Содержание выпуска: 579 — Computeractive

I think it was when my mum said she’d had a church meeting on Zoom that I realised something revolutionary was happening. She may make the best Yorkshire puddings in Kent, but until recently she struggled even to turn on a computer. And yet a few weeks of lockdown have turned her into a video-calling connoisseur: “You should try this Zoom thing Daniel, it’s marvellous!” Thanks Mum, I will. She’s not alone. Millions of people in the UK are now using video-chat software to stay in touch. But with so much choice it’s hard to know which is the best service for your specific needs. Our Cover Feature deals with any questions you may have, revealing the hidden tools that will make you the kind of expert my Mum now…

Facebook has insisted that its new survey for recording Coronavirus symptoms won’t collect any data that can identify patients. It has launched a voluntary survey on its site that asks whether you’ve had any symptoms of the disease, such as a persistent dry cough, loss of smell or a fever. The results will be shared with researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh who will track the spread of the disease, and estimate how many intensive care admissions are likely in specific areas. NHS bosses could use this information to identify which hospitals should receive more ventilators and personal protective equipment. The site launched the survey in the US in early April before adding it to its UK site two weeks later. It has so far received around 1…

Google is cracking down on phone and tablet apps that try to trick you into paying for subscriptions. From 16 June developers who list Android apps on the Play Store will have to be clearer about the terms of their paid-for subscriptions, and make it easier to cancel free trials. They must also state whether subscriptions automatically begin when free trials end, and whether a paid-for subscription is needed to access all the app’s features. It means developers won’t be allowed to bury these important details in small print that’s hard to find. Google will also ban them from publishing this information in a lighter font that’s hard to read on a screen. The company gives an example of this trick in its blog (www.snipca.com/34616), showing two apps side by…

Scrapping landlines would be ‘a disaster’ To follow up recent letters in Computeractive, I believe scrapping landlines would be a disaster. To receive or make a mobile call I have to stand on a chair at the bottom of the garden and pray for a signal. It’s such ‘fun’ standing in the dark and cold awaiting a security code for an online transaction before running back with the result fast enough to avoid being timed out. When the landline was cut by a neighbour’s over-enthusiastic gardener, it took a week to convince BT that there was no cable, rather than something wrong at my house. Despite my attempts to convince them that there was no reliable Wi-Fi reception, they sent me an emergency hub, which uselessly decorates my bookshelf. Eventually,…

When is a warranty not a warranty? When you don’t register it in time. That’s what reader Marie Wardle discovered (see Issue 578), when Samsung refused to fix a tablet she bought from PC World in 2018 because she hadn’t registered the free five-year warranty within 90 days of purchase. Marie says PC World didn’t tell her she had to register the warranty, which means it broke the Unfair Trading Regulations. These rules require retailers to reveal relevant information when customers buy items, such as deadlines for activating warranties. As such, Marie’s case was against PC World (the retailer), because it’s with this store that she has a contract. Samsung (the manufacturer) doesn’t have a contract with Marie because its device was sold through a third party. Recent changes to…

BROWSER TOOL ChromeCacheView 2.10 www.snipca.com/34670 What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 Whenever you visit a web page, your browser downloads files from the page to your PC, including images, video and audio. Known as your browser’s cache, these files are used to load pages faster when you revisit them (instead of downloading those images again, your browser simply uses those it’s already downloaded). However, this cache creates a record of your online activity. You can delete your browser’s cache (usually by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Delete), but before you do so you might be interested to know exactly which files your browser has cached. ChromeCacheView from NirSoft (scroll down to the bottom of the page at the URL above and click the ‘Download ChromeCacheView’ link) lets you see all of your…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: MP4 Player I like simple tools that get the job done. Unfortunately, too many programs harbour hidden ways to fill your PC with unnecessary junk. Take Tomabo’s MP4 Player (www.tomabo.com/mp4-player), for example. On the face of it, if someone was looking for a simple tool to play MP4 files, then this might be the logical option. It looks nice and straightforward from the screenshots on Tomabo’s website, it supports other common web video formats, and it lets you watch movies in full-screen mode. What more do you need? The trouble is that there is more – install MP4 Player and you’ll quickly discover that a pair of uninvited guests have found their way on to your system. The installation process for MP4 Player doesn’t give…

