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We had our windows updated recently, upstairs in the small bedroom that’s about to become home to an 11-month-old baby boy. They’d always been draughty, so they needed doing. It wasn’t cheap, but the work was fast and caused little inconvenience. It was certainly less painful than the Windows update Microsoft inflicted on my PC a few months earlier. I speak of the Fall Creators Update. Like many readers, I first struggled to install it, then found it had messed with my settings. And like many readers, I began to wonder whether updates are ever worth the hassle. I snapped out of it when I started using the new tools. It may not seem so initially, but each of the four major updates to Windows 10 (versions 1511, 1607, 1703…

EPSON Prosecutors in France are investigating whether Epson deliberately reduces the lifespan of printers and cartridges to force customers to buy replacements. The Japanese company is the first to be investigated under a French law that makes it a criminal offence to shorten a product’s life in order “to increase the rate of replacement”. France is thought to be the only country with such a law, though the European Commission is considering similar legislation across the EU. The lawsuit has been brought by French campaign group Halte à l’Obsolescence Programmée (The Stop the Obsolescence Program). It claims Epson’s ink cartridges are programmed to stop working when there is still 20 per cent of the ink left. Laetitia Vasseur, the association’s founder, said French consumers have been “scandalised by the short…

Microsoft plans to make it easier to block annoying notifications in Windows 10 by revamping the Quiet Hours feature, which works like a ‘Do not disturb’ tool for the operating system. At the moment you can set Quiet Hours to block notifications only between 12 midnight and 6am (see Microsoft’s instructions at www.snipca.com/26763). But a recent preview version of Windows 10 lets you choose your own hours on a schedule (see screenshot). The improved Quiet Hours also lets you choose to receive notifications from selected people and programs during these hours. This helps you prioritise the kind of messages you want to see instantly. You can also set it to switch on automatically during a presentation on a second screen, or when you’re playing certain games in full-screen mode. The…

Google has stopped automatically identifying photos of gorillas to prevent images of black people being ‘tagged’ as the animal. It follows a PR disaster in 2015 when Google Photos’ algorithms identified a photo of a black software developer and his friend as ‘gorillas’ (see screenshot). The outraged developer posted it on Twitter, causing huge embarrassment to the company. Google quickly apologised, saying it was “was appalled and genuinely sorry that this happened”. The company said it would take “immediate action” to stop the error recurring. Google’s solution was recently highlighted by Wired magazine, which uploaded 40,000 photos of primates to Google Photos. The magazine then searched for the animals, finding photos of baboons, gibbons, orangutans and marmosets, but not of gorillas, chimpanzees and monkeys. These animals could be found only…

I clicked GuruAid and was pestered for months I would like to echo your advice about avoiding GuruAid (‘What you must never search for on Google’, page 60, Issue 519). Years ago, when I was more naive about PC security and took more risks online, I always assumed the top result in Google searches was the best one to click. I didn’t realise they were adverts. Maybe it’s better known these days that Google makes most of its many through adverts. I phoned GuruAid because I was having endless problems installing Windows updates. I was expecting a friendly service, like a computing equivalent of a local plumbing firm. But instead I was subjected to a ‘hard sell’ that the most shameless double-glazing salesman would be embarrassed by. I may have…

Q I bought a Seagate Barracuda 2TB SATA hard drive for £59.99 from Ebuyer in July 2017. It worked well for four months, but then started reporting errors. A Seagate tool I used said the drive had failed. However, Ebuyer says I’m outside its 30-day warranty and must contact Seagate. Am I correct in saying Ebuyer is responsible, not Seagate? Robert Campbell A Yes, Robert is entirely correct, leaving us once again frustrated that companies don’t even know the basics of consumer law. Robert’s contract is with Ebuyer (the retailer), not Seagate (the manufacturer). The length of Ebuyer’s warranty is irrelevant when a product is inherently faulty. Under the Consumer Rights Act, customers have six years in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (five in Scotland) to return faulty items. Within…

Recently, despite all my best efforts, our TV set-top box gave up the ghost. Firstly, I phoned TalkTalk (my provider) and was told by an automatic voice recording that there was a fault with my phone line. Not surprising, as my phone line consists of ‘aluminium dust’ (not my words, those of the regular visitor in an Openreach van). Every attempt to bypass this diagnosis via TalkTalk’s website met with failure. With Christmas a week away, my last hope was the TalkTalk Forum (https:// community.talktalk.co.uk). TalkTalk I searched the threads relating to my problem and clicked ‘Best answer’. This basically agreed with my own diagnosis: the box was beyond repair! I pleaded for help on the forum. Within 24 hours I had written reassurance from two forum moderators and a…

