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On the first day of lockdown, back in March, I taught myself how to use Zoom. The same week I downloaded Plex and uploaded all my music and videos. More than six months on and I’ve ditched Zoom for Google Meet, but Plex remains the first program I open after booting every morning. It’s transformed how I stay entertained on my computer. It’s always a big statement to devote our Cover Feature to just one program, but Plex deserves it. I’ve never used anything that makes it so easy to organise and stream media. It proved a lifesaver during lockdown. I installed it on my NAS drive so I could stream music to wherever I called my office (loft, sofa, bed, kitchen table). I write as another national lockdown looms,…

Council websites across the UK are still riddled with accessibility problems that make it difficult for disabled people to use them, a leading charity has claimed. Scope tested the websites of county councils and found that nine of the 10 with the biggest populations are failing to meet regulations set by the Government. All public-sector bodies, including local authorities, central government departments, universities and NHS trusts, had until 23 September to update their sites so they’re accessible to disabled people. But a week before this deadline Scope found major problems with many council sites. Researchers tested how easy it is for a blind or visually impaired person to use a service offered on a council’s site, or to access information on important subjects such as coronavirus. The most common problems…

CCleaner now lets you opt out of seeing offers to download other software made by Avast, which owns the program. The option is part of CCleaner 5.71 (www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/builds). Once installed, click the Options (cog) icon on the left then Privacy, and untick the ‘See possible upgrades and offers for our other products by sharing app-data usage with us’ (1 in our screenshot). You can also untick the box to share data with CCleaner about how you use the software 2. The box to see offers from ‘3rd-party’ (ie, non-Avast) companies is unticked by default 3, so leave it as it is. CCleaner is part of Piriform’s collection of programs, also including Defraggler and Recuva. Since buying Piriform in 2017, Avast has been criticised for promoting these tools in CCleaner, as…

Often I read criticism of PC World for poor customer service, so it’s time to give them some credit. I recently ordered an Acer PC, Philips E line PC monitor and a copy of Microsoft Office. Setting up the computer and PC went as expected. Setting up Office did not. I lost two nights of sleep and drove my poor wife up the wall. I contacted PC World and it took a long time to get through. In the end John came to my rescue. In a calm voice, he explained that I should have first uninstalled a trial copy of Office. I can’t blame PC World for that. Manufacturers should go back to providing instructions to help customers set up. Tony Stewart Has a company impressed you with its…

Q Much to my wife’s amusement, I’ve recently found myself turning into something of an amateur plane spotter. Can you recommend an app to help me identify planes? I’ve tried a few on my HTC phone, but they all wanted me to pay to use them. Keiron James A For commercial aircraft, you’d be hard pushed to find better than Flightradar24, which is available for Android and iOS (www.snipca.com/36142). Tap the arrow button (bottom-left, see screenshot) to centre the map on your location (you’ll need to give the app permission to use your location when you do this), then tap a plane for information such as manufacturer and number, its origin and destination airport, speed and altitude. If you want to only show specific planes, tap Filters. You can narrow…

PC £1,300 from Cyberpower www.snipca.com/35954 Tinted Windows Installed in a Cyberpower-branded Onyxia case, this is a neat black slab of a desktop PC tower with dark tempered glass across the front and left panel. Despite the supplied remote controlf or colourand brightness, there’s just asingle strip of LEDs fitted inside, and no Catherine-it can be wheel fan lighting, although added if you fancy it. The fansare helped along by a water-cooling system attached to the Intel i7-9700KF processor, which gurgles noticeably even when you’re not doing much. It may not be tooo noticeable if you keep the PC under your desk, but if you need complete quiet, alternative air-cooling options are available when you order, as is acoustic insulation. Looks the part and has the power to get most jobs…

PC MONITOR £259 from Amazon www.snipca.com/36022 All white on the night From time to time, as a public service, we like to remind you how to say ‘Iiyama’. That’s a capital ‘I’, followed by a little ‘i’, and definitely no long-necked woolly animals. The first syllable is pronounced ‘eee’, and the second should roughly rhyme with ‘hammer’, but it’s acceptable to go with ‘armour’. Now that we’ve got that cleared up, here’s the XUB2792QSU-W1, and no, we have no idea how to pronounce that. It’s a 27in IPS LCD screen with a resolution of 2560x1440 pixels, known to gamers as 1440p and to monitor salespeople as ‘quad HD’, because it sounds a bit like 4K. It’s nowhere near 4K, which is four times 1080p Full HD. This is four times…

