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If I were rich and famous enough to have my own personal entourage, I wouldn’t bother with a chauffeur, personal trainer or dietician. My priority would be hiring a Chief of Settings. Their job would be to go through all my devices and work out what needed to be tweaked to make them better, leaving me the time to do something more interesting, like catch up on repeats of The Professionals on ITV4. Will Stapley takes on that role in our Cover Feature. Using the powerful program ShutUp10, he shows you which settings you should change in Windows 10 to stop Microsoft knowing everything you do on your PC (programs you use, websites you visit, names you call it when it crashes without warning). Follow his advice and you’ll no…

A surge in demand for streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ led to a sharp rise in the time spent watching TV during lockdown, Ofcom has said. Its annual Media Nations report shows that people spent an average of six hours 25 minutes each day watching TV and online video – a total of almost 45 hours a week, and an increase of almost a third from 2019. Viewers watched streaming services for 71 minutes a day during April, double the time spent before the pandemic. Ofcom estimates that around 12 million people signed up to a new video-streaming service during lockdown, with around three million people subscribing for the first time. Many of these were older viewers who had previously watched only TV broadcast live on…

William English (pictured), who helped to invent the computer mouse in the 1960s, has died aged 91. Born in Kentucky, USA, he built the first mouse in 1963, working from notes written by Doug Engelbart, his colleague at the Stanford Research Institute. His prototype mouse (pictured) was a wooden block with one button. It had two rolling wheels underneath that moved at 90-degree angles to react to vertical and sideways movement. He and Engelbert had rejected other ideas, including joysticks, light pens and other “pointy devices”, after they proved unpopular during tests. In a 2008 interview (www.snipca.com/35703), he said the goal “was a device that would be able to select characters and words”. The pair wrote a paper on the device, but it remained largely ignored until they revealed it…

Knowing the law is crucial when arguing your case, but never overlook the power of perseverance too. Reader Harry Barnes refused to give up when Smart Cellular first said it couldn’t find the faulty refurbished iPhone XS (worth £599) he posted back to them, and then, when it found the phone, claimed it wasn’t even faulty (see Issues 581 and 584). Smart Cellular sent the iPhone to Apple to see if it could detect a problem. Its technicians spotted and fixed a fault with the iPhone’s software which was repeatedly turning the phone off, and returned the device to Smart Cellular. At this point, Smart Cellular could have returned the device to Harry and considered the matter closed. But it apologised to Harry that his case had dragged on for so long,…

IMAGE EDITOR GIMP 2.10.20 www.gimp.org/downloads What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 If our recent Cover Feature (see Issue 583, page 50) got you hooked on enhancing your photos, you should download the latest update to the open-source GIMP (or GNU Image Manipulation Program, to give it its full name). Although not classed as a ‘major’ update by GIMP’s developers, version 2.10.20 introduces a number of useful new features and tools. Those who like adding eye-catching effects to their images will be pleased to hear that the program’s filter selection has been boosted with four new options: Bloom, Focus Blur, Lens Blur and Variable Blur. There’s also a new way to customise the look and feel of the Vignette filter, which draws your attention to the centre of the…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: DVDVideoSoft Video Call Recorder for Skype A leopard can’t change its spots, they say. Well, that would certainly seem to be true with the software company behind ‘Video Call Recorder for Skype’ (www.snipca.com/35622): DVDVideoSoft. I’ve called out these guys for their junk-peddling ways in the past and I naively hoped they might have stopped clogging up people’s hard drives with unwanted programs and adverts. Predictably, though, this doesn’t appear to be the case. I came across Video Call Recorder for Skype when it struck me that it might be useful for video callers to capture a socially distanced moment – a birthday party, a grandchild’s piano recital or similar – over Skype to save for posterity. Initially, things seemed promising. Running the tool’s installer reveals…

Heavy lightweight While replacing its troublesome butterfly switch keyboard, Apple has cut the starting price of the MacBook Air by £200 to £999, which at the time of writing Amazon had reduced by another £50. Not much else has changed (see our review, Issue 543, page 24), but with the demise of the MacBook 12-inch, this is now the lightest and cheapest portable Mac. “A sharp screen, great keyboard and a processor that won’t keep you waiting” As such, it makes a very good first impression. The solid aluminium case, in Silver, Space Grey or pinkish Gold, is slim yet sturdy, and although the wide black borders around the screen make it broader than rivals, that’s put to use by comfortably spaced keys flanked by surprisingly effective Dolby Atmos speakers.…