Paint.net 4.0.21 IMAGE EDITOR www.getpaint.net What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 (v1607 and higher) We love Paint.net. It’s free and offers tons of advanced imageediting tools in an easy-to-use interface. It also has an active, friendly online community (https://forums.getpaint.net), and lots of user-created content, including tutorials and plug-ins. The latest version (4.0.21) offers a Dark theme that brings Paint.net’s look bang up to date and also makes it easier to focus on the photos themselves. We show you how to enable this in the mini-workshop below. Other improvements include support for high-DPI screens and the ability to view File Explorer thumbnails for TGA and DDS file types. The new release also fixes several bugs, including one that previously risked data loss when saving files larger than 4GB. Perhaps…

LAPTOP NEW ENTRY Asus ZenBook UX410UA £590 from www.snipca.com/26789 Tested: Issue 518 With a dual-core Intel i3 processor, 4GB of memory and 128GB SSD, this slim aluminium 14in has just enough power to make Windows 10 feel smooth – and unlike Asus’s cheaper models it has a very good Full HD screen. ALTERNATIVE: Dell XPS 13 This premium laptop starts at £1,149, but the best deal is with the brand new quadcore i7-8550 and QHD touchscreen. £1,300 from www.snipca.com/26796 DESKTOP PC NEW ENTRY PalicompAMDGravityRYZ1 £800 from www.snipca.com/26521 Tested: Issue 518 AMD’s Ryzen 5 1600 processor is overclocked to 3.7GHz to add extra power and speed, and it also has an excellent GTX 1060 graphics card. While spare PCI slots are lacking it’s easy to add SATA or M.2 drives. ALTERNATIVE:…

When typing on a phone or tablet you’re likely to make more mistakes than on a PC because of the smaller screen. Grammarly is a useful extension for Chrome and Firefox that highlights spelling, grammar and punctuation errors, and offers handy synonyms, so you can avoid repeating words. Its new free Android and iOS apps let you fix these mistakes with just a few taps. We’ll show you how to use the app to type faster and error free. STEP 1 Install the Grammarly app on your Android (www.snipca.com/26728) or iOS (www.snipca.com/26729) device. Open the app and tap Get Started. Although you can use it without creating an account 1, it’s a good idea to do so because then Grammarly will remember what you type and offer suggestions across devices.…

OFFICE SOFTWARE Save envelope templates in LibreOffice I’ve found an easy way to save and print envelope templates for future use in LibreOffice. First, open a new Writer document. Next, click Insert at the top, then click Envelope at the bottom. In the window that opens, click the Format tab, then click the Format dropdown menu in the Size section at the bottom (see screenshot). You’ll see a variety of envelope formats that you can use (I use DL Envelope). After selecting your format, click New Document at the bottom. In the window that opens, you’ll see your envelope, with fields for the sender and recipient addresses. To save this envelope template for future use, click File at the top left, move your cursor to Template, then click ‘Save as…

AGES 0-5 Little Hospital £2.99 www.snipca.com/26807 (iOS) This game lets your child explore various hospital rooms at their own pace. Each one has simple games that involve matching and counting items, and our favourite – tapping germs hiding in teeth. They can also drive the ambulance and find out how an X-ray machine works. AGES 6-10 Tinkerblocks £1.99 www.snipca.com/26808 (iOS) Computer coding can be daunting, but this well-designed and colourful app aims to simplify its concepts and make the process fun for kids. Using simple dragand- drop gestures, they can create their own mini-apps to take photos and create alarms. AGES 11-16 A Normal Lost Phone £2.29 www.snipca.com/26809 (Android) £2.99 www.snipca.com/26810 (iOS) This immersive game blurs the line between reality and fiction. In it, your teenager finds a lost phone…

WORD Make your page numbers stand out It’s easy to add page numbers to your document’s headers or footers. But if you want them to really stand out you could place them into different shaped boxes. First, click the Insert tab, click the Header or Footer dropdown menu in the ‘Header & Footer’ section and choose a style. Next, delete the page number that appears in the footer because you first need to create the box. To do that, click the Insert tab, then the Shapes dropdown menu in the Illustrations section and choose the shape you want. Now click and drag your shape to the footer area to add it there. You can customise your shape using the options in the Shape Styles section at the top. To add…

