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Around this time of year you get lots of predictions from tech ‘experts’ who are paid far too much to imagine what the future might look like. Their utopian forecasts usually involve more robots, more driverless cars, more talking gadgets and so on. Rarely do they focus on the ‘boring but useful’ stuff that ordinary people rely on – software, extensions, apps, downloads. I guess that job falls to Computeractive, and we’re happy to take it on. In our Cover Feature we recommend tools (all free) that’ll be particularly useful throughout 2018. One tech boffin whose judgement I do trust is Simon Brew, former editor of Micro Mart. In his new Keep Your Brain Active column (page 74) he’ll be testing brain-training games that claim to keep you mentally fit.…

MPs have been warned they could be unwittingly helping foreign hackers access Government secrets after admitting they share their work computer passwords. It follows tweets from three Conservative MPs claiming their staff regularly used their login details. The Information Commissioner’s Office, which protects data-privacy in the UK, said it was making enquiries. Commons officials emailed MPs to warn them that such actions “put the entire parliamentary network at risk”. The House of Commons handbook says MPs’ staff must not share passwords, but this does not appear to extend to MPs themselves. Conservative MP Nadine Dorries (pictured) was the first to reveal she shares her password. She was defending First Secretary of State Damian Green who has been accused of having pornography on a work computer. The Mid Bedfordshire MP said…

NHS Digital is aiming to prevent another WannaCrystyle cyber-attack by hiring ‘ethical’ hackers to look for weaknesses in its cyberdefences. They will work at a new £20m security operations centre, simulating attacks in a process known as penetration testing. The WannaCry ransomware attack in May crippled NHS systems in England and Scotland, causing the cancellation of an estimated 19,500 appointments, although no personal data was stolen. It highlighted how susceptible NHS computers are to cyber-attack. A report in October criticised NHS trusts for not acting on advice from NHS Digital and the Government to upgrade out-of-date operating systems. Dan Taylor, head of the digital security centre at NHS Digital, said the centre would help the NHS anticipate future vulnerabilities as well as block known threats. He added it will give…

In Issue 516’s thoughtprovoking ‘Question of the Fortnight’ you asked whether Facebook addiction was “ruining the UK economy”. My answer, based on the past 10 years working in a busy office, is absolutely! I’ve just retired as an office manager, head of a department of around 30 people. From around 2000 I witnessed a gradual decline in productivity, directly caused I believe by the temptations presented by the internet. It started slowly in the early years. I could tell that some employees were spending too long online, but I thought that the novelty of the internet would wear off. How wrong I was! By about 2005 I had to discipline several employees for spending too much time online during work hours. But that was nothing compared to the Facebook apocalypse…

Q I bought a WF-5690 printer (pictured) from Epson for £309 in May. The first printer became faulty after six weeks but Epson refused a refund saying it was allowed to replace it. I’ve now had three replacements because one minute Epson says I can have a refund; then I can’t. I’m going mad – please help! Martin Day A Such inconsistency could drive any customer to the edge of insanity. Like Currys in the case above, Epson is legally allowed one repair or replacement after the first 30 days. But when the first replacement was found to be faulty it should have offered Martin a full refund. Because it didn’t, failing therefore to comply with the Consumer Rights Act, we think Epson owes Martin a full refund. In normal…

What’s the threat? A new type of tech-support scam that without warning launches a phone app – on your smartphone or PC screen – showing a number to call to contact a ‘support team’ (see screenshot). If you tap or click the screen to begin the call, you’ll ring an expensive number and end up speaking to scammers who will try to sell you fixes for nonexistent problems. Detected by Microsoft’s Windows Defender Research team, this ‘click to call’ scam targets iPhones and Windows PCs. It’s accompanied by an audio message that says your device “has alerted us that your system is infected with viruses, spywares, and pornwares”. Next, it urges you to call “immediately on the toll-free number listed so that our support engineers can walk you through the…