TV-STREAMING STICK £20 from Amazon www.snipca.com/34661 Now that’s what I call… average When Now TV, the internet-streaming subsidiary of Sky, first launched its TV dongle in 2018 (see our review, Issue 522, page 29), it cost just £15. The catch was that very few streaming services were supported, so the cheap hardware was really a loss leader to sell you Now TV subscriptions. Its 720p resolution already felt dated. “Fine if you want Sky without a contract, but rival sticks are more versatile” Incremental improvements have now been consolidated in a new Smart Stick that costs a tenner more, although we found it discounted to £20. It’s basically the same thumb-sized dongle that plugs straight into your TV’s HDMI port and connects to your Wi-Fi. What’s changed is that a…

VideoStudio Ultimate 2020 takes ease of use and creativity one step further with new smart movie tools that analyse the best parts of your imported footage to create movies instantly. The latest version of Corel’s video editor also features a refreshed and redesigned creative content library. In addition, new shortcut tools and other enhancements improve the entire editing workflow for faster movie making. Access premium collections of professional-quality special effects, presets, and more from industry leaders NewBlueFX, ProDAD, and BorisFX, plus many more powerful Ultimate-exclusive features including enhanced video masking and robust colour-grading capabilities. To enter this competition, email your home address to cacomp@dennis.co. uk with ‘VideoStudio’ in the subject line by midnight 19 May. You can buy VideoStudio Ultimate 2020 for £89.99 from Corel’s website: www.snipca.com/34496. There’s also a…

What you need: Google account; Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 Time required: 30 minutes We all have videos that we may want to share with certain friends and family members, but posting them online could risk others gaining access to them. If you share videos using Google Photos, for example, it creates a link to your shared album that can easily be forwarded to other people. If you want to be in full control over who can see your shared videos, we suggest using Google Drive instead. Here, we’ll explain how to do that safely. STEP 1 If you don’t already have a Google account, sign up for one for free at www.snipca.com/34577. Next, go to www.google.com/drive, where you’ll be prompted to sign into your Google account if you haven’t…

Brightness Manager Android 69p www.snipca.com/34634 Control screen brightness on an app-by-app basis rather than having a single setting used phone-wide. This can be useful if you read books on your phone or tablet in bed as you can reduce the brightness of your e-reader app to reduce eye strain while not making any changes elsewhere. NeedUNow iOS Free www.snipca.com/34635 Android Free www.snipca.com/34636 Get family and friends to install this app, and you’ll be able to contact them even if their phone is set to ‘do not disturb’ or silent. Because it works on the idea of trusted contacts, the phone ignores the mute setting when a verified contact needs to get in touch, so you won’t ever miss an emergency message from each other. Accounts are free. Pro Camera iOS…

Using a mouse to drag and drop icons, text or anything else is relatively simple – you simply select what you want to move, then hold down the left mouse button and drag them accordingly. On a laptop’s touchpad, however, it’s not always so easy. If you reach the edge of your touchpad, you may have to lift your finger, which results in your selected item being ‘dropped’. To solve this, turn on ClickLock. In Windows 10 or 8.1, go to Settings (press Windows key+I), Devices, Mouse, then click ‘Additional mouse options’. In Windows 7, open Control Panel, then select Mouse. In both, you’ll now see the Mouse Properties window. Make sure the Buttons tab is selected, then go to the ClickLock section at the bottom and tick the ‘Turn…

What is it? It’s the organisation that agrees which new emojis you can use on your devices. Emojis are those smiley yellow faces? Yes, those are the most common ones, though there are thousands of others, covering almost everything you’d expect to see, feel and experience. Everything, that is, except a drunken chipmunk. Sorry? We’ll come back to that. Oh, OK. So somebody actually decides which emojis are allowed? Correct. The Unicode Consortium’s mission is to make a set of characters that works across every device in all languages, using universal computer code (hence unicode). Think of it as a translation service for digital text, allowing computers to transform numeric codes into letters and symbols everyone can understand, from Albuquerque to Zagreb. It means you can send the same emoji…

