Table of contents for 591 in Computeractive

I never understood why Microsoft ditched the PowerToys brand over a decade ago. The name was brilliant, suggesting as it did the power tools you store in your garage. Like your drill, sander and saws, these programs kept things simple, doing one task very effectively. You didn’t get bombarded by extra settings you never asked for. So I was delighted when Microsoft revived PowerToys last year. This new range doesn’t yet have the breadth of tools found in Windows 95, but there are already enough to make your everyday computing easier – as our Cover Feature reveals. I’ve used all of them since they launched, but my favourites are FancyZones and PowerRename. The former has transformed how I operate my desktop, while the latter removes the pain from one of…

I recently bought a Majority Snowdon II Soundbar from Amazon (www.snipca.com/36019) for the very good price of only £48. It’s a brilliant device with great bass. However, after a while the remote control stopped working. I thought new batteries would help, but no joy. I contacted Amazon and they told me I could return it for a refund, but the soundbar is so good that I wanted to keep it, and didn’t want my money back. I then decided to contact Majority directly (they’re based in Cambridgeshire), and got a really nice email back from Eddie Latham, who is actually a director of the company. He apologised to me and said he would send me a new remote control. It arrived as promised and the soundbar is now working again…

Q Following your advice on using Plex (Issue 590, page 50), I decided to buy a TV tuner for my old PC, turning it into a second TV set. However, I’m now downloading and recording so many programmes that my poor hard drive is constantly filling up. Can you recommend a tool that lets me monitor my drive space so I know when it’s time to do some housekeeping? Jim Bannister A For this, we recommend using a tool called Open Hardware Monitor (OHM). It’s portable, so there’s nothing to install – just download the ZIP file from www.snipca.com/36237, then extract the contents to a folder on your PC (don’t worry, at just 1.25MB it won’t take up much room). Double-click the ‘OpenHardwareMonitor.exe’ file to run the tool. The main…

LAPTOP | £850 from Amazon www.snipca.com/36122 Sweet 16 Honor, a subsidiary of Huawei, has already produced one of the best-value laptops in recent months, the 14in MagicBook (see Issue 580, page 23). Available at the time of writing for just £499 (John Lewis www.snipca.com/36124), it has the dull screen that we’ve come to expect from budget models but feels better and runs faster than you’d expect. Now the MagicBook Pro does away with the compromises and still comes in at far less than big-brand rivals. Nominally costing a grand, it’s officially reduced, we presume permanently, to just £850. And for that you get something that, if you squint, you could almost mistake for the latest 16in MacBook Pro, at three times the price. “With great specs, this costs far less…

PC MONITOR | £130 from Amazon www.snipca.com/36158 Restricted view This 24in monitor squishes the same 1920x1080 pixels as budget 27in models into a smaller space, giving a sharper picture. Everything gets slightly smaller, so if that’s not going to suit your eyesight, look up our review of the BenQ GL2780 (£150 from Amazon www.snipca.com/34834, see Issue 581, page 25) instead. The ET241Y has a fairly basic black plastic case, but the narrow border around three sides of the screen looks oks elegant from the front. The stand, with its chunky rectangular foot, is stable enough, but provides only tilt adjustment, not height or pivot. There’s a 100x100mm VESA mount point if you prefer to add an adjustable arm. Inputs are similarly minimal, with one HDMI port, which will suit most…

Q I was interested to read your review of the Microsoft All-in-One Media Keyboard (£32 from Amazon www.snipca.com/35164, see Computeractive Issue 583, page 28, pictured). It occurred to me that many of us now have smart TVs, and using a remote control to search the various apps for the programmes we want can be quite arduous. Has anyone made a similar keyboard for use with TVs? Anne-Marie Nicol A You’re right that it’s much easier to type the names of shows – not to mention your Wi-Fi login details – using a wireless keyboard than a TV remote. The good news is that many Smart TVs are equipped with Bluetooth and should recognise any Bluetooth keyboard. You’ll need to pair them, but this process should be covered in the TV’s…

