Table of contents for 586 in Computeractive

One of the consolations of not being a billionaire is that I can’t afford a luxury basement the size of three football pitches. Just think how many Wi-Fi extenders you’d need to get a decent signal down there. I find it hard enough staying connected throughout my modest 1930s semi. Who needs any more hassle? Not that I want to deter any billionaires from reading this issue. Our Cover Feature should prove helpful whatever the size, shape or age of your home. Different rooms provide particular challenges, so we’ve split our advice accordingly in classic Cluedo style (it was Colonel Mustard in the billiard room with a snapped router antenna, after all). I’d love to hear about how you’ve solved problems with your Wi-Fi. Did a mesh finally fix years…

A wearable device that alerts helpers when a vulnerable person has fallen is among the nominated devices for the 2020 Tech4Good Awards (www.tech4goodawards.com). Run by accessibility charity AbilityNet, the awards celebrate people and companies who use technology to “improve the lives of others across the UK and beyond”. One of the categories is the BT Young Pioneer Award, which promotes tech ideas from children aged 9 to 18 that tackle some of society’s most pressing issues. The Fall Alert was built by 14-year-old Freddie Howells from Newport, Wales. He was inspired by his great aunt Pat, who is 89 and has dementia. On several occasions she’s been found lying on the floor having fallen several hours earlier. Howells’ device uses an accelerometer to measure movement, as found in many smartphones.…

We always advise haggling with your broadband provider when a contract ends because they’re desperate to keep you as a customer. Tell them you’re thinking of leaving and there’s a good chance they’ll either cut your monthly bill or improve your service, such as by increasing your speed. Reader Danny Bowyer can vouch for this, having secured an £11 saving per month on his new contract. He emailed us in late June, annoyed that he had been unable to get through to Virgin to discuss a new deal. Its outages around that time meant it was being swamped by calls from angry customers. Eventually, Danny was moved to a new contract paying £43.50, up from £36.50. He wanted to know whether he could cancel this without a fee, arguing that…

EMAIL TOOL Thunderbird 78 www.thunderbird.net What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 Able to look after your email, calendar and contacts, Thunderbird is a great free alternative to Outlook (part of the Microsoft Office suite, which starts at £119). Like Outlook, Thunderbird can be used with any type of email account, including Gmail accounts and those provided by ISPs. Version 78 includes a new Account Hub window, which provides quick-access options for setting up your email, calendar, contacts and more. Once you’ve set up your email account, click Write to view the enhanced ‘new email’ window. Previously, if you wanted to send an email to multiple people you needed to enter each address on a separate line. In this version, you can add multiple addresses on the same line,…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: EaseUS Todo Backup Free A friend recently asked me to recommend some free backup software and I replied without thinking: EaseUS Todo Backup Free (www.snipca.com/35479). EaseUS’s feature-packed free backup tool has been a Computeractive staple for years and I’ve often sung its praises in these very pages. But a lot can happen to a decent program since you last downloaded it, and maybe I should have checked the latest incarnation of Todo Backup Free before suggesting it to my friend. I watched on in dismay as, before he was able to download the program, it demanded he provide his email address. That’s never a good sign and invariably leads to an inbox full of junk. I was also alarmed by the series of nag screens…

PORTABLE DRIVE | £143 from Amazon www.snipca.com/35554 “Like an airy loft or vast landscape,” explains LaCie’s marketing blurb, no doubt waving its hands as befits a company headquartered in Paris. It goes on: ‘LaCie Mobile Drive articulates the beauty and importance of premium space’. Does it? None of our usual tests could confirm, though its chamfered aluminium case is undeniably pretty, and an attractive companion to any metallic laptop. A stylish drive for all your portable storage needs This is a portable hard drive, meaning you can connect it to your PC or Mac with a USB cable and it works without a separate power supply. Exactly how portable depends on what capacity you choose: the 4 and 5TB models come in a bulkier case than the 1 and 2TB.…

Q I read with interest your tips (see Issue 584, How To, page 37) on adding Bluetooth to a radio that lacks wireless input. Then I realised it was the opposite of what I needed. Can you recommend a Bluetooth device that would transmit from the headphone output jack on my radio to wireless headphones? Geoff Weatherall A Bluetooth transmitters (TX) are available in a similar format to the receiver (RX) we suggested, and if you search outlets such as Amazon for ‘Bluetooth audio transmitter’ you’ll find units for £15-£25 that do both, like this Trond model £23 from Amazon www.snipca.com/35578 (pictured). A 3.5mm jack cable should be included, and look for a model with a microUSB charging cable. Others have a built-in USB plug, but for a device without…