When making video calls, I’m certainly not driven by loyalty to one service. Since the lockdown started, I’ve signed up to at least half a dozen video-calling services and I’m happy to switch to whichever one works best for the other person or group I’m calling. I use Zoom for work, because it’s seemingly become the industry standard and is great for big meetings (though I do find the 40-minute limit for free calls annoying). I use Facebook Messenger to hook up with groups of friends and I find myself using Skype for larger family gatherings, since it supports larger groups and works on anything from a cranky old PC to a brand-new iPad. Outside of lockdown situations, though, the video-calling app I tend to use most is Apple’s FaceTime.…

Another option is a mesh network, which uses multiple wireless hubs – small devices that repeat your network signal and are sometimes referred to as nodes – which you place around your home. The principle is similar to that of a Wi-Fi extender, except that instead of creating a new network, each mesh hub uses the same SSID to create the appearance of a single network. This means you can move around your home with a laptop, for example, and as you go it will automatically connect to the nearest and therefore fastest hub. To set it up, you need to connect your existing router to the Ethernet port on one of the hubs(it’s the yellow port in the photo). The hub will then detect your wireless settings and link…

Netflix has made some of its most popular documentary series free to watch on its YouTube channel (www.snipca.com/34666). Programmes include Our Planet (pictured). Virgin Media has made some factual channels available free for viewers with a TV V6 box. You can now watch Animal Planet, Eden, History, National Geographic, plus several others, until 16 May. Amazon is offering new customers three months’ free access to Music Unlimited (www.amazon.co.uk/music/unlimited), which usually costs £9.99 a month (£7.99 if you’re an Amazon Prime customer). The service contains 50 million tracks without ads. Amazon has also doubled the length of its Kindle Unlimited free trial (www.snipca.com/34668) to 60 days. It gives you an unlimited number of titles from more than 1 million ebooks and audiobooks. After the trial it costs £7.99 a month. Andrew…

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has launched a new service for reporting scam emails. It’s encouraging people to forward dodgy-looking emails to its Suspicious Email Reporting Service (SERS) using the email address report@phishing.gov.uk. An automated system will analyse the email and any websites it links to. If it detects malicious activity, it will try to block the address it came from so it can no longer send emails. It will also ask web-hosting companies to remove links to the sites, and raise awareness of the emails through partners like the National Crime Agency and the City of London Police. The Centre, which is part of GCHQ, added that it will act upon every email received, but that it’s unable to tell you the outcome. You’ll receive an automated…

I was interested in your ‘Question of the Fortnight’ in Issue 578 about whether the Coronavirus-tracing app will nibble away at our personal freedoms. I suspect that it probably will. Once you give governments new powers to control the public, they are reluctant to give them up when ‘normal’ times return. For this reason I share the concern of privacy campaigners who want more transparency about what the app does, and a guarantee that all data will be wiped when (or if) the Coronavirus threat eases. But these privacy campaigners exaggerate the likelihood of the worst happening. They seem incapable of telling the difference between an open, liberal Western government like the UK’s and the tyrannies of Iran, China or North Korea. Apart from a few over-zealous police officers, our…

The customer service I received from Pure was almost unbelievably good. I phoned the company to ask how I could clean the sticky case on my 12-year-old Pure One Elite DAB radio. The case had a furry coating, which had become unbearable to touch. Pure immediately offered to inspect and replace the set with what they called the “closest equivalent”. In the email they sent me, they apologised for the problem I was having. They explained that they no longer have any One Elites in stock, and so said they’d send me the Pop Maxi (pictured) instead, which is worth £110 (see www.snipca.com/34468). Stanley Bown Has a company impressed you with its customer service? Please let us know: editor@computeractive.co.uk Contact: Pure…

What can I use to show hard-drive activity? Q Can you recommend a program to show hard-drive activity, ideally via lights on my taskbar that are configurable to any internal SSD or HDD? Along with optical drives, activity lights for hard drives on PCs seem to be going the way of the dinosaur. Steven Holmes A You can actually check disk activity using Windows’ built-in Task Manager tool. Just press Ctrl+Shift+Escape to launch Task Manager, then select the Performance tab. Select your hard drive from the list down the left side of the window and you’ll see a real-time graph of whether your drive is in use, as well as current read and write speeds. To get activity lights on your taskbar, however, you’ll need to download additional software. If…