What is it? Reverse charging means a device that you’d normally expect to charge up from a power source can provide power to something else. Generally, feeding power in the wrong direction is a recipe for loud bangs, smoke and regrets, so computer protocols like USB have made it as difficult as possible – for example, by using a different plug on each end of a cable. But USB-C introduced reversible charging, so accessories can be powered by a PC or supply power to it, over the same connection. The same is also possible with wireless charging, a feature of many smartphones, smart watches and wireless earphones. What does it do? The way wireless charging normally works is that you place your phone on a compatible pad or dock (nearly…

High end, low price OnePlus started out making Android phones under £500 that were better than you’d expect. Then its specifications crept up until it was competing with £1,000 big-brand flagship models at £800. Now the Nord promises the seemingly impossible: a high-end phone for just £379. Available in grey or pale blue, it’s finished in Gorilla Glass front and back. The sharp AMOLED screen has very slim borders and a notch at the top left for not one but two cameras, giving you an extra-wide option for group selfies. We found both sRGB and P3 colour spaces covered with near-perfect accuracy, and high brightness made HDR videos look amazing. On the back there are three cameras plus a depth sensor, starting with the same Sony 48-megapixel unit as the…

What were they? Smart lenses like Kodak’s Pixpro SL10 and Sony’s Cyber-shot DSC-QX10 (pictured), briefly popular around 2013-2014, were barrel-shaped gadgets that looked similar to a traditional removable camera lens, but designed for your smartphone. They were in fact digital cameras, complete with image sensor, that could record stills or video. A companion app showed a live preview and touch controls and saved pictures to the phone’s internal storage. Why did they die? The main selling point was zoom: when powered up, the motorised smart lens could telescope out several inches, giving at least 10x optical zoom – impossible for a phone camera. The image sensors, with upwards of 16 megapixels, were also higher-resolution than most contemporary phones. But at around £150, smart lenses cost more than compact digital cameras…

What you need: CD player and smartphone Time required: 30 minutes plus ongoing CD-conversion time CDs have staying power. Almost 40 years after they appeared, there’s every likelihood that you, like us, have a large collection at home – despite the rise of streaming services. Yet the options for playing them are getting fewer. Portable CD players are cumbersome, many new home hi-fis don’t include a CD deck, and many cars no longer have them. It’s time therefore to consider digitising them, so you can play them for years to come, at home or out and about. Here, we’ll explore which digital format is best, how you can transfer your music to your phone and – finally – how you can simplify the whole process by syncing your tracks online.…

SOFTWARE Download Lotus Organiser from Internet Archive I’ve just read David Woodward’s letter in Issue 584 (page 19) about not being able to use Lotus Organiser in Windows 10. I used Organiser for many years until it was discontinued. When I upgraded to a Windows 10 computer, I found that it was still available for free from the Internet Archive as part of a download for Lotus SmartSuite. I downloaded it and it’s still working perfectly on my desktop computer. Just yesterday I decided to download it to my laptop, and it installed perfectly again. You can get it by visiting www.snipca.com/35412 to go to the Internet Archive, then clicking ‘Windows Executable’ on the right, under Download Options. This will show several versions in different languages. Look for then click…

Sony Wireless Handy TV Speaker (SRS-LSR100) £169 from Amazon www.snipca.com/35500 I’m hard of hearing and need the TV volume up higher than my wife finds comfortable. Most solutions seem to mute sound from the TV speakers and project it via another speaker, nearer the listener (ie, me). While this would perhaps suit my needs, my long-suffering wife wouldn’t be able to hear the TV properly. I have a Sony TV, so eventually stumbled across the Sony Wireless Handy TV Speaker (SRS-LSR100). The base unit connects via the optical output and doesn’t interfere with the TV speakers or volume. This lets me have an enhanced speaker (which makes speech clearer) near me. It also acts as a remote control for the TV’s basic controls (on/off, volume up and down etc), and…

Dice Free Android www.snipca.com/35605 Roll up to six dice at a time and add or remove dice at will. You shake them by – literally – shaking your phone. Tapping a die freezes it so it doesn’t change when you shake again. Neatly, for visually impaired or blind users, it announces either the total value of the displayed faces or, if you’ve frozen one or more dice, the value of the unlocked cubes you’ve just rerolled. Best for Simple and intuitive play RPG Simple Dice Free Android www.snipca.com/35607 For some games, six sides are insufficient, and while other dice apps let you switch to irregular dice, RPG (Role Playing Game) Simple Dice presents a wide selection front and centre. Just tap the shape you want to use, and up pops…