HEADPHONES | £50 from Amazon www.snipca.com/36188 Buzz off! Active noise cancelling (ANC), popularised by US audio company Bose, is a clever technology that generates a waveform that’s the inverse of whatever sounds it detects and plays it into your ear, along with the audio input you’re listening to, making background noise inaudible. The best ANC headphones have generally been expensive, and the cheapest unsatisfactory, creating a hiss or buzz or just making you feel seasick (your ears control your sense of balance as well as hearing). But this new set from a lesser-known Chinese brand gets everything just about right for less. “Effective noise cancelling and a warm, balanced sound for a reasonable price” These are over-ear headphones, with squishy cups that fully enclose your ears, so they’re quite big,…

The CHERRY DW 9000 SLIM uses rechargeable lithium batteries that let you work for a week without charging. When you do need to charge it, just use the microUSB cable included. It has an integrated metal plate, making it sturdy and stable, preventing bending and bounding when typing. For a steeper angle you can adjust the keyboard using the four rubber feet included with the set. LEDs built into the keys tell you whether the Caps Lock, Scroll, or Num keys are activated. In addition, they flash when battery life is low. The mouse fits perfectly in your hand thanks to its rubber-coated side parts and compact design. silver-and-white DW9000 SLIM packs. To enter, email your home address to cacomp@dennis.co.uk with ‘Cherry’ in the subject line by midnight 3…

About two or three times a month, a Windows 10 update of some kind rearranges all the icons on my desktop. I have over 30 icons and I like to keep them in the same order so that I know roughly where each one is. My initial solution was to take a screenshot of my desktop and keep it handy so that I could manually rearrange the icons back to their ‘default’ positions. It worked, but it would take 10 or 15 minutes to do this each time. But I’ve now found a program called ReIcon, made by software developers Sordum, that does the job for me. Simply arrange your icons where you want them and let ReIcon save the layout. I tested it by rearranging my icons. I did…

ANDROID Share files wirelessly without sharing details Apple’s Air Drop feature, which lets iPhone and iPad users send files directly to other Apple mobile devices, without sharing phone numbers or email addresses, has come to Android in the form of Nearby Share, which is rolling out to phones running Android 6 and later. This clever feature automatically chooses the best file-transfer method, including Bluetooth, WebRTC and direct wireless connections, soit even works if you don’t have a Wi-Fi connection. Set it up by opening Settings, swipe down to reveal the search box, and type nearby share. Tap ‘Nearby Share’ in the list of results, followed by ‘Turn on’ (see screenshot below). In its default state, it makes your phone visible to all nearby contacts, but you can adjust this by…

WINDOWS 10 Make your Windows clock display seconds If you find the lack of a second counter on the Windows clock (on the right of your taskbar) annoying, you can add one with a quick registry tweak. Because it involves editing the registry, we recommend backing up both your files and your registry (see our Workshop on page 38) before you start. Click Start, then type regedit and press Enter. In the address bar at the top, type HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Explorer\Advanced (or copy it from our Pastebin account at www.snipca.com/36228, then paste it). Press Enter, then right-click Advanced in the left sidebar and select ‘New…’, ‘DWORD (32-bit) Value’ (see screenshot above). Your new entry will appear as‘New Value #1’ in the list on the right. Change its name to ShowSecondsInSystemClock,…

If you’re working on a shared document, it can be useful to know when it was last edited. You can find out in the document’s properties (click File, then look under Properties), but you can also display this information directly in your Word document using fields – essentially placeholders that can be used to display document properties. To do this, open your Word document, select the Insert tab at the top, then click Quick Parts (located in the Text section of the toolbar). From the list of options, select ‘Field…’. In the window that appears, select ‘Date and Time’ in the Categories dropdown menu, then select SaveDate in the ‘Field names’ section below. You can change how the date is formatted in the ‘Field properties’ section. If you want to…