PC £1,000 from Palicomp www.snipca.com/34587 Notch on their belt Palicomp is based in Crewe, which is known for making trains, and here’s a PC that goes like one. The eight-core AMD Ryzen 7 3700X chip is already at the top end of the processing power you’d expect to get for a grand, and then they’ve overclocked it even faster, from 3.6 to 4.25GHz. For anyone familiar with multi-core chips, especially from AMD, this would usually invoke a mental picture of Buster Keaton trying to drive an engine that’s on fire, but a sealed water-cooling system keeps the Orion safely out of comedy territory. “An affordable system that can cope with heavy work in advanced programs” It’s assisted by two big fans at the front and one at the back, all…

PRINTER £60 from Currys www.snipca.com/34628 Basic ink stint Among umpteen other models with almost identical numbers but widely varying designs, Canon markets this particular inkjet printer/scanner/copier (not to be confused with the older MG5350) at creative types. Its 20-sheet rear feed suits fancier media options, such as iron-on transfer paper, while the companion Creative Park app lets you design cards, crafts and decorations on your Apple or Android device. The printer itself comes in black, white or pink and connects via USB or Wi-Fi, with support for AirPrint and Mopria plus online services. Unlike many cheaper options, it can print both sides of the paper (duplex). “Budget printer with high running costs and too many flaws” You could do all this with most inkjets, though, and on closer inspection there’s…

Q I have an Acer Aspire 5920 laptop that’s over 10 years old, but works well. Could I upgrade it from Windows Vista to Windows 10, or do I need to buy a new computer? Stephen Bigg A Until four years ago, Microsoft offered a free Windows 10 upgrade to users of Windows 7 and 8. It’s an open secret that this still works. You’ll need a genuine installation of Windows 7 or 8. First, install all available updates for Windows, any driver software and your PC’s BIOS. Turn off any security products, disconnect accessories, then download and run the Windows 10 installer from www.snipca.com/34641. Select ‘Upgrade this PC now’ and click Next. Your licence should be upgraded to Windows 10. Sadly, this doesn’t work for Vista. But your laptop…

What was it? Announced in 2012 and developed by Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young, Pono was an audio player and online store designed to reproduce music more faithfully to its original recorded quality than other digital platforms. Investors and crowd-funders piled in, raising several million dollars. The £399 PonoPlayer, a prism-shaped iPod competitor, appeared in 2015. Why did it die? The audio CD format was already scientifically designed to deliver the best sound anyone could get. Without changes to the way music was actually recorded, encoding it using six times more data (using the FLAC format that Pono adopted) was largely pointless and could even sound worse. At best, Pono would only improve on lower-quality formats. Even then, listeners usually couldn’t tell the difference. The PonoPlayer, with its awkward shape and…

What you need: External SSD Time required: Two hours In Issue 578 (pages 24-25) we looked at a selection of the best external solid-state drives (SSDs), and in this issue we’ll show you a smart way you can use one to help your PC last longer and possibly run a little faster. Every PC slows as it becomes cluttered. Over time, not only will its ageing processor fall behind the increasing demands of modern software, but the amount of space available on the internal drive will gradually decrease. Even if you’ve maximised the memory in your PC, or upgraded it over time, Windows always demands more. So, when its built-in memory chips are full, it works out what it doesn’t need right away and temporarily transfers it to the hard…

TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Chat to the person you’re helping on TeamViewer Like Will Stapley (Issue 578, page 20), I’ve been learning how to use TeamViewer (www.teamviewer.com) during the lockdown. I normally visit my sister’s house to fix her PC problems, but that’s obviously not been possible. One thing that has always put me off using remote-access software to control other people’s PCs is not being able to talk them through what they’re doing. I didn’t realise that the free version of TeamViewer lets you chat by video or text to the person you’re helping. To do this, you need to click the Communicate dropdown menu at the top of TeamViewer’s interface, then choose the Chat or Video icons at the top right. My screengrab shows me talking to my…

Ruler App Android Free www.snipca.com/34638 Line up objects against the on-screen scale to see how long, wide or far away they are. So far, so simple, but it goes beyond that with a neat pinch-to-measure option, allowing you to accurately line up the ends of the object with on-screen graphics for pixel-perfect measurements. Best For Measuring objects around you AirMeasure iOS 99p www.snipca.com/34639 Point your phone at a wall, picture or piece of furniture and the on-screen tape measure tells you how large it is, even if you’re not touching it, or you’re viewing it from an angle. Its laser-distance mode tells you how far away things are, it has a traditional bubble level, and it can measure a person’s height. Requires iPhone 6S or later. Best For All-round tool…