MICROSOFT WORD & EXCEL Make Office look less cluttered Home to several tabs, the ribbon toolbar (the section along the top of an Office window) crams in many tools in a relatively small space. If you’d prefer to cut the space the ribbon takes up, click the small Ribbon Display Options button at the top right (to the left of the cross – see screenshot below). You’ll now see three options. The default, ‘Show Tabs and Commands’, means the full ribbon toolbar will always be displayed, giving you quick access to all options. Selecting ‘Show Tabs’ simplifies the ribbon so that it only displays the tabs. Click any of these, and the options for the selected tab will appear, before disappearing when you click away from it. Finally, ‘Auto-hide Ribbon’…

Eye Contact Who do you think you’re looking at? What is it? New technology from Microsoft that “helps to adjust your gaze” on video calls so it always looks like you’re making direct eye contact with the other people on your call, even if you’re staring at something more interesting on screen. Really? How can it do that? Using what most cutting-edge technology requires these days: artificial intelligence (AI). Writing online, Microsoft (www.snipca.com/35560) says it’s powered by the SQ1 processor, which it has built especially to bring PC levels of performance to laptops. Well, one laptop in particular. Which one? The Surface Pro X (pictured below). Microsoft launched it last year (see our review Issue 577, page 24), declaring it to be the firm’s thinnest laptop-tablet hybrid ever – just…

As with any system-tweaking tool, ShutUp10 should be used with caution. We thoroughly tested the settings covered in this feature to make sure they’re safe (see page 57 for more on this). However, we – and indeed ShutUp10 – recommend you leave the following settings alone… Disable Windows Defender Defender might slow your PC when scanning for viruses, but that’s a small price to pay if it means your files stay safe. Even if you use a separate antivirus tool, such as Kaspersky or Norton, you can leave this setting switched off. Windows Defender will turn itself off automatically when it detects another antivirus program on your PC, then switch back on if needed (such as if you uninstall your antivirus program). Disable SmartScreen Filter Another security tool you should…

Keep your laptop cool while using it on your lap Despite their name, laptops aren’t ideally suited to being used on your lap. Your legs may obstruct the fans as they try to expel the hot air your laptop generates, causing its components to overheat. As well as making your legs uncomfortably warm, this can lead to Windows crashing and, in severe cases, cause components inside to fail. If you do tend to use your laptop while sitting on the sofa, we recommend using something like Belkin’s CushDesk Comfort (pictured above). Similar to a TV dinner tray, it provides a hard surface for your machine (ensuring its fans aren’t obstructed) and a soft underside to rest on your lap. The CushDesk costs £18 (www.snipca.com/35705) and can be used with laptops…

1 The Mrocioa switch we chose (see page 62) draws power from the HDMI cables to which it’s connected, so there’s no need for a power adapter or extension lead to accommodate it. Start by connecting a spare HDMI port on your display 1 to the output port on the back of your HDMI switch. 2 Connect your devices (PC, laptop, satellite box, streaming stick and so on) to the input ports 1 on the back of your switch. Next, use an HDMI cable to connect your TV or monitor to the output port 2 on the switch. 3 Make sure the input source on your TV is set to the HDMI port the switch is attached to. With the Mrocioa switch, we can use the remote control or a…

Why won’t Gammy work? Q I tried to use Gammy (www.snipca.com/35222), as outlined in the Workshop in Issue 584. However, when I attempted to install it I got a message saying that Gammy won’t run on my version of Windows. I’m running Windows 10 with the May 2020 (2004) update, which I believe is the latest – so what am I doing wrong? Dave Morris A Probably nothing, but Gammy will work only on PCs with a 64bit edition of Windows 10 installed – and it sounds like your computer has the 32bit version. To check if this is so, first click Start followed by the Settings cog, and then System followed by About. Now, in the right-hand pane, scroll down to the ‘Device specifications’ heading and, below that, look…

Set up drag-and-drop defaults Drag and drop is such an easy task that even toddlers can master it. Well, mine both did – as they used to gleefully demonstrate every lunchtime. After just a few weeks’ training they’d learned how to drag bowls of porridge across the table and drop them on the floor. Lovely. “I’m a simple man, easily pleased, so I still feel a tingle of excitement when dragging an attachment into an email” My attempts to drag and drop are often just as messy. I’ll pick up a file from one folder, forget within nanoseconds where I was meant to drop it, then plonk it on the desktop until my brain starts working again (this could be the closest computing equivalent to forgetting what you went upstairs…

