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Covid has radically changed my taste in music. I used to be an unadventurous pop and rock fan, listening to little else. But to cope with the first lockdown (working from home, ‘teaching’ the kids) my brain demanded something longer and more reflective, without vocals, guitars or synthesizers. It needed classical music. More than a year on and my working day is now soundtracked by Beethoven, Mozart, Shostakovich, Stravinsky and many others. One side effect is that I now expect music to follow me around my home in an unbroken flow of symphonies and sonatas. That wasn’t a priority when I lived on a diet of three-minute pop songs. I recently set up an Amazon Echo system similar to the one Will Stapley describes in his excellent Cover Feature, keeping…

PLAY 200,000 SHOWS IN BBC ONLINE ARCHIVE You can now search for more than 200,000 TV and radio shows in the BBC’s Programme Index (www.snipca.com/38690), which was previously called Genome. The archive also contains 10 million programme listings dating back nearly 100 years, and digitised editions of the Radio Times up to 2009. POP-UP TECH SCAM FIRMS WOUND UP Two companies that tricked people with fake pop-up warnings on their PCs have been wound up by the High Court. Msinfosys Support Ltd and MS Global Support Ltd, both based in Canterbury, Kent, were liquidated in the public interest in March, though the Insolvency Service has only just issued a formal statement. The firms’ director, Vikram Singh, admitted they were under the control of an Indian parent company. Read more at…

Adults in the UK spent an average of three hours and 37 minutes online every day in 2020, much longer than in other similarly sized European countries. The figure comes from Ofcom’s Online Nation 2021 report (www.snipca.com/38587), which surveyed what people did online during 2020, for how long, and on which devices. The average time spent online was more than an hour longer than in France and Germany, and 30 minutes longer than in Spain. However, this average is just nine minutes more than time spent online in 2019, which Ofcom says is “surprisingly small given the increased reliance most of us had on online services during the pandemic”. The amount of time spent online was highest among 18 to 24-year-olds (4 hours 34 minutes), shrinking in every subsequent older…

Don’t cancel iTunes ‘payment’ I have an iTunes account, but I don’t use it regularly. I was therefore taken aback to receive an email apparently from Apple telling me that I had ordered something called ‘DRIVER – pocket edition’ for £19.44. I have no idea what this is, and certainly hadn’t bought anything recently through iTunes. I realised it must be a scam, so didn’t click the ‘iTunes Payment Cancellation Form’ that was in the email. Like so many scams, it’s meant to trigger an instant response of ‘I didn’t buy that – I must cancel now’. The email I received is similar to this one flagged up by Action Fraud: www.snipca.com/38523. Warn your fellow readers about scams at letters@computeractive.co.uk…

Most shoppers now know you have 14 days to reject an item you’ve bought online, and then a further 14 days to return it. But not everyone realises the retailer can ask you to pay the postage to return this item (assuming you’re rejecting it because you’ve changed your mind, not because it’s faulty). Allan Rae contacted us about this (see Issue 606), asking why he had to pay Royal Mail £29 to return a coat to Cruise Fashion (www.cruisefashion.com), based in Shirebrook, Derbyshire. The answer is that he didn’t have to use Royal Mail, despite Cruise recommending this. Customers can use whichever courier they like, so Allan may be able to find a cheaper return price. He also asked whether he could avoid a return cost, claiming that Cruise…

Following your article about RAF records (Issue 606), I’m trying to find an uncle who I think signed up for National Service in 1953. Are National Service records available? David Roberts Sadly no – the Ministry of Defence probably won’t release these until 2049 (100 years after National Service began). No service records after 1920 have been released to the general public. However, your uncle could request them directly or you could ask his next of kin to apply for them on your behalf (or apply yourself if he died more than 25 years ago). Visit www.snipca.com/38468 for full details. Have a genealogy question for Nick? Email letters@computeractive.co.uk with ‘Grow Your Family Tree’ in the subject line. Next issue: Check historical records of Royal Mail workers…

Try as I might, I can’t stop storing files on my desktop. It’s just too darn convenient. Right now, it’s full of documents, photos, ZIP files and other bits and pieces. These are all files that should be neatly organised into separate folders, but also ones I like having immediate access to. I just have to press the Windows key+D to reveal my desktop, and there they are. Thanks to a feature in OneDrive, I can get my messy (but useful) desktop to follow me around, so files on my laptop’s desktop also appear on the desktops of my other laptop and my PC. I need to sign into OneDrive using the same Microsoft account on each of my computers, but since it comes pre-installed on Windows 10 there’s no…