Q I’ve been advised to replace my old HP Pavilion laptop and the Pavilion 15-cs3009na has been recommended. I would be grateful for any advice you can give me to assist in my final decision. I’m 95 years old, and my needs are few: letters, email, photos and some research work. Ken Humphreys A The Pavilion 15-cs3009na seems to have been discontinued, but the HP s-fq1003na (£550 from www.nipca.com/36027, pictured) is another affordable 15in laptop that might fit the bill. Recent reviews found it generally adequate, but its screen covers less than 60 per cent of the sRGB range with poor accuracy. It’s a failing that your existing laptop probably shares – as does the Huawei MateBook D (£499 from Amazon www.snipca.com/34230. , see our review, Issue 576, page 23),…

WIRELESS EARPHONES £130 from Richer Sounds www.snipca.com/36058 Mair pods Designed in Glasgow, RHA’s TrueConnect wireless earphones (£89 from John Lewis www.snipca.com/36061, see our review, Issue 549, page 29) are Scotland’s answer to Apple’s AirPods, and their second edition brings subtle improvements to an already impressive product. For a start, the batteries in each earbud now last up to nine hours, making a total of 44 hours away from the mains when you recharge them from the supplied USB-C battery case. That’s longer than most rivals, and means limited battery life won’t be something you need to worry about. Responsive touch controls and excellent sound quality The buttons on each earbud have been replaced by touch surfaces, and we were relieved to find these worked well, responding nearly every time to…

SUBSCRIBE NOW GET IT EARLY BEAT LOCKDOWN Hello, I’d like to thank you for continuing to read Computeractive during the nationwide lockdown earlier this year. It was a difficult time for everyone, but I’m glad we could provide a semblance of normality. Getting to the shops was obviously tricky during lockdown, so it didn’t surprise me that we saw a rise in people subscribing to Computeractive. It must have been a comfort to know you could rely on the magazine dropping through your letterbox once a fortnight. A big thank you to everyone who signed up. As I write this, there seems to be an increasing possibility of further lockdowns, both regional and national, with shops closing again. Should that happen, I expect there’ll be another rise in subscriptions. To…

What you need: FreeFileSync; Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 Time required: 40 minutes Online storage services, such as OneDrive and Dropbox, are a convenient way to access files on your PC from other computers. However, to do so both computers will need an internet connection. In this Workshop, we show you how to sync them with a USB stick instead, with the help of a free tool called FreeFileSync. You’ll discover how to run a one-off sync process, but also create one that constantly runs in the background so that it syncs any changes you make. As always, make sure you back up any personal files before starting. STEP 1 Plug in the USB stick you want to use for the sync process, then open File Explorer and move any…

ANDROID Check whether your phone or tablet can update to Android 11 Google has released Android 11, the latest version of its mobile operating system. Its many enhancements include a new way of organising conversations that brings together chats from multiple apps within a single view, and ‘Bubbles’, which lets you pin your most important conversations so they appear on top of other apps while you’re working on something else. Smart replies, like the suggested responses Gmail has had for some time, make responding to messages less tricky, especially on a phone with a smaller screen. You now also have greater control over which apps can access which data. And car drivers with the correct setup in their vehicle can connect their phone wirelessly using Android Auto, while more comprehensive…

WINDOWS 10 Fix the Microsoft Store Although programs downloaded via the Microsoft Store have their advantages (they’re safer than software taken from the web because they can’t access your PC’s system files and won’t leave traces when uninstalled), the store doesn’t always work flawlessly. If you’re suffering problems, such as apps that won’t download or the store refusing to open, you can try re-registering it with Windows (basically, reinstalling the store). To do this, you need to open PowerShell in Administrator mode. Click Start, type powershell, then right-click Windows PowerShell in the results and select ‘Run as administrator’. Click ‘Yes’ when asked whether you want to allow PowerShell to make changes to your PC. In the PowerShell window that opens, type Get-AppXPackage Microsoft. WindowsStore | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.…

What is it? It’s what most of us speak, in all its various accents and dialects, spanning all four corners of these isles. It’s also what Amazon’s Lex can now speak. Lex? Don’t you mean Alexa? No, definitely Lex – as in Lex Luthor, Superman’s nemesis. It’s a service that lets software developers build tools that can reply to questions automatically. You’ve probably come across these so-called ‘chatbots’ when typing queries on the support pages of websites. Sometimes they understand you. Sometimes they make as much sense as a Dalek with hiccups. But understanding British English should help things. What did they speak before? Mostly American English, which it’s estimated is spoken and written by 70 per cent of native English speakers. The spread of the internet has made it…