The Government has urged rural broadband customers to beat next year’s deadline for vouchers to help bring faster speeds to their homes. Digital Infrastructure Minister Matt Warman says people should take advantage of the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme, which lets a minimum of two homes and businesses club together to apply for funding towards the cost of installing gigabit (1Gbps) broadband. Rural premises with speeds of less than 100Mbps can use vouchers worth £1,500 per home, and up to £3,500 for each small to medium-sized business. Mr Warman said that £70m of funding is “still there for the taking”. The UK-wide scheme, which ends in March 2021, is part of the Government’s manifesto commitment to deliver gigabit speeds to the whole of the UK by 2025. The Department for Digital,…

The Government has announced proposals to make it easier for voters to know who has made online political adverts. It’s promising “the same transparency” online that currently exists on leaflets and posters, which must show who made and paid for them. It wants online content from parties and campaign groups to carry a “digital imprint” that shows who created it, helping regulators “to better monitor who is promoting election material and enforce the spending rules”. The rules will cover all campaigning, all the time, not just during elections and referendums. At the moment, there’s no legal requirement for online political advertising to be truthful or factually accurate, or to state who has paid for it. There has been a huge shift towards online advertising. According to the most recent Electoral…

Millions will rely on the web after lockdown Regarding Adam Martin’s Star Letter in Issue 585 (‘Internet use will plummet now lockdown has ended’), he’s addressing his own particular small sector and is lucky that he has been allowed out of his home. He should be reminded that there are over two million vulnerable people who have been in total lockdown for four months. Many people have adopted internet-related technology in different ways to survive. Even after their restrictions are lifted, the vulnerable will be at risk if they go out and many are therefore likely to continue relying on the internet for deliveries, which rescued them from starvation at the start. They’re also likely to be using eBay more to make DIY and garden purchases, while younger people are…

I’ve had my broadband connection supplied by BT for a good number of years, but I annually check for their best price. I recently noticed that my hub kept dropping out – three times in one Saturday morning. A broadband speed test showed just 5.8Mbps. I phoned BT’s help desk and booked an engineer to visit with a mini-hub two days later, between the hours of 8am and 1pm. He arrived at 8.15, confirmed my speed and that the best I’d ever had was 24Mbps. He spent three hours finding there was corrosion underneath a nearby manhole cover and that a never-used telephone point in a recent extension was causing interference on the line. I now have over 65Mbps! Thanks for the service BT. Nigel Hudson Has a company impressed you…

What email program can I use with Windows 7 & 10? Q I’m having problems with Mozilla Thunderbird on my vintage Toshiba laptop, which runs Windows 7 and can’t be upgraded to Windows 10. Because I only use it for emails and web browsing, I don’t want to spend money on a new computer just yet. Can you suggest an alternative email program that will work on Windows 10 when I eventually upgrade? John Domjan A Decent desktop email programs are harder to come by these days, thanks to the popularity of webmail and mobile apps (such as Gmail and Microsoft’s Outlook.com). Of those available, Thunderbird is without doubt the best. Before looking elsewhere, we recommend making sure you’re running the latest version to see whether it solves the problems…

As you may have seen in the news, Apple has decided to move its Macintosh computers from Intel processor chips to its own, using technology from UK company Arm, whose history began in the 1980s with the BBC Micro computer. Apple’s equivalent of Windows, macOS, will support both old and new systems and software. In the meantime, App is still making Intel Macs: an upgraded iMac has just gone on sale. The first so-called Apple Silicon models, expected towards the end of the year, could include a MacBook Air or similar, so you may want to wait – or you might prefer to avoid version 1.0. There are PCs that run Windows 10 on Arm chips, including Microsoft’s Surface Pro X (see Issue 577, page 24), but not every existing…

Rounded up While the Apple Watch has had a substantial update every year, rivals based on Google’s Wear OS (formerly Android Wear) haven’t been so well marketed or received, and it had been long since the Moto 360 was updated (see our review, Issue 466, page 24) that we’d forgotten all about it. This third-generation model comes in three colours, each with both leather and silicone straps, and is rated for swimming. The metal cases have a classy traditional feel without being fussy, and are pleasant to wear. Even if you keep the very sharp OLED screen at medium brightness rather than in battery-saving mode, you’ll easily get through a day before recharging, which requires the supplied magnetic USB cable rather than a standard wireless pad. GPS and a heart-rate…