MINI PC | £950 from Amazon www.snipca.com/38545 It’s small you need There are two ways to buy this new mini PC from Asus. The one we’re reviewing here is available fully built from Amazon, but if you already have a few spare components you’d like to put to good use, you can also buy a barebones version, which comes with the case, motherboard and processor. You’d then need to add your own memory, storage and operating system. Prices start from £300 for a model with an AMD Ryzen 3 5300U chip installed. “ Space-saving PC provides impressive performance and great connection options ” The Amazon version we tested is fitted with a Ryzen 7 5700U processor, a 1TB SSD, two 16GB RAM modules (a total of 32GB) and runs Windows…

SMARTPHONE | £190 from Amazon www.snipca.com/38633 Making your day (and a bit more) The Motorola Moto G50 is the next model up from the Moto G30 (see our review, Issue 606). It’s more expensive, but remains comfortably below £200. So if you’re looking for an affordable phone that’s capable of making use of 5G coverage in your area, this could be a great option. At first glance it isn’t easy to spot the difference between an affordable phone like this and vastly more expensive models, but there are a few giveaways. The bezel around the edge of the screen is a bit thicker than you might expect, though this won’t bother you when you’re actually using it. The case is made entirely of plastic, and the fingerprint scanner is on…

Q Can you please recommend a scanner for 2.5in square black-and-white negatives (I have around 100 to scan) and a few colour slides of the same size? Or is it more cost effective to send them away to be scanned? Mike Capper A There are plenty of scanners for specifically converting 35mm slides and negatives into digital files, but for 2.5in (63.5mm) square negatives you’ll need a flatbed scanner. Most basic models aren’t capable of scanning negatives because they need a light built into the lid. These used to be more common but are fairly thin on the ground nowadays. However, Epson still makes one. It’s called the Perfection V600 Photo and costs £260 from Amazon (www.snipca.com/38609, pictured). It has an A4 bed, so if your negatives are exactly 63.5cm…

WIRELESS EARPHONES | £99 from Google www.snipca.com/38650 Ear, can you help me? Google may be most people’s search engine of choice, but it’s not the first name you think of when it comes to earbuds. However, these earbuds come with Google’s voice-activated assistant - imaginatively called Assistant - letting you perform voice commands such as playing music, making a call and setting alarms. It effectively places a Google Nest smart speaker in your ear. It’s worth noting that although you can connect these earbuds to any Bluetooth 5.0 (or later) device, you’ll need to connect to a phone or tablet running Android 6.0 (or higher) to use Google Assistant. The batteries in the buds should last for five hours of audio playback, with 24 hours of recharging available via the…

With the Sonos Move smart speaker you’ll enjoy a surprisingly rich bass, a wide soundstage and automatic Trueplay tuning that continually adapts the sound for where you are and what you’re listening to. You can stream over Wi-Fi and connect it to the rest of your Sonos system at home, then switch to Bluetooth when you’re away and offline. Its 10-hour battery life guarantees a whole day of brilliant sound, and the base makes recharging easy. You can also get power on the go with the USB-C travel charger. You don’t need to worry about accidental drops or unexpected weather. With a tough durable shell and IP56 rating, Move is built to withstand falls, bumps, moisture, dust, UV rays, and extreme temperatures. It has Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant available,…

ANDROID Capture and edit screenshots in Chrome for Android Google has just added a useful screenshot tool to the Android version of its Chrome bowser, letting you take and edit screenshots without having to open or switch to a separate app. To take a screenshot in Chrome, open the app and browse to a web page. Scroll to the part of the page you want to capture, then tap the menu button (three dots) in the top right and select the Share option. In the panel of sharing options that opens at the bottom of the screen, you should see a new Screenshot icon bottom left (see screenshot below left). Tap this and it will instantly capture what’s currently showing in your browser window, then display the screenshot. At the…

WINDOWS 7, 8.1 & 10 Change default programs more easily Setting a default program for a particular file type, such as ZIP files, can be a frustrating process in Windows 10. You have to open Settings, go to Apps, Default Apps, then click the ‘Choose default applications by file type’ option. You then have to scroll through a long list of file types to find the one you want. In all versions of Windows, it’s far easier to simply locate the file whose default program you want to change, then right-click it and select Properties. In the window that opens, make sure the General tab is selected and click the ‘Change…’ button (see screenshot above). You can now choose from a selection of suggested default programs for that file type.…

Images in slideshows often look better when they’ve been cropped to the shape of a circle or oval – particularly images of people. To do this in PowerPoint, insert your image as normal by dragging and dropping it into your presentation or by clicking the Insert menu, selecting Pictures, then locating the image you want to use. Next, select the image, then click the Format tab. In the Size section on the right-hand side of the toolbar, click the Crop button (make sure you click the Crop label, not the icon above it). In the menu that appears, click ‘Crop to Shape’ then select the shape you want to crop your image to – in our example, we’ve selected an oval (see screenshot). You can tweak how your image is…