Earlier this year, Microsoft released its plans for the future development of PowerToys. Although the next few releases are focused on improving stability and ironing out bugs, we can also look forward to a raft of new features. These include tools to record your screen, close unresponsive programs, make windows always appear on top and find out which program is using a particular file. We’re particularly excited about the planned version 2 release of FancyZones (the current version has revolutionised how we organise our desktops) and one tantalisingly called Virtual Desktop++, which should improve on Windows 10’s existing virtual desktop tool (read more about this on page 20). Of course, we’ll keep you up to date with all the latest releases, but you can also browse the regularly updated PowerToys…

A popular parenting book declares in its title that Einstein Never Used Flash Cards. It provocatively sums up the book’s ethos – let children learn by playing, rather than forcing them to memorise facts. The premise is that Albert Einstein wouldn’t have grown into the 20th century’s greatest genius had his parents made him repeat times tables and the alphabet over his morning porridge. I made a set of A-Z cards in the same time it took me to work out how to sign into the other sites It’s a striking title, though I doubt that it’s quite so simple. I suspect that Einstein was probably so naturally gifted that he never needed flash cards. For the 99.99 per cent of children born without the ability to redefine how we…

TV presenter Graham Norton has been named as the most dangerous celebrity to search for online because hackers try to lure people with clips of his chat show. Research from US security firm McAfee (www.snipca.com/36286) found that searching for Norton brought up the greatest number of malicious results, ahead of comedian Ricky Gervais (second) and actor Tom Hardy (third) – see box below left for full list. Most of these unsafe results linked to websites promising videos from Norton’s BBC show, on which he regularly interviews big Hollywood stars. McAfee warned that playing these videos installs malware on your computer. To compile the list it searched for celebrity names that most commonly appear alongside search terms such as ‘torrent’, ‘free mp3’, or ‘pirated download’, which people type when looking for…

Lenovo has said sales of computers have boomed in 2020 as people look for new and more powerful machines to use when working from home. The rise in sales follows years of decline during which analysts predicted customers would in the long term ditch computers for phones and tablets. Speaking at an industry conference in Barcelona, Lenovo’s chief operating officer Gianfranco Lanci declared that “talk of the PC dying and being taken over by tablets and smartphones is over”. He said the COVID-19 pandemic “has created a huge shift in how people are working, learning, socialising and consuming products”. “It does accelerate the remote working revolution and it does lead to big demands in computing and technology,” he added. “Over the past several months, we’ve seen a resurgence in PC…

Does Three owe me money for broken hub? Q I signed up for Three’s broadband in May, paying £39 for its Wi-Fi hub. I couldn’t get online using it, so within 24 hours I cancelled the contract, returning the hub to Three. However, Three said it never received the hub back, and that I owed it a month’s broadband. Despite numerous emails and lots of web chats, Three has passed my case on to a debt-collection agency. I think I’ve now resolved this issue, but doesn’t Three owe me some money for postage costs and the hub? Kurt Findlater A Yes, Three owes Kurt not only for the cost of returning the router, but also for having to send 18 letters via special delivery to the debt collection agency –…

Many British citizens who moved abroad over the centuries were offered financial incentives to go. Those who took advantage of the Assisted Passage Migration Schemes to Australia (1945) and New Zealand (1947) were nicknamed ‘Ten Pound Poms’ because they were offered £10 to cover the costs of migration and processing. You can trace those who emigrated down under (as Ten Pound Poms or otherwise) before 1973 using several free online resources. Search passenger arrivals to Australia Pick up your ancestor’s trail after their arrival in Australia by going to the National Archives of Australia (NAA–https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au) and clicking ‘Passenger arrivals’. This lets you search the Passenger Arrivals Index (1898-1972). In most cases, you need to type a name plus year of arrival (or year range) before clicking Search. The search tool…

Cables, adapters, USB sticks, batteries… my study desk is littered with them (and more besides). It’s not that I’m an untidy person. Actually, I am, but that’s not the reason for the state of my desk. Everything covering it is actually being used for work - honest. It’s a similar story with my Windows desktop, which frequently has in excess of two dozen programs open at any given time. Unlike with my desk, however, I have a secret tool to help keep everything organised: virtual desktops. Windows lets me create as many as I like – each one appearing as a separate clean desktop, upon which I can open programs. I can then press Alt+Tab to cycle through them without having to sift through all the other stuff running on…

