Table of contents for 500 in Computeractive

There were a couple of ways we could have celebrated reaching our 500th issue. We could have spent 76 pages patting ourselves on our collective backs while blowing our own trumpets (not easy to do). Or we could have published a 500-page special issue, but I doubt it would have fitted on newsagents’ shelves - or through subscribers’ letterboxes. Instead, we’ve focussed on the people without whom we’d never have made it to Issue 50, let alone 500 – our readers. On page 58 you give us your thoughts on computing in 1998, when Computeractive came into this world, and how things have changed since. It was heartening to read that we’ve managed to help so many of you over the years. You’ll find several other references throughout this issue…

Google has closed its Map Maker tool following incidents of online vandalism. Launched in 2008, Map Maker quickly became a popular way for local people to add or correct information about their area to Google Maps. It meant that communities could easily change information as new buildings and roads were built, for example. These changes were submitted to Google Maps moderators, who would decide whether to approve them. If approved, they were added permanently. But Map Maker had caused problems for Google, most famously in 2015 when a mischievous user added an image of the company’s Android logo urinating on an Apple logo (www.snipca.com/ 24075). This image sneaked through the moderation process, much to Google’s embarrassment, forcing the company to suspend Map Maker for three months. Some of Map Maker’s…

AMAZON BANS KODI TV BOXES Amazon has banned people selling TV-streaming devices that make it easy to illegally watch paid-for content for free. Its updated policy (www.snipca.com/24032) is being seen as a ban on TV boxes that come loaded with the Kodi media player, although Amazon doesn’t mention the software. It will suspend or terminate the accounts of sellers, and “destroy” prohibited devices being stored in its warehouses. ANDROID WEB USE OVERTAKES WINDOWS Internet use on Android devices is now more common than accessing the web through Windows computers. The mobile operating system, launched by Google in 2008, overtook Windows in March, according to figures from StatCounter (www.snipca.com/24035). Although Android’s lead is extremely narrow – 37.93 per cent to 37.91 per cent – it’s expected to increase as more people…

In March 2016 I paid £36 for a My Heritage (www.myheritage.com) subscription. Without warning the website took a subscription for 2017 of £120. My Heritage said it would give me a 50-per-cent discount, but that I won’t be able to cancel until next year. Isn’t this unreasonable? Dave Fisher Yes it is unreasonable, and My Heritage is wrong to tell Dave that he’s now stuck with this subscription. Under the Consumer Contract Regulations you have 14 days in which to cancel a subscription for a service providing you’ve not used it. This right applies whether the subscription is new or ongoing. Because My Heritage breached the law by giving Dave misleading information, it must let him cancel even if he has missed the 14-day deadline. Customers need to remember when…

Q I’d like to be able to get a text output list of all the files on one of my external hard drives when I connect it to my Windows 10 computer, so I can then copy the list into a spreadsheet. Do you know of a program that can do this? Allan Smith A First, try this hidden Windows trick. Plug in your drive, then navigate to it in Explorer. Press Shift and right-click at the same time, then select ‘Open command window here’. In the Command Prompt window that opens, type dir >contents.txt (we’ve used ‘contents’ but you can name the file anything, as long as it’s one word), then press Enter. Windows instantly creates a text file containing a list of files in that directory, including names,…

Computeractive is owned by Dennis Publishing, which owns a hi-tech facility for testing the latest technology. You’ll often read references to our benchmark testing, which is a method of assessing products using the same criteria. For example, we test the speed of every PC and the battery life of every tablet in exactly the same way. This makes our reviews authoritative, rigorous and accurate. Dennis Publishing also owns the magazines PC Pro, Computer Shopper and Web User and the websites Expert Reviews (www.expertreviews.co.uk) and Alphr (www.alphr.com). This means we can test thousands of products before choosing the most relevant for Computeractive. FAIR AND IMPARTIAL Our writers follow strict guidelines to ensure the reviews are fair and impartial. The manufacturer has no involvement in our tests. OUR AWARDS We award every…

I have a Windows 10 PC. What external capture cards would you suggest I use for digitising VHS tapes and vinyl records to my hard drive. And what software should I use to process these formats before burning to DVD and CD? Robert Fairbairn ou’ll need a composite or S-video input to connect to your VHS player, or analogue stereo to your music player. These are essentially the same. You could spend as little as £7.49 on Honestech’s VHS to DVD Converter (www.snipca.com/ 24056), which provides RCA inputs (the red, yellow and white plugs) and a USB output to your PC. The box comes with cables, the CyberLink PowerDirector 10 video-conversion program, and MediaEspresso 6.5, which provides further options and supports audio-only. If your CD or record player has phono…