Do you ever find yourself turning up the volume of your music or digital radio station just so you can continue listening to it while moving around your home? It’s not ideal. Unless you have the sort of hi-fi system that makes you fall out with neighbours, you’ll struggle to hear it if you go to a different floor. And if you try tuning into the same radio broadcast on multiple devices across several rooms, you’ll find each speaker will be slightly out of sync with the others, creating a nasty echo effect around your home. Here, we explain how you can combine multiple smart speakers into multi-room speaker groups, immersing your home with whatever you want to listen to – whether that’s classic hits from the 1960s, the latest…

I’ve amassed a small army of Echo speakers throughout my home. The latest recruit – an Echo Studio – does a fantastic job of filling my lounge with bass-heavy audio. To play music throughout my home, I’ve created various speaker groups including Upstairs, Downstairs and a ‘Not Dad’ group – that last is for when the kids are in party mode and I’m trying to work, playing on all speakers bar the Echo Dot in my study. For months I suffered problems with my speaker groups – sometimes they worked, other times certain speakers would drop out. Selecting the speakers in the Google Home app (tap Devices, then ‘Echo & Alexa’) revealed I’d inadvertently connected some to my router’s 2.4GHz network and others to the 5GHz one. I’ve since shifted…

The screen of your phone and tablet is usually your private territory, letting you browse the web and use apps without anyone else seeing what you’re doing. But there are times when you may want to share the contents of your screen with friends, family or work colleagues. For example, you may want to show someone a bargain you’ve found online or an important piece of information. Or you may want to demonstrate how to perform a specific task in Android or iOS. Although you could do this by capturing and sending a screenshot, sharing your entire screen saves a lot of time and trouble. Here we explain the best free ways to do so. Just make sure there’s nothing sensitive or embarrassing on screen before you share. Share your…

Q I’m sorry if this sounds stupid. Could you explain the difference between Edge and Bing? On my computer there’s a window with Bing at the top. A carer who used my computer to look something up said it was Edge running Bing, but that I’d be better off using Chrome and Google. I can use Bing (or Edge?) to search for stuff, so is there a benefit in switching. If so, how? George Barnes A This stuff can be confusing, so let’s go back to basics. Edge is the name of a web-browsing (or ‘browser’) application made by Microsoft. It’s Windows 10’s default browser. However, other browsers can be installed. The best-known of these is Chrome, made by Google, which is a free download from www.google.com/chrome. Google is the…

Google Chrome will resume showing the full URL of a web page after abandoning plans to show only the main domain name. The company said last year that for security reasons it was going to remove all characters after the website’s name, turning www.expertreviews.co.uk/apple/apple-ipad-pro into expertreviews.com, for example. It claimed long URLs make it harder for people to spot the suspicious elements that indicate whether the URL is real or a scam. To address this, it wanted to test whether simplifying the URL would make it easier for users to verify a site’s authenticity. However, one year on, Google has admitted that the move has made little difference. With Chrome 91, launched in May, it has reverted to showing the full URL. By default Google will continue to hide ‘https://www’…

Ransomware hackers are a bigger threat to UK security than spying by hostile countries, the head of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has warned. Lindy Cameron (pictured), who took charge of the centre last September, said that while spying online by the likes of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea remains a “malicious strategic threat”, thwarting ransomware has become a more urgent priority. Her comments came during the Annual Security Lecture for defence think tank the Royal United Services Institute (www.snipca.com/38686). In ransomware attacks, hackers encrypt data and demand payment for it to be restored. Cameron said that the illegal market for ransomware variants is becoming increasingly “professional”, with criminals selling them as a one-off purchase or as a share of the profits. Gangs plan their attacks meticulously, tailoring…

A 100GB text file containing a total of 8,459,060,239 passwords has been uploaded to a forum used by hackers. This is almost double the number of active internet users (4.66 million). The person behind the file has called it RockYou2021, presumably in reference to 2009’s RockYou data breach that leaked more than 32 million MySpace passwords. They said all the passwords are between six and 20 characters, and have had all white spaces and non-ASCII characters removed. The file, first spotted by security researchers from the website CyberNews, appears to contain passwords from many previous large-scale leaks, including all 3.2bn logins from the ‘Compilation of Many Breaches’ file, leaked in February. It seems therefore that the person who compiled it has been collecting leaked passwords over the past few years.…

WATCH OUT FOR… Fake HMRC texts and emails What’s the threat? HMRC has warned benefits claimants to be aware of fake texts and emails, saying the public reported over 1.1 million scams in the 12 months to April 2021. Of these, 576,960 offered bogus tax rebates, asking you to enter your personal details in order to claim the refund. It also received 443,033 reports of phone scams, up 135 per cent on the previous year. It issued the warning in early June as it prepared to send annual renewal packs to people who receive benefits. Many scams impersonate official government messages to appear “authentic and reassuring”, HMRC said. Criminals know that using the HMRC and GOV.UK logos adds “credibility to their scams” – such as in the example pictured. HMRC…