To find out how widely you’re being tracked online, visit https://panopticlick.eff.org and click the Test Me button. This will reveal how easy (or difficult) it is for trackers and websites to follow and identify you. Click the fingerprinting link to see how much personal information your browser is leaking. Terrifyingly, websites can easily establish where you are from the time zone and language data given away freely by most browsers. They can also find out what operating system you’re running, plus details about your browser settings and even what type of processor your PC has. For a more visual representation of how you’re being tracked, try the Lightbeam extension for Chrome (www.snipca.com/36109) and Firefox (www.snipca.com/36110). Browse the web for a bit, then click the extension’s toolbar icon for a map…

Is AOMEI stopping my PC booting? Q I have an Acer Aspire laptop running Windows 10 Home. I followed your advice in Issue 588 (page 19) regarding AOMEI Backupper Standard (www.ubackup.com), and backed up my system to an external USB hard drive. Leaving the drive connected I switched off. Later, when I switched on there was a completely black screen. I’ve tried disconnecting and reconnecting the main battery. I also tried to open in Safe Mode but cannot see the screen. For the same reason, I can’t use the AOMEI restore facility. Please help! John Brown A This almost certainly has nothing to do with AOMEI. Rather, we think your laptop is trying to boot (start up) from the attached external drive. However, this isn’t a bootable drive, so your…

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. 8K Video with a resolution of 7680x4320 pixels. Add-on A tool that adds extra features to programs and browsers. AMOLED Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode. An alternative technology to LCD for creating flat-panel displays. aptX A codec used to compress audio so it can be transmitted over Bluetooth with minimal quality loss. Augmented reality Lets you view the real world on a digital display and add digital world elements. Beta…

Microsoft has removed a Windows 10 update that was slowing computers down, and making it longer for them to start up. It released the update KB4559309 in June in order to replace the old Edge with the revamped version, which is based on Google’s Chromium source code. However, many users complained that it was cutting their PC’s speed, while others said it was making programs and webpages load slowly. One user wrote on Microsoft’s forums (www.snipca.com/36147) that since installing the update their computer’s performance had “absolutely tanked”, while it was taking three times as long to boot. Another wrote that it takes “several seconds to a minute” after clicking for a command to be carried out on their computer, and that closing programs using Task Manager produces a black screen…

An old TV being switched on every morning has been identified as the reason why a Welsh village was suffering from poor broadband speeds and connection dropouts. Openreach engineers had been investigating the problem in Aberhosan, Powys, for 18 months. Frequent tests showed that there were no problems with the network, and replacing the cables made no difference. Engineers started using a monitoring device called a spectrum analyser, which detects electrical interference nearby. Lead engineer Michael Jones said the problems began at 7am every day “like clockwork”. His team eventually traced the fault to interference from a resident’s second-hand television. He said: “Every morning the occupant would switch on their old TV, which would, in-turn, knock out broadband for the entire village”. The TV was emitting a single high-level impulse…

LEAD CASE I keep getting sent the wrong item – what can I do? Q Three weeks ago I bought a Korg MA-2 metronome (pictured) through Amazon. I didn’t like it so returned it for a different model – the MA-1. However, although I’ve asked for this replacement model three times I've been sent the MA-2 instead every time. I haven’t called Amazon in case it wasn't necessary. What should I do? Mic Hartman A Mic now needs to protect himself by starting a claim using Amazon’s ‘A-z Guarantee’ (www.snipca.com/35953) for the “wrong item sent”. This means he won’t be charged for returning the metronome. If the seller or Amazon refunds his payments immediately, or the seller finally manages to send him the right metronome, Mic can always cancel this…

It’s tricky to find out someone’s birth surname after they were adopted, as reader Stuart Baker has discovered. He emailed us to say he has an ancestor’s date and place of birth, but the marriage records show only her adopted surname, not what she was called at birth. He wondered if we could help. With adoption records, 1927 (England and Wales), 1930 (Scotland) and 1931 (Northern Ireland) are vital dates, because these are when the respective Adopted Children’s Registers were established. This provides a paper trail to confirm details of any adoptions that took place. These records aren’t available to search online, but you can obtain the adoption certificate if, like Stuart, you have the person’s adoptive name and date of birth – for England and Wales visit www.snipca.com/35938; for…