LAPTOP PRICE DROP Honor MagicBook 14 £500 from www.snipca.com/34688 Tested Issue 580 Using an AMD Ryzen 3500U processor, this lightweight metal laptop beat Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 3 with Intel’s i7-1065G7 in our tests. The 14in Full HD screen lacks colour accuracy but looks decent. For the money, it’s a great buy ALTERNATIVE Dell XPS 13 New Intel CPUs and a taller screen make this a more powerful, all-round slim notebook, although prices now start at a steep £1,349. www.snipca.com/35349 ANDROID TABLET Samsung Galaxy S6 £619 from www.snipca.com/34752 Tested Issue 571 Although it resembles the iPad Pro, this competes more directly with the basic iPad and, considering the included S Pen stylus and generous 128GB of storage, costs about the same. It’s less powerful, but a great tablet if you prefer…

In Issue 584 (page 62), you mentioned that Excel by default does not automatically save backups, and explained that users need to set this for every workbook they create. There is a way around this which I have used since Excel 2000 at least, although it isn’t terribly obvious. Open a new workbook and, as you described, click ‘Save as’, the Tools button, followed by General Options, then tick ‘Always create backup’ (see screenshot) and click OK. Save the workbook as ‘Book1.xlsx’ (or ‘Book1. xls’ on pre-2007 versions of Office). Now, you need to locate the XLSTART folder on your computer (somewhere like C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\ XLSTART). Place a copy of the Book1 workbook you just created in this folder. When you open Excel in future, it will load…

ANDROID & iOS Let your device decide when to use night mode Night shift adjusts the hue of your screen to make using your phone in the evening and at night more comfortable. It reduces glare and cuts the amount of blue light generated by the LCD. The same is true of the equivalent setting on tablets and in Windows, which has its own night mode (open Settings, and click System, followed by Display, then ‘Night light settings’). It’s easy to forget to turn night mode on and off – especially during an extended session that started in twilight, when you might not have noticed the room around you getting dim. But as your phone always knows exactly what time it is, and tracks sunset and sunrise while never tripping…

WINDOWS 7, 8.1 & 10 Find out where a photo was taken Most of us are inundated with photos – whether they’re our own or ones sent to us by friends and family – so remembering precisely where each one was taken isn’t easy. If you’ve found a photo but can’t identify its setting, check whether this information is part of its EXIF data (most phones and some digital cameras have a GPS receiver). To find out, get the latest version of PropertySystemView from NirSoft (www.snipca.com/35725 - scroll to the bottom for the download links). Extract the ZIP file to a folder on your PC, then run the EXE file within it. Next, open File Explorer (press Windows+E), navigate to the photo, then drag it into the middle section of…

When you copy a formula from one cell to another, Excel and Calc will adjust it so that it references the relevant cells. For example, if you want to add up the numbers in cells A1 to A10, you could use the formula =SUM(A1:A10) in cell A11. To do the same for cells B1 to B10, you’d simply copy the formula from A11 to B11 – then Excel and Calc will automatically adjust the formula to read =SUM(B1:B10), and so on. However, sometimes you won’t want the formula to be changed in this way. In our example, we want to calculate the subscription fees for a local club, based on the number years each member is paying for. To calculate the first member’s fee, we multiply cells B2 (the number…

By default, your laptop will go into what’s called a ‘sleep’ state when you close the lid, allowing it to start back up in a few seconds when you next open it. Although it seems like your laptop is switched off, it actually still draws power when asleep - albeit much less than when your laptop is awake. However, if your laptop battery is quite old you’ll want to conserve as much power as possible. To do this, switch to what’s known as ‘hibernate’ mode instead. Unlike sleeping, this saves your laptop’s current state to your hard drive, then shuts it down completely so that it draws no power. First, open Settings (press Windows+I), then go to System, ‘Power & sleep’ and click ‘Additional power settings’. In the window that…

What if you have a single input, such as a Sky TV box that you want to send to two screens so you can watch the same channel in the lounge and kitchen? In this case, you need an HDMI splitter, such as the £11 Techole splitter (www.snipca.com/35645). This lets you connect one video source to a pair of screens, then choose which one to send the video to with a single button press. Alternatively, if you want to send a video signal to two screens simultaneously, consider the Avedio splitter (£14 from www.snipca.com/35647, pictured), which streams a single 4K or lower-resolution source to two displays. When streaming to two screens simultaneously, your Freeview box (or whatever you’re using as your video source) will detect the resolution of each display…