I recently set up a new DVD player (pictured) made by Megatek that I bought through Amazon (£35 from www.snipca.com/38575). The picture and sound quality were great, but it missed the main menu page on some old DVDs and (as many players do) defaulted to ‘subtitles on’, which I didn’t want. The instructions were also unclear. I emailed Megatek asking how to fix these problems. I got a reply within a couple of hours clarifying the instructions, and after another exchange of emails was told that a developer was working on the other problems and I’d be sent a software update to install on Monday (one working day later). The update had arrived by the time I checked my emails on Monday morning, and was quick and easy to install.…

FILE COMPRESSION PeaZip 8 www.snipca.com/38696 What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 PeaZip is a powerful compression tool that lets you extract and create no fewer than 218 archive formats, including ZIP, RAR and 7z. To install it, go to the link above, click the button for the 64bit or 32bit version, then Download PeaZip. Our favourite new feature in version 8 is the ability to choose what happens when you open an archive by doubleclicking it in File Explorer (see 1 below). The default action is for the archive to open within PeaZip, meaning you can view its contents, then click Extract and choose where to extract the files to. By setting the default action in ‘Archive manager’ to ‘Extract…’, PeaZip will instead open the archive and prompt…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: MobiSystems OfficeSuite If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Microsoft should take MobiSystems’ OfficeSuite as one giant compliment. Either that, or it should take the company to court. Everything from its ribbon-based interface to the design of its icons apes Microsoft Office. Even the company’s website (www.mobisystems.com) looks spookily similar to Microsoft’s – so much so that, if you’re looking to install Microsoft Office, it’s easy to end up downloading MobiSystems’ lookalike by mistake, especially as a link to it comes up towards the top of any Google search for ‘office suite’. Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh on OfficeSuite? It’s a free download, after all. Except it isn’t. Cheekily, while the big green button on the home page (pictured) shouts ‘Free Download…

LAPTOP | £1,450 from Amazon www.snipca.com/38553 Light years ahead Samsung has a new range of Galaxy Book Pro laptops on the market and they’re absolute belters. They all come with AMOLED screens, and offer a range of sizes, processors and prices to suit everyone. The £1,450 model we tested here has a 15.6in screen and an Intel Core i7 processor, but you can shave this down to £1,199 if you opt for an i5 processor (www.snipca.com/38554), or £1,099 if you prefer an i5 chip with a 13.3in screen (www.snipca.com/38555). “ Lightweight laptop with ports aplenty, a fabulous screen and long battery life ” The first thing you’ll notice about the i7 model is just how light it is – at 1.05kg for a 15.6in laptop, this is the lightest big-screen…

What does it do? A screen’s response time is a standard measure of how quickly a screen’s pixels change colour. If you spend most of your time browsing websites and sending emails, you don’t need a monitor with a particularly fast response time. However, if you enjoy gaming or watch a lot of videos, a fast response time is essential. How does it work? Manufacturers usually measure the response time of their screen’s pixels as the time it takes for them to transition from black, to white, to black again. A black pixel is ‘off’, with no light coming through, while a white pixel is fully on, letting all the light through from the red, green and blue sub-pixels to make white. In other words, the response time is how…

PC MONITOR | £383 from HP www.snipca.com/38596 Get connected With narrow bezels, a slim stand and solid build quality, the HP Z27u G3 makes a great first impression. The screen is only 38mm thick, and the entire thing measures just 230mm from front to back. There’s even 150mm of height adjustment, along with the ability to pivot into portrait mode, and generous amounts of tilt and swivel. It has two DisplayPort sockets – one can output to another screen while the other inputs from your PC, so you could use these to create a multi-monitor setup, even if your PC lacks sufficient ports. It also offers four USB 3.0 ports, with two on one edge for easy access, and a USB-C port that supports DisplayPort and a whopping 100W of…

What is it? Wi-Fi 6 (also known as 802.11ax) uses the same 2.4GHz and 5GHz channels as Wi-Fi 5 and all previous wireless networking standards. Wi-Fi 6E is an extension of Wi-Fi 6 that opens the 6GHz channel. Why is that good? Unlike 2.4 and 5GHz, there’s nothing on the 6GHz channel, except Wi-Fi 6E devices. Using it will be the Wi-Fi equivalent of leaving the M6 at Birmingham and taking the less-used M6 Toll road. What’s the catch? There are no compatible routers available. When they do appear, they’re likely to be expensive, because they require an extra 6GHz radio, which adds to the cost. Watch out for the TP-Link Archer AX96 (www.snipca.com/38659, pictured), which is likely to offer this cutting-edge tech at a reasonable price. So can I…