AUDIO-EDITING SOFTWARE Audacity 2.2.0 www.snipca.com/26327What you need: Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 or 10 Audacity has long been our favourite tool for editing audio files. Whether you’re recording live music or dictation, converting vinyl records and tapes to digital formats or just cutting and mixings sounds for fun, Audacity offers almost everything you’ll ever need. It provides studio-level sound, support for all the major audio formats and professional multi-track editing tools – all for free. The recent version (2.2.0) brings a welcome injection of new features, plus a whole new look. Those who have been using Audacity for a while will be relieved to hear that the developers haven’t altered the program’s interface too radically. It still looks and works like Audacity, though there have been a number of improvements.…

SMART SPEAKERS | £90/£140 from Amazon www.snipca.com/26312; www.snipca.com/26313 Priced £150 when it launched last autumn, Amazon’s Echo was the first ‘smart speaker’ on the market, bringing Alexa – Amazon’s AI equivalent of Microsoft’s Cortana or Apple’s Siri – to your living room or kitchen. Like everyone else, we wondered if there was much point to a unit that replicated something already available as an app, and if it wasn’t a bit creepy to have a box in your home that constantly listened for your voice and, when addressed, uploaded what you said to a server to generate a response. “The Echo is here to stay, and the latest models are better and smarter than ever” Well, the answers are in. People are buying these devices, having decided that the convenience…

LAPTOP Asus ZenBook UX310UA £700 from www.snipca.com/26126 Tested: Issue 503 Gradually being replaced by the 410 (which we haven’t tested yet), the i5 processor version of this is now harder to find, but the i3 version is more than good enough for general use. The highlight is the super-sharp QHD screen. ALTERNATIVE: Dell XPS 13 This premium laptop starts at £1,149, but our pick is the i7 with QHD touchscreen. £1,379 from www.snipca.com/26123 DESKTOP PC Wired2FirePyroReactor £1,025 from www.snipca.com/26219 Tested: Issue 516 AMD’s six-core Ryzen 5 1600X is overclocked to a blazing 3.8GHz in this well-balanced system, paired with a GTX 1060 graphics card, 16GB memory, 250GB SSD and 1TB hard drive. The case is limited but it has plenty of ports. ALTERNATIVE: Palicomp i5 Titanium Good all-round performance from a Kaby…

SCREEN CAPTURE Capture screenshots on any Windows version I’ve read about many screenshot programs in the pages of Computeractive. Most of these seem a little too complicated for me. The one I’ve been using for many years (from XP onwards) is a tiny tool called MWSnap (www.snipca.com/26321). Install and open it. Next, click ‘Any rect. Area’ on the left, then click the ‘Snap any area’ button at the bottom (see screenshot below). Your PC screen will appear zoomed in (slightly larger) so you get a better view of things. Click and drag your cursor to select the area of your screen that you want to capture (this will open in MWSnap). To save your file, click the File tab at the top left, ‘Save as’, change the ‘Save as type’…

AGES 0-5 Hey Duggee: The Counting Badge £2.99 www.snipca.com/26421 (Android) £2.99 www.snipca.com/26422 (iOS) This new app from the BBC has 36 activities that will help your toddlers learn to match up, arrange and count. They’ll start off by counting tadpoles, before moving on to arranging ladybirds, caterpillars and snakes. AGES 6-10 Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp* Free www.snipca.com/26423 (Android) Free www.snipca.com/26424 (iOS) In this game, your child plays the role of the manager of a forest campsite who has to complete simple activities like fishing, catching bugs and collecting fruits. This wins them materials with which they can furnish their campsite to attract and befriend animal visitors. AGES 11-16 Puzzledom* Free www.snipca.com/26425 (Android) Free www.snipca.com/26426 (iOS) Puzzledom contains a wide range of puzzles, all of which are available offline. Our favourites…

WORD Reorganise text by dragging and dropping It can take a long time to reorder text within a larger document, but Word offers a handy alternative to the standard cut-and-paste method. Once you’ve opened your document, click the View tab, then click Outline View in the Document Views section on the left. You’ll now see ‘+’ symbols next to any headings in your document and dots next to the opening line of each paragraph. To make things more manageable, tick the Show First Line Only box at the top to see a truncated version of your document (see screenshot below). To move an entire section of text, click and drag the relevant heading’s ‘+’ symbol up or down. Similarly, to move any paragraph, click and drag its dot to where…