Q I’ve taken advantage of one of the offers at the Computeractive Software Store (https://store.computeractive.co.uk, see screenshot below) to buy a copy of Windows 10. However, by following advice in your magazine I’ve managed to upgrade my Windows 7 computer to Windows 10 free of charge. So, my paid-for copy of Windows 10 is sitting doing nothing. What can I do with it? Is there a time limit on its use? James Chalmers A Our Windows 10 offers have proved extremely popular, which is no surprise given the substantial discounts that are sometimes available. You’re free to pass on or even sell the code but our offers are intended as a benefit to our readers. As such, we do encourage people to make use of them. So, we would advise…

Microsoft will soon give you more information on the tools that have been added to Windows 10 in major updates, having admitted that it’s not done a good job explaining these in previous updates. It has unveiled a new Tips app (pictured) that will “highlight the most exciting changes on your PC after a major Windows 10 feature update is installed”. The app is available now in the Preview Build for Windows 10 (version 20190), available to users signed up to the Windows Insiders programme. Writing online (www.snipca.com/35753), Microsoft’s Brendan LeBlanc acknowledged that not knowing what’s changed makes it hard for users to “learn about and try out new features and improvements”. “This means that updates can feel time consuming without real benefit to you, and we want to change…

TOSHIBA AXES PCS AFTER 35 YEARS Toshiba has officially stopped making computers after selling its final stake in the Japanese firm Dynabook, which is owned by Sharp. Its first laptop, the T1100 (pictured), launched in 1985 with a 3.5in floppy drive and 256KB of RAM. Toshiba’s worldwide computer sales have plummeted in the past decade, falling from 17 million in 2011 to just 1.9m by 2017. HAVE I BEEN PWNED GOES OPEN SOURCE Troy Hunt, who runs the popular Have I Been Pwned? website (https://haveibeenpwned.com), is making it open source so that other developers can build similar security tools. It works by checking whether your email address has been leaked in security hacks. It currently has 10.1 billion hacked email accounts in its database. Read more on Hunt’s blog: www.snipca.com/35704.…

Intel may have triggered the demise of old USB ports after a leaked document indicated that its upcoming USB4 controller for laptops won’t support older Type A ports, only the newer Type C USB4 is a new connectivity standard that transfers data at 40Gbps, which is twice the speed of the current standard (USB 3.2), and eight times faster than USB 3.0. It can also prioritise different tasks to minimise disruption. This helps when it’s handling two tasks, such as simultaneously transferring video to a monitor and files to an external drive. It can split these tasks, ensuring your video quality isn’t affected by the files being transferred. However, new details reportedly from Intel indicate that its USB4 controller will be ‘backwards compatible’ only up to USB 3.2, meaning it…

WATCH OUT FOR… Malware stealing your email attachments What’s the threat? A new version of the notorious banking malware Emotet, which steals your email attachments and adds them to spam emails it then sends to your contacts. The criminals behind it hope the attachments will make the emails seem genuine, tricking the recipients into opening them. It was spotted by researchers at security firm Cofense Labs, who published the screenshot right as an example of an email sent with several attachments – in this case three Word documents (one plausibly titled ‘Accounts’) and two PDFs, plus a ‘dropper’ link from which to download them. Cofense said that other spam emails it detected contained attachments of invoices, job opportunities and delivery information. It’s not yet known exactly what clicking the attachments…

How can I choose the right repair shop? Q You often suggest that readers can pay for an “independent inspection” to check whether a device is inherently faulty. Exactly how can one assess if an independent inspector is suitably qualified to carry out the task? And how do you know whether the manufacturer will accept the report written by the inspector? Sean Doyle A That’s a very good question and one we’re sure many readers would have asked themselves during the years we’ve suggested taking faulty devices for an independent inspection. However, there’s no simple way of knowing whether an independent repair business has staff that’s suitably qualified, so choosing the right one will always require significant judgement on your part. Part of the problem is that there isn’t a…

How you’re related to distant cousins As your family tree grows and you find yourself in contact with distant relations, one of the trickiest tasks is working out your exact relationship to them. Are you second cousins, or first cousins once removed? Trying to define this can be confusing, particularly when you discover first cousins once removed can be found in two different branches of your tree. To get a clearer picture of first, second and even third cousins, download this flowchart from the Devon Family History Society: www.snipca.com/35468. It shows that a second cousin is the grandchild of your grandparents’ brother (granduncle) or sister (grandaunt), while a first cousin once removed can be either the child of your own first cousin or the child of your granduncle or grandaunt.…