What you need: A dash cam; LosslessCut; Dashcam Viewer Time required: One hour Dash cams are great for monitoring routes your car has driven and capturing video footage of an accident (useful if you need to prove you weren’t at fault), but sifting through the footage and trimming it to what you need isn’t always easy. Here, we explain how to set up a dash cam, then transfer the footage it captures to your computer, where you can view and edit it. Throughout, we’ll be using our recommended dash cam, the Garmin Dash Cam 46 (£116 from www.snipca. com/38675, pictured right). It’s small (5.62x4.05x2.14cm), easy to use and captures high-quality 1080p HD video. Besides capturing video footage of your journey, it has built-in GPS, which can record your routes and…

What you need: An external hard drive; Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 Time taken: 30 minutes Large external hard drives are getting cheaper (such as the 1TB WD Elements, which costs £40 from www.snipca.com/38687) and are great for storing backups and transferring files between PCs. In this Workshop, we’ll show you how to use MiniTool Partition Wizard to split your external drive into multiple partitions. Windows will treat each partition as a separate drive, which not only makes it easier to organise the files stored on your drive (keeping your backups separate from other files, for example), but also means you can format an entire partition without affecting the others. STEP 1 To download Partition Wizard, go to www.snipca.com/38685, scroll down to the Free Edition section, then click Local Download…

IDrive Photo Backup Free* Android www.snipca.com/38566 iOS www.snipca.com/38567 With Google Photos’ unlimited photo-storage option killed off in June, IDrive’s new app is definitely worth considering as an alternative. It automatically backs up your device’s photos online in full quality. Unlimited storage requires a subscription – the good news is this currently costs 70p for the first year. The Sky by Redshift Free* Android www.snipca.com/38568 iOS www.snipca.com/38569 There’s no shortage of stargazing apps, but this new one (from the company behind those brilliant Redshift astronomy CD-ROMs) is a particularly slick affair. Point it at the sky to identify planets and stars, view interplanetary info or go on 3D journeys through space. Subscribing (£2.99 per year) removes adverts and adds a few extras. Artbox 2 £1.99 iOS www.snipca.com/38570 If you have any…

By the time you read this, Microsoft should have confirmed whether it’s launching a new operating system (possibly Windows 11) this autumn (see page 6). Wallpapers reportedly from the new system have already been leaked on the @ChangeWindows Twitter account. If you want to add these wallpapers to your computer, open the tweet at www.snipca.com/38705 and click the link contained within it. This takes you to a OneDrive account, where you’ll find the full set of high-resolution wallpapers. To download the entire collection of 32 stunning images in a single ZIP file, click the Download button at the top (see screenshot). Once it’s downloaded, open the ZIP file, click ‘Extract all’, then choose where you want to extract the images to. From this folder, simply right-click the image you want…

Create QR codes for your club You see QR codes everywhere these days, partly because many venues are required to display them as part of the NHS test and trace system. With more people now getting to grips with QR codes and more comfortable scanning them with their phones, it’s the perfect time to start using them for your club. They’re great for linking to your club’s website on a poster, letting people log into your club’s Wi-Fi and more. Add frames to your code If you’re in a hurry to create a QR code, head to the free QR-Code Generator website (www.qr-code-generator.com). Select the type of QR code you want to create (for example, ‘URL’ will create a link to a website and ‘WIFI’ will share your club’s Wi-Fi…

1 Open the Alexa app on your phone or tablet, select the Devices tab at the bottom, then tap the ‘+’ button in the top-right corner 1. Select ‘Combine speakers’ 2, then ‘Multi-room music’. 2 You’ll now see all your Echo smart speakers (if some are missing, tap ‘Re-scan’ 1 at the bottom). To add a speaker to your group, simply tap its name so that a tick appears next to it 2. You can select as many speakers as you like. 3 Tap ‘Next’ in the top-right corner, then either choose a name for your speaker group from the Suggested Names section 1 or swipe to the bottom of the list and eπnter your own name in the Customised Name box 2. 4 You can now use your speaker…

Don’t fancy spending hundreds on smart speakers? If you already have a Bluetooth speaker, you can use it alongside your computer’s speakers to create a basic two-room audio system. With your computer’s speakers attached (you can also use your laptop’s built-in speakers) and your Bluetooth speakers connected, open Settings on your PC (press the Windows key+I). Select System, Sound, then click Sound Control Panel (this will be either at the bottom or on the right-hand side of the window). In the window that opens, select the Recording tab, double-click Stereo Mix (if you can’t see this, right-click the window and select Show Disabled Devices), then select the Listen tab. Tick the ‘Listen to this device’ box (see screenshot) and, in the box below, select your Bluetooth speakers. You can now…

