What this site is
Slide Tips is a place to find clear, practical answers for everyday tech problems—whether it’s fixing a frozen Windows update, untangling a stubborn PowerPoint glitch, or finally understanding why your Linux terminal keeps throwing errors. No corporate jargon, no assumptions about prior knowledge. Just the steps that actually work.
This site is for people who don’t have time for vague advice or tutorials written for someone else’s version of ‘beginner.’ It’s for the person who’s Googled a problem for the tenth time, for the student trying to set up a dual-boot system, for the office worker whose Outlook keeps crashing, or the parent whose kid just bricked their Chromebook.
If you’re here, you’re not looking for theory—you’re looking for a way forward.
| What you will find here | What you will not |
|---|---|
| Step-by-step troubleshooting for Windows, macOS, and Linux | Generic ‘try this if it works’ advice |
| Hardware and software reviews with real-world testing | Manufacturer marketing regurgitated as ‘honest’ |
| Productivity tips for Office Suite, PowerPoint, and Outlook | Corporate ‘best practices’ that ignore actual workflows |
| How-tos for everyday tech problems (Wi-Fi drops, driver hell, etc.) | Tutorials that assume you know terminal commands |
Meet the cook
Wesley Zamora runs this site and writes most of the guides—originally to stop himself from Googling the same problems over and over.
A day in the life of an editor
- 15:40 a.m.
Still half-asleep, I’m at my desk with a lukewarm coffee, reading through a reader’s screenshot of a corrupted Excel file. The error message is the same one I’ve seen three times this month. I make a note: *‘Add a step about checking for hidden characters in cell A1.’* The screen flickers—my monitor’s backlight is dying again, but I’ll deal with it later.
- 29:15 a.m.
The Wi-Fi drops for the fourth time today. I’ve reset the router, checked for interference, even unplugged the microwave (it was *not* the microwave). The ISP’s troubleshooting guide suggests ‘power cycling the modem,’ which I’ve done twice. I send a screenshot to the contact page instead of writing another ‘fix your Wi-Fi’ guide—this time, I’m the one stuck.
- 312:30 p.m.
Lunch is a sad sandwich, eaten at the desk while I test a new Linux distro on a VM. The installer hangs at ‘partitioning,’ so I switch to a different tool—only to realize the ISO was corrupted. I download it again, but the download stalls at 98%. I’ll try a mirror later. Meanwhile, I’m stuck between writing about this or just telling people to use a USB drive instead.
- 43:00 p.m.
A reader emails about a PowerPoint presentation that keeps crashing when they add animations. I’ve seen this before, but the steps I usually suggest don’t work this time. I spend 20 minutes testing different file formats, compatibility modes, and even a fresh Windows install in a VM. The fix? Disable hardware acceleration in PowerPoint settings. I add it to the guide, but the real lesson is that no two crashes are the same.
- 5Just after the school run
At home, I’m updating a review for a budget laptop that keeps overheating. The benchmarks look good, but the real-world test—leaving it on my desk for an hour—shows the fan screaming at 80% speed. I note that the review now says *‘adequate for light use, but not for sustained workloads’* and move on to dinner, which is microwave pasta because I’m too tired to cook.
I keep a sticky note on my monitor that says *‘If it works for me, it might not work for you.’* That’s the rule I break most often—especially when I’m in a hurry.
The site’s slowest guides are the ones where I assumed a reader’s setup matched mine, and the fastest are the ones where I tested three different methods before picking the one that worked *least* often.
The rules we hold ourselves to
These are the constraints that shape what gets published—and what doesn’t.
Every troubleshooting guide is built from real problems, not hypotheticals. If a step doesn’t work in three different environments, it doesn’t stay in the guide. This means some fixes take days to verify—but it also means they work when you need them.
The most useful guides here are the ones that answer the question you *actually* typed into Google. If a tutorial starts with ‘Open the Registry Editor,’ it gets rewritten. If a review skips benchmark details, it gets expanded. The goal isn’t to sound smart—it’s to sound like someone who’s been in your shoes.
Some problems don’t have a clean fix—just workarounds. Those guides take longer to write, and some get left out entirely. The site’s ‘no easy answers’ policy means you won’t find fluffy advice here, but you *will* find what actually solves the problem, even if it’s messy.
What we still get wrong
The site’s biggest blind spot is hardware reviews for niche or older devices.
We test what’s popular now, but a 2015 MacBook or a budget Chromebook from three years ago often gets skimped on—or worse, assumed to be ‘obsolete.’ This year, we’re prioritizing a backlog of older hardware guides, even if the traffic is lower.
Another weakness is Linux troubleshooting. The guides exist, but they’re often written from a desktop-user perspective. Server setups, specific distro quirks, and terminal-only fixes get less attention because they’re harder to test across setups.
Starting next month, every Linux guide will include a ‘distro-specific notes’ section, even if it’s just *‘This may not work on Arch.’*
How to reach us
We love hearing about problems you’ve solved (or couldn’t solve) with the guides here—especially if you’ve found a fix we missed. Screenshots, error messages, and even rants about confusing software are welcome on the contact page.
And if you’ve spotted a mistake in a guide, there’s a ‘Report an issue’ link at the bottom of every article.
The guides are grouped by category: App, Coding, Hardware, Operating System, Outlook and PowerPoint.