in Microsoft Office Outlook using PST files. I'll show you how to set that up.2024-05-30 |
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How To Enable the Administrator Account in WindowsThere's a hidden account with complete administrative access. I'll show you how to enable it and discuss why you shouldn't use it very often, if at all.2024-05-29 |
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Dealing With Inexplicable Change?Yes, I deal with frustrating changes too. It's not that I never get frustrated; it's what I choose next that makes for a much happier experience.2024-05-27 |
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The Warning Signs of Disk Failure: An Unexpected Tale of Gradual Decline and Urgent ReplacementThe reinstall of my system slowly uncovered a potential hardware issue. Here's how I diagnosed and repaired it.2024-05-25 |
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Why Do I See Lots of Failed Login Attempts on My Account?I'll show you how to look at your Outlook.com recent activity and review why it might be full of failed login attempts.2024-05-24 |
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Surprising Reasons to Use a VPN at Home: More Than Just PrivacyAlthough a VPN service is probably not necessary at home, there are a few scenarios where you may want to consider it.2024-05-23 |
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It Was My Time to Reformat and ReinstallThe steps I took, the software I installed, and a few things I discovered as I reinstalled Windows 11 on my main machine.2024-05-22 |
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Where Can I Download Windows 11? Or 10? Or 8?You can download Windows 8.1, 10, and 11 from legitimate sources. If you have a legal retail product key, this can be your replacement media.2024-05-20 |
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Use the Cloud; Just Don’t Rely on the CloudOnline services, aka "the cloud", are often treated as if they are invincible. They're not. They represent a single point of failure that could cost you your data.2024-05-18 |