• Amazon Fire TV Android www.snipca.com/38505 (pictured above right) iOS www.snipca.com/38506 • Android TV Android www.snipca.com/38510 iOS www.snipca.com/38511 • LG TV Plus Android www.snipca.com/38508 iOS www.snipca.com/38509 • Panasonic TV Remote 3 Android www.snipca.com/38514 iOS www.snipca.com/38515 • Roku Official Remote Control Android www.snipca.com/38503 iOS www.snipca.com/38504 • Samsung SmartThings Android www.snipca.com/38512 iOS www.snipca.com/38513 • Virgin TV Control Android www.snipca.com/38525 iOS www.snipca.com/38526…

Plenty of apps now let you create and contribute to a ‘digital whiteboard’, so you can discuss ideas with other people using notes, doodles, images, annotations and more. Google’s free Jamboard app for Android (www.snipca.com/38594) and iOS (www.snipca.com/38595) is a good place to start, because it’s focused less on business and schools than similar tools. Tap the plus sign in the bottom-right corner (see screenshot) to start your first ‘jam’, then press the three-dots menu and select Add People. You can insert photos from your mobile device and content from Google Drive, and share your finished jam as a PDF.…

Where’s my Start-up tab? Q I followed the tip headed ‘Remove unwanted startup items’ in Issue 606’s ‘Stop Using Software’ Cover Feature. I accessed Task Manager by pressing Control (Ctrl)+Shift+Escape (Esc), as directed, but couldn’t find a Start-up tab. Are you using a more modern version of Windows 10 than I am? In the same article, under the ‘Monitor your laptop’s battery’ heading, after obtaining the full path of the generated report from the Command Prompt window, where do I paste it into my Google browser? Warren Welstead A It’s possible we have a slightly later version of Windows 10 than you, as we do tend to run preview editions for test purposes. However, that’s not the problem here. Rather, we think your Task Manager window is opening in compact…

We’ve always been sceptical about Microsoft’s claim that Windows 10 would be the final edition of the operating system. Whenever a top executive insisted there wouldn’t be a follow-up, we just thought “yeah, until you change your mind”. We always assumed that Microsoft’s marketing department would eventually need something fresh to get the public excited again. We write this a few days before Microsoft reveals its news, and hope it turns out to be the new operating system so strongly rumoured. Six years feels about the right time to wait for a new system, and certainly more suitable than the three years between Windows Vista and 7, or Windows 7 and 8. Windows 10 continues to work well, but everything we’ve seen so far about the new system shows how…

UPDATE OLD iPHONES AND iPADS NOW Apple has released an emergency update to fix security flaws in old iPhones and iPads dating back to 2013. Affected devices include the iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPad Air and iPad mini 2 (visit Apple’s site for the full list: www.snipca.com/38648). Install the update by tapping Settings, General, ‘Software update’. Make sure your battery is full or connected to a power source, and your phone is connected to Wi-Fi. NVIDIA ENDS SUPPORT FOR WINDOWS 7 & 8.1 Graphics card manufacturer Nvidia will end support for its Game Ready Drivers on Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 computers from October. It means they’ll no longer receive new features or bug fixes, though you’ll still be able to play games on the old versions of Windows. Security…

Amazon has blamed social-media companies for fake reviews on its site, saying they don’t do enough to stop them being sold on their services. In a statement headed ‘Creating a trustworthy reviews experience’ (www.snipca.com/38694), Amazon said that in the first three months of 2020 it reported to social-media sites more than 300 groups selling fake reviews, claiming they took a median time of 45 days to shut them down. Amazon acknowledged this has improved in the first three months of 2021, with the median time falling to five days. But it called for sites to invest in systems that spot fake reviews before Amazon feels forced to contact them. It didn’t mention any specific social-media sites, but Facebook has been heavily criticised for failing to tackle the sale of fake…

EE IMPROVES 4G IN SEASIDE TOWNS EE has added extra mobile capacity to its 4G network in eight UK seaside towns, including Blackpool, Brighton and Rhyl, so visitors can make the most of a “staycation summer”. Berwick, Newquay and Skegness are among eight locations to be upgraded later this summer. In addition, EE has switched on 5G in nine towns, including Ayr, Poole and Swansea. See the full list at www.snipca.com/38557. SAMSUNG LAUNCHES CHEAP W10 LAPTOP Samsung has released a new laptop range aimed at the cheaper end of the market. Called Galaxy Book Pro (pictured), it runs Windows 10 Home and is powered by an ARM processor rather than one made by Intel. It comes in two versions: 4GB (£399) and 8GB (£499). They both have 128GB storage, a…