Protecting your identity online is more important than ever. In 2019, there were 223,000 incidences of ID theft in the UK, a rise of 18 per cent on 2018. To help you stay safe online, F-Secure has launched ID Protection, which stores your passwords, and provides easy, safe and private access to them. It also generates strong unique passwords when needed. The app then continuously monitors and lets you know if your usernames, passwords and credit-card numbers have been leaked on the dark web, providing instant alerts and guidance on how to respond before any damage is done. To celebrate the launch of ID Protection, F-Secure is giving away a Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite (worth £326, pictured) plus an annual subscription to ID Protection to one lucky reader. To…

Mi Control Center* Free Android www.snipca.com/35508 Replace Android’s built-in control centre with this app, and it will separate the top of the screen into two offscreen areas. Swipe down from the left to see your notifications, and from the right for your settings, giving you quicker access to both. The interface is stripped back and bold, allowing your information and buttons to take centre stage, and you have control over colours, icons, contents and more. Although free, it has ads, which you can remove for £2.49 within the first 36 hours, or £4.29 thereafter. AniWeather Free Android www.snipca.com/35507 If you believe in simplicity, AniWeather is sure to appeal. Rather than packing it full of satellite and radar views, its developers have put a bold, at-a-glance view of the current conditions…

LIBREOFFICE WRITER Make large documents easier to navigate When you’re writing a long document in LibreOffice Writer, adding bookmarks makes it easier for you (and anyone else you share the document with) to move to specific sections. To do this, open your document, then navigate to the first section you want to bookmark. The bookmark will be added wherever you put your cursor, so left-click the relevant place in your document. Next, either click the Bookmark button (an icon of a document with a flag – see screenshot) on the toolbar or open the Insert menu and select ‘Bookmark…’. In the Name section, type your chosen name for the bookmark, then click Insert. Repeat this process for all the other sections in your document that you want to bookmark. When…

Foil behind your router will boost your Wi-Fi signal The internet is awash with weird and wonderful foil-based contraptions that promise to reflect and deflect your router’s Wi-Fi signal back towards where it’s needed most. There’s some scientific basis to this theory but, in practice, you’re highly unlikely to notice any improvement. Disabling the 2.4GHz band results in faster Wi-Fi While it’s true that 5GHz is faster than 2.4GHz, its range won’t reach as far. So, the likelihood is that disabling 2.4GHz will simply make your coverage spottier than ever. Plus, older 2.4GHz-only devices won’t be able to connect to your network at all. Switching off security speeds up Wi-Fi Internet traffic that’s secured by WPA2 needs to be constantly encrypted and decrypted which can, in theory, add to the…

The Government has changed a 183-year-old law to allow people to witness wills ‘virtually’ using video software like Skype or Zoom, updating rules that state two witnesses must be physically present. The existing law, passed in 1837, is intended to protect testators (the person signing the will) from unfair pressure or influence, but during lockdown many people were unable to attend signings. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) says the changes will be backdated to 31 January, two days after the UK’s first coronavirus cases were recorded. It means any signings witnessed by video since then will be considered legal. It added that virtual witnessing should be considered only as a last resort, when social distancing or self-isolation prevents people from attending physically. The change will stay in place until 31…

You’ll soon be able to connect more devices to your home Wi-Fi after Ofcom released a chunk of the radio spectrum for routers to use. The regulator has freed 500MHz of spectrum frequency in the new 6GHz band, covering 5925-6425MHz. The 6GHz band has a higher frequency than the existing 2.4GHz and 5GHz, and therefore doesn’t reach as far. But it offers faster speeds and can handle more data, meaning more devices can use it simultaneously. It also gives routers another band to transmit on, easing congestion caused by too many devices on your network. Ofcom says freeing up 6GHz is vital because of the increased demand for Wi-Fi from people working and learning from home. It also paves the way for Wi-Fi 6 (technically called 802.11ax), which is the…

I had a little smile as I was going through an old copy of Computeractive (Issue 553) and found this gem that you wrote in your ‘What we think’ box in reference to Microsoft ditching the Sets tool for Windows 10. Here’s what you said: “It seems to have been junked just to relaunch Edge faster – a browser hardly anyone uses. You have to query Microsoft’s priorities. In Windows, it has a market-leading operating system; in Edge a mediocre browser that will never overtake Chrome”. Dangerous word ‘never’. Sure, Edge has a huge mountain to climb, but I for one have switched to it as my default because it is clearly better: the Collections tool is a particular boon. What you said brought echoes of the days Internet Explorer…