Regular readers will recall that I recently upgraded my ageing laptop with a new SSD and some extra memory (see Issue 582, page 62). However, try as I might, I couldn’t fix my laptop’s right-arrow key, which stopped working in about 2015. I’ve since found a workaround using a tool called SharpKeys (select the MSI link next to Download SharpKeys 3.9 at www.snipca.com/35719), which lets you change the function of any key on your keyboard – a process known as remapping. Unlike most laptops, my Acer Aspire 5738 has a numeric keypad. While I find this useful, it’s not as essential to me as a fully functioning set of arrow keys. And because it sits adjacent to my broken key, I decided to commandeer the ‘0’ key on the numeric…

Light fantastic Samsung’s Galaxy Book comes in several versions, all have less in common with Microsoft’s Surface Book (a tablet with a detachable keyboard) than the Surfa Laptop. The Ion is essentially an ordinary Windows 10 laptop, except doesn’t feel ordinary at all. It comes with a 15.6in screen at £1,299 (www.snipca.com/35653) or in this 13.3in version for £50 less. Considering both have the same Full HD resolution, the 13in seems the obvious choice, especially considering it weighs an incredibly light 970g. “A strikingly slim and lightweight laptop that packs a lot in” The screen, in fact, is a strong point. Although it doesn’t have the sharpness of 4K, or even the MacBook Air’s 2560x1600 pixels, it’s perfectly adequate at this size, and Samsung’s QLED technology, using ‘quantum dot’ semiconductors…

What’s the best laptop for my student daughter? Q My daughter needs a Windows laptop for university. It needs a number pad, a good webcam and microphone for Zoom lectures, a headphone jack and storage for a lot of essays. I have no idea what I’m looking for! I think she may need an i5 chip, but they come in different generations. Natasha Gregor A Happy to help, Natasha! Only a few larger laptops, such as LG’s Gram 17 (from £1,278, Amazon www.snipca.com/35670, see our review, Issue 581, page 23), have number pads – the popular 13-14in sizes are more portable. A basic 256GB SSD will store a lifetime of essays, although her photos and videos will gradually fill it. 8GB of memory (RAM) is standard. You’ll only see recent…

Sentry box From the same US company as Anker accessories, this doorbell security camera is comparable to the Ring Doorbell 3 Plus (see our review, Issue 586, page 29) and similarly contains a battery that you can recharge about twice a year, so you don’t have to run wiring to the front door unless you want to. Rather than being self-contained, it comes with a compact HomeBase unit that sits inside your house and connects it to your Wi-Fi. While Ring products upload recorded video to online storage, requiring an ongoing paid subscription, Eufy’s HomeBase contains 16GB of storage from which you can access your recordings over the internet. It’s just a shame this can’t be expanded. “Easy setup, high-quality video and offline storage option” A chime is built in,…

This competition gives you the full Wi-Fi 6 Netgear experience by offering as prizes the Nighthawk EAX80 extender (pictured top right), and the RAX120 router (bottom right) – both of which support the latest 802.11ax Wi-Fi standard. Winner of a Computeractive Recommended award in Issue 584, the EAX80 boosts your Wi-Fi speed throughout your home, supporting eight streams – half on the 2.4GHz band, and half on 5GHz. It has four Gigabit Ethernet ports, and a USB 3.0 sharing port. The RAX120 router provides 12 simultaneous streams, and blazingly fast speeds up to 6Gbps that guarantee smart home applications, ultra-smooth 4K UHD streaming, online gaming, and more. To enter this competition, email your home address to cacomp@dennis.co.uk with ‘netgear’ in the subject line by midnight 8 September. Good luck! You…

Wunderlist I gave up on Wunderlist because Microsoft gave up on it! I’m not keen on its replacement To Do – it just doesn’t match how my brain works. And what I use instead… I wanted to use a program that made it easy to import my Wunderlist details, and Todoist (https://todoist.com) did just that. It works across all my devices – Windows PC, iPad, Android phone – and has some excellent organisational tools. I need to set up reminders to help elderly relatives with important tasks, and Todoist’s ‘Add Task’ button (see screenshot) makes this simple. It’s also easy to sync it with my Google Calendar, which I can share with family members. I’ll go as far as saying it’s better than Wunderlist – and I used to love…

Alexa Free iOS www.snipca.com/35611 Amazon is rolling out an update to its virtual assistant app for iOS, which will make the app’s home screen more relevant to your needs. This may include displaying your music playlists, reminders, alarm options, shopping lists and frequently used settings. It constantly monitors your actions, so the more you use the app the more personalised your app home screen will become. Microsoft Remote Desktop Free Android www.snipca.com/35608 When you need to remotely access the full features of your PC – not just view its screen on another device – Microsoft’s Remote Desktop app for Windows Professional and Enterprise versions is one of best options. Microsoft has just updated the Android app so that it offers full support for virtual desktops and Android TV devices, as…