Chrome will now warn you when you’re installing an extension that isn’t trusted by its Enhanced Safe Browsing system, which is the highest level of protection it offers as you browse the web. On its blog (www.snipca.com/38524) it gives the example of a suspicious extension called ‘Weather’ (see screenshot 1), recommending you ‘proceed with caution’. First, however, you need to check that Enhanced Safe Browsing is turned on in Chrome. Click the top-right menu button (three dots), then Settings. Next, click ‘Privacy and security’ on the left, and then on the right scroll down to the ‘Privacy and security’ section. Next, click the Security heading and select ‘Enhanced protection’ (see screenshot 2).…

How do I get ‘free’ game promised to me? LEAD CASE Q I bought an AMD 5900X processor from Scan (www.scan.co.uk) last November and was supposed to get the game Far Cry (worth £67, pictured) with it, at no extra cost. But neither AMD nor Scan will give me the code to access the game. Each company keeps saying that the other is responsible. What’s the truth? Sie Blackmore A The truth is that it’s normally the manufacturer (AMD in this case) that’s responsible for providing a gift that it has promoted as an incentive to buy a product. Details on how to claim this gift usually come with the product. Such promotions are legally binding, so you have the same protections as when buying a product. A company must…

Confirm a death certificate Reader Richard Pettet emailed us to ask how he can confirm he has the correct death certificate for a family member. On 10 December 1919, Ernest Lionel Jones died in a road accident in Birmingham aged just 24. Richard is reasonably confident Ernest was his grandmother’s half-brother (and therefore his great-uncle), but he still has some doubts, and seeks confirmation. His main doubt rests with the informant – the person who registers a death. In Ernest’s case this was a coroner, rather than a family member, which means there’s no family name on the death certificate. Richard also knows that Ernest was born in Leicester in 1895 and was still living there in 1911. Birmingham isn’t too far from Leicester, but Richard would still like corroborating…

How can I convert scans and images into text? Q I’ve previously used Abbyy FineReader to convert scans and images containing text into Word documents, but the program takes a long time to load. Is there a faster alternative? Tony Burt A If you have Word 2013 or later, you can use that to convert your scans and images into documents. However, you’ll first need to convert your files into PDFs. To do this, we recommend PDF24 (www.snipca.com/38704), which can convert multiple files in one go. In the main PDF24 menu, select the ‘PDF OCR’ option (use the search box at the top if you can’t find this). In the window that opens, click ‘Add files’ then locate the scans and images you want to convert – hold down the…

Undergraduates are well known for behaving badly, but most draw the line at downing a few too many pints in the student union bar. Not so Akpomiemie Ayomanor. While studying for his IT degree at Teesside University, Ayomanor ran an email scam that befriended vulnerable people then tried to persuade them to send cash. One victim was a 75-year-old Cornish widower with schizophrenia. She was charmed by a man called Anthony Raymond who claimed to work for the UN in Sudan. He wanted to move to the UK and marry her, and promised to buy her a house with his $20m salary. All she had to do was send him money so he could pay his $40,000 tax bill. Of course, Anthony Raymond didn’t exist. She ended up losing her…

SMARTPHONE | £197 from Amazon www.snipca.com/38612 Keeping things simple Many Computeractive readers know their way around the Android operating system, but not all. Not everyone feels the need to have a smartphone, despite society increasingly expecting them to. Swedish firm Doro makes phones that run its own simplified version of Android. It markets its phones at older users – but it’s really more about attitude than age. This kind of phone might appeal to those who now realise they need a smartphone, but don’t want to be baffled by numerous settings, nor pay a fortune for the privilege. It looks conventional enough, measuring 9x152x70mm and weighing 165g. Its polycarbonate casing is easy to hold and doesn’t feel like it might slip out of your hand. The physical home button may…

PC MONITOR | £360 from Amazon www.snipca.com/38597 Vote against the resolution This 28in AOC monitor gives you an extra inch of space more than the HP Z27u G3, reviewed above. It’s also a much higher 4K resolution (3840x2160 pixels) and is equipped with its own speakers, though they are a little tinny at three Watts. It has four USB 3.0 ports and 130mm of height adjustment. It’s another IPS screen, but in our tests the colour wasn’t as solid as the HP’s. It has an ‘sRGB’ setting in its configuration tools, but we found this limited the brightness level significantly. Switch to the monitor’s ‘Warm’ setting and it can be made much brighter. The colour reproduction on either setting isn’t as good as what you get from the HP monitor…

LAPTOP Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 (256GB) £749 from www.snipca.com/38429 Tested Issue 601 Weighing just 1.16kg, this is an excellent lightweight laptop with a great screen and an AMD processor faster than many Intel rivals. It has two USB-C ports, two USB 3.0 ports and a microSD card reader. Battery lasts nearly 16 hours. ALTERNATIVE Dell XPS 13 New Intel CPUs and a taller screen make this a more powerful, all-round slim laptop. Prices start at £780 from www.snipca.com/36642 ANDROID TABLET NEW ENTRY Lenovo Tab P11 Pro £600 from www.snipca.com/38585 Tested Issue 609 A fast tablet that comes with a magnetic stand and keyboard that means you can also use it as a laptop. It has an outstanding screen, 128GB storage and a 17-hour battery life, while its excellent dual mics…