Win 1 of 3 Winner of a ‘Great Pick’ award in Issue 497, Lexar’s 1000x is one of the best microSD cards you can buy if you shoot a lot of videos, or take hi-res photos on a camera and import them to your PC. It excelled in our sequential read tests, which means it’s extremely fast at recovering and transferring videos. We managed to transfer a 9.33GB video in just 73 seconds. To enter this competition, email your address to cacomp@dennis.co.uk with ‘1000x’ in the subject line by midnight 9 May. The Professional 1000x comes in four sizes – 32GB (£21), 64GB (£35), 128GB (£85) and 256GB (£138) - available from Amazon: www.snipca.com/23674. For more info on Lexar’s products visit www.lexar.com.…

Brilliant things to do on your device ANDROID Save money calling abroad using Google Duo In Issue 484 (see page 42) we explained how to use Google’s new video-chat app Duo. With its latest update, the app now lets you make audio calls, which consume less mobile data. It also works over Wi-Fi, so it’s a great option if you need to call abroad without incurring additional costs. Install and open the app (Android www.snipca.com/24097; iOS www.snipca. com/24098). By default it is set to Video mode, but simply tap the slider to make audio calls (see screenshot below left). Next, tap ‘New call’. You’ll see a list of all contacts that have the app installed. Tap to select the one you want to call. ANDROID Customise your home screen using…

WINDOWS 10 Translate text in Microsoft Edge Microsoft’s browser Edge offers a simple way to translate foreignlanguage text with just a few clicks. To do this, you need to install the Microsoft extension Translator Open Edge, click the three dots at the top right, click Extensions at the bottom, then click the ‘Get extensions from the Store’ link. When the Store opens, click the ‘Translator for Microsoft Edge’ extension, then click the blue Get button. Next, select your C Drive then click Install. You’ll see a message near to your notification area when that’s completed. Finally, click the Launch button, then click ‘Turn it on’. Now whenever you come across foreign-language text while browsing, highlight it, then click the Translator icon on your toolbar (see screenshot above). The tool will…

Remove ‘orphaned’ programs BCUninstaller (www.snipca.com/18041) is designed to replace Windows’ Uninstall tool in the Control Panel. One of its best hidden tools lets you find ‘orphaned’ programs, which have been left on your PC without an uninstaller. To see orphans, tick the ‘Show orphaned applications’ filter (on the left – see screenshot above right) – they will then be highlighted in pink. To group them together so you can more easily check them, make sure ‘Show items in groups’ is ticked (on the left), then click the Uninstaller Kind column. Scroll down to the Simple Delete group to see the orphaned programs. Delete any you don’t want in the usual way: click one to highlight it, then click Uninstall. Click Create when prompted (to create a system restore point). Once…

Nineteen years is one small step for man, one giant leap for programs. If you were to say “remember 1998?”, we’d probably answer “of course, seems like last week”, but in software terms 1998 is prehistoric. When the first issue of Computeractive hit the shops in February of that year, there was no such thing as Google (founded September 1998) or Windows 98 (June). No Mozilla. No Napster. No MSN or Yahoo Messenger. Bet you a fiver you were using Netscape to browse the web, if you were doing so at all. Software has come so far since then that some people say it’s had its day. You can do everything online and on your smartphone, they argue, so programs are irrelevant. Well, we disagree in the strongest possible terms.…

PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT Can I keep my Orange email address? Q When I was an Orange customer years ago, I set up an email address ending in orange.net — and that’s been my main contact point ever since. Last week I got an email purportedly from EE saying that my email address will stop working at the end of May this year. At first I thought it might be spam but Googling around it seems to be real, and EE has taken over Orange. I absolutely do not want to switch because everyone I know contacts me at the orange.net address. Is there any way to keep it? I don’t mind paying. If not, what should I do? And what will happen if people email my old address? I…

Five hundred issues, hey? I reckon that means Computeractive has printed somewhere in the region of 100 million copies, and perhaps a total of 10 billion pages. I know the editor will want to check that figure with me. So yes, let’s call it 10 billion. We’ve changed a lot since Issue 1 in 1998. Colleagues have come and gone, and stale sections have been replaced by fresh ones. And why not? Things can’t stand still. I mean, if we hadn’t regularly updated our content then we’d still have a two-page section dedicated to reviewing CD-ROMs. Sometimes we’d theme it: Animals! Days out! Adult games! I think once we even combined all three, and the result was akin to a party political conference. “Back in 1998, Computeractive’s social-media strategy was…