PeaZip support lots of different archive file types and includes the useful ability to convert from one to another without you having to extract the contents first. For example, if you have a RAR or 7z file that you want to share with a friend but you’re not sure whether they’ll have a tool to extract its contents, you could convert it to a ZIP file (which Windows can extract without any extra tools). Locate your file in File Explorer, right-click it and select PeaZip, then Convert. In the bottom pane of the window that opens, select the format you want to convert to – ZIP, for example – from the top dropdown menu, then click OK.…

We don’t yet know what the ‘P’ in Android ‘P’ (9.0) will stand for (Pancake? Peanut Butter Sandwich?). But while there will almost certainly be a new version of Android in 2018 (around August, probably), many Android users haven’t even been updated to Android Oreo (8.0) yet, despite it being released in August. Samsung is rumoured to be releasing it for Galaxy devices some time in early 2018. But if you can’t wait, or if your phone or tablet just doesn’t support the update, then consider installing apps right now that add Oreo’s superb new features to your device. Want a taste of Oreo’s picture-in-picture abilities, for example? Then install Floating Apps Free (www.snipca.com/26389, see screenshot). Or how about snoozing notifications and alerts, letting you read them later? You can…

How do I re-enable my webcam? Q I have a HP Pavilion laptop and somehow I have disabled the webcam. How do I get it back? I am a senior citizen and obviously a bit green, so I’d really appreciate your assistance Anthony Humphries A You didn’t say if you’re seeing error messages, or what version of Windows you have, but your first check should be in Device Manager. To summon this, press Windows key+R, then type devmgmt.msc into the Run box and press Enter. Then, in Device Manager, left-click to expand the ‘Imaging devices’ section, where you’ll find an entry for your webcam. If you see a down arrow by its icon then it has, for whatever reason, been disabled. To re-enable it, right-click the device name, then click…

Q I got annoyed with my Chrome browser automatically opening PDF links on websites, rather than giving me the option to download the file. Somehow, I managed to turn off the feature, only for it to dawn on me that most of the time it was actually the behaviour I’d prefer. Now I have to save any PDF to my hard drive before I can view it. I’d like to turn this feature back on but I’ve forgotten what I did! Can you please explain how I can do this? Chris Miller A Google has just changed the layout of Chrome’s Settings page, so it’s possible this has confused you. But it’s fairly straightforward. Type chrome://settings into the browser bar then press Enter. On the settings page, scroll down and…

Customers of some of the UK’s leading banks, including NatWest, HSBC and RBS, have been using phone and tablet apps that hackers could have infiltrated to steal log-in details. Researchers at Birmingham University’s School of Computer Science ran a tool to test the security of 400 Android and iOS apps, including many from banks that customers use to check their account and transfer money. They found that several banking apps contained a critical flaw that would let an attacker connected to the same network perform a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack, intercepting what’s being sent from the user to the bank. Around 10 million users are thought to have been at risk. The flaw was identified in the use of certificate pinning, a technique that gives apps and websites a guarantee they…

Google has claimed to have invented a system that tells you when nosey parkers are looking over your shoulder at your phone. Powered by machine learning, it uses a phone’s front-facing camera to pick out faces that don’t belong to the owner. Its creators, Google researchers Hee Jung Ryu and Florian Schroff, say it can protect you “from onlookers in a crowded space such as the subway or an elevator”. In a video they published on YouTube (www.snipca.com/26380), the camera on a Google Pixel phone detects the stranger’s face, then frames it inside a red box (see screenshot). It also adds rainbow ‘vomit’, which is a popular special effect in online videos. The researchers, who call the feature an ‘electronic screen protector’, claim it works in many different lighting conditions…

Broadband speeds are so slow in parts of Britain that it takes longer to download a film than it does to fly to Australia. Research from comparison site uSwitch found that homes in Thorpe Lane (pictured), in the Suffolk village of Trimley St Martin, suffer the slowest speeds in the country, at a snail-like 0.68Mbps. This is 53 times slower than the average speed of 36.2Mbps, and 260 times slower than the fastest speeds (177Mbps), found in Benford Avenue, Motherwell. Downloading a two-hour HD film in Thorpe Lane would take 21 hours; in Benford Avenue it would take just five minutes. One resident in Thorpe Lane, Ann Owen, 65, said speeds are much faster in her cottage in the Orkney Isles. She added: “The broadband here is incredibly slow. You…

