Table of contents for 588 in Computeractive

I have three key rules when deciding which subjects deserve to be Cover Features. The most important is that they have to trigger one of two reactions from readers: “I didn’t know you could do that!” or “I always wanted to do that, but didn’t know how!”. Either response tells me that we’ve come up with a winner. I hope you’ll think both while reading our tips for mastering your Windows folders. We look at advanced tricks for using File Explorer, explain how to share folders over your network, and recommend brilliant programs to replace Windows’ built-in tools – plus much more. The feature also follows my second rule, which is that I must learn something from it too. I’ve been writing about computers for more than 20 years, so…

Buckingham Palace has been turned into an ugly office block (pictured) in the new version of Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is now available to buy for Windows 10. It’s one of several landmarks to be unintentionally altered in the game. Others include Edinburgh Castle, the Wallace Monument near Stirling, and Sydney Harbour Bridge, which has been replaced by a dull road bridge. The errors were caused by the artificial intelligence Microsoft used to recreate the world. Most of the landscapes and buildings have to be generated by special algorithms that interpret satellite data. This typically produces accurate results for generic buildings like skyscrapers and factories, but can cause problems with more distinctive structures. Other errors include tall obelisks appearing where they shouldn’t, such as in Melbourne and the Italian countryside.…

Mobile networks are protecting their phone masts from attack by spraying vandals with a special type of water that can “forensically link them to the crime”. The liquid, made by UK firm SmartWater, remains on skin for months, and can be seen only under an ultraviolet black light (pictured). It contains a code that indicates where it was sprayed. It’s being used by the Mobile Broadband Network Limited (MBNL) organisation, which runs the infrastructure used by EE and Three. They’ve taken the measure following a rise in attacks on masts in the past few months. In particular, arsonists set fire to 5G masts during lockdown because they falsely believed the technology was spreading coronavirus. One attack was on a phone mast in Solihull that provided a signal to the Nightingale…

We’re happy to report that Gillian Crisp’s father won’t have to wait 72 days for a monitor he bought from Currys online (see Issue 587). That’s how long delivery would take, it said, after couriers DPD initially sent the monitor to the wrong address. Whoever spoke to him from Currys doesn’t understand the law. Retailers have 30 days to deliver your item, unless you’ve paid for faster delivery, or told them you’re happy to wait longer for whatever reason. They can’t simply set their own random delivery period. Even with the challenges posed by the coronavirus lockdown, a large retailer like Currys should be able to meet this deadline. After 30 days, your contract with the retailer is null and void, and you can demand either a replacement or a…

OFFICE SUITE LibreOffice 7 www.libreoffice.org What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10, Mac OS, or Linux You don’t need to spend money on Microsoft Office because the free open-source LibreOffice provides much of the same functionality. It offers a word processor (Writer), spreadsheet (Calc), and presentation and slideshow creator (Impress), as well as a drawing program (Draw) and database (Base). Version 7 runs faster and smoother than ever due to enhanced support for hardware-acceleration. Its compatibility with Microsoft’s DOCX format has been significantly improved in this release too, meaning anyone using a newer version of MS Office will be able to open documents you create in LibreOffice without encountering problems, which wasn’t always the case previously. All of the suite’s programs gain tweaks and welcome new additions. In Writer,…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: Auslogics Duplicate File Finder Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? In this particular scenario, the old dog is Auslogics – a software developer with a long and unhappy history of serving up junk with its tools, while simultaneously nagging users to fork out for premium upgrades. The new trick is Auslogics’ Mystery Box. Opt to download Duplicate File Finder (or any of Auslogics’ other free tools) and you’ll be faced with an exciting-looking screen telling you you’ve qualified for a Mystery Box (see screenshot). It looks for all the world like a daytime quiz show, destined for endless repeats on Challenge TV. But it’s actually a timed “exclusive” offer that’s cleverly turned into a game by getting you to choose from…