DESKTOP PC | £799 from Currys www.snipca.com/36126 Brand of gold As a rule, you get a better desktop PC from a local (ie, British) company and a better laptop from an international brand. That’s because what matters with a PC is getting the best deals on the latest components and having a skilled person install them. Small, local companies are good at this. With laptops, though, what matters is fitting everything into a slim case, requiring high-tech design and automated precision engineering. Only big multinational firms have the resources to do that properly. But here’s a desktop PC from an international brand, all snazzy in its red-lit case. Although Acer has tried to overcome the limitations of mass production by releasing umpteen iterations (see www.snipca.com/36129), just a couple are widely…

What is it? Announced by Amazon’s Ring brand and due out next year, the Always Home Cam (pictured)is a Wi-Fi security camera mounted on a small quadcopter drone. How does it work? A single conventional Wi-Fi security camera can watch one room, and start recording when its software detects movement, but it can’t see what’s happening elsewhere. At your command, or when activated by any linked Ring sensor around your home, the Always Home Cam will take off and fly around a preset route, or visit any viewpoints you request. What’s the catch? Ring and Amazon have faced criticism for creating creepy surveillance tech, and this will hardly dispel those concerns. In practical terms, the designers believe they’ve thought it all through: the drone’s propellers are safely enclosed, and it…

What was it? Launched in 2006 at £55, the Vaio Mouse Talk VN-CX1 (pictured) was a wired computer mouse that was also a phone handset. While clicking away at your favourite spreadsheet, you’d see a discreet blue light and simply pick up the USB input device, flip it open and answer the call, received on your PC from voice over-internet (VoIP) services such as Skype. Why did it die? One reviewer at the time said it “looks and works far better on paper than it does in real life,” a verdict all the more damning when you consider that, on paper, it was completely ridiculous. A fundamental flaw was that while on a call, you had no mouse, hampering conversations about that spreadsheet. Despite the opportunity to “control desk clutter…

What you need: A digital camera Time required: 30 minutes Webcams aren’t the best devices on which to chat with friends. With tiny lenses and small sensors, their image quality can be poor, and the angle from which they film you forces friends and family to stare at a magnified forehead or look up your nose. And if you don’t have a webcam built into your laptop, you might also have found it difficult to buy one this year. When coronavirus took hold and lockdown first began, tech shops quickly sold out. It was understandable. With so many office workers setting up in a spare bedroom to comply with social-distancing rules, businesses snapped them up, leaving consumers wondering where all the webcams had gone. Fortunately, if you have a digital…

Kindle Unlimited ✓ There’s nothing wrong with the design of Kindle Unlimited, but I got fed up with looking for books that weren’t available. I ditched it after reading online that some publishing houses don’t supply books to it. And what I use instead… I now use Scribd (www.scribd.com) which gives me unlimited ebooks and audiobooks for £13.99 a month. It has several books that I could never find on Kindle Unlimited. I made the switch when I was given a Samsung tablet for Christmas. It was easy to install the Scribd app from the Google Play store (www.snipca.com/36068). It has simple controls for changing the spacing of lines and how they are aligned on the page (see screenshot). I notice that Scribd lists all the devices that it works…

Evernote Free iOS www.snipca.com/36166 The popular note-keeping app has benefitted from significant improvements following a root-and-branch rebuild, making it easier to use. It has a broader range of formatting options, more flexible checklists, a new multi-function Insert button (for audio, photos, attachments and more), improved search and an interface that keeps key features within easy reach. Deleted Photo Recovery Free Android www.snipca.com/36168 Resurrect lost and accidentally deleted photos from your phone’s cache, without giving the app root (administrator) access to your phone or risking it overwriting your data. It took no time at all to scan our device, and we found 648 photos (18GB’s worth) in just a few seconds. Recovering them was a simple case of tapping the ones we needed, followed by Restore. Skype Free iOS www.snipca.com/36167 The…