Bus-ticket app is a ‘running joke’ As someone who lives near Bath, I was very interested in your news story (Issue 516, page 9) about First Bus charging more for passengers who use real cash, rather than their m-Tickets app (pictured). Perhaps you’d like the view from residents who rely on Bath’s buses, which is that the app is abysmal, a running joke. You mention that the app has a 2.3 rating on the Google Play Store. I’m stunned it’s that high. Fortunately, locals don’t blame each other for the delays it causes when boarding. It’s actually brought us closer together, because we have a common enemy: First Bus. It’s become a common excuse when meeting people: ‘Sorry I was late, it was the bus app’. What was wrong with…

Can I return wrong goods sent to me? Q I bought a Linx 810 Windows 10 tablet from Amazon Marketplace trader GSM M. I tried to update the operating system but wasn’t able to. Linx told me I was sent the wrong tablet. But GSM M and Amazon say that because 90 days have passed since purchase I’m too late to return it. What can I do? John MacDonald A John can make a claim with Amazon. Following our intervention, it has agreed to extend the 90 days normally given by its ‘A-to-z’ guarantee (www.snipca.com/26295). He’s entitled to a full refund from the seller because, as Linx has confirmed, he was sent the wrong tablet. GSM M either posted incorrect info in the product description, or sent John the wrong…

Happy BT outcomes bring festive cheer Two Computeractive readers will have a little extra money to spend this Christmas after receiving good outcomes from BT. In Issue 513, we reported that Edmund Hobby wanted to cancel his broadband contract after BT moved him on to a more expensive deal without telling him. This broke one of Ofcom’s golden rules, introduced in 2012, that providers have to warn customers if they are to be moved to a new deal. You are given a 14-day cooling-off period to cancel without a penalty. Also, providers must give you 30 days’ notice of any price increase. They can charge you should you decide to cancel your contract early, but not if the price rise is above the rate of inflation (which stands at 2.8…

What can I use to tune up my PC? Q I would appreciate your advice on a replacement for AVG TuneUp Utilities. I installed this on a laptop running XP some years ago and then updated it to TuneUp Utilities 2014 on a Windows 8 laptop. This laptop now runs Windows 10 and TuneUp Utilities 2014 seems to be suffering from the odd hiccup of late, even though it tells me I’m running the ‘current version’. Peter B Nunn A Those hiccups may become more frequent because TuneUp Utilities 2014 was discontinued last year. AVG says it will still work, but won’t receive any security fixes or new features. AVG’s recommendation is to “upgrade to AVG TuneUp to enjoy full product support and to use several additional features”. However, the…

PHONE | £999 from Apple www.snipca.com/26316 The iPhone X is pronounced ‘iPhone 10’, and costs £999 – yes, nine hundred and ninety-nine pounds. To protect your investment, Apple has made it entirely out of glass. The front is glass. The back is glass. There’s a bit of metal in between, but that won’t help if you drop it on the floor. It’s not fully waterproof, either – just splash-resistant. Apple charges £286 to replace the screen. Any other damage, including a cracked back, costs £556, if it can be fixed at all. Alternatively, when you buy your iPhone X you can pay an extra £199 for AppleCare+, which reduces these costs to £25 and £79. Or you can sign up for Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Programme, which gives you interest-free credit…

Google’s Home and Home Mini smart speakers compete directly with Echo. Apple is working on a similar box for Siri, called HomePod (pictured), but it has been delayed until next year. Each of these devices can deliver news, sports results, weather forecasts and so on, as well as travel directions, which you can forward to apps on your phone. You can even order an Uber taxi or a pizza, and Alexa makes it particularly easy to buy from Amazon through the device, which may be of interest if you subscribe to Prime for free delivery. You can protect this feature with a PIN so your kids or your parrot can’t activate it. Google, on the other hand, is better at understanding random questions. Alexa’s strength is in its extensive support…