Microsoft’s Edge browser has become a serious rival to Google Chrome. However, you may have noticed it continues to run in the background after you’ve closed it. This means any extensions or web apps you’ve installed can continue to run, and helps Edge to load. Although this doesn’t take up much in the way of system resources (around 50MB of memory when we checked on our PC), if you have an older, slow computer you’ll probably want to close all unnecessary programs running in the background. To check whether it’s set to run in the background, open Edge then close it. Now click the up arrow in the system tray (bottom-right corner of your desktop). If you see the Edge icon, it means the browser is running in the background.…

Convert old spreadsheets to share with members From membership lists to inventories, your club will probably use spreadsheets from time to time. But while an ‘offline’ spreadsheet – such as those created by LibreOffice Calc and Microsoft Excel – is fine as long as only you need access to it, things can get complicated if you have to share it with others. You’ll need to email a new version every time you update one, and you still run the risk of members referring to old versions. Worse still, if other people update the one on their computer, you’ll have several versions flying around – and that’s a recipe for disaster. Google Sheets (Google’s free online spreadsheet tool) solves all these problems. You don’t have to worry about re-entering all your…

One reason we love ShutUp10 is its simple design – all system tweaks are displayed in a single window and divided into 15 sections. To enable a setting, click the slider to the left of it so that it turns green. To disable it, click it again and it will turn red. ShutUp10 will warn you if any setting change requires you to restart your PC. If you want to see a brief description of what a setting does, click it once. In the Actions menu, you’ll see options to ‘Apply only recommended’ and ‘Apply recommended and somewhat recommended settings’. We don’t actually recommend using either of these because they both make wide-reaching changes to Windows. Instead, we suggest you read through our feature to find out exactly what each…

Subscribe to today and save on the single issue price. Each issue of Computeractive will be delivered directly to your device each fortnight. SEE NEXT PAGE FOR SET-UP INSTRUCTIONS HOW TO SUBSCRIBE… … on an iPad or iPhone STEP 1 Return to the Computeractive library STEP 2 Choose your subscription term and tap twice on the 'price' box STEP 3 Choose whether to create an optional PixelMags account STEP 4 Enter your Apple ID password to confirm … on a Kindle Fire Kindle Fire subscriptions come with a FREE one month trial. STEP 1 Tap 'Free Trial Subscription' in the Computeractive library STEP 2 Chose your subscription term from the drop down menu on the popup that appears STEP 3 Tap 'Subscribe' … on an Android device STEP 1 Open…

Q A couple of years ago my wife bought me a weather station, and I started making daily observations. I decided to keep a record of them in Google Sheets: specifically, in a single workbook with a separate spreadsheet for each month. I use quite a bit of formatting, so I begin each month by duplicating last month’s spreadsheet, renaming it and deleting the data itself. As I reached the end of February, I realised that at the start of the month I’d forgotten to duplicate my January spreadsheet, so I’d actually deleted and overwrote my January observations. I realise that I could probably use the sheet’s version history to recover January’s weather, but then I’d lose my new observations covering February and the beginning of March. I really don’t…

Apps and applets? Q Having recovered from an illness (fortunately not Covid-19), I was just catching up on some old issues. Back in Issue 578’s Problems Solved pages you explained the difference between applications and apps. Your description was very clear, but it reminded me of when I first started reading Computeractive, back in the days of Windows XP. Then, you would often talk about ‘applets’. It’s a term I don’t think I’ve seen in your pages in a very long time. I can barely remember what applets were, other than something do with Windows, perhaps? How do they differ from or otherwise fit in with apps and applications? Trevor Mayfield A We love this question, both for its nostalgia value and the completist nature of your need to know!…

32bit/64bit A measure of how much data a PC can process at once. Most older computers are 32bit, more modern ones are 64bit. 3G/4G/5G Technologies that deliver faster mobile broadband. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 720p/1080p/1440p Common types of high-definition video of 1280x720, 1920x1080 and 2560x1440 pixels respectively. 802.11ac A standard for wireless networks that allows for much higher transfer speeds than 802.11n. 802.11ax Wi-Fi standard with speeds up to 10 times faster than 802.11ac. Also called Wi-Fi 6. Adobe RGB A wider colour space than sRGB, extending into richer cyans and greens. AMOLED Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode. An alternative technology to LCD for creating flat-panel displays. Aspect ratio A measurement of the shape of a display. Traditional PC screens are 4:3. Widescreen displays are…