You may already know that LibreOffice Writer lets you save any document as a PDF – simply click File, Export, ‘Export as PDF…’ then choose where you want to save it. However, if you lose the original document, editing the PDF at a later date can be trick. You’ll need to open it in LibreOffice Draw (or another PDF editor), which can result in formatting errors, such as misaligned text. To avoid this, save your document in what LibreOffice calls the Hybrid PDF format. First, open your document, then go to the ‘Export as PDF…’ window as explained above. In the window that opens, tick the ‘Hybrid PDF (embed ODF file)’ box on the right (see screenshot). Click Export, then choose where to save the PDF. You can now share…

They might have been available long before the Coronavirus lockdown began, but video-chat tools were largely underused. Many people instead opted for the familiarity of phone calls and text messages over the novelty – and occasional awkwardness – of face-to-face video calls. But since social-distancing rules came into force, people have turned to video-chat tools in a big way. And it’s not hard to see why. When you can’t meet up in person, video calling is the next best thing. And most services support group calls, which let you chat with a bunch of people at the same time. Video calling has also become an essential way for those working from home to communicate with colleagues and attend virtual meetings. But it has also allowed families to come together and…

If you use a laptop, you probably won’t need any extra hardware to use it for video calling. Most come with built-in webcams (you should see a small lens just above or below the screen). To test whether your laptop can capture both video and sound, click Start, type camera then press Enter to open Windows’ Camera app. Switch to video mode by clicking the movie-camera icon, then record a short clip of yourself talking and play it back to make sure video and sound are both working. Desktop PC owners are more likely to need a little extra kit to get up and running. For simplicity’s sake, we’d recommend getting a USB webcam with its own built-in microphone, so that you don’t have to plug in and configure two…

Were your Edge instructions off? Q Thanks for Issue 573’s article about Microsoft Edge. I’m a novice and without your informative magazine wouldn’t stray from sending emails. I followed your instructions to add websites to my ‘New tab’ page, notching up eight sites. I also applied the Inspirational theme. However, the plus (‘+’) button then disappeared. Do you know how to get it back? As well, I wonder if it’s possible to use my own picture for the Inspirational mode? I tried to follow the instructions in the ‘What about extensions?’ box on page 61, but, having visited the Chrome Web Store, I found no message saying I can run Chrome extensions in Edge. Julian Dearden A Let’s start with the disappearing plus symbol: this is simply because eight sites…

Phone networks have pledged to give “NHS heroes” all the free mobile data, voice calls and texts they need during the Coronavirus pandemic. It’s part of a commitment by telecommunications companies, also including broadband providers, to support the NHS as it comes under intense pressure. The Government, which discussed the measures with companies, said this will let staff work remotely “without fear of extra charges and limitations”. In addition, broadband firms will upgrade some NHS workers to faster connections for free, particularly if they need to perform video consultations from home or download large medical files. They have also pledged to improve speeds in care homes that have slow – or no – broadband connections. Fourteen companies have agreed to provide extra services: BT (including EE), Openreach, CityFibre, Gigaclear, Giffgaff,…

SAMSUNG LAUNCHES CHEAPER ‘LITE’ TAB Samsung has launched a cheaper version of its Galaxy Tab Android tablet, called the S6 Lite (pictured). It has a 10.4in screen (almost the same as the full-size S6), though its camera isn’t as powerful, nor does it have a fingerprint sensor. It’s available from Samsung’s store (www.snipca.com/34644) for £349 (Wi-Fi) and £399 (LTE). Both models are 64GB. PC ‘AS SMALL AS AN APPLE’ REVEALED Chinese computing manufacturer Chuwi has revealed what it calls the world’s smallest mini PC. The LarkBox (pictured) is the size of an apple (61x61x43mm) and weighs just 127 grams, which Chuwi says is lighter than most phones. It can stream video in 4K and has several ports, including USB-C and HDMI. Pricing hasn’t been confirmed. Read more on Chuwi’s site:…