Hikers and cyclists can now plot their route in dazzling 3D using new software from the Ordnance Survey (OS). It provides a bird’s-eye view of some of the UK’s most dramatic scenery, including glens, lochs, lakes and mountains, but is available only as part of a £19.99 annual Premium subscription. Called Aerial 3D, the software adds a layer to the OS Maps – a collection of maps available online and via an app. It is designed to complement the OS Landranger (1:50k) and OS Explorer (1:25) maps, which are available only in the Premium version of OS Maps (compare it with the Free package at www.snipca.com/24037). The layer makes it easier for you to see where your route will be affected by natural hazards, such as crags, waterfalls and cliffs…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: Xara Web Designer Premium Xara Web Designer Premium is the undisputed leader of the WYSIWYG web-design gang (that’s ‘what you see is what you get’). It’s got all the tools to create sophisticated websites without needing to know HTML. Its £69.99 price tag is fair – and you can try it out for free. So Xara was top of my shortlist for the section on great paid-for trials in our Cover Feature (see page 50) and remains our top web design Buy It! recommendation (see page 33), but it also reminds us that paidfor software can be junk offenders too. Premium PUP You’d have thought a program costing 70 quid wouldn’t need to bundle adware in its installer. But here it is: ‘simpliclean’, pre-ticked and…

£30 broadband compensation? I’d lose £500 a day! In Issue 499, you asked how much we should be compensated when our broadband is down and appointments to fix it are cancelled (News, page 9). I find the £30 per day suggested by Ofcom derisory. It’s better than nothing, of course, but it hugely devalues the monetary importance of having speedy broadband. As an accountant, I stand to lose around £500 a day if my broadband is kaput. The £30 compensation barely covers the coffee, muffins and yogurt I’d eat in my local coffee shop while using their Wi-Fi as an alternative. Gerald Shaw BT made £526m profit in the final three months of 2016. I, on the other hand, lost about £10,000 worth of business while waiting for Openreach to…

Yoyotech Warbird G2 PC ? £941 from Yoyotech www.snipca.com/24015 A better than average PC – with a light show Intel makes most of the processors that PCs run on, and it does that by etching billions of transistors on to tiny wafers of silicon. The efficiency of each design depends partly on the arrangement of transistors (or ‘microarchitecture’) and partly on how close together it can place them (shrinking). In recent years, Intel’s microarchitecture has been updated about every 18 months in what’s known as a ‘tick-tock’ cycle. Each tick represents a shrinking of the previous microarchitecture, each tock represents a brand new architecture. SPECIFICATIONS 3.4GHz Intel i5-7500 quad-core processor • 8GB memory • 6GB GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card • 120GB SSD • 1TB hard drive • 1x USB…

PHONE ? £170 from Amazon www.snipca.com/24076 No longer the best budget buy For the last couple of years, Motorola’s Moto G has been our favourite budget Android phone. The G3 was brilliant, the G4 (see our review, Issue 479) was even better, and now the G5 is… Well, let’s start at the beginning – it looks good. Motorola (now owned by Lenovo) always did a decent job of making plastic cases appear classy, but for many people metal feels more upmarket, and that’s what the G5 gets. Available in grey or gold, the rounded rear panel has a distinctive two-tone effect. And here’s where the Moto G5 pulls a bit of a fast one. While the back itself is aluminium, the edges are still plastic. Hmmm. “ Not a bad…

ROUTER ? £25 from Amazon www.snipca.com/24086 A pocket-sized router This is one of the cheapest Wi-Fi routers around, and it’s exceptionally compact, taking the form of a tobacco tin-sized box with a mains plug sticking out of one corner. That makes it ideal for carrying to places where the available internet connection might not suit what you need to connect to it, such as in a hotel or someone else’s home or office. “Range and speed are limited, but it could prove very handy” And it’s pretty versatile: you can use it as a standalone router, connected to a broadband modem or wired Ethernet network socket; or as a Wi-Fi extender, sitting halfway between an existing router and somewhere its signal won’t quite reach; or in ‘client mode’ to connect…