If your laptop’s battery is past its best, you may find the interval between Windows’ low-battery warning and your battery actually running out of power is not long enough. If this sounds familiar, you can give yourself more time. Right-click the battery icon in the system tray, then select Power Options. In the window that appears, click ‘Change power settings’ next to your current power plan. Another window will now open – here, select ‘Change advanced power settings’. A third window will now appear. If not, click the Battery section to reveal a number of options. First, select ‘Low battery level’ – this is the level at which Windows will first warn you that your battery is getting low. Change the ‘On battery’ setting from its default of 6 to…

Send the same message to multiple members Running a club means sending regular messages to your members to keep them in the loop. In most cases this will involve a mass email that lets you cover everything you want to say, and your members will be able to reply with any questions. However, sometimes you may need a different method, such as when you quickly need your membership’s opinion on something. Email is great, but it lacks the urgency of instant messaging, and this is where WhatsApp’s new Broadcast Lists comes in. The feature lets you send a message to multiple individuals immediately. Each recipient will be able to reply to you personally without their response being seen by others. WhatsApp describes the feature as ‘one-to-many communication’ and it’s different…

1 Press Windows+` to launch the FancyZones editor. Instead of choosing one of the templates, click the Custom tab 1. Select the ‘Create new custom’ box 2, then ‘Edit selected layout’ 3. 2 Click ‘Add new zone’ 1. A shaded window will appear 2 – this is your first zone. Use your mouse to move and resize it. In our example, we’ve created a large zone for our web browser. 3 Repeat Step 2 until you’ve created all the zones you want. Here, we’ve created three smaller zones on the right for other windows. Give your layout a name 1, then click ‘Save and apply’. 4 You can create multiple zone layouts for different tasks. To switch between them, launch the FancyZones editor, select the layout you want to use…

The tools you’ll need Whatever type of device you’re reclaiming a hard drive from, you’ll almost certainly need a screwdriver to remove it. While many devices only require a standard Phillips (crosshead) screwdriver, others use Torx screws to secure the drive in place. For these, you’ll need a Torx screwdriver (these have six-pointed, star-shaped heads). Be careful when buying a Torx set as many have aminimum head size of T10 – this may not be small enough depending on the device you’re trying to access this may not be small enough. This set on Amazon includes seven sizes from T2 up to T10 (£13 from www.snipca.com/36205). Unless you intend to insert your reclaimed hard drive directly into another device (such as a desktop PC or laptop), you’ll also need an…

Is it really unsafe to use Office 2010 Microsoft has killed off yet another old favourite. This time it was Office 2010 with its head on the executioner’s block – support for the popular software suite ended on 13 October this year. It means Microsoft will no longer release updates to fix security flaws. Hackers are licking their lips. However, you probably noticed that your Office 2010 tools didn’t suddenly stop working on 13 October. You could just politely ignore Microsoft’s deadline and opt to carry on using Word, Excel and others, regardless of the risks. It could be argued that an outdated copy of Office poses less of a threat than, say, an outdated version of Windows. Programs like Word and Excel aren’t permanently connected to the internet like…

Are Microsoft’s games safe? Q Last year you published a link, www.snipca.com/33577, as a way to download Chess Titans for Windows 10. This worked fine but now Malwarebytes has put a block on it. There are lots of chess games out there but I like everything about Titans, and it suits me best. Is there a solution? David Wheelton A The link is to a package called ‘Windows 7 Games for Windows 10’, which had Chess Titans and other old games published by Microsoft. While the games are the originals, the installation package was created by an enthusiast coder. This person tweaked the way the old games were installed to make them work with Windows 10. As such, it is in no way endorsed by Microsoft and is used at…

