Tekkie G's Tips and Tweaks

2025-12-21T15:40:00.001-07:00

Figuring out how to change contact photo on I Phone 15 IOS 26.1

Lots of nuisances when updates are done.

Here's what works: Gets you up and on to a new contact picture!

Open Photos app
Open the photo you want to use as the contact profile picture
Tap the ‘share’ icon > Assign to Contact > select your desired contact

2025-10-08T13:41:00.002-07:00

WANT BIGGER ICONS ON YOUR WINDOWS DESKTOP?

CTRL-ALT- + (-) IF YOU WANT TO GO BACK TO SMALLER

2025-06-11T23:10:00.005-07:00

Well now here it is the start of summer 2025 and I have not made a single post since 2024 - I said I would do better ! Some health issues have kept me from doing a lot I want to do.

Most important things happening to so many these days is getting scammed-unknowingly.

HELP HOW DO I KNOW I'VE BEEN SCAMMED?

Firstly learn who it is that is emailing you. Look at the email address (which is you)

then hover over it and it will show THE SENDER. Write down that address and search it in your browser window. It will show where it came from and who it is. The biggest thing is not to think YAY You've got mail.....

If it looks suspicious DON'T OPEN IT.

Write down that address which is going to be some crazy .xyz.com address or something you don't recognize.

If you think you got bugged Emisoft has a free online scanner

https://www.emsisoft.com/en/emergency-kit/download/

Run that follow the prompts and let it do the browser scanning....

Stay safe in the Dark Web World

Bringin out the old and redoing the new! (closet computer!)

2025-01-03T15:43:00.001-07:00

Hi -all those who check this weblink--it has been months since I have posted and I am sorry for that but promise to do better in the new year just upon us.

A coupla days ago I was digging in my computer business stash leftover from when I repaired, built, and renewed PCs....I found about a 15 year old Dell laptop that someone was going to throw out and I said "I'll take it!"

Well, it has been sitting for a few years now-I actually updated it in October of 2023 up to current updates and programs. So I got it out again and went to run updates on it and worked on it for literally hours!!!! It was so slow and I thought, why am I doing this?

Anyway I got out a distro of Linux Mint "Virginia" 23.1. and said "goodbye to Windows 10 " on that PC...within a few minutes I had the new OS running like a charm. One thing Linux does is automatically installs all the drivers needed for a PC including printers! And you don't need antivirus or anything it comes with the full package of programs to do everything! Even the battery was draining heavily when I had Windows on there and with the Linux setup it had a 4 hour battery time which is remarkable for old PC. Also the wireless on it hooked immediately to my system and was so fast also the video stuff ran great!

I downloaded the distro from Linux Mint 21.3

https://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=311

wrote it to a USB stick (info on this page)

followed the directions and booted from the USB and within 15 minutes had a fresh new operating system fully compatible with Windows programs.

Well, that's my start to the new year. Happy New Year Ya'll!

2024-05-09T13:50:00.005-07:00

Here we go again with images not showing up that you have installed via java script or HTML on your blog/website.

Sometimes they have script in them that the Ad Blocker picks up on

and it will stop the image from appearing...IE the rotating World Visitors Globe

that I have on this blog at top right.

Disable the ad blocker only on this website as I do not

participate with any Ad sense or Google ads anyhow for this reason.

Glad I was able to snag the answer on the

Web to figure these things out!

OOPS IMAGE FAILED TO LOAD when opening GMAIL-Fixed

2024-05-07T09:56:00.001-07:00

Well, it is now many tries to fix this quirky thing.

but finally I got it!

it has to do with the background photo/theme in your GMAIL APP on computer or phone.

so go into your "themes" and add a theme or change a theme and save it-you will then see it in the background of all your emails....

when you go to your mail again the OPPS disappeared!!

that's all there is to it....

Happy world wide webbing today!

Using the Brave Browser How to's

2023-12-04T00:04:00.001-07:00

when you install the Brave browser you will notice the toolbar on the top is small and also the tabs are small.....no one seems to have the answer to make it bigger and easier to see.

well here is what to do

THE BRAVE BROWSER-CHECK IT OUT!!

https://brave.com/download/

go into "display" in your Windows settings.

you will see "scale and layout"

change the text and apps and other items to 125%

that will make all things bigger and easier to read in the very fast and good Brave Browser

if the wording is too big but you want the toolbar and icons to be bigger to into the "hamburger" in upper right corner - slick on it

go down to zoom and use arrows to adjust zoom size to suit you

2023-10-26T16:15:00.007-07:00

Here's a tidbit.