“It delivers stronger encryption and more effective protection, and makes it easier to connect devices” What is it? Short for Wi-Fi Protected Access 3, WPA3 is the next-generation encryption protocol for securing wireless networks. It was recently announced at the CES 2018 technology show in Las Vegas by the Wi-Fi Alliance (www.wi-fi.org), an organisation made up of leading tech companies, including Apple, Intel and Microsoft. Why is it important? Encryption is the only thing standing between your wireless network and anyone who wants to steal your data, hijack your connection or hack your devices. If you need to enter a password to connect your wireless devices to your router, then your home network is already encrypted. But flaws are often discovered in older encryption methods. WEP, for example, was commonly…

WHAT YOU TOLD US ON FACEBOOK www.facebook.com/computeractive OFFICIAL Just use original ink on my Epson, although a full set of cartridges costs more than the printer. Have tried compatible third-party ink in the past with limited success. Harvey Skipsey Canon originals. Have tried several brands of copies and always end up with quality issues and ruined glossy paper. Brian Lammey I would prefer to use third-party ink, but my Canon XP-630 can be very stroppy with them and not work. Glenn Faulkner HP Envy printer using HP Instant Ink. No issues with quality. On a previous printer I had all sorts of issues with third-party cartridges. Keith Moody THIRD PARTY I started off with original Canon inks, but now my printer is well out of warranty. I use third-party inks…

Q Those of us who used Windows Live Mail (WLM) for our emails were told in advance that it was not going to work any more. Sure enough, it stopped with a gloomy notice to tell us. However, I now find that it’s up and working again, as well as ever. Could it perhaps be that too many websites relied on WLM for their Contact Us pages and protested to Microsoft? If Microsoft got a flea in the ear, that’s no bad thing. Jack Leonard A We suspect you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Microsoft’s announcement wasn’t that WLM would stop working completely. Instead, it said it was discontinuing support for the tool – and that various Microsoft email services would stop working with WLM. This means that…

Where’s Sys Minion’s ‘Let’s Start It’ button? Q I downloaded Sys Minion 1.1, as recommended back in Issue 510 (see Best Free Software). All seemed fine until I reached the ‘Run as administrator’ part of your instructions. At this point I didn’t see any option to click ‘Let’s Start It!”, as you suggested. I was invited to link with Wise Auto Shutdown 1.65, which I had already installed. Any ideas? Mike Wooldridge A We’re not convinced you successfully downloaded and extracted the Sys Minion ZIP file. In fact, you may have double-clicked a completely different file, and one that lacks a file extension. This would prompt Windows to ask if you want to associate the unknown file type with an installed program. As a recently installed app, Wise Auto Shutdown…

It was a dramatic, chance encounter. The editor of Computeractive caught my eye as I nervously crept through the office. He told me that a reader by the name of Hally Hardie had emailed him to recommend me to Mensa. How could I not be flattered? It turns out, though, that the reader meant a trip to Mensa’s website (www.mensa.org.uk/iq-tests), as part of the ongoing quest to try and boost my ailing brain. I can’t say there are many Venn diagrams where the words ‘Simon Brew’ and ‘Mensa’ intersect, but nonetheless I took Hally up on her offer. Things started badly. The first brainteaser on the Mensa site had my brain handing in its notice. I quickly jumped to the online workout instead (www.mensa.org.uk/workout). Here, you’re given 15 minutes to…

You’ll soon be able to use Amazon’s popular Alexa ‘voice assistant’ on Windows 10 computers after Acer, Asus, HP and Lenovo all said they plan to build it into machines released later this year. This would let you perform some tasks on your computer with your voice without having to use Microsoft’s Cortana. Alexa is currently available in Amazon’s Echo range of smart speakers, which respond to your voice commands to play music and control your heating, and give information such as weather forecasts, traffic updates and news headlines. These devices were one of the big sellers in the UK at Christmas. Asus said it will add Alexa to new models in its range of VivoBook and ZenBook laptops (the UX410UA in the latter is our new favourite laptop –…