I’d like to propose NUU Mobile (https://uk.nuumobile.com) for a special mention. In July 2018, I bought two of their G3 phones (pictured), having seen an advert in your magazine. Recently, I contacted NUU as a fault had started in the USB-C socket. It didn’t keep the connection when on charge, and connection to my PC was intermittent. NUU sent me a prepaid return slip and asked me to return the phone and all supplied accessories. Within a week they told me a replacement phone would be delivered the following Monday. Sure enough, it arrived with a handwritten note explaining that because they didn’t have any blue models in stock they had substituted a red version and hoped this would be OK. All-in-all, it was a very painless experience. Their staff…

How can I control my PC from my TV remote? Q I recently bought a Chromecast device and enjoy using it to stream videos from my PC to my TV. Because my Sony TV can download apps, I’m hoping you can recommend one that will let me control my PC’s mouse using my TV remote control. Ewan Standen A Your PC isn’t actually connected to your TV - instead it’s just sending the image of its desktop to your Chromecast device, which in turn displays it on your TV. You therefore won’t be able to download an app on your TV to control it. However, using a free tool called Unified Remote, you can control it from your phone or tablet. First, download the Unified Remote program (www.snipca.com/35619) to your…

You’ve seen Ocean’s Eleven, right? Well, this is Openreach’s Three. It stars a trio of hapless crooks who don high-vis jackets to disguise themselves as BT engineers so they can carry out the not-so-high-stakes heist of stealing backup batteries from Openreach street cabinets, then flog them as scrap. But if that plot sounds daft, then it gets better. It turns out that our three stooges might have got away with it if their van hadn’t accidentally rammed a police vehicle in Stourbridge. Officers discovered 43 batteries in the abandoned vehicle, along with documents incriminating ringleader Dean Davies (pictured). Plans for a sequel were scrapped a month later when all three suspects were arrested in possession of another 36 stolen batteries. The story ends without a twist: they’re all behind bars…

What is it? It’s a way to squeeze a longer lens into a smartphone. Most mobile devices can only take wide-angle photos, like the ‘near’ end of a zoom lens. To zoom in on distant objects, they’d need a much greater focal length, requiring more distance between the lens and the image sensor than the few millimetres between the front and back of a phone. And nobody wants a camera sticking two inches out of their phone. Another way to magnify distant objects is to take a wide-angle photo, then blow up a small part of it. But this also exaggerates any limitations in image resolution and quality. These, in turn, could be improved by increasing the size of the sensor – but that would require a longer focal length.…

PHONE | £245 from Amazon www.snipca.com/35586 Whether by accident or design, this Galaxy is the first we’ve seen named after an actual galaxy: Andromeda, known to astronomers as Messier 31. We’re told the M actually stands for ‘millennial’, but you’re still allowed to buy the phone if you were born before the 1980s, as long as you do it online, where it’s available exclusively from Amazon. The shiny case, in black, blue or red, is plasticky, not waterproof and on the thick side, but more importantly the big AMOLED screen is sharp, surprisingly bright, and covers 100 per cent of sRGB with high accuracy. That alone makes this mid-priced phone look good value, but the attractions don’t stop there. On the back, along with a payment-ready fingerprint reader, are three…

What were they? When Apple launched the iPad in 2010, Android alternatives were anticipated. Samsung demonstrated the pitfalls with the 7in Galaxy Tab, a clumsily scaled-up phone. Amazon didn’t help with the Kindle Fire, which ran its own version of Android that was more like a glorified Amazon brochure. Time for Android’s owner, Google, to step up. Android 3.0 added tablet features, but devices based on it felt experimental. With 2012’s Android 4.1 ‘Jelly Bean’, Google released its own tablet, the Nexus 7. Why did they die? Starting at £159, the Nexus 7 sold well. But it was still more like a cheap big phone than an iPad. The larger Nexus 9 highlighted the flaws of Android apps on tablets, with performance nowhere near Apple’s. The Pixel C felt like…

TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Back up your files in three places When lockdown began, I became a subscriber to Computeractive, and I found one of your recent articles on NAS drives very interesting. I’ve adopted a slightly simpler if more manual approach for keeping my files safe. I do a lot of audio work so it’s critical I’m confident of my backups and archive. Someone once said to me if you haven’t got three copies of a file, you haven’t got it! On my desktop PC, my C drive is a 250GB SSD and only contains Windows and software. I store all documents, audio files, photos, installation files and browser bookmarks on a 500GB D drive. I also have an identical E drive (standard hard drives are so cheap), and…

Timeglass* Free iOS www.snipca.com/35513 Run multiple timers or stopwatches side by side. The app has 40 preset timers for fitness, stretching, studying and more, as well as a regular stopwatch feature. When you’ve created a timer or stopwatch, you can save it for future use. Upgrading to Pro for £2.99 lets you add more than three timers and enables spoken time features. Best For Running multiple stopwatches Talking Stopwatch & Timer* Free Android www.snipca.com/35519 It’s not always convenient to keep your eye on your phone. You might be exercising or timing how long you’ve had drops in your eyes, which makes traditional stopwatches impractical. This app announces how long it’s been running at regular intervals, and can even give you a countdown before it starts running so you know to…

Create a socially distanced floor plan for your club As we all start to get back to some sort of new normality, you might want to start thinking about planning an event for your club. However, you still want to make sure you don’t break any social distancing rules with regard to community facilities (get up to date on Government guidelines at www.snipca.com/35531). You may just want to sketch out a floor plan using pencil and paper, but it’s hard to do this with precision (something a venue may require as a condition of hire) and making adjustments is a pain. Instead, download Sweet Home 3D (free from www.snipca.com/35529 – click the ‘Download at Sourceforge.net’ button), which lets you create a precise floor plan, then make as many adjustments to…

1Download and install WiFi Heatmap from www.snipca.com/35453. Run the app, then grant it permission to use your location data when prompted. The app will automatically begin monitoring the network your phone is currently connected to. For now, ignore the data displayed and scroll down. Tap the Create Heatmap button 1, then choose the Indoor option. 2You’ll be prompted for a floorplan of your home. If you already have one (for example, from estate-agent documents or structural plans), take a photo of it or save it to your Google Drive, then tap Select Floorplan 1 and browse to the image file. Otherwise, tap Draw Floorplan 2 and use the tools to create a map of your home. 3You now need to set the scale. Tap OK, then move the markers to…

Microsoft has fixed a bug that was causing Edge to crash when you typed something in the address bar. It initially advised a temporary fix on Twitter (www.snipca.com/35625), advising users to type edge://settings/search into the address bar, then turn off the blue slider to the right of ‘Show me search and site suggestions using my typed characters’ (see screenshot). Doing this means Edge will show only search suggestions from your favourites or browsing history. Hours later Microsoft tweeted again (www.snipca.com/35627) to say the flaw had been “resolved”. It encouraged users who had disabled the ‘Search suggestions’ option to turn it back on again.…

CHARGE YOUR PHONE IN JUST 15 MINUTES US company Qualcomm has said the fifth version of its Quick Charge technology will charge Android phones to 50 per cent in just five minutes, and 100 per cent in only 15. The firm claims it’s 70 per cent more efficient than Quick Charge 4, and is the first “commercially viable” charging technology to support more than 100 watts of power. It’s expected to arrive in devices from the autumn. Read more at www.snipca.com/35584. WATCH 80 FREE LIVE CHANNELS ON PLEX Media player Plex has launched more than 80 free channels broadcasting live shows. Called Live TV, the service is available across a range of devices, including Android phones and tablets, iPhones and iPads, Amazon Fire, Roku and smart TVs. Channels cover news,…

You can now ask Edge to read aloud your PDFs, after Microsoft released version 84 of the browser. To do this, open a PDF then press Ctrl+Shift+U. Alternatively, click the ‘Read aloud’ button at the top (see screenshot), or right-click the PDF and select ‘Read aloud’. Editing PDFs has been improved too – you can now save edits to the original file instead of a copy. Another new feature lets you add notes to your collections of web pages – right-click on a website saved in a collection and select ‘Add note’. Notes will stick with a page even if you move the page within a collection. You can change the background colour of notes, making them easier to categorise. Collections have also been added to the Android and iOS…