Broadband engineers from Openreach and TalkTalk and have been given MBEs in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for improving vital services during lockdown. TalkTalk managers Peter Harding and Andrew Miller (pictured) were honoured for working until 10pm every night and during weekends for three months. Their work helped to ensure that Nightingale Hospitals and care homes received the broadband services they required. During lockdown their team upgraded connections at 80 care homes, 250 food distribution centres and 220 schools. Openreach engineer Scott McPartlin was honoured after he camped on the Inner Hebridean island of Coll and hiked with his equipment for three miles to keep locals connected. Workers from BT, Sky and Ericsson were also honoured. It’s thought to be the first time telecoms workers have received honours. See the full…

51 AREAS TO LOSE OLD PHONE SERVICES Openreach has named the next 51 areas where it will replace old copper-based phone services with new internet-based VoIP networks. Locations including Armagh, Broadstairs, Doncaster and Wrexham will start to be moved to the new networks from October 2021 (see the full list at www.snipca.com/36270). These areas are in addition to 118 announced by Openreach in May (see www.snipca.com/36271). MICROSOFT AXES OFFICE LENS FOR WINDOWS From 31 December you’ll no longer be able to save images taken with the Windows version of Office Lens to Microsoft’s online storage services OneNote and OneDrive. The tool, which is available from the Microsoft Store (www.snipca.com/36277), will also stop converting images to Word, PowerPoint and PDFs. On its support page (www.snipca.com/36274) Microsoft recommends using Office Lens for…

What’s the threat? Criminals are increasingly impersonating banks, utility companies, the police and government departments over the phone to steal money from victims. When they ring you’ll often see the real number from the organisation they claim to be representing, making the call appear genuine. Banking trade body UK Finance said reports of impersonation scams doubled to 15,000 in the first half of 2020. In some cases, scammers offer a government grant to help pay your bills during the coronavirus pandemic. They also pretend to be ringing from your bank claiming that your account has been hacked, and advising you to transfer your cash for “safe keeping”. Scams that involve you sending money are called authorised push payment (APP) scams: ‘authorised’ because you send the money yourself, not realising you’re…

If there’s one law change that retailers haven’t communicated properly to their support teams, it’s that they’re allowed just one chance to repair an item. If it fails, they must replace or refund. The message might finally be sinking in at Sky, because it agreed to refund reader Linda Beswick after her Samsung A40 phone stopped working (see Issue 588). As it turned out, though, she fixed the phone herself. Initially, Sky said it had to offer a second repair because it didn’t have any Samsung A40 phones left. But that was neither relevant nor Linda’s problem. If Sky couldn’t replace the phone then it had to refund her instead. End of story. Linda thought she had to agree to this. To complicate matters, Sky had sent her £55 worth…

EBOOK READER Calibre 5.1 https://calibre-ebook.com/download What you need: Windows 8.1 or 10 If you’re an ebook lover and you don’t already have Calibre installed on your PC, you’re missing out. It lets you organise your collection the way you want it, including the ability to convert ebook formats, share books with others, retrieve articles from newspapers and magazines, edit ebooks you own and more. It works with a wide range of ebook readers, phones and tablets, letting you transfer ebooks from one device to another via USB or wirelessly. And, of course, you can use Calibre to read ebooks on your laptop or PC. The latest version of Calibre introduces some very useful features. You can now highlight text in your ebooks, using a variety of options, including colours, underlining…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: PhotoScape Isn’t it about time program makers stopped trying to trick people into installing Google Chrome? I think this underhand practice should have been banned years ago. However, the people behind image-editing software PhotoScape appear to disagree. Described by its developer as “fun and easy photo editing software” (www.snipca.com/36172), it certainly looks different to other tools of its type, with a tabbed, browser-like interface and friendly-looking icons for tasks such as editing, printing and so on. It all feels a bit amateurish if I’m honest. But, that aside, I’ve nothing particularly against the program itself. What I do take issue with, though, is the easy-to-overlook screen that’s craftily slotted into the installation, bearing a preticked ‘Install Google Chrome as my default browser’ option (see screenshot).…