TheComputeractive Products we would like to see No.18 A CLIP?ON KEYBOARD THAT DOESN’T FLOP The computer keyboard is the most timeless symbol of the PC era. Screens have changed from small and square to big and wide, mice have been overtaken by touchpads, and the computer itself is as small as a fag packet, but the keyboard is eternal. Even tablets now have optional keyboards, while laptops still come as a keyboard and screen, although many pull apart. If you’ve ever actually used a touchscreen machine with a detachable keyboard (like the iPad and Origami Smart Keyboard pictured), you’ll know the crucial problem. It doesn’t just detach when you want it to; it detaches when it feels like it. And then you have to remember the knack of getting it…

Master the best new video editor What you need: Kdenlive; Windows 7, 8 and 10 Time required: 45 minutes Kdenlive is one of the best free video-editing programs for Linux PCs. Its latest version now works on Windows for the first time. The program lets you import all your videos and music files and edit them on a convenient timeline. You can add effects to videos, transitions between clips and your own soundtrack to create the right mood. We’ll explain all the tools you’ll need to create a stunning video in under an hour. STEP 1 To download Kdenlive, go to www.snipca.com/24040, then click the Windows Download button at the top. It downloads as a zipped file, so you’ll need a file-compression program, such as PeaZip (www.peazip.org), to open it.…

What you need: Android or iOS phone or tablet Time required: 15 minutes Google now lets you share your exact location with others using Google Maps (built-in Android app; iOS www.snipca.com/24019). The feature is really useful if you want to arrange to meet friends or family at your current location. You can share this information using any compatible app, including email, text messaging and social media. You can also set how long you’ll be at this location (from 15 minutes to three days). It’s easy to terminate locationsharing once you meet up. STEP 1 To use the feature, you need to be at the place where you want to meet your friends. Open Google Maps, tap the three lines at the top left, tap ‘Share location’, then tap Get Started.…

Meteor Free Android: www.snipca.com/24103 Meteor tells you where in your house you’ll get the best performance from certain apps that rely on your Wi-Fi. So, for example, you can find out which room is best for making Skype video calls. It supports 17 popular apps, including Gmail, Chrome, Dropbox, YouTube and Spotify. Airspace Explorer Free iPad only: www.snipca.com/24102 Developed by the UK’s National Air Traffic Services, Airspace Explorer lets you track over 10,000 flights in real time. Tap any plane to see more info, including its flight number, departure airport, destination, aircraft type and cruising altitude. The app is a beta version but we had no problems. Apple Music Free Android: www.snipca.com/24104 Apple has updated the Android version of its Music app, adding useful features that were previously only available…

WINDOWS 10 Most new Windows 10 PCs come with Bluetooth technology built in. It’s one of the quickest ways to send files (such as photos and documents) wirelessly from your PC to your phone (and vice versa). First, make sure you have switched on the Bluetooth option on your phone – simply tap the Bluetooth icon in your device’s notification area. Now, go to your PC, press the Windows key, type bluetooth, then click the ‘Bluetooth and other device settings’ option below Settings. On the page that opens, click the Bluetooth slider to turn it on (see screenshot). Next, click ‘+Add Bluetooth or other device’ then select Bluetooth. Your PC will scan your network for any Bluetooth devices within range. Select your phone when it appears in the list. Now…

NIRSOFT www.nirsoft.net Free, portable tools – mostly to do with security and Wi-Fi – and all the work of one man, Nir Sofer. Recent favourites include WirelessNetworkWatcher (see screenshot), which reveals who’s connected to your Wi-Fi, and BrowserAddonsView, which finds all extensions and plug-ins on your PC. THE WINDOWS CLUB www.snipca.com/24049 Browse the list of small, free tools for fixing Windows annoyances, including 10AppsManager, Ultimate Windows Tweaker and AltPlusTab. The Windows Club – no relation to Microsoft – also publishes free ebooks. PHROZEN www.phrozensoft.com Small but growing collection of privacy tools including Winja – which automatically uploads suspicious files to security site VirusTotal – and Who Stalks My Cam, to root out webcam hackers. Click Freeware then scroll down for Download links. SORDUM www.sordum.org Free, portable system tools. Recent releases…

Why has Screeny’s hotkey failed? QI survived the German-language installation instructions provided by Screeny (see Issue 499, page 42), but once the program had installed I was hit by a pop-up message that read: ‘Enable hotkey failed. It is in use by another application. Select another hotkey’. What’s going on here? How can one of Screeny’s hotkeys already be conflicting with something else when I’ve only just installed it? Ben Laurence AThe problem here is caused by the fact that Screeny wants to use only the Print Screen key as its screen-capture shortcut. This key happens to be one that several programs want exclusive rights to, including OneDrive and PicPick. The solution is to change Screeny’s default shortcut key combination for taking a screenshot. The setting you need to click…