Should Microsoft or John Lewis fix my faulty laptop? LEAD CASE Q A Microsoft Surface Pro 7 I bought from John Lewis in December 2019 became faulty – freezing and showing a blue screen. Initially, I tried to seek solutions for this online, but finally contacted John Lewis. Because the lockdown has closed all its stores, John Lewis advised me to go directly to Microsoft, which has said it will collect it, and either repair or replace it. But should I insist that John Lewis does this instead? And if not, would it still count as ‘one repair’ if the replacement fails? Robert Osborn A Robert’s contract is with John Lewis so he can insist that it repairs or replaces the laptop. But to do this, it would send the…

Track down merchant seamen in WW2 Reader Ted Hall emailed us to say he has an ancestor who served in the merchant navy both before and after World War II, but after sailing to Nova Scotia, Canada, in late 1939 his record during the war remains a mystery. Ted knows he needs to search in the National Archives at Kew Gardens, but has no record of which ships his ancestor served on. The good news is that the National Archives has a wealth of records for merchant seamen who served after 1918. There are several registers covering World War II that list people and the ships they served on. These can be used as the basis for further searches. Search the Central Index Register The first source Ted should explore…

When my mouse (a Logitech M705 that I’d had for 10 years) stopped working, I needed a replacement. And fast. Within seconds of my old mouse’s demise, I’d ordered a replacement on Amazon. But when it arrived the following day, I was dismayed to discover it lacked the two buttons (which were on the side of my old mouse) that let me navigate back and forth through pages in my browser. Then I remembered X-Button Mouse Control (XBMC) - a tool that lets you assign multiple functions to your mouse (www.snipca.com/34591 - click the ‘Latest version’ link top left to download it). My new mouse only has three buttons (left, right and the middle scroll wheel), so my options for web-navigation controls were limited. So I decided to make use…

What is it? It’s been creeping up on us for years. When Apple invented the smartphone as we know it in 2007, it had a 3.5in screen. By 2013, the iPhone 5s was still just four inches across the diagonal. But much bigger Android ‘phablets’ were emerging, producing a whole generation of very small teenagers prodding very large phones. Today, Apple’s biggest model, the iPhone 11 Max (at 6.5in) is dwarfed by Samsung’s 6.7in Galaxy S20+ and 6.8in Galaxy Note 10+, while the Galaxy S20 Ultra’s 6.9in (pictured on the above left) is matched by the hotly anticipated OnePlus 8 Pro. The latest folding screens are even bigger. What does it do? A larger screen is good for watching videos, viewing documents and playing games. It also enables office and…

LAPTOP HP Envy 13 (2019) £880 from www.snipca.com/33308 Tested Issue 568 Thanks to eighth-gen Intel processors and dedicated Nvidia MX250 graphics, this sleek aluminium laptop offers a practical combination of all-round processing power and portability, topped off by 8 hours 30 minutes battery life – and the touchscreen is now excellent too. ALTERNATIVE Dell XPS 13 Gets the most out of Intel CPUs, now tenth-gen, but there’s no GPU option and the cheapest sensible configuration is £1,049 from www.snipca.com/33309 ANDROID TABLET Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 9.7 £374 from www.snipca.com/30707 Tested Issue 501 Now discounted and with a stylus included, this full-size HDR tablet is a better deal than the new Tab S4 (see Issue 540). Apple’s faster £349 iPad with optional £89 Pencil is superior, but lacks microSD expansion. ALTERNATIVE…

ANDROID & iOS Borrow ebooks and digital mags from your local library Lockdown may have closed your library, but you can still borrow books and magazines if you have a library card. The exact process varies between different authorities, so start by visiting your local council’s website, click through to the library pages, and follow the links for ebooks, digital magazines and audiobooks. Most have settled on BorrowBox (www.borrowbox.com) or Overdrive (www.overdrive.com) for ebooks and audiobooks, and a mixture of PressReader (www.pressreader.com) and RB Digital (www.rbdigital.com) for newspapers and magazines. Each app is free and you’ll find download links through your local library pages because the process for signing in and the period over which you can borrow items varies. Warwickshire Council (www.snipca.com/34630), for example, lets you borrow items for…