Why has PayPal dismissed my claim about scam site? LEAD CASE Q On 1 June my wife placed an online order, costing £37.95, on the website DrSockSoothers (https://socksoothers.com). After reading a review that this company was a scam, she contacted it and was told her items were in transit, but the tracking number is false. She made a claim through PayPal, which she used to pay, but it has closed her claim. Is there anything she can do? Peter J McMahon A Peter is just one of many readers to have had trouble recently getting help from PayPal. In some cases goods ordered online haven’t turned up, while in others they were not as advertised. In all these cases, PayPal ruled in the sellers’ favour, despite strong evidence from the…

Update the 1939 Register Reader Geoff James sent us an interesting query about the 1939 Register, asking why it contains details of his parents, but his own records are “officially closed”. He was aged seven at the time. The records for his wife, then aged six, are also closed, but they can both see information on her brother, who was aged three. Understandably perplexed, he wants to know what’s going on. The register was taken on 29 September 1939, soon after the UK had declared war on Germany. This was two years before the next scheduled census in order to issue identity cards and rationing books. Normal censuses are released to the public 100 years after they’re taken, but the 1939 Register was made available in November 2015, partly due…

How many apps have you got installed on your phone? On my first genuine smartphone (an Apple iPhone 4s) I probably had fewer than twenty. But on my latest Android phone (a Samsung S8) I have well over a hundred. My display, therefore, can get messy so I do try to organise them logically, with my 20 favourite apps spread over two home screens. To find those I rarely use – such as the online price checker Idealo (www.snipca.com/35582) or stargazing tool Stellarium (www.snipca.com/35583) – I’d have to swipe down, then horizontally across several app screens until I stumbled upon the one I want. At least that’s how it used to be. I’ve now installed the Microsoft Launcher app (www.snipca.com/35587). On Android devices, launchers let you create different home screens,…

PC | £949 from PC Specialist www.snipca.com/35515 If you’ve been following the recent history of processor development, you won’t be surprised to learn that this PC’s Intel chip isn’t as powerful as AMD’s rival chips. Intel’s i5-10400 processor is the successor to the i5-9400 chip, and PC Specialist have sensibly chosen the i5-10400F, the version that comes without integrated graphics, for a system equipped with a separate graphics card. Slower than rivals, but this desktop PC has an impressive SSD, fast Wi-Fi and scope for expansion And credit where it’s due: our tests confirmed the 10400F was significantly faster than the 9400F, especially when multitasking, thanks to its ability to handle two program threads at once on each of its six cores. Overall, it beat the older Intel processor by…

Chunky gaming laptops have had a resurgence because recent GPUs generate less heat. Acer’s Nitro (see our review, Issue 566, page 25), Asus’ TUF (Issue 582, page 22), Dell’s G series (Issue 533, page 23) and HP’s Omen (Issue 548, page 23) start at under £1,000, but rise steeply. At £1,500 plus, Razer’s Blade (see Issue 585, page 25) tries to keep performance portable, while more cash again gets you the likes of Dell’s Alienware m15 (www.snipca.com/35543). The m15 is among a minority with 4K screen options, in this case from £2,589. The default is Full HD, with more attention to refresh rate than colour quality. The Acer ConceptD 7(from £2,299, see Issue 578,page 22, pictured) has a 4K screen supporting Adobe RGB, wider than either sRGB or P3 colour,…

POWERLINE ADAPTER | £170 from Amazon www.snipca.com/35573 Powerline adapters network your home through its mains wiring. You plug the base unit into a socket near your broadband router, and run an Ethernet cable between them. Remote adapters can then be plugged into any other socket in your house, and you can connect a PC or other devices to them – again using Ethernet, or wirelessly if the adapter supports Wi-Fi – to communicate with the internet and each other. Depending on conditions in your house, it may work better than Wi-Fi. Devolo’s Magic 2 kit promises increased performance thanks to a different powerline protocol, G.hn, branded as HomeGrid. This has been in development for years in the shadow of the popular HomePlug standard, and it looks as if everyone’s now…

LAPTOP NEW ENTRY Honor MagicBook 14 £530 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 £1,349. www.snipca.com/35349 ANDROID TABLET PRICE DROP Samsung Galaxy S6 £559 from www.snipca.com/34752 Tested Issue 571 Although it resembles the iPad Pro, this competes more directly with the basic iPad and, considering the included S Pen stylus and generous 128GB of storage, costs about the same. It’s less powerful, but a great tablet if…