DESKTOP PC | £1,699 from AlphaBetaPC www.snipca.com/36137 A kind of hush In stark contrast to the multi-coloured fish tanks previously submitted by AlphaBetaPC (see Issue 580, page 26), this is an austere black tower without even a glass panel. This is to ensure the Quiet PC lives up to its name: acoustic insulation inside the steel Cooler Master Silencio S600 case stops noise getting out. Its main weakness is the vent at the top supplying air to the single front fan, through which we recorded a maximum of 55dB (decibels), falling to 45dB 100mm away. That’s comparable to a fridge, so it’s not silent, but isn’t likely to bother you. “Fine graphics and performance make this a solid – and relatively peaceful–choice” Inside is a capable combination of silicon. Nvidia…

VR HEADSET | £299 from Oculus www.snipca.com/36152 Scene-setter Not long ago, if you wanted to enjoy virtual reality (VR), you needed an expensive helmet and an even more expensive PC. The Oculus Quest (see Computeractive Issue 557, page 26) changed that by combining everything into a headset that downloaded games over Wi-Fi and ran them on a smartphone-type processor. The Quest 2 does the same thing, but better. It looks nicer, weighs less, is faster and has a higher resolution. The two redesigned controllers each take an AA battery that lasts weeks, and the 90Hz screen makes everything look even more real. Built-in head tracking works without external sensors, and the device warns you if you step out of the play area you’ve defined. You can adjust for the distance…

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 £1,299 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 Amazon…

Fujifilm’s X Webcam software is compatible with nine of its cameras. Check the models at www.snipca.com/36087 and download the software from www.snipca.com/36088. Installation instructions are at www.snipca.com/36089. Nikon’s Webcam Utility works with 10 of its cameras. For software, instructions and compatibility see www.snipca.com/36090. Olympus has produced Webcam Beta, which works with five of its cameras. The camera list, instructions and download are all at www.snipca.com/36091. Panasonic has published ‘Lumix Tether for Streaming’, which works with six of its cameras. The download link, instructions and compatibility list can all be found at www.snipca.com/36092. Sony’s Imaging Edge Webcam software works with 36 cameras, including many of the company’s point-and-shoot and interchangeable lens cameras. The download link and compatibility list are at www.snipca.com/36093. You’ll find instructions at www.snipca.com/36094.…

Email us your tips: letters@computeractive.co.uk OFFICE Insert screenshots in Word to keep file size low ✓ In Issue 587 (page 64) you say that the ‘Microsoft Print to PDF’ option isn’t particularly efficient. It’s much worse than that. Alarmed at the size of PDFs I was being sent at work, I did a few tests to compare versions being generated by Microsoft to those generated via Adobe (all printed from Word). The difference varied depending on content, but the Microsoft file would typically be five times the size of Adobe’s. Some were even 10 times as big. A blank side of A4 turned into a 27KB pdf with Adobe, while Microsoft’s was 143KB. But going back one step, although Word invites you to insert pictures by importing a file, doing…

LaCie Mobile Drive USB-C5TB £135 from Amazon www.snipca.com/35554 ✓ Back in June I suddenly needed to have regular access to three computers in different locations. On each of these I had to access hundreds of files, including some large videos. I needed therefore to buy a hard drive that was both large and portable. I shopped around, but was persuaded by your four-star review of the LaCie Mobile Drive in Issue 586 (page 25). First, it ticked the capacity box, providing 5TB, and second it was portable. It was more expensive than other comparable drives, but I was happy to pay a bit extra for how fast it was. You mentioned these reading and writing speeds in your review, and I can confirm they’re as quick as you claimed. My…

Live Transcribe Free Android www.snipca.com/36170 Don’t type: talk. When you’ve got a lot to say, it’s often easier to speak it than to peck around a mobile keyboard. In our tests, this app from Google did a great job of transcribing our thoughts in close to real time. Select the results and copy them, so you can paste them into another app for editing, archiving or sharing. Best For Instant transcribing of longer notes Voice Record Pro Free* iOS www.snipca.com/36169 Voice Record Pro can export your voice notes to online storage services like Google Drive and Dropbox, It can also send them in the iOS Messages app or by text message. In addition, you can receive uploads from your PC, accept annotations on your recordings, join multiple recordings into one…

