Tag: how-to - Part 4

How To Boost WiFi Signals

I recently wrote about How To Boost Cell Signals, and today I’m tackling Wi-Fi. If you’ve been experiencing problems with weak Wi-Fi in your home, there are a few likely causes that are easy, and in some cases free, to remedy. Here are some things to try. 1. Check your wireless router’s location. When your service provider installed your Wi-Fi router, you may not have realized that its placement can affect signal strength and range. Ideally, your router should be located at the very center of your home in order to provide maximum signal range in all directions outward from the router. However, in practice it may turn out that most of the time you’re only actually using your Wi-Fi connection in one area of your home. To get a concrete idea of where signals are strongest and weakest in your home, you can simply take one of your Wi-Fi enabled devices and…

Email Tips: What Do cc: and bcc: Mean?

Today’s post is brought to you by Amazon’s Gold Box Deal of the Day: Up To 69% Off On Select Sony Memory Cards & USB Flash Drives. Note that this is a one-day sale, so if you’re in the market for memory cards or flash drives be sure to check out the sale today. Advertisers make it possible for Digital Media Mom to keep bringing you great content for free, so thanks for your support! * * * It’s recently come to my attention that people who have never worked in an office environment often don’t know what the “cc:” and “bcc:” designations are for in their email program. If you already know, feel free to skip this one. Otherwise, onward! Whether on a business letter, memo, or in an email, “cc:” and “bcc:” are used to “copy” (or, “send a copy to”) people other than the primary recipient of the…

How To Choose A Printer

Last week’s Tech Frustration Friday meme was inspired by the death of my Canon PIXMA MX850 multifunction printer. I followed my usual process for deciding whether or not it was worth trying to fix what was wrong with the printer, then choosing a replacement, and thought I should share that process here. Here’s the new model I ultimately chose: Epson WorkForce WF-2530 Wireless All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer, Copier, Scanner, ADF, Fax. Fix It, Or Buy A New One? I’d had the Canon machine for close to four years, so I can’t say it came as a total shock when it suddenly refused to perform any of its multifunctions (print, copy, scan, fax) and displayed an error code of “B200″ on its screen. A little Googling showed me that the code means there’s a printer head problem. A little more Googling, and watching some YouTube videos, showed me that if this problem were “fixable”…

All The Free Short Stories You Can Read On East Of The Web

the current ThinkGeek.com sale (up to 50% off!) on clothing and outdoor items, running through 3/2/14. Advertisers make it possible for Digital Media Mom to keep bringing you great content for free, so thanks for your support! * * * Next time you’re looking for something short to read, head on over to East of the Web’s Short Stories portal. There, you can find thousands of short stories to suit every taste—all for free! Each listing includes a brief description, an average review rating, a recommended minimum reader age rating, and even the story’s length in pages. The stories can be read online or printed out in hard copy. Kindle / Paperwhite / Kindle Fire owner tip: If you have a pdf converter program, you can click on the ‘printable view’ link for any story, print to pdf format from your browser, and then transfer the story to your Kindle, Paperwhite or Fire…

Where Did My Download Go?

When you download something off the internet, it’s not always obvious where your computer decided to stash the file. Even when the browser prompts you to specify a location to save the file to, sometimes the computer just goes ahead and saves that file to some other mystery spot among your files and folders, and you’re stuck having to hunt it down. My Dad ran into this problem when I sent him a redemption code for a digital video I’d bought him, and he had to redeem that code right on the performer’s website. He thought he’d downloaded the video, but when he went to check his My Videos folder, he couldn’t find it. Here are some tips and tricks for finding those pesky, missing downloads. Going On A Download Hunt Downloaded files don’t always go where you assume they should.

What To Do About A Lost Kindle / Fire Screen Lock Password, Lost Parental Controls Password

This little nugget was included in a previous DMM post, I Got A New Kindle Fire; Can I Give Away My Old Kindle Or Fire?, but since many of you who don’t have plans to pass on an old device might’ve skipped that post, I figured I should break this out as a separate post. If you’ve previously set a parental controls lock password or screen lock passcode on your Kindle, Paperwhite or Fire and don’t remember it, unfortunately, the only way to remove the lock is to do a combination unlock/reset on the device. Amazon does not keep any record of the personal password(s) you’ve set to lock the screen, for Parental Controls, or from within any of your password-protected apps, files or documents. It’s kind of a drag to have to do a reset because it will clear all your downloaded content and any bookmarks, annotations, etc. you’ve made…

Can My Overcharged Battery Be Fixed?

I’m sorry to tell you this, but in a word, no. It doesn’t mean your device is totally useless, however. I’ve written here before about the dangers of overcharging your thingie’s rechargeable battery, and more recently I’ve been getting questions from site visitors about what to do once that damage is done. Before we go any further, see this post for a simple rechargeable battery test you can do at home with no risk to yourself or your device. If the results show your rechargeable battery is damaged, read on. 1. If your thingie is still under warranty, return it to the place where you bought it for a replacement. If you’re going to replace it with the exact same thingie, back up your content first so you can re-load everything onto the new device. Click here for my post that explains how to do this for a Kindle Fire. For other types…

Collections Are Here For 2013 Kindle Fires!

At long last, that feature so many of us loved in our monochrome Kindles — and bitterly missed when we switched to Kindle Fires — is here! That mid-November software update is finally being pushed to all 2013 (second generation) Kindle Fire models, and you may have already received it and not even know it because there’s no particular notification when it happens. I’ve just been checking my Fire HD every day for it, and yesterday, I was thrilled to find that Collections functionality is not only there, but it works great! Collections On Kindle Fire: Only For 2013 Models, Only For Apps, Books & Audiobooks I’m sorry to say this new functionality is only being rolled out to 2013 (second generation) Kindle Fire models. I’ve checked my first-generation Fires, both HD and non-HD, and it’s not there. I think this is because this new Collections thing is dependent on the…

How To Delete Apps From The Cloud On A Kindle Fire

In a past DMM post, Kindle and Kindle Fire Owners: Where Your Content Lives and Deleting, Moving and Restoring Kindle / Kindle Fire Content, I explained how to delete apps and other content from your Fire vs. from the Cloud, and what the difference is between the two. Today I’d like to update that post with some new information: how to delete an app from Amazon’s Cloud right from your Fire**—all models, from first-generation non-HD to the latest HDX line—, without logging on to the Amazon site. **UPDATE** 5/19/15: while this post reflects information that was provided by Amazon at the time the post was written, more recent tests have shown the method described here doesn’t work for first-gen Fires. For people who only own first-gen Fires, the only way to remove apps from the Cloud in on the Amazon site itself. First, I must remind you: anything you delete from the…

The Differences Between Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Cell Connectivity

Bluetooth speakers, 4G tablets and external hard drives with Wi-Fi, oh my! Here’s how these three types of connectivity technologies differ. Wi-Fi Wi-Fi is the type of connection you need to wirelessly connect various devices to a wireless network. It could be your home network, the network at your workplace, or the biggest global network of them all: the internet. Yes, the internet is a network. It seems obvious when you realize that a network is just a collection of technology devices that are all set up to communicate with one another. So where at home, you use a network to send a document to a printer that’s located far from your computer, on the internet, computers and servers send web pages, files and messages to other computers and servers that are located as far away as the other side of the world. So if you’re considering buying some device, and…