What’s the best model for printing to DVDs? Q My 10-year-old Canon Pixma IP4500 printer has finally died on me. It was mainly used for the usual A4 documents, but from time to time it was wheeled out to print directly on to DVDs, which it did very well. I’m looking around for a printer to replace it that has disc printing, but they seem thin on the ground. Can you advise? John Salmon A Canon’s cheapest inkjets at the moment, the Pixma TS5150 and TS6150, lack the disc-printing feature, although it’s available on the pricier TS8150 (£119 from Amazon www.snipca.com/26347, pictured). Epson’s older Expression Photo models can also print discs, starting with the XP-760 (£ 115 from Amazon www.snipca.com/26350). Neither of these printers is especially fast or cheap to…

Want to write for the UK’s best-selling technology magazine? We’re looking for an outstanding Deputy Editor who has the pride, vision and dedication to produce exceptional features every fortnight. You’ll need to share our readers’ passion for computing. They expect excellent advice written in plain English – it will be your job to deliver that in every issue. You’ll be commissioning, writing and editing in-depth, well-researched articles that our loyal readers read and keep, not 50-word snippets online that are instantly forgotten. For more details on the job and to apply visit www.snipca.com/26041. To contact the Editor (Daniel Booth) directly email editor@computeractive.co.uk. COMPETITION Win 1 of 2 Y-cam EVO Indoor HD Wi-Fi Security Cameras Quick and easy to set up, the Y-cam Evo lets you see and hear what’s happening…

Google recently released a handy, free Android app called Files Go that lets you find and delete files that are taking up storage space, including duplicates and downloads. It also identifies which apps haven’t been used in the last month, so you can uninstall any you no longer need in one go. The app is a beta version but it worked perfectly well on our phone, helping us recover more than 10GB in a matter of minutes and making it noticeably faster. STEP 1 Install and open the app (www.snipca.com/26338), tap Agree, Allow, then OK 1. At the top, you’ll see how much of your storage space you’ve used 2. The app has two main sections - Storage and Files 3. In the ‘Duplicate files’ section you’ll see how much…

iOS Find types of emails quickly and change your settings There’s an easy way to quickly find specific types of emails in iOS’s Mail app. Open the app, then tap Inbox at the top left to see your emails (in the left-hand column on an iPad). At the bottom left, you’ll see a small circular icon with three lines (see screenshot right). Tapping it displays all your Unread emails. However, it’s easy to customise this button to see other emails. First, tap the small circular icon, then tap the Unread link at the bottom. You’ll see six options in the Filter pop-up menu (see screenshot right). By default, Unread is the only one ticked, but you can select any of the filter options you want to include here. When you’ve…

WINDOWS 10 Add folders to your Photos app When you open your Photos app, you’ll only see the photos and videos stored in your Pictures folder (on your PC) and in your OneDrive account. To add photos from other folders on your PC, click the three dots at the top right of the Photos app, then click Settings. Next, click ‘Add a folder’ below Sources (see screenshot below), navigate to and select the folder you want to add, then click ‘Add this folder to Pictures’. Repeat this to add other PC folders. You can tweak a couple of other settings to improve the app. Scroll down to the ‘Viewing and editing’ section. By default, the Photos app displays only one photo if it finds duplicates. Untick the ‘Linked duplicates’ slider…

In the words of Director-General Tony Hall, the BBC is on a mission to “reinvent public service broadcasting for a new generation”. Part of that is to make more shows available to watch online through the iPlayer. We applaud the timing of its first big effort – a bunch of classic shows made available just in time for Yuletide viewing. You can stream or download them for free. Visit the BBC’s site for the list of programmes (www.snipca.com/26406), which includes both series of Planet Earth and Blue Planet; acclaimed dramas Peaky Blinders, Wolf Hall and Line of Duty; and the comedies Gavin and Stacey and Miranda. You can also watch series 3 and 4 of Sherlock, every regeneration episode of Doctor Who from 2005, and five EastEnders Christmas specials (including…