A new battery that charges wirelessly could revolutionise how devices are powered. The technology allows devices such as TV remote controls and smoke detectors to be recharged without you having to replace their batteries. US company Ossia says its Cota Forever Battery, available in AA and AAA sizes, works in a similar way to how Wi-Fi delivers data. First, a receiver in the device that needs charging sends a beacon signal to find the Cota transmitter, which is disguised as a tile in the ceiling. The transmitter then sends power back over the 2.4GHz wavelength to the source of the beacon. Ossia says this exchange happens about 100 times every second. The system knows which devices need power most urgently, and can prioritise accordingly. Signals can bend around people and…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: Pivot I enjoy messing around with computer graphics, but I’m no expert – so I was delighted to come across Pivot (www.pivotsoftware.com), a free animation program designed for beginners. It’s impressive how easily you can create stick figures, and make them walk, run, jump and dance with just a few clicks. What’s less impressive is the unwanted junk that the installer also drops on to your PC. In this case the culprits are our old friends, Yahoo and Avast Free Antivirus, which seem to have wormed their way into a lot of free software of late. They’re an insidious pair. The Yahoo software messes with your internet settings. If you’re using Internet Explorer or Firefox, your home page and search settings are changed, with no…

Bing’s the thing to replace Google I was staggered by your feature on scams in Google search results (page 60, Issue 519). I had no idea Google allowed so many dodgy links in search results. It made me thankful that I had already switched to Bing for all my searching. I made this decision a year ago, and was gently mocked by friends and relatives who said that Google couldn’t be beaten. But I like challenging popular wisdom. You can’t always assume that the masses know what’s right. In your feature you suggest people should try Bing to see if it suits them. It’s good advice, particularly if you perform lots of image (see screenshot) and video searches. Bing’s image filters are far superior to Google’s, making it easier to…

Q I gave Virgin Media 30 days to cancel my contract for broadband, phone and TV (to end on 1 December). But although I’m now with TalkTalk, I keep getting messages from Virgin saying I owe it £82 (two months’ payments). My contract hasn’t been cancelled and I’ve not been sent the packaging to return my TV box and router. Can you help? Terry Wareing A We contacted Virgin and it cancelled the contract straight away, waived the £82 fee, and refunded Terry £30 it had overcharged him previously. After cancelling, many customers receive unexpected bills for outstanding charges for services such as phone calls or film rentals that weren’t included in the last monthly payment. It’s best to keep a note of what calls you make and films you…

WATCH OUT FOR… ‘Convincing’ fake Debenhams email What’s the threat? A scam email claiming to come from retailer Debenhams has been described by Action Fraud as “the most convincing phishing email we’ve seen”. It’s an exact replica of a genuine ‘e-Receipt’ that Debenhams sends when customers buy an item in its stores (see image right). It states the time and price of your ‘order’, hoping to confuse you into clicking the link to check its “details and status”. Doing so will install malware on your computer, phone or tablet. Unlike many scams, it looks very authentic, with the correct Debenhams logo and a barcode. It’s written in good English, with none of the grammatical errors that normally give the game away. But you can tell it’s a scam by checking…

What can I use to manage my finances? Q I would appreciate your advice on finding the best alternative free software to Microsoft Money, which is a bit over the hill now and could be subject to hacks. I only do my personal accounts on my laptop so I’m looking for something comparable to Microsoft’s straightforward home-use tool. David Schofield A You’re right about Microsoft Money being over the hill – the company stopped supporting it in 2011, so any security flaws discovered in it would remain unfixed, which makes it risky to use. As a replacement, we’ve been recommending MoneySupermarket.com’s OnTrees (www.ontrees.com), which lets you link your online bank accounts and manage your finances online or via an iPhone app (there’s no Android version). Be aware that OnTrees occasionally…

PC MONITOR │ £200 from Amazon www.snipca.com/26759 A good spec for an all-round PC monitor is a 27in screen with 2560x1440 pixels, and you’d expect it to cost anywhere from 200 to 300 quid. The AOC Q3279VWF is right at the bottom of that price bracket, but instead of 27in it’s 31.5in. How big a difference is that? Well, it gives you more than a third extra space. The resolution is the same, so you’ll see the same Windows desktop, just bigger. Compared with cheaper Full HD screens, however, there are over 75 per cent more dots. In short, it not only shows you a lot of detail, but also doesn’t rely on you having the eyesight of a watchmaker to appreciate it. “We’d be happy using this for photo…

For years, most laptops were 15.6in, while power users favoured 17 inches. Display area aside, it was accepted that only a larger case could accommodate serious processing power. It was the era of the ‘luggable’ laptop. As components got miniaturised, the norm shrank to 13.3in. But are larger laptops making a comeback? At January’s CES technology show in Las Vegas, HP announced a new version of its Spectre x360 15 (see our review, Issue 505, pictured). Currently based on the same processor and graphics card as the ZenBook Flip UX560UQ, it’s switching to Intel’s upcoming H-series Core processors that have built-in AMD RX Vega M graphics. Laptops using this processor won’t need a separate graphics card, keeping them slim. They’ll be a new type of luggable – large, but lighter…