TABLET | £799 from Samsung www.snipca.com/35749 Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S6 tablet fell awkwardly between the basic iPad and iPad Pro, but it’s continuing its attack in three forms. While the S6 Lite (£319 from Amazon www.snipca.com/34950, see Issue 582, page 23) takes on the 10.2in iPad, the S7 and S7+ tackle the 11in and 12.9in iPad Pro. We tested the S7+, which is £170 cheaper than its Apple rival. If you need to get online where there’s no Wi-Fi, 4G adds £230 to the iPad Pro, while Samsung offers 5G for £200, both requiring a network tariff. “It’s good value, but Samsung’s tools can’t match those in iPadOS” Finished in black, bronze or silver, the design is simple, thin, and an ounce-and-a-half lighter than its slightly bigger Apple rival. The…

What is it? Made possible by new TOLED (transparent organic light-emitting diode) technology, Xiaomi’s Mi TV Lux Transparent Edition (pictured) is a 55in telly that’s almost completely see-through. Most of the electronics are built into a flat cylindrical base. On top of that, the screen has a narrow border around what looks, when idle, like a sheet of slightly tinted glass. Turn it on, and the picture appears. What does it do? Otherwise, pretty much the same as any other TV or monitor. Xiaomi’s publicity photos and demos show images displayed on a transparent background, with the room visible behind characters on the screen. This would require content with an alpha channel to define the transparent area in the background – something we commonly see online with still images in…

What was it? Released in 2006, the Mylo COM-1 (pictured) was every marketing cliché about technology and ‘the youth’ in one pocket-sized blob. A 2.4in landscape colour screen, surrounded by buttons and a thumb stick, slid up to reveal a bright orange QWERTY keyboard with which to text friends via then-popular instant messaging services. Music and video could be stored on 0.4GB of built-in memory. Priced at $350 (then about £190), it was sold by UK importers for £250. This was more than most people would spend on a mobile phone, but they didn’t need a network contract, because it only supported Wi-Fi. Why did it die? The Mylo didn’t do enough. Web browsing made little sense on the tiny screen, there was no proper email program, it could only…

ANDROID & iOS Export your Google Play Music tracks before it closes Google is shutting down its Play Music service at the end of the year. Streaming functions will stop working in New Zealand and South Africa in September, and the rest of the world in October. By the end of the year, all users’ collections will be deleted. So, if you’ve bought music through the service, or uploaded any of your own tracks, you need to take action today to move them to YouTube Music. Thankfully, Google has made this process easy by adding the necessary transfer tools to the YouTube Music app (Android www.snipca.com/35674; iOS (www.snipca.com/35673), which replaces Play Music. Launch the YouTube Music app and sign in using the Google account you use for Play Music. It…

Set up automatic email responses If you’re responsible for replying to emails sent to your club, there might be times when your inbox fills up, making responding to messages in a timely manner a full-time job in itself. You can buy yourself some time by setting up an auto-response to let people know you’ve received their message. In Gmail, for example, click the top-right cog button followed by ‘See all settings’. In the General tab, scroll down, then select the ‘Out of Office AutoReply’ feature. Next, set the start and end dates, enter a subject line and the text you want to reply with, then save the changes. Once the auto-reply is active, whenever someone sends you a message they’ll receive your response immediately. If they email you a second…

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PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT Will an SSD save this old laptop? Q A friend recently died of cancer. To help him through his illness his wife bought him a HP 15-ay013na laptop. He didn’t have many opportunities to use it. His wife has now generously passed it on to me. Compared to my all-in-one desktop PC it’s very slow. Is it possible to fit an SSD, and would doing so improve performance? I’ve made numerous inquiries with local technicians but have received so many mixed messages that I’m terribly confused. One said the laptop is geared to the hard drive and will not accept the SSD, while another said that the hard drive is soldered in so it would be impossible to replace. Others have said it can be done…

Microsoft has released a tool that transcribes text in the online version of Word, but it’s available only in the subscription version of Office. ‘Transcribe in Word’ understands both live text and audio in uploaded files, ‘typing’ words into a document as it hears them. You can use it to transcribe live speech, such as from video calls. But it will probably be used more by people who need to record meetings, interviews and lectures, and want to avoid the hassle of typing them up. Once you’ve uploaded a file (MP3, WAV, M4A or MP4), you just need to press play for transcription to begin. It appears in a sidebar in Word (see screenshot), and identifies different speakers, so you can jump between interviewer and interviewee, for example. You can…