There are several sites that reveal how your area has changed, over centuries, decades and in the past 10 years. Old Maps Online (www.oldmapsonline.org) goes the furthest back in time, offering 400,000 maps from around the world – many from the 16th and 17th Century. For vintage photos of the UK, try the Francis Frith Collection (www.francisfrith.com), which adds new images every month. You can buy framed prints, or turn them into jigsaws, calendars, mugs and tea towels. More dramatic are the photos on the Britain from Above site (https://britainfromabove.org.uk, pictured), showing 95,000 aerial shots, including the largest collection taken before World War 2. It’s an irresistible way to spend a nostalgic afternoon, even if many of the factories, stadiums, dockyards and cramped streets are long gone. Bringing us up…

Q If I use Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) and put my postcode into a website, all is well. I then clear internet history using IE11’s tool or CCleaner, but when I return to the website my postcode is remembered. Other data entered on different websites is also being stored. I have tried this on three computers with the latest update and all perform the same. Bob Garwood A Clearing internet history won’t wipe information entered into website forms — that’s part of IE11’s AutoComplete feature. You can either disable this feature or periodically wipe the information it collects. In IE11, click the Settings cog followed by ‘Internet options’ and then Content. Now, in the AutoComplete section, click Settings. To disable the feature, clear all the ticks. To delete the history,…

Q I use Windows 10 Home with a 27in monitor that has a 1920x1080 resolution. I routinely work in split-screen mode, with two browser windows side by side. When I restart my PC one browser window is recreated, but for the other window I have to manually drag a tab into free space on my desktop and set it to a halfscreen split display. For some reason that shrinks the original browser window to a thumbnail, which I then have to expand again to fill the other half of the screen. As you can imagine, this is a very tedious process. Can I make Windows 10 remember my preferences and recreate the complete split-screen setup when it restarts? Paul Barrett A Yes, there’s an easy shortcut to do this. Create…

Why can’t I use GodMode after Fall Creators Update? Q Issue 492’s Cover Feature was about GodMode, a hidden Windows tool which has dozens of links to Control Panel features. I’ve found it very handy, but after the Fall Creators Update (FCU) it no longer works. You predicted this might happen due to Microsoft’s approach to Control Panel. Can you confirm if GodMode has now gone, or is there an alternative setup code for the latest update? Vic Jackson A It’s possible that FCU removed an existing GodMode icon from your Windows desktop. However, we’ve tested GodMode with FCU and it still works just fine — but its icon no longer displays the ‘GodMode’ label. If FCU has removed your GodMode icon then it can be recreated as before. First,…

Banks have been accused of not doing enough to help victims of online fraud, after a damning report from MPs revealed it’s the most prevalent crime in England and Wales. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said victims lose an estimated £10bn a year. However, the true figure may be much larger, the report said, because only around 20 per cent of crimes are reported to the police. It said “the emotional impact” of the crime leaves many victims reluctant to come forward. The PAC blamed the Home Office for being “too slow” to respond to the threat of online fraud, but also called for banks to take greater responsibility to tackle it, saying it’s “too vast” a task for Government alone. Banks are “unwilling to share information about the extent…

OFFICE APPS COME TO CHROMEBOOKS Microsoft has released its Office apps on Chromebooks (laptops that use the Chrome OS operating system rather than Windows). They are free on Chromebooks with a 10.1in screen or smaller. On larger devices, you’ll need to pay for an Office 365 subscription (from £5.99 a month) in order to edit documents. The apps are available now on Google’s Play Store: www.snipca.com/26402. 300 DRIVERS BANNED FOR PHONE USE Nearly 300 drivers were banned for using mobile phones between March and August this year after tougher laws were introduced. These doubled the punishment to six penalty points, which is enough to disqualify motorists with less than two years’ experience. According to figures released by the DVLA, 15,752 drivers in total received six penalty points for using a…

I grew up in the golden age of sci-fi films like Tron and WarGames, so when I hear the word ‘hacker’, I picture an audacious computer genius, breaking into top-secret systems to take down the bad guys from within. Sad to say, the reality isn’t quite so romantic. Take the case of 21-year-old Alex Bessell from Liverpool, who’s recently been on trial at Birmingham Crown Court. His crime? Hacking into Google, Skype and other big online companies – not to right wrongs, but to steal personal data that could then be used for fraud. He’s also admitted to raking in £50,000 selling malware and botnets – software designed to infect and damage other people’s computers. Bessell may have the technical brilliance of a 1980s movie hero, but he’s abused his…