Q We have a Huawei P8 Lite phone (pictured) and use it to take photos because it’s light and convenient. But in bright sunlight we can’t see the screen. Is there a reasonably cheap one that’s better, or must we buy a camera? Michael Main A The P8 Lite, now available for around £130, is a great budget phone. The screen isn’t very colour-accurate, but it does go extremely bright, beating many more expensive phones. If you’re sure you’ve got it turned up to maximum and it still isn’t proving effective as a camera, it’s unlikely another model would solve the problem. The same problem is found with cheap cameras that only have an LCD screen, not a viewfinder. It just isn’t as easy to see in bright conditions. Photo-gift…

CyberLink’s outstanding PowerDVD software is the ultimate media centre. It packs in all the essential movie, music and photo player features you’ll need to fully enjoy all your content - in unbeatable quality. Version 17 adds the ability to watch Ultra HD and HDR videos, delivering better resolution, sharper colours and more vivid pictures. Anything you play on PowerDVD can be streamed to your TV through Roku, Apple TV or Chromecast. To enter, email your address to cacomp@dennis.co.uk with ‘powerdvd’ in the subject line by midnight 13 February. PowerDVD 17 Ultra is available now from www.cyberlink.com priced £79.99. For more information on CyberLink software follow @CyberLink on Twitter. CyberLink…

ANDROID & IOS Make the most of the updated OneDrive app OneDrive’s Android and iOS apps have recently been updated with new features that let you find items in your account with just a few taps. Install and open the app (Android www.snipca.com/26799; iOS www.snipca.com/26800), then log in using your Microsoft account. You’ll be prompted to sign up for its Premium account service, which costs £5.99 per month, gives you 1TB of storage space (you get 5GB for free) and lets you use Microsoft Office on your PC. If you don’t want this, tap the top-left back button, then tap Stay Basic to stay on the free plan. The updated app has five tabs at the bottom - Files (which it opens in by default), Photos, Recent, Shared and Me…

WINDOWS 8, 10 Follow your favourite sports teams MSN Sport is a free app that lets you keep track of your favourite sports teams. Previously a default app on Windows 10, you now need to install it from the Microsoft Store. Open the app and click the star (Favourites) icon on the left. You’ll see a list of various sports displayed as tiles. To remove the sports you don’t follow, click the pen icon at the top right, then close those tiles. To follow other sports that aren’t listed, click the purple ‘+’ tile, type the name of the sport and click to select it. Similarly, you can keep track of your favourite teams by scrolling to the Favourite Teams section and clicking the purple ‘+’ tile (see screenshot above).…

Access your bookmarks from everywhere There are lots of great bookmarking tools available, but many of them aren’t easy on the eye. Not so Raindrop (https:// raindrop.io). What’s more, this attractivelooking service (see screenshot below) is available for almost every platform – including Windows, MacOS, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, iOS, and Android. It lets you save anything, such as articles, photos, videos, and screenshots, and organise them in various ways. You can share and collaborate on content also. To use Raindrop.io in your browser, just click the ‘Install app or Extension’ button to add a bookmark, or drag an image or link to the drop zone that appears on the right. You can also simply press Ctrl+Shift+C. Find a bookmarked page based on a word it contains If you bookmark…

1 Don’t let updates interrupt your work By default, Windows 10 is configured to look for and install updates at random times of the day. But ‘random’ quite often translates to ‘just when I want to use my PC for something important’, resulting in you having to deal with a potential restart just when you’re trying to get some work done. Thankfully, Windows has a way to delay interruptions from updates until a time that suits you. Active Hours works by setting aside a daily period when Windows will block updates from bothering you. To use this option, click Start, Settings, ‘Update & security’, then ‘Change active hours’. Select your ‘Start time’ and ‘End time’ from the dropdown menus and click Save (see screenshot above). 2 Get more control over…

Q I’m switching from a Windows 7 desktop PC to a new Windows 10 laptop, and I would like to know how to shift my Dropbox files. I have a paid-for account with over 50GB of files stored. I understand that if I install Dropbox on the laptop it’ll download everything from the cloud, but we live in the sticks and broadband is terribly slow – so this could take forever. Could I speed things up by copying the files to my external hard drive? If so, how do I tell Dropbox that’s what I want to do? Jack Arnold A Are you keeping your old PC? It’ll be connected to the same network as the new laptop, so allowing Dropbox to sync over this network will speed things up…