Gmail is my primary email tool (see Issue 571, page 20). I have both work and personal Gmail accounts, and love the way they sync seamlessly across devices. I can start writing an email on my PC, then finish it off on my phone or tablet. However, I recently started creeping towards the 15GB limit of my personal Google account (this includes files I back up to Google Drive). For £15.99 per year, I could increase my Google storage to 100GB, but that’s just kicking the can down the road (albeit a long one). Instead, I decided to find a way to free up space by shifting old email from Gmail to my PC. It didn’t take long to pick Thunderbird (http://thunderbird.net) as the best tool for the job. Linking…

What is it? ZTE’s Axon 20 5G, due to go on sale in China as we write, is a midrange smartphone with the usual array of cameras on the back (pictured) and none on the front. There’s no border, no notch, no keyhole and no pop-up camera. The component that enables you to take a picture of yourself is behind the glass, and shoots through it. How does it work? ZTE says five technical solutions came together to enable this. But to simplify, the pixels in the screen are designed to let more light through to the sensor behind; the electronics in the screen and the sensor are synchronised to minimise interference; and then software processing compensates for the slightly weird image captured through the screen. What’s the catch? Several…

What was it? Launched in 2003, the N-Gage (pictured) was a pocket device with a tiny 2.1in LCD screen surrounded by buttons in a landscape-oriented case, but based on a mobile phone. You could make calls on it, but its unique selling point was online multiplayer gaming, which at that time usually required a desktop PC with an Ethernet cable. It also allowed Bluetooth play between friends without the wireless adapter needed for the similar Game Boy Advance. Why did it die? Despite a few hits, N-Gage games didn’t catch on. At £250, it was as expensive as a normal mobile phone but awkward to use as one. In the US, where it was even more expensive, it was dismissed as the ‘taco phone’. It did have its fans, including…

This LCD monitor with Ultra Wide-Color (328E1CA/00) has a curved screen that provides a pleasant yet subtle immersion effect, focusing you at the centre of your desk. Philips’ Ultra Wide-Color Technology delivers a wider spectrum of colours for a more brilliant picture, producing more natural-looking greens, vivid reds and deeper blues. The VA LED display uses an advanced multi-domain vertical alignment technology that gives you super-high static contrast ratios for extra-vivid and bright images. While standard office applications are handled with ease, it is especially suitable for photos, web browsing, films, gaming and demanding graphical software. Its optimised pixel-management technology gives you a 178/178 degree extra-wide viewing angle, resulting in crisp images. It has a 4K resolution of 3840x2160. To enter this competition, email your home address to cacomp@dennis.co.uk with…

Day One Journal Free iOS www.snipca.com/35999 The fifth major release of this personal journal app for recording your day-to-day life, travels, pastimes and more makes adding photos easier. It also lets you export your entries as a PDF with greater flexibility, save as a file that can be opened by just about any text editor, and has an enhanced On This Day view that shows a map of entry locations from recent years. Stellarium Mobile Plus £7.49 (Android) £9.99 (iOS) Android www.snipca.com/36002 iOS www.snipca.com/36003 This stargazing app has received a number of updates over the last couple of months, providing better location searching and more realistic rendering of the night sky. In August it also introduced better offline support for comets and satellites, letting you identify a wide range of…

MICROSOFT OUTLOOK Schedule emails to send later Send an email late at night and there’s a good chance it’ll be lost among a raft of other messages when the recipient logs into their email the following morning. Although Outlook has long had a feature to delay sending emails, Microsoft has only just got round to adding a similar feature to its web-based Outlook.com email tool (both the free version and the one included with Microsoft 365). Once you’ve written your email and are ready to send it, click the small down arrow to the right of the Send button (see screenshot) and select ‘Send later’. In the window that appears, select the date you want it to be sent and, in the box at the bottom, at what time. Click…

CAPACITY AND SIZES It has faced competition from rival formats such as CompactFlash and SmartMedia, but the SD card is one of the most popular storage formats. Just like USB sticks and SSDs, SD cards use fast, cheap and durable flash memory, making it perfect for boosting your phone’s storage, recording video from your camcorder, and much more besides. There are three types of SD card. The original (also known as Secure Digital Standard Capacity or SDSC) launched in 1999 with capacities up to 2GB. In 2006, this was replaced with the SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity), ranging between 2GB and 32GB. Three years later, SDXC (Secure Digital eXtended Capacity) cards arrived. Although the SDXC specification allows for storage capacities up to 2TB, the biggest you can currently buy is…