I received a letter saying my Virgin Media broadband bill was going up by a couple of quid a month. Time for a haggle, I thought. So I rang them on 0345 454 1111 and played hard to get. I told them that other providers could offer me fast speeds in my area (which is true), and that I was willing to shop around. I quoted some specific rival deals, which were cheaper, albeit a bit slower. I dangled the carrot though by saying that I’d like to stay with Virgin because it had been a good service so far. This firm-but- fair tactic seemed to work. The sales rep was very helpful, offering me a price reduction and a £50 credit on my next bill. I realise that all…

TV Licence scam returns I want to warn readers about an old scam that’s returned. A few years ago I received an email promising me a refund on my TV Licence. It sounded too good to be true, so I checked by ringing them and they confirmed it was nonsense. I got a similar email in early November, trying to tempt me with a refund of £85.07. Maybe scammers up their game near Christmas because people like the idea of having extra cash to spend. The TV Licence people have a web page warning about the scam: www.snipca.com/26305. It never sends refund information by email. Phil Lewis Warn your fellow readers about scams at letters@computeractive.co.uk…

PC | £779 from PC Specialist www.snipca.com/26306 You don’t have to be a mechanic to buy a car, but most of us know a few basics. For example, the bigger the engine, the more oomph you’ll get when you put your foot down. Of course, it’s not quite that simple, and a modern one-litre engine might do just as good a job as a gas-guzzler of yesteryear. The same applies with PC processor chips, except that they tend to change faster. “If you're looking for a fully rounded PC, the Enigma K6 is a good choice” In recent years, Intel’s numbering system for processors made things relatively simple: i3 was suitable for basic Windows use, i5 for decent performance and i7 for number-crunching and creative jobs. Each year’s new versions…

What does it do? The eighth generation of Intel’s Core processor line brings more powerful i3, i5 and i7 chips. Confusingly, while previous generations have been given one geographical codename, this has three: Kaby Lake R, Coffee Lake and, some time in 2018, Cannon Lake. Why would I want it? Kaby Lake increased speed by a few per cent, but the new processors promise much bigger gains, largely thanks to extra cores. Desktop i3 processors were dual-core; now those with i3-8 numbers are quad-core, boosting performance in demanding tasks (see page 20). The i5-8 and i7-8 chips have six cores. For laptops, four new quad-core i5-8 and i7-8 chips with the ‘U’ suffix, standing for low voltage, promise to beat their predecessors by a huge 40 per cent in overall…

WHAT WE LIKED… BEST TECH BATTLE Ryzen vs Coffee Lake Just as Kaby Lake had us giving up on processor upgrades, along came AMD with Ryzen, a new CPU series with lots of cores and great performance levels. Desktop PCs with these chips weren’t clocked quite as fast as Intel’s, but when we threw heavier work at them they beat i7 performance but cost the same as i5 processors. Intel finally got its act together with Coffee Lake chips that delivered the speed boost we’d been waiting for. As laptops catch up too, 2018 looks like a great time to buy a computer. MOST UNEXPECTED BARGAIN BT Whole Home WiFi “These tariffs are so simple, my bills are smaller than I thought and their customer service is brilliant,” said no…

Zip drive WHAT WAS IT? Launched in 1994 by Iomega, the Zip drive (pictured) could read and write removable magnetic disks that looked a bit like 1.44MB 3.5in floppies but could store a huge 100MB each. It wasn’t the first high-capacity removable-disk system, but it was simple and cheap enough to appeal to consumers. HOW HAVE THINGS CHANGED? In 1999, Israeli company M-Systems patented an 8MB SSD built into a USB stick. It stored data on flash memory rather than a mechanically rotating magnetic disk. Floppies remained the favoured medium for everyday backups, but as USB ports became commonplace it was easier to share files with other users on a ‘stick’ – and USB stick capacities kept doubling every few months. Today, a USB 3.0 128GB stick costs around £30,…