Q I have an iPhone 5 that I use mainly to talk to my son and grandchildren. Increasingly, I find it hard to hold this little handset, as my fingers are losing their grip. As a result I’ve been using the speakerphone option so I can lay the phone on the desk and chat that way. However, I have to dial the number and then press the speakerphone icon every time. Is there any way to set the speakerphone option as the default? Henry Dudley A Yes, you can. From the iPhone’s home screen, launch Settings and tap Accessibility. Now swipe up to reach the Interaction section, and there tap Call Audio Routing. Finally, tap to tick Speaker (see screenshot). From now on, the speakerphone mode will be turned on…

Hackers are exploiting the advice to install updates to fix the Meltdown and Spectre flaws by offering their own fake updates that are riddled with malware. They are available on dubious websites claiming to be verified by security authorities. The malware, called Smoke Loader, was discovered by security firm Malwarebytes on a spoof German website. It urges you to download a ZIP file named ‘Intel-AMDSecurityPatch- 10-1-v1.exe’. One part of the malware is a fake update for Adobe Flash Player. Read more at www.snipca.com/26817.…

SKYPE GETS TOTAL ENCRYPTION Microsoft is testing end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in the beta version of Skype. It has teamed up with encryption-messaging app Signal to launch the Private Conversations feature. This form of encryption, already used by WhatsApp, can’t be intercepted by third parties, such as hackers or security services. For now Skype will encrypt only text, files and audio messages, not video or audio calls. Read more on Signal’s blog: www.snipca.com/26738. APPLE LETS YOU KEEP OLD IPHONES FAST Apple will soon release an update letting you turn off the feature in iOS that deliberately makes older iPhones slower to stop their batteries suddenly shutting down. The company admitted in December that it slows old iPhones, but claims it’s to improve user experience so phones don’t unexpectedly freeze or reboot.…

An app that lets patients talk to GPs over the phone has proved very popular with younger people, raising fears that the elderly and vulnerable may end up being neglected. A trial of ‘GP at Hand’ (pictured) began in five west London surgeries in November, giving 3.5 million people the chance to join. Its makers Babylon Health claims patients can have video consultations within two hours, followed by a face-to-face appointment if needed within two days. But Babylon, which lets patients join the service from outside a surgery’s catchment area, has been accused of “cherry picking” younger people whose conditions are easier to treat. Recent figures from NHS Digital show that of the 11,147 patients to have signed up from outside the surgeries’ local areas, 10,051 are aged between 20…

Whenever I think I’m about to snare a bargain on eBay, I hear a little voice at the back of my head warning me that it could be a scam. Happily, I haven’t yet been taken for a ride, but then I was lucky enough not to run into 39-year-old Norman Fowler from Colchester (pictured). He was recently convicted of cheating innocent people out of more than £21,000 on eBay and Gumtree, advertising expensive gadgets and jewellery that he didn’t own and had no intention of delivering. In 2016, Fowler was extradited from the Costa Brava, where he had fled under a false name (he claimed it was to start a new life, not to evade justice). Fowler is now serving a 20-month sentence on nine counts of fraud. But…

I’ve been a long-time reader of Computeractive and usually agree with your reviews. However, I think your review of the iPhone X (Issue 517, pictured) needs extending. I recently bought the 64GB iPhone X and have some points to make about it. You mentioned that the notch, which holds the camera and TrueDepth sensor, looks ugly, but I and many others disagree. After a few days of using the phone, you just get used to it (though I understand you had a limited time to review the phone). Also, using Face ID is fantastic, much better than fingerprint recognition on older phones. One more major point to add is the screen. I agree with you that it doesn’t match Samsung’s wraparound display, but also the glass doesn’t feel as smooth…

Q I bought a £ 199.99 Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8 tablet (pictured) from Argos in November 2017. It worked very well for about three weeks, but then I noticed it had started to warp and now the screen has cracked. I don’t remember if it was charging when it happened, but neither Argos nor Samsung will help me. A sales assistant in Argos told me that I’ve caused the damage. I definitely haven’t, so what can I do? Chris Melluish A This is one of those difficult cases where the fault can look like the customer caused the damage. When the decision lies with a sales assistant without the requisite technical knowledge, retailers are far too eager to leave it at that. But they shouldn’t. The Consumer Rights Act…