When my dad brought home our first video recorder - in 1983 I think - it was regarded with the same awe as a newborn baby. It was precious, delicate, and not to be touched without his permission. When he recorded anything, he diligently wrote and dated it in a hardback A4 notebook as though documenting the contents of the Great Library of Alexandria. I want to list all my videos across OneDrive, Google Drive, Livedrive, my hard drive and maybe even my front drive But that reverence didn’t last long. Within weeks me and my two brothers were taping what we liked – Doctor Who, Dangermouse, Tomorrow’s World – while my dad had abandoned his project to catalogue our recordings for future historians. Like all the best technology, our…

MOVE SPECIFIC ALBUMS FROM GOOGLE PHOTOS Google now lets you move specific albums from its Photos website to Flickr and Microsoft OneDrive. Previously you had to transfer all your photos. Visit Google Takeout (https://takeout.google.com), then click ‘Select data to include’. You’ll see a box titled ‘Google Photos content options’, letting you tick individual albums to transfer (see screenshot). Watch it being done at www.snipca.com/36130. BT DITCHES 5G FOR NEW PHONE CUSTOMERS BT Mobile has removed the 5G option for new customers signing up to phone contracts, leaving only 4G. Instead, the company is recommending customers sign up to a 5G package from EE, which BT bought in 2016. Existing BT Mobile customers on 5G will continue to get it. LISTEN TO PODCASTS IN AMAZON MUSIC Amazon Music has added podcasts…

Apple has launched its most powerful standard iPad ever but kept the price the same at £329 for 32GB. The eighth version of the basic iPad has a new A12 Bionic processor, which Apple claims is 40 per cent faster than the previous A10 Fusion chip, and has twice the graphics power. It also uses much less power to make the battery last longer. The A12 Bionic is a ‘neural’ processor, which means it mimics how neurons in the human brain work, allowing it to perform more tasks simultaneously. Apple says you’ll notice this particularly in tasks that require lots of instructions, such as editing images and videos. Screen size remains at 10.2 inches, and it continues to work with the Smart Keyboard (pictured), which costs £159 separately. It runs…

Three months is a long time to wait for socks, so we hope the pair that reader Peter McMahon has now received will prove especially comfy. As we explained in Issue 586, on 1 June Peter ordered socks from DrSockSoothers (https://socksoothers.com), but then asked PayPal to cancel the purchase when they hadn’t arrived within a month. He also started to suspect that the website was a scam, though now the socks have arrived we’re happy to report that’s not the case. While Peter has his item, we’re still unhappy that PayPal didn’t use its Buyer Protection scheme to cancel his order and refund the £37.95 he paid. Peter agrees, saying he’s “disappointed with the lack of support” offered by PayPal. It closed his claim with no explanation, though it may…

EMAIL TOOL eM Client 8 www.snipca.com/36175 What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 Support for Office 2010 ends on 13 October, which means Microsoft will stop releasing regular security fixes, making it vulnerable to attack. If you don’t fancy paying £119 for Office 2019, there are plenty of free alternatives. LibreOffice (www.libreoffice.org) is our favourite, but it doesn’t have an email tool. For this, you’ll need a separate program. Thunderbird (www.thunderbird.net) is a popular choice, but its vast array of features can be overwhelming. If you want something simpler, consider eM Client. The free version has some limitations, including only letting you use it with up to two email accounts (the Pro version, which costs a one-off fee of £44.95, allows unlimited accounts), but that’s enough for most home…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: iolo System Checkup If there’s one thing I loathe more than junk, it’s a slow PC. Wasting time waiting for a computer to boot up, load a program or respond to a mouse click really sets my teeth on edge. I suppose it’s a common enough problem, though – and one that many of us try to resolve by downloading system-checker software. Carry out a Google search for ‘system check free’ and high up in the results you’ll come across a link that shouts ‘Download System Checkup – FREE – iolo technologies’ (www.snipca.com/36056). Click through and you’ll be faced with a page promising a ‘FREE PC Health Check’ that produces a “personalised report” detailing your PC’s problems, plus a list of “recommended fixes”. What’s not…

KEYBOARD £66 from Viking www.snipca.com/36031 Key change Keyboards come in all shapes and sizes, and the main reason to choose this one is that you want this particular shape and size. Although Bakker Elkhuizen specialises in ergonomic workplace equipment, it would be a stretch to attribute any special health and safety value to this model. In fact, it’s awkward that their own summary of international standards quotes the requirement that “the alphabetical section must be clearly separated from the function keys”. With this keyboard that isn’t the case. That’s kind of the point, though. The UltraBoard 960 takes the standard definition of a ‘compact’ keyboard – that it’s relatively narrow because it lacks a number pad – and throws it in the bin. This keyboard has a number pad (pictured…