Nextbase 322GW £99 www.snipca.com/38682 It may be bigger than the Garmin 46 and lacks some of its extra features (such as voice control), but this dash cam is cheaper, records video at 1080p and includes GPS. Nextbase 622GW £250 www.snipca.com/38683 The 622GW records stunning 4K video that’s better quality than any other dash cam we’ve tested. It also uses image stabilisation to reduce the impact of vibrations for a smoother, clearer image. Garmin Tandem Compact Dual £279 www.snipca.com/38684 This has two lenses: one facing forwards, the other to the rear. Both capture a 180-degree field of view, so you get a 360-degree view of what’s going on inside and outside your car.…

TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Record areas of your screen using PowerPoint Issue 606’s Cover Feature (‘Stop Using Software’) led me to revisit how to capture a video from my computer screen. I have used ‘free’ software in the past and recently tried NCH Debut (www.nchsoftware.com/capture), but I soon discovered that it’s very limited once the trial period ends. So, following your suggestion I experimented with Xbox Game Bar and found it works only on a full screen or a window, and you can’t define a specific area of the screen to record. I searched around and realised that the solution was hiding in plain sight as a feature of PowerPoint, which I have in my Microsoft 365 subscription. There’s an option under the Insert menu that lets you define an…

History Around You Free* Android www.snipca.com/38571 Find out nearby locations of historic interest with this app. Locations can either be shown as a list or on a map, and you can follow links for more information on each. Paying £1.69 removes ads, enables map searching and unlocks advanced options, such as setting the number of historic locations displayed at the same time. Best For Finding local historical sites OldView Free* Android www.snipca.com/38572 iOS www.snipca.com/38573 OldView is a brilliant idea – it allows you to view historic photos of locations around you, uploaded by community members. As with History Around You, you can view items either in a list or on a map. Tap an item to view or rate it. It’s even possible to upload your own historic snaps. Best…

MICROSOFT WORD Convert documents into presentations Thanks to a new feature in Word, you can now convert a document into a presentation in a matter of seconds. This feature is available only in the online version of Word (known as ‘Word for the web’), which you can access at www.office.com. You don’t need a paid-for Microsoft 365 subscription, but you will need a Microsoft account. If you don’t already have one, click the ‘No account? Create one’ option after clicking the link above. Open the Word document you want to convert (if the document is on your computer, click ‘Upload and open…’), then click the File menu and select Export, followed by ‘Export to PowerPoint presentation…’. Choose from the selection of presentation themes (these can take a few seconds to…

What is it? The strongest, thinnest material known to exist, made from honeycomb sheets of carbon just one atom thick (as imagined in the main image). It’s also one of the most effective substances at conducting heat and electricity. Since being first produced in 2004, it’s become known as a ‘wonder material’ that promises to revolutionise a variety of electronic devices – including, now, hard drives. What’s happened? In a paper published in Nature magazine, researchers at Cambridge University showed how graphene can be used to make hard drives that can store 10 times more data than existing models. How can it do that? By replacing the carbon-based overcoat (COC) layers that protect a drive’s platters when they spin. Protect them from what? From wear and tear caused by the…

The BBC angered many people in August 2019 when it removed all BBC radio stations from TuneIn, forcing Echo, Nest and Sonos speakers to instead stream stations via the BBC Sounds service. The drawback to this move is that, unlike TuneIn, BBC Sounds is unable to stream radio to multi-room speaker groups, only single speakers. The BBC says it’s looking into the problem, but its last word on the matter was in 2019 (www.snipca.com/38642), so we’re not holding our breath. However, there is a workaround if you have groups made up of Amazon Echo speakers. First, you need to start playing some music on your speaker group from a source other than the BBC, with a command such as “Alexa, play classical music everywhere”. Once the music starts, tell Alexa…

If you’ve lost the remote for a streaming device or set-top box, you may be able to control it using your TV’s standard remote thanks to a feature called CEC (Consumer Electronics Control). This allows your TV to control devices that are plugged into its HDMI ports, and vice versa. To activate CEC, you’ll need to dig into your TV’s settings and look for its CEC option. This varies between models: on Samsung TVs it’s called Anynet+; on Sony TVs it’s Bravia Sync; and on LG TVs it’s Simplink - a quick Google search may help here. Turn on the feature, then select the HDMI port that your streaming stick or set-top box is plugged into. You should now be able to use your TV remote to control the smart…