Amazon has come to the rescue for Computeractive reader John Hardman, who was getting no help from Amazon Marketplace seller Digimedia UK, which sold him a defective Freecom external hard drive (see Issue 519). Although John was well outside Amazon’s 90-day ‘A-to-z Guarantee Protection’ (www.snipca.com/26724), the company refunded him the cost of the drive (£67.36) as a goodwill gesture. John thinks the reason Digimedia refused a refund was because he’d paid using an Amazon gift card, and was therefore not covered by Section 75 of Consumer Credit Act. He assumed this meant he wasn’t. Not so. Any purchase over £100 is covered, including those made by gift cards - as long as the initial purchase of the gift card was made using a credit card. Digimedia would have been correct…

www.snipca.com/26717 When Mozilla launched Firefox Quantum in November, it radically changed how web extensions had to be built for the browser. Our fear that this would mean many popular extensions being abandoned by their developers has proved largely unfounded. Many excellent tools have been updated to work with Quantum, including Bloody Vikings (named after Monty Python’s famous ‘spam’ sketch), which gives you temporary email addresses to use when signing up for services. This is an effective way of avoiding spam. Once you install it, right-click the email box on a website, select ‘Bloody Vikings!’, then pick an email address (see screenshot). This will be entered into the email box. All emails from the service you’re subscribing to will now be sent to this address, so you’ll never see them. Chrome…

PC │ £700 from Argos www.snipca.com/26714 Medion is a German electronics maker that is now owned by Lenovo, the Chinese manufacturer that took over IBM’s PC hardware business more than a decade ago. You’ll have seen Medion computers (alongside its microwaves and coffee machines) in various supermarkets and chain stores. In fact, after we spotted this one on Debenhams Plus it sold out there, and we’ve been chasing it around the high street ever since. At the time of writing, the best price was in Argos, with Amazon and Tesco asking around £100 more. If you like the look of it, it’s certainly worth shopping around. “Not the fastest, but a good, solid all-round PC for the price” For now, the P4408 is not to be sniffed at. Described as…

What does it do? These days, projectors aren’t just for boring the vicar with 35mm slides from your holiday in Normandy. They plug into a computer, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick or other HDMI-equipped device, and offer an alternative to a big-screen telly for all your home entertainment. You could even use one as your regular PC monitor, although that probably only appeals to James Bond villains in bunkers under volcanoes. Why would I want it? TVs are getting ever larger, but they can’t compare with a projector’s ability to fill most of a wall with the picture while you microwave some popcorn and pretend you’re at the Odeon. Games are pretty exciting, too. Even at well under £1,000 – competing directly with TV sets – you can get…

Honey well Evohome Wi-Fi Connected Thermostat Pack £219 from Amazon www.snipca.com/26774 Evohome is one of the more powerful systems, but the basic starter kit includes only the boiler switch and a touchscreen control unit, which incorporates a room thermostat as well as the Wi-Fi link for the app. You’ll may want to add thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs) at £59 each, to make it worthwhile. When the point is to control heating from a mobile device, the touchscreen seems a waste of money, but it works well. Professional installation costs around £100, although it should be possible to do it yourself. The Evohome TRVs look clunky and make quite a whine as they activate. Their tilting LCD screens give you lots of info, if you bend down and squint. You can…

GN Netcom GN 9000-BT WHAT WAS IT? Introduced in 2000, the GN 9000-BT was the first commercially available Bluetooth headset. It was invented in Sweden by mobile-phone company Ericsson as a short-range wireless communication technology. Today, Bluetooth has moved on to be used for connecting wireless keyboards and mice to PCs, styluses to tablets, speakers to audio sources and smart watches to phones. The GN 9000-BT was marketed for office use, but the 9015-BT variant (pictured) worked with mobile phones, which were just becoming widespread. HOW HAVE THINGS CHANGED? Similar designs are still available, but modern versions are much more discreet. Ear-clip units became a much-mocked favourite of bankers, plumbers and taxi drivers, while Apple’s AirPods fit neatly in each ear for stereo sound. What probably wasn’t foreseen 18 years…

WhatsApp Business Free Android: www.snipca.com/26803 WhatsApp’s latest app is useful if you run a small business or work for yourself. As well as all the regular features you’ll find on WhatsApp, you can add a description of your business or personal skills, address, website, contact numbers, and opening times, as well as a section for answering FAQs. The Guardian Free Android: www.snipca.com/26804 iOS: www.snipca.com/26805 As well as moving to a new tabloid format for its newspaper, The Guardian has redesigned its apps. They now have larger buttons, more prominent menus and a new font. When you tap any article, you’ll see a new ‘Aa’ button that lets you change the font size using a slider. Truecaller Free Android: www.snipca.com/26806 Caller-identification app Truecaller now lets you back up all your contacts,…