LIBREOFFICE CALC & MICROSOFT EXCEL Shrink cell fonts to fit data When you enter a longer sequence of data (numbers or text) into a cell, it will probably end up being cut off partway through, making your spreadsheet harder to read. You may already know how to wrap text, which increases the vertical scope of the cell so you can see its entire contents (don’t worry if not, we’ll explain how to do this in a moment). But if the cell’s data is only slightly too long for the cell, you may want to try Calc or Excel’s ‘shrink to fit’ tool instead. Select the relevant cell(s), right-click your selection, then click ‘Format Cell…’ (or press Ctrl+1). In the Properties window that appears, click the Alignment tab. If you’re using…

What are they? Browser tabs that go into sleep mode when they’re open but not being used. They lie snoozing in the background while you’re in another tab, then wake when you click them. Microsoft is planning to introduce them soon in its Edge browser, following Google adding the similar Tab Freeze option to Chrome last year. How are they different to normal tabs that aren’t being used? Currently, unused tabs lie stubbornly awake, like a toddler who has guzzled too many sugary drinks. In this context, ‘awake’ means a webpage that continues to use your computer’s memory, and runs scripts to stay updated, even when you’re not viewing it. But what’s the problem with that? Nothing per se. It’s often very useful. If for example you start playing music…

If you find some PowerToys tools aren’t working as we’ve described (such as the zones not appearing when you run FancyZones), it’s most likely because they’re conflicting with other programs on your computer running in administrator mode - in other words, programs that can access and change system settings. The good news is that a recent update lets you fix this: you just need to get PowerToys to also run in administrator mode. To do this, open the PowerToys settings window (double-click the PowerToys icon in the system tray), then select General from the sidebar on the left. Click the ‘Restart as administrator’ button, then select Yes when asked whether you want to let PowerToys make changes to your PC. Now return to the General section of the settings window…

Here we show you how to disassemble an old Xbox 360 storage unit to salvage and reuse its hard drive. If you fancy trying it for yourself, CeX stores sells second-hand Xbox 360 drives for as little as 50p for a 20GB model (www.snipca.com/36212 – thanks to Computeractive reader Leo Simons for this tip). 1 Look on the underside of the Xbox storage unit and you’ll notice four screws. You’ll need a T5-sized Torx screwdriver to remove these. One screw is hidden under a Microsoft hologram sticker, which you can peel off or, as we did, simply pierce with your screwdriver 1. 2 Prise open the chassis and you’ll see the hard drive hidden under another metal chassis. Use aT10 Torx screwdriver to remove the screws holding this in place…

While we wouldn’t recommend using Office 2010 now, we realise that many users will be prepared to tolerate the risk. Therefore, here are some ways to minimise the threat of being hacked. Many of Office’s security flaws stem from hackers exploiting macros, which tell tools like Word and Excel how to perform a specific command. It’s easy to prevent this by disabling macros altogether. Click ‘File’, then Options in Word or Excel, then click Trust Center. Next, click ‘Trust Center Settings’, then select the ‘Disable all macros without notification’ option and click OK. Additionally, you should never open a document from someone else without scanning it with your security software first. A more secure option would be to uninstall Office 2010 from your ‘main’ PC and install it on a…

32bit/64bit A measure of how much data a PC can process at once. Most older computers are 32bit, more modern ones are 64bit. 4K Video with are solution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 720p/1080p/1440p Common types of high-definition video of 1280x720, 1920x1080 and 2560x1440 pixels respectively.  802.11ax Wi-Fi standard with speeds up to 10 times faster than 802.11ac. Also called Wi-Fi 6. Aperture An opening that controls the amount of light entering a camera lens. Beta Aversion of software that’s being tested – often released so problems can be ironed out. BIOS Basic Input-Output System. Software built into every PC that connects the vital components. Cache A temporary space for storing information. Code Shorthand for the various programming languages used to create programs. Colour temperature How blue and yellow-orange combine…