Datally Free Android: www.snipca.com/26417 Google’s new app lets you save mobile data by limiting the amount your apps use while also showing you which ones use more data than they need to. It also lists trusted public Wi-Fi networks that you can connect to. It’s a great app if you regularly exceed your mobile data limit (also see tip above right). Polarr Album+ Free iOS: www.snipca.com/26418 Polarr Album+ has as many great features as Google Photos, but it doesn’t store your photos online. It can, however, automatically recognise, categorise and organise people, objects and places in your photos. It also removes duplicates and blurry photos to free up space. Microsoft Edge Free Android: www.snipca.com/26419 iOS: www.snipca.com/26420 In Issue 514 (see our Workshop on page 42), we showed you how to…

Windows/File Explorer has a useful AutoComplete feature that’s disabled by default. After enabling it, you can start typing the name of any location on your PC into Explorer’s search bar at the top. Before you finish typing you’ll see suggested options that you can click to open. To enable this feature, you first need to open your PC’s Registry Editor as an Administrator. Click inside Windows’ search field at the bottom left of your desktop, type regedit, right-click the ‘regedit’ option that appears, click ‘Run as administrator’, then click Yes. Now navigate to the following key using the dropdown menus on the left: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Explorer. If you don’t see an AutoComplete key in the Explorer dropdown menu, right-click the Explorer dropdown menu, move your cursor to New, click Key,…

Automatically name a ZIP file after a specific file When you use Windows’ built-in compression tool to unzip a group of files, you often seem to end up with a ZIP file that’s named after a random file in your group. There is, in fact, a hidden way to control how Windows names your ZIP files. Open File Explorer, locate your files and drag (or Ctrl+click) to select those you want to zip. Now, when you right-click your selection to access the ‘Send to’ option, make sure you click the specific file you want to name your ZIP after. Select ‘Send to’, then ‘Compressed (zipped) folder)’ (see screenshot above right) and your ZIP file will be named after the file you right-clicked. Hide a ZIP file within an image You…

How do I switch off my broken iPhone? Q I have an old iPhone 4 that was serving my needs well until the power button became permanently stuck down! I’ve tried everything to dislodge it but it will not move, so I can no longer switch off my iPhone. The battery on this old handset is fading, so I like to switch it off overnight to save power – but obviously I can’t do that now. Apple tells me it no longer offers service for this phone. A local repair shop quoted £90 to replace the button, but that’s more than I want to pay for this old thing. Could I take this apart myself to clean out any gunge? Or do you have any other ideas? Michael Grange A…

Q I installed my old Office 2000 CD on my new Windows 10 laptop, as it’s all I need. It worked at first but for some reason the files are no longer associated with the Office programs, even though Word and Excel and so on still work. Control Panel doesn’t list these old apps as options for launching the relevant file types. Is this a fault caused by a Windows 10 update? Alan Dexter A While it’s possible that some Windows 10 update removed Office 2000’s file associations, it would be unfair to label this a fault: the suite is 18 years old (it was released in June 1999)and Microsoft ceased support for it in 2009. The company doesn’t claim Office 2000 is compatible with Windows 10, and doesn’t expect…

Q I’m a total computer beginner, so forgive me if my question seems naive — but could you explain the difference between Start and Startup? I understand that clicking the Start button at the bottom left opens a menu. However, I’ve seen advice (including in Computeractive) to put things in the Startup folder. When you say that do you mean the icons that appear in the menu after I’ve clicked Start? I’m confused, so I hope you can explain! I use Windows 10. Fran Fowler A Let’s start with the basics: clicking the Start button opens the Start menu. This Start menu has existed since Windows 95, although Microsoft famously removed it from Windows 8/8.1 — replacing it with a much-maligned full-screen version, sometimes called the Start screen. The Start…

3G/4G A set of technologies that delivers faster mobile broadband. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 5K Video with a horizontal resolution of 5120x2880 pixels. 7z Also known as 7-Zip. A free, open-source file archiver. Add-on A program that adds extra features to your browser. Augmented reality Lets you view the real world on a digital display and add elements from the digital world. Bandwidth A measure of how much data can be transferred through a connection at one time. Beta A version of software that’s being tested. Beta versions are often released so problems can be ironed out. BIOS Basic Input-Output System. Essential software built into every PC that connects the vital components. It’s visible for a few seconds when the PC starts. Blue light…