Smartphones can detect when you’re drunk by monitoring how you’re walking, a study has found. Researchers at Pittsburgh University in the US used sensors in phones to detect when somebody was over the legal drink-drive limit, claiming they could measure this with 90-per-cent accuracy when users walked just 10 steps. They hope the breakthrough will inspire developers to make phone alerts that warn people not to drink and drive. In the study, 22 participants aged 21 to 43 were given a vodka and lime juice drink every hour until they reached the UK and US drink-drive limit of 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. Every two hours they tried to walk in a straight line for 10 steps, before turning around and walking back. A smartphone strapped…

I was interested in David McGill’s theory that lockdown will remind people of the importance of local stores (Letters, Issue 587). I’d like to think he’s right, but my experience doesn’t bode well. I run a small electrical store in the kind of ‘left behind’ high street David describes. I offered a phone and postal service during lockdown, which many loyal customers appreciated. When shops reopened, we had a mini rush of customers who I suspect were just delighted to be able to buy things again in person. But that only lasted a week or so. Since then, it’s been terrifyingly quiet. If it continues, there’s no way I’ll be able to continue into next year. It’s obvious to me that many shoppers bought items online for the first time…

☑ Desperate to find a replacement for my faulty 4K Panasonic videocam, I located the best deal at Castle Cameras (www.castlecameras.co.uk) in Bournemouth (there’s also a Salisbury branch), and bought their final model online. Next day, however, they phoned to say it had been requested by an earlier customer and the lockdown had meant their records were not as up to date as they would have been normally. They contacted the other customer three times, allowing a few days for response. As my deadline approached to use the videocam, I had to decide whether to cancel and try elsewhere, but knowing Castle Cameras’ reputation, I decided to wait. Staff kept me informed on progress. Finally, because no answer had been received from the other customer, it was delivered to me…

What can I use to back up and restore my PC? Q Earlier this year, I had the misfortune to have a complete desktop PC crash, which I thought had wiped all my files. I couldn’t get my PC running no matter what I tried. However, by putting my hard drive into a caddy I could see that the files were still intact. I’ve bought a new PC (a Palicomp AMD Impulse RYZ7), and I’ve decided I need a new working backup and imaging system. I need software that’s reliable and easy to use. I don’t mind spending a bit of money. Dave Thompson A Although paid-for programs will offer you more features, such as the ability to back up your files online, there are some excellent free tools available.…

I can’t help wondering whether some companies are using coronavirus as an excuse for incompetence. Take Eurostar. While I fully understand that the virus has wrecked the travel industry, I’m less clear how it might affect the availability of Wi-Fi in the company’s standard-class carriages. But, bafflingly, it tweeted last month that free Wi-Fi was restricted to Premier class passengers “as a result of coronavirus” (www.snipca.com/35734). So, if you’re rich enough for Premier class, you’re immune to the disease? Or could it be that someone made an unpopular cost-cutting decision and attempted to divert the blame on to big, bad Covid? Either way, after complaints and bad press, Eurostar miraculously found a cure for its Wi-Fi ills, and access is now restored to all travellers.…

LAPTOP | £1,599 from Dell www.snipca.com/35766 If the XPS 13 is the VW Golf of laptops, this is the Volvo. This year it gets a long-awaited new design, with a more streamlined body and higher performance, but it’s more about fitting in all your stuff than impressing the neighbours. Dell has stuck to its two-tone styling, silver aluminium on the outside and black carbon fibre within. By our reckoning, the solid-feeling chassis is the same weight as before and slightly thicker, despite Dell’s blurb calling it “8 per cent thinner”. We’ll never understand PC marketing maths. Undeniably, it’s smaller, with almost all the space around the screen shaved away. The screen itself, in Full HD or 4K with 10 per cent extra height, is completely new. Our test unit had…