Sales of computers worldwide have risen for the first time in five years, according to one set of statistics, but continued to fall according to another. Market-research company IDC said that in the first three months of 2017 PC sales increased by 0.6 per cent. However, competing data from Gartner shows that they fell by 2.4 per cent, sinking to their lowest level since 2007. The disparity may be explained by the growing popularity of Chromebooks, which IDC includes in its sales data, but Gartner doesn’t. These are laptops that run the Chrome OS, rather than Windows, and are intended to be used mainly to browse the web, not for downloading software or performing intensive tasks like video editing. IDC’s Jay Chou said that sales of computers fell during the…

Customers are in danger of being misled by broadband adverts that promise “fibre” speeds, the UK’s advertising watchdog has said. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) says that internet service providers (ISPs) sometimes use the word ‘fibre’ to describe connections that actually rely on a slower copper cable from the street cabinet to the customer’s home. It’s now investigating the use of the term to address “evolving concerns” from the public and MPs. In March Matt Warman, Conservative MP for Boston and Skegness, said that ISPs were “complicit in fraud” or how they advertise broadband speed. The ASA added that greater clarity was needed because the number of households able to access fibre is likely to increase rapidly following government spending in broadband infrastructure. It will consider whether ‘fibre broadband’ should…

Ask Toolbar hackers How do you make the Ask Toolbar even worse? By embedding it with remoteaccess malware that steals people’s data from afar – secretly, for months on end. Yes, these are dark times for Ask. Like last issue’s villain Yahoo, Ask is a one-time web-search hero that fell on hard times and took to hijacking people’s browsers for a living. In November, hackers made the toolbar even worse – dangerous, in fact – by infecting its update mechanism with malware. Any PC user unlucky enough to acquire the toolbar risked downloading the malware as well, then having their data ransacked. The Ask Partner Network responded quickly to the threat but hasn’t fixed the problem, according to security firm Carbon Black (www.snipca.com/24092). Who’s the real villain here, the Ask…

Bandizip 6.02 FILE?COMPRESSION TOOL www.bandisoft.com/bandizip What you need: Windows Vista, 7, 8/8.1 or 10 Windows has built-in tools for dealing with ZIP files, but it’s slow and limited. If you do lots of zipping (and indeed unzipping) you’ll need a decent third-party program, and the new version of Bandizip is the easiest and most powerful we’ve used. Unlike its old rival 7-Zip, Bandizip doesn’t have its own compression format (7z in 7-Zip’s case), but instead focuses on supporting as many formats as possible – including RAR, ISO and new formats ZPAC and LZIP – as efficiently as possible. And unlike its other big rival, WinZip, Bandizip is completely free. Bandizip now opens on a Start Screen with two big buttons: Open Archive and New Archive. To switch to the main…

TABLET ? £339 from Apple www.snipca.com/24022 A full-size iPad for less The iPad was so successful when it arrived seven years ago that it almost killed off the bottom end of the laptop market, prompting the company’s then- CEO Steve Jobs to start blathering about a “post-PC era”. Android versions followed, and soon everyone wanted a tablet. But in the last couple of years, they’ve stopped selling. Apple sold only half as many iPads in the first quarter of 2017 as in the same period in 2014, despite offering more models to choose from. Heavier than the iPad Air, but retains the sharp screen and costs less Apple still believes tablets are the future. But it has a new plan. Instead of launching yet another option to add to the…

What does it do? Smart speakers like Google Home (pictured right), and Amazon Echo (below) listen for you speaking to them and access remote voice services to either speak back an answer or act on your command. For under £150 you get a full-time personal assistant. Why would I want it? If you want to know what time a film is on at the local cinema, just ask. Run out of kitchen roll again? Place an order. You can check the time, weather or traffic, play and pause music and set calendar reminders. If you’ve installed smart lightbulbs, you can ask to turn them up or down. It’s like having Jeeves in a can. What’s the catch? These boxes listen all the time, and as soon as they think you’re…

PRINTER ? £67 from Amazon www.snipca.com/24065 Almost an ideal all-in-one How do you make an all-in-one inkjet printer stand out? Some manufacturers add fancy colours and swoopy curves. But Canon’s new design distinguishes itself by being compact and self-effacing. We like it. The 3in colour LCD isn’t a touchscreen, but the new menu buttons are easy to use, and you can print wirelessly from Apple, Android and Windows 10 Mobile devices as well as PCs, or directly from an SD card. One annoyance is that the 100-sheet paper tray has a flap that you have to close manually, and the printer sometimes wouldn’t recognise we had closed it until we wiggled it a bit. The TS5050 did well in our speed tests, reaching 12.5 pages per minute (ppm) on a…