PHONE £97 from Amazon www.snipca.com/36033 Same again? This new budget Android 9 phone is a very different product from the Moto E6 Plus (see our review, Issue 576, page 28). Wait a minute. No it isn’t. It’s practically identical. It’s got the same front panel design, with a small border at the bottom of the screen and a keyhole notch for the selfie camera at the top. The screen is the same size and the same resolution, falling well short of 1080p Full HD but not too coarse at a glance. It only covers 85 per cent of sRGB, but with plenty of brightness and contrast, photos and videos look vibrant. On the shiny blue or red back panel is a fingerprint reader, but there’s no NFC chip for payments.…

LAPTOP Honor MagicBook 14 £550 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 £1,399 from www.snipca.com/35349 ANDROID TABLET Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite £349 from www.snipca.com/35795 Tested Issue 582 Competing with Apple’s cheapest 10.2in iPad, this slim aluminium tablet comes with an S Pen stylus and a generous 64GB of storage at a reasonable price. It’s less powerful, but a great buy if you prefer Android. ALTERNATIVE DAmazon…

What you need: iPhone, iPad or Android device Time required: 30 minutes Phones and tablets are increasingly becoming computing devices in their own right. What was once a simple device for making and receiving calls or browsing thr web can now be a basis for a mobile office (thanks to wordprocessing and spreadsheet apps), an entertainment centre, video player, streaming system, email hub, ebook reader and more. In many cases – particularly where recent iPads are concerned – they can even be set up to run entirely independently of a PC. Often, however, the most efficient way of getting data on to and off mobile devices – apart from email or online storage – is traditional syncing. Hardware developers assumed from the start that this would be the simplest way…

Email us your tips: letters@computeractive.co.uk TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Upgrade your graphics card to install May Update I had the same problem as Dave Willington (‘Why can’t I see May Update problem page?’, Issue 587, page 71). The Windows 10 May Update (version 2004) downloaded fine on two of my other PCs, but not on my older Medion computer. After checking that all the drivers were up to date, I finally realised that my Nvidia GeForce graphics card was causing the problem, because there were no new drivers being built for it. So I bought a Nvidia GeForce GT710 card instead (you can buy this for £39.99 from Amazon – www.snipca.com/35882, pictured). Shortly after popping it in, the elusive May Update was offered, which downloaded successfully. I hope this may…

Fantastical Free* iOS www.snipca.com/36013 Type using natural sentences to create appointments, such as dentist in Manchester at 9am on the 14th until 9.30am and Fantastical will interpret this and create an appointment. It syncs with popular web-based calendar services like Google’s and includes a three-day weather forecast. Best For Creating entries using natural language Google Calendar Free iOS www.snipca.com/36015 Android www.snipca.com/36014 Android users almost certainly have this already, but iOS users should seriously consider using it also. Events mentioned in your Gmail inbox are automatically added, while you can set up goals and Calendar will schedule tasks to help you achieve them. It also offers smart suggestions that make entering new appointments easier. Best For Integration with other apps Business Calendar 2 Free* Android www.snipca.com/36016 If you want to see…

Use royalty-free photos for your club communications Whether you’re updating your club’s website, writing a blog post or creating a newsletter, eye-catching images can help grab the attention of your audience. You might be tempted to carry out a Google search for images. However, while this is likely to return plenty of suitable results, the images might be protected by copyright. And if the copyright owner finds out you’ve used their image without permission, you may end up having to pay a hefty fine for copyright infringement. Avoid these risks and instead make sure you download royalty-free images, which you can then use on any club material without fear of a penalty. Choose from millions of free photos Pixabay (www.pixabay.com) is one of the biggest royalty-free photo-sourcing websites, with a…

Google calls it Incognito. Microsoft calls it InPrivate. Mozilla calls it Private Browsing. The names might be different, but if there’s one thing that unites the private-browsing modes offered by Chrome, Edge, Firefox and others, it’s the shocking lack of privacy they all provide. Enabling your browser’s private mode won’t stop you being tracked by advertisers. It won’t make you anonymous online. And it certainly won’t protect you from malware or phishing sites. If privacy mode can’t achieve any of those things, you could be forgiven for wondering what it’s actually good for. Well, its main function is to prevent people you share your PC with from seeing which websites you’ve visited (letting you keep secret the Christmas presents you’ve ordered, for example). By default, all web browsers automatically record…