If you like to watch videos on the web – and who doesn’t? – then MyVidster’s Video Bookmarks for Firefox and Chrome (www.myvidster.com) is the perfect add-on for you. It lets you bookmark videos from any site, then edit the title and description, add tags, and choose a thumbnail to represent it. You can create several channels to store your bookmarked videos in, and make them public or private. You need to sign up for a free account to use the service. You can also – in theory – download a copy of each video in MP4 format, but we’ve found clicking the button to do so always brings up a message about maximum downloads having been reached, and recommends you upgrade to Pro (for $5.99 a month) to bypass…

Q What exactly are Windows Updates? They are pieces of software that are periodically issued by Microsoft, often to fix problems that have been discovered or to improve Windows in some way. They are downloaded to your PC and applied via the Windows Update service that runs in the background. Q What different types of update are there? There are several types, which can go by different names, depending on the version of Windows you’re using. Essentially, however, updates tend to fall into three main categories: SECURITY UPDATES Sometimes referred to as critical updates, these are important fixes, issued whenever Microsoft needs to address dangerous vulnerabilities that have been found in Windows, such as the recent Krack Wi-Fi and Meltdown processor flaws. QUALITY UPDATES Known as hotfixes in previous versions…

Personal experience has taught me that there are only two things you need to conquer any update catastrophe: a little patience and a recent system-image backup. On more than one occasion I’ve been seconds away from turning my computer off at the ‘Don’t turn off your computer’ screen, assuming an update was stuck, only for it to spring back to life and complete successfully. That’s where the patience comes in. As for the system-image backup, that’s what brought my PC back from the dead when the Windows 10 Anniversary Update tried to kill it off. I was able to boot my PC to a system-repair disc, then restore my system image. Eighteen tense minutes later, I was greeted by my desktop as normal. I’d lost a few files because the…

These work differently to inkjet cartridges. Instead of squirting tiny dots of ink on to paper, they use a laser beam to create an electrostatic image that is then applied to the paper using a powdery ink. They’re much faster than inkjets, and tend to last longer, so you’ll save money in the long run, though the laser printer itself will cost much more. But don’t consider them if you’re after high-quality photos. They’re more suitable for printing text and graphics, which usually look very sharp.…

Q I’ve recently been automatically switched to Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (FCU) (1709). I find that I am now cursed with the Focused Inbox email system, which I do not like or want. However, I find that it is impossible to switch it off. When I do, the switch flips to the Off position but as soon as I leave the Settings pane it automatically switches back to On again. Is this another attempt by Microsoft to force unwanted functions on us? Derek Waters A We’re not aware that Microsoft has intentionally made this setting compulsory in Windows 10 Mail. We’ve tried flipping the switch on several Windows 10 PCs updated with FCU and they all behave as expected, with the switch remaining On or Off as selected –…

Q On an earlier PC I had a small program that allowed me to hit a keyboard shortcut to get my email address printed where required. I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the program, where I got it or how I set it up. Do you have any ideas? I am sure many of your readers would be interested. Brian M Phillips A We’re not sure which program you’re talking about but the function is that of a macro tool. These typically record mouse or keyboard actions, or both, and then play them back on demand. There are loads to choose from but your needs are very basic, so we’d suggest giving TinyTask a go. It’s a free download from www.tinytask.net. Launch TinyTask and then…

Q In Issue 518, you answered Sandra Taylor’s question about moving her Outlook data file. Sandra talked about a file with a.ost extension. However, when I tried to do the same on my PC, I noticed that the data file ended with a.pst extension. Did perhaps you or Sandra make a mistake? Or are PST and OST files different things? Scott Ingram A We didn’t make a mistake, though we understand why there could be confusion. Both PST and OST files exist, and are different. PST stands for Personal Storage Table, while OST is an abbreviation of Offline Storage Table. A little confusingly, Microsoft doesn’t itself now use these terms, referring instead to either an Outlook Data File (PST) or an Offline Outlook Data File (OST). Both store email messages,…

32bit/64bit A measure of how much data a PC can process at once. Most older PCs are 32bit, more modern ones are 64bit. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 802.11ac A standard for wireless networks that allows for much higher transfer speeds than 802.11n Add-on A program that adds extra features to your browser. Bandwidth A measure of how much information can be transferred through a connection at one time. Benchmarking Comparing software and products with an accepted standard. Beta A version of software that’s being tested. Beta versions are often released so problems can be ironed out. Cache A temporary space for storing information. Clean install An operating system installation that overwrites all other content on the hard drive. Clock speed The speed at which…