PLANT MONITOR ? £130 from Amazon www.snipca.com/24083 A baby monitor for plants Everyone’s talking about the ‘connected home’, except Parrot. Better known for its drones, the French tech company wants to introduce you to the ‘connected garden’, or as we prefer to think of it, the internet of twigs. You can’t tell from the photo, but the Parrot Pot isn’t just a little flower pot to pop on your windowsill – it’s a foot-high planter that takes two-and-a-half litres of soil (not included). It’s designed for both indoors and out, and runs on four AA batteries, no mains power required. Add your preferred shrub and fill up the built-in water tank, and, through the accompanying Flower Power app for your Apple or Android device, it will bombard you with data…

£15 fromwww.snipca.com/23209 Find out what other products we liked. Buy our new 2016 Back Issue CD: LAPTOP Dell Inspiron 15 5000 £699 from www.snipca.com/23375 Tested: Issue 459 Now updated with Intel’s seventhgeneration processors, this laptop ( not the 2-in-1 version) now edges the ZenBook below and starts at just £449, but mid-range configurations with SSD and AMD R7 graphics are the best choice. ALTERNATIVE: Asus ZenBook UX305CA If you want something sleeker, this offers basic performance in a superbly slim and light metal case. £600 from www.snipca.com/23376 DESKTOP PC Wired2FireDiabloUltimaV2 £800 from www.snipca.com/23767 Tested: Issue 497 Teaming Intel’s latest i5 processor with a Radeon RX 460 graphics card, this delivers great all-round performance and adequate gaming, helped by a fast M.2 SSD plus a generous 2GB hard drive and 16GB of memory.…

AGES 0-5 Jungle Book Hide and Seek £1.99 www.snipca.com/24105 (iOS) As well as an audio narrative of Rudyard Kipling’s classic tale with animal noises and sound effects, this app offers loads of interesting games. Our favourite involves moving the device around to scan the virtual jungle, then tapping each animal to learn more about them. AGES 6-10 Marble Math Junior £1.79 www.snipca.com/24106 (Android) £3.99 www.snipca.com/24107 (iOS) This app aims to make maths calculations less daunting for your kids. They’ll see an equation at the top and various numbers dotted around a maze. The aim is to drag the marble to the correct number(s) to solve the equation. AGES 11-16 Typeshift* Free www.snipca.com/24108 (iOS) Typeshift is a new word puzzle with a twist. You need to swipe letters up and down…

EXCEL It’s easy to convert your spreadsheet data into charts. Better still, you can customise these charts in a matter of minutes. First, highlight the relevant data, then click the Insert tab. In the Charts section you’ll see a selection of charts you can click to apply. Some chart types have dropdown menus that display further options you can click to select. To customise your chart, click to select it. You’ll see three icons at the top right of your chart – Chart Elements, Chart Styles and Chart Filters. Click Chart Elements to see several boxes (including gridlines and axis titles), some of which will be pre-ticked. Tick the other boxes to add those elements to your chart. Chart Styles has two tabs – Style and Color (see right of…

What is it? Microsoft’s new ‘design language’ for Windows 10, which will change how the operating system looks and works. Early glimpses show transparent boxes, fluid animations, large white spaces and subtle blurring around words. It’s all very tasteful. So it won’t have neon signs like Piccadilly Circus? No, it’s much more attractive, although we can’t guarantee that Microsoft won’t let Coca-Cola and McDonald’s advertise in the Start menu. Nor should it be confused with the Project Neon construction work that’s taking place in Las Vegas (you’ll come across this should you search for the term online!). Can I take a look? Certainly. The main screenshot is the latest leaked image, showing one of the biggest changes – transparent tiles on the Start menu. Currently these tiles are as solid…

4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 802.11ac A standard for wireless networks that allows for higher transfer speeds than 802.11n. 802.11n A standard for wireless networks that allows for high transfer speeds. AES-256 Advanced Encryption Standard. A form of encryption based on a key length of 256 bits. Cracking it would take longer than the age of the universe. APTX A codec that’s used to compress audio so it can be transmitted over Bluetooth with minimal quality loss. Autofocus A camera setting which lets you automatically position the camera’s lens to focus on the subject in the picture. 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.…