PHONE | £349 from Google www.snipca.com/35796 The poor old Pixel 3a had a shorter honeymoon than the Bride of Frankenstein. At launch, this mid-priced phone seemed solid, but so many exciting rivals followed, all with at least one extra camera and a full-height screen instead of the 3a’s top and bottom borders, that it instantly felt out of date. This successor still has only one rear camera, despite a square bulge housing its flash and depth sensor. It’s also now up against the OnePlus Nord (£379 from www.snipca.com/35717, see our review, Issue 487, page 28), with a bigger screen, three cameras plus depth sensor on the back and two on the front. But it’s no horror story for the 4a. Although the case isn’t waterproof, the matt black plastic finish…

LAPTOP Honor MagicBook 14 £550 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 £1,399. www.snipca.com/35349 ANDROID TABLET NEW ENTRY Samsung Galaxy S6 Lite £309 from www.snipca.com/35795 Tested Issue 582 Competing with Apple’s cheapest 10.2in iPad, this slim aluminium tablet comes with an S Pen stylus and a generous 64GB of storage at a reasonable price. It’s less powerful, but a great buy if you prefer Android. ALTERNATIVE Amazon…

WINDOWS 10 See when Windows last rebooted With the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, released in 2017, Microsoft changed how the operating system behaves after a reboot. So you can just pick up where you left off, Windows 10 remembers all the programs you were using, and reopens them when it restarts. This is great, but it’s not always obvious when your PC has rebooted as the result of a forced update, crash or malware infection. You can check when the last reboot occurred using the Command Prompt. Type CMD into the Windows search box, and hit enter. In the Command Prompt window type wmic os get lastbootuptime (see screenshot below) and enter it. This will return a number – such as 20200831094118 – which breaks down into the year,…

All storage devices (whether hard drives, SSDs, USB sticks or any other form of storage), need to be formatted before you can use them. In most cases, these devices are pre-formatted when you buy them, but sometimes you’ll need to format them yourself – and choosing the correct settings is vital. You may also need to reformat your existing storage devices, either just to wipe them of all files or change their settings to allow specific devices (such as a camera, phone or NAS) to use them. Formatting partitions Every storage device contains one or more partitions, and each of these needs to be formatted separately. The partitions appear as separate drives in Windows – so your C: is actually a partition within your storage device (the PC’s hard drive).…

Disk Management has become the latest tool to be moved from the Control Panel into Settings, as Microsoft continues to modernise Windows 10. The change is part of Build 20197, a preview version of Windows 10 available to people signed up to the Insiders program. Microsoft has recently tested moving other tools from the Control Panel, such as System. In future, it wants all important functions to be housed in Settings, which you can access by pressing the Windows key+I shortcut. In its Insider blog (www.snipca.com/35831), Microsoft said that the change means you’ll be able to perform tasks like “viewing disk information, creating and formatting volumes, and assigning drive letters” from Settings. If you have Build 20197 you can see the new Disk Management tools by opening Settings, then clicking…

CHROME SAVES AND TAGS YOUR PDFs The new version of Chrome (85) saves what you’ve typed into online PDFs, letting you pick up later where you left off. Also, when you print a web page and choose ‘Save as PDF’, Chrome will generate a ‘tagged’ PDF that includes headings, lists, tables, paragraphs, and image descriptions. Screen-reading software will be able to read this information, making PDFs easier to use for people with poor eyesight. £15 ‘UNIVERSAL CREDIT’ VIRGIN BROADBAND Virgin Media is to launch a broadband-only package for people on Universal Credit. The service, due to go live this autumn, will offer 15Mbps for £15 a month. There’s no fixed-term contract length and the price won’t change while benefit payments are being received. It’ll be available initially to existing Virgin…

Google is adding extra colour and detail to its online maps to show terrain and streets more accurately. On its blog (www.snipca.com/35777), Google says it’s using a new “colour-mapping algorithmic technique” to add geographical features to its satellite images, helping you to “easily distinguish tan, arid beaches and deserts from blue lakes, rivers, oceans and ravines”. It added: “You can know at a glance how lush and green a place is with vegetation, and even see if there are snow caps on the peaks of mountaintops”. As examples, it showed images from around the world as seen before and after the technique is applied. In the map above, Google says “Iceland’s rich landscape is now much easier to visualize”. “You can see the varying densities of greenery throughout the country…

WATCH OUT FOR… TV