WINDOWS 10 Spice up your Windows wallpaper Like most search engines, Bing remains behind Google in terms of market share. Although it’s struggling in this respect (a paltry 2.5 per cent compared with Google’s 91 per cent), but we’ve always been impressed by the stunning background images on the Bing homepage (similar to those on the Windows login screen). Microsoft has now released a tool that lets you use these impressive images on your Windows desktop and set them to change every day. To download the tool, go to www.snipca.com/34665 and click ‘Install now’. Unlike most new Microsoft tools, this doesn’t install via the Microsoft Store, but instead uses a traditional installer file. Run this, taking care to untick options to set Bing as your homepage and default search engine.…

The lockdown might have put the kibosh on club gatherings, but you can still arrange virtual get-togethers, such as a video quiz using Zoom (https://zoom.us). The free version allows up to 99 contestants (plus you, the quiz master), but limits meetings to 40 minutes, at which point you’ll need to restart the meeting and ask people to rejoin. You could use this as an excuse for a half-time break, but another option is to upgrade to the Pro package (£11.99 a month - https://zoom.us/pricing), which lets meetings run for up to 24 hours. Schedule and plan your quiz If you’ve never used Zoom before, go to page 52 for an overview and Workshop on how to schedule your meeting. If you’re hosting a large quiz, it’s best to mute everyone…

1 To create a quick group video call in Skype, click the Meet Now 1 button in the left-hand pane. If this is the first time you’ve used the feature, you may see a welcome screen – click Continue and Skype will generate a link to your video call. Next, click ‘Share invite’ to send the link to people you want to join the call. 2 If all the people you want to invite are already in your ‘Skype contacts’, click/tap this option and select them. Otherwise, opt for Outlook Mail or Gmail to open a new message and add recipients. Selecting ‘Copy link’ will copy the link to your clipboard, letting you paste it into an email. 3 Add the addresses for the people you want to join and…

Holla Aimed at those wanting to make new friends, rather than chat with existing ones, Holla lets you make random video calls with complete strangers. However, many users have complained of being exposed to racial abuse and sexual harassment. Snapchat Popular with younger users, Snapchat lets you make video calls as well as send short clips to friends that are automatically deleted after they’ve been viewed. However, last year reports surfaced of Snapchat employees snooping on its users (read more at www.snipca.com/34615). Houseparty Despite multiple claims that the app has been hacked, the creators of Houseparty (pictured) continue to deny any breach. Regardless, the default setting that lets friends of friends join your conversations (just like a real party, apparently) feels invasive. Fake WhatsApp apps In 2016, users were conned…

What are the key differences? Powerline adapters and Wi-Fi extenders ultimately do the same thing: let you spread your home network further across your home. However, they do so in very different ways. Powerline networking uses your home’s electrical wiring to pass network signals between two or more adapters. Once set up, you can plug any device (such as a PC or smart TV) into a powerline adapter using an Ethernet cable, thereby connecting it to your network. In contrast, Wi-Fi extenders rely solely on wireless to connect devices. They work by linking up with your existing wireless network, then broadcasting a new network of their own. Any device that connects to this new network will effectively be connected to your main network, giving it internet access. Which is easier…

Most modern 3D games require a powerful PC. However, Google’s new Stadia service aims to change this. Instead of installing and running games on your PC, Stadia lets you stream them over the internet. Because the 3D graphics are processed on Google’s servers, you can play them even on relatively low-powered PCs and laptops (anything built in the last five years should be fine). There’s also no need to download anything, meaning games run within seconds of you selecting them. You will, of course, need a fast and stable internet connection to stream the games smoothly – at least 10Mbps (check your speed at www.snipca.com/34659). Google recently announced that all new users get two months free (you’ll need to enter your credit-card details to sign up, but you can cancel…

1080p Of the common types of high-definition video, this is the best quality: 1920x1080 pixels. 2.4GHz Wireless networks working at this frequency have longer range, but are more prone to interference. 256-bit encryption Military-grade level of encryption. 3G/4G/5G Technologies that deliver faster mobile broadband. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 5GHz Wireless networks working at 5GHz have shorter range, but are less prone to interference. 32bit/64bit A measure of how much data a PC can process at once. Most older computers are 32bit, more modern ones are 64bit. 720p A common resolution of high-definition video: 1280x720 pixels. 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…