ANDROID & iOS Share your phone screen Whether you’re asking for help with your device or giving it, it’s much easier for all concerned to see what’s causing problems if you can share your screen. Previously, this would only have been possible using dedicated screen-sharing software or a browserbased tool like Google’s free Remote Desktop for Chrome (https://remotedesktop.google.com). But now, there’s an easier way for anyone with a Facebook account can share their screen using Facebook Messenger, which is used by around 1.3 billion people around the world, and installed on a large proportion of the world’s mobile phones. Screen sharing works in one-on-one conversations, in group chats with up to eight people, or in Messenger Rooms of up to 16 members. Screen sharing has been added to Messenger’s existing…

WINDOWS 8.1 & 10 Access Command Prompt in the WinX menu In Issue 585 (page 46), we explained how to launch Command Prompt in administrator mode directly from the WinX menu (press Windows key+X to open this menu). If you followed this tip but couldn’t see any options for Command Prompt, it’s probably because your WinX menu is set to show shortcuts for PowerShell instead. To change this, open Settings (press Windows key+I), select Personalisation, then click Taskbar in the list on the left. On the right, scroll down to the option labelled ‘Replace Command Prompt with Windows PowerShell…’ and make sure it’s turned off (see screenshot below). When you next access the WinX menu, you’ll see shortcuts to launch Command Prompt and ‘Command Prompt (Admin)’ instead of PowerShell. WINDOWS…

What is it? The sixth generation of technology for mobile-phone networks. Hang on – aren’t we still waiting for 5G? Yes, most of us are. But technology never sleeps. Excited researchers have already revealed how 6G could transform the world. And what’s their prediction? It’ll help create digital ‘twins’. These are virtual replicas of ourselves that we can control to explore environments beyond our physical world. Er, right. Who came up with that? Samsung. It published details of its plans online (www.snipca.com/35491), claiming networks will be ready as soon as 2028. Apparently, by then signals will be so fast and reliable that we’ll be able to regularly dip into ‘extended’ reality. What does that mean? It’s a combination of three other types of reality: virtual, augmented and mixed. You may…

Your router is the source of your wireless network, so its location will have a large impact on Wi-Fi coverage and performance around your home. Ideally, you should situate it as close to the centre of your home as possible (horizontally and vertically). This ensures the wireless signal is spread evenly around your house. And while routers are rarely attractive, don’t be tempted to hide yours behind ornaments, sofas or other items that may block the signal. Also try to keep it away from other devices, because everything from cordless phone base stations to TV sets can cause signal disruption. Of course, it’s not always easy to move your router. In most cases, your options will be restricted by the location of your home’s master telephone socket and power sockets.…

Where’s my WhatsApp junk-clearance option? Q Issue 583’s Named & Shamed explained how to clear junk from WhatsApp. The instructions said to tap a chat link and then tap Manage. I have looked on my iPhone and my wife’s Android phone and can’t find any such setting. Why don’t I have this? Steve Hyams A We suspect the phrase “Tapping a thread…”, coupled with the fact that this instruction dropped on to a new paragraph, might’ve created a little confusion. In fact, it’s a continuation of the previous instruction. So, after tapping Settings, followed by ‘Data and Storage Usage’ and then Storage Usage, you’ll be presented with a bunch of links to chat threads. If you tap one of these links and then swipe to scroll down, you’ll then see…

1080p Common type of high-definition video: 1920x1080 pixels. 32bit/64bit A measure of how much data a PC can process at once. Most older computers are 32bit, more modern ones are 64bit. 3G/4G/5G Technologies that deliver faster mobile broadband. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 802.11ac A standard for wireless networks that allows for much higher transfer speeds than 802.11n. 802.11ax Wi-Fi standard with speeds up to 10 times faster than 802.11ac. Also called Wi-Fi 6. Accelerometer A sensor that detects movement. ADSL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. A technology that converts a standard phone line into a broadband internet connection. Airplane mode Phones and tablets in this mode disable all radio communication so they are safe to use on aircraft. AMOLED An alternative technology to LCD for…

Setting a startup schedule Before April, my commute into work involved a 15-minute walk to the station, two train journeys and a sharp-elbowed scramble for seats. It was 75 minutes door to door on a good day. I think I had one of those once, perhaps back in 2015. I typed 6.45am and selected weekdays (I’ll let my laptop have a lie-in on weekends – lucky thing) My commute now is roughly 74 minutes and 30 seconds shorter (it takes me half a minute to yawn twice, stretch and tumble out of bed). It should make me more relaxed in the morning, but the pressure of homeschooling also eats into my time. This will finally ease when schools reopen fully in September, but I still need to make every second…