If you want to use Microsoft Office for free online

(and as always you have the option to buy it, but you get 5 GB of space for free

if you create an account. )

The entries on your keyboard are

Ctrl > Shift >Windows key >Alt

It will pull up the page MS Office

Happy Day on the World Wide Web!

2023-07-31T10:23:00.001-07:00

To rid your PC of "recents" here's the trick

W + R

type in "recent"

CTRL + A

then hit Delete

Error Code 232011 How to Fix

2023-07-24T07:32:00.001-07:00

If you get this on a web page that you are viewing: ERROR CODE 232011

Simple fix on Firefox

CTRL SHIFT DELETE

EMPTY HISTORY

LAST HOUR

HIT ENTER

Refresh page

Basically its a video problem and cache file issue...

by clearing this out the error is gone...

Simple Screenshot Access

2023-06-16T11:33:00.003-07:00

Want to take a screenshot in part or whole of what you are looking at on your desktop?

Press Win + Shift + S simultaneously to see options to instantly screenshot your entire workspace, just one window, or a free form selection drawn with your mouse. Your screenshot is then copied and ready to be pasted into a web form or image editor.

How to change the bookmark toolbar size and fonts in Firefox-(for those who need to see better!)

2023-06-01T15:44:00.000-07:00

To increase the text size in the user interface parts of Firefox, we (Mozilla) currently only have one setting option, which is the global scaling factor. Here's how you can adjust that if you want to give it a try:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

More info on about:config: Configuration Editor for Firefox. The moderators would like us to remind you that changes made through this back door aren't fully supported and aren't guaranteed to continue working in the future. We have had this setting for a long time so I feel comfortable mentioning it.

(2) In the search box in the page, type or paste layout.css.devPixelsPerPx and pause while the list is filtered

Firefox should list one preference with the value -1.0

-1.0 means to follow the system level scaling. You can enter new (positive) values here to set your own scaling. Please note that the values will be doubled for a Retina display.

(3) Double-click the preference to display an editing field, and change the value to either

1.5 for non-Retina display
3.0 for Retina display

Then press Return or click the blue check mark button to save the change.

That should scale the entire browser to 150% of the default size.

You can adjust upwards or downwards as needed. Please be very careful not to use a value below 1.0 or it may become too difficult to read/fix. In case of emergency, click the reset button at the right end of the row.

Can you find a size that is comfortable for the toolbars/sidebar? Hopefully so. Then you can tweak the page zoom setting on the Preferences page to make the content area a comfortable size.

(courtesy Mozilla Firefox Moderators)

2023-05-21T16:49:00.005-07:00

Do you want to check to see if a website you are on is up and running?

Here is a very useful site for that

2023-04-22T10:26:00.005-07:00

Hello finally I am getting up to posting on my blog again Has been a busy year with health recovery etc...I have updated some things on the blog also.

For those of you (like me) who have an IPAD/IPHONE and have had a problem getting your G mail contacts to transfer over the to them ....I have the answer....

Courtesy HOW TO GEEK

Full on instructions with photos!

2022-09-29T18:01:00.001-07:00

Best little program for a quick image resizer for Windows 10,11

Windows Image Resizer

2022-09-16T11:22:00.004-07:00

I still think Google Docs is the easiest and free app/program for all your office and creative needs.

And it syncs across across all your Google accounts on any device that is signed in.

Get it at Google Docs

2022-09-16T11:07:00.000-07:00

It has been soo long since I have gotten back to the blog..have had much to deal with over the past coupla years as I am sure a lot of us have with Covid etc.

I will be posting Windows 10 info mostly but occasionally important Windows 11 tweaks as well.

Drag and Drop a Desktop Shortcut

If the app or folder that you’re wanting to pin to the Taskbar is already on your desktop, then all you need to do is click and drag the icon to the Taskbar. (HTG) No need to close out the app/program

HDMI to TV Monitor-no sound problem in Linux 19.2 etc

2020-01-03T23:13:00.000-07:00

You need the Pulseaudio Volume Controller

Using Terminal type in sudo apt install pavucontrol

Then go to Sound and Video in start menu

You will see Pulseaudio Volume Control

Open it and click "all output devices" lower right

On the top of menu

Input Devices- Monitor of HDMI audio

Output Devices-shows HDMI

Keep arrowing to the right to "configuration"

Go to Profile- in drop down hit HDMI PORT Digital Stereo

Now.....try your sound--it works!

When Linux wireless does not awake from suspend mode-here's how to fix it

2018-10-13T07:13:00.003-07:00

r8169                  34108  0 
mii                     4381  1 r8169
binfmt_misc             6587  1 
videodev               34361  1 uvcvideo
v4l1_compat            13251  2 uvcvideo,videodev
rt3090sta             905769  0 
vboxdrv               230432  2 vboxnetadp,vboxnetflt
joydev                  8740  0 
...

The Realtek 8169 ethernet device network connection is lost after returning from sleep.
So go into the hardware specification

type in Terminal

sudo lsmod

the result for this search is

...
r8169                  34108  0 
mii                     4381  1 r8169
binfmt_misc             6587  1 
videodev               34361  1 uvcvideo
v4l1_compat            13251  2 uvcvideo,videodev
rt3090sta             905769  0 
vboxdrv               230432  2 vboxnetadp,vboxnetflt
joydev                  8740  0

So name I was looking for is the name of "r8169" kernel module from the list above. Next thing is to add this kernel module to the list of kernel modules to unload before going to sleep and reload after returning from sleep. Do this by editing (creating it if it doesn't exist)
/etc/pm/config.d/unload_modules file like this:

sudo gedit /etc/pm/config.d/unload_modules

Now we add following to that file (you should replace "r1869" with the name of kernel module that is making problems for your configuration):

SUSPEND_MODULES="$SUSPEND_MODULES r8169"

That is it. Now put your PC to sleep and test is your troublesome hardware working after resume.

Courtesy of Techy Talk

Be careful with Bing Search Engine

2018-10-10T10:09:00.004-07:00

This article is courtesy of How to Geek this morning...I recommend using Duck Duck Go for your search engine for safety's sake

PLEASE READ

2018-10-07T13:37:00.004-07:00

For those of you who are getting the message on Facebook that someone who is already your friend wants to be your friend (again)....do not click on it or anything...

Run CCleaner and clear out the cache, cookies and temp files on your computer browsers....also create a NEW password on your FB page and then log out and log back in....

Try to keep safe in the great big web world.

2018-10-07T12:06:00.001-07:00

Hello FINALLY!
Due to cancer and being laid up for a long time I have decided to post some things that I feel needful
right now.
Welcome back to Tekkie's Tips!

For those of you who use LASTPASS and also have it running in Firefox....there seems to be an issue sometimes where the icon in the toolbar will not work anymore when installing or upgrading....you cannot get to the drop down menu....

here is the fix:

Click right on the add-on icon in toolbar. On top of pop-up window will be "lastpass". Click on it will open the login page and after login everything works just fine!

Windows 10 Appearance Tweaks

2016-09-26T11:07:00.004-07:00

another excellent article by How To Geek

HERE

Built in Ads in Windows 10...

2016-09-26T11:01:00.003-07:00

How To Geek has a wonderful article on how to disable all of Windows 10's built in advertising.
I suggest you all go there and read and do the suggested edits.

HERE

Windows Update-- the easy to understand way.....

2016-07-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

Manually reset the Windows Updates Components once again and then re-initiate the Windows Update process.

Resetting Windows Update Components will fix corrupt Windows Update Components and help you to install the Windows Updates quickly.

Please follow the below steps to reset the Windows Updates Components:

1. Press Windows Key + X on the keyboard and then select “Command Prompt (Admin)” from the menu. (right click on CMD-"run as administrator")

2. Stop the BITS, Cryptographic, MSI Installer and the Windows Update Services. To do this, type the following commands at a command prompt. Press the “ENTER” key after you type each command.

                           net stop wuauserv

                           net stop cryptSvc

                           net stop bits

                           net stop msiserver

3. Now rename the SoftwareDistribution and Catroot2 folder.

                         C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution-- Rename to SoftwareDistribution.old

                       C:\Windows\System32\catroot2-- Rename to Catroot2.old

(Make sure the processes have been stopped so that you are able to rename the folders)

4. Now, restart the BITS, Cryptographic, MSI Installer and the Windows Update Services. Type the following commands in the Command Prompt for this. Press the ENTER key after you type each command.

                        net start wuauserv

                        net start cryptSvc

                        net start bits

                        net start msiserver

5. Type Exit in the Command Prompt to close it and then restart the computer.

6.After restarting the computer, now retry to install Windows Updates.

Ref: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/971058

This process finally worked for me to be able to install Windows 10 on my Windows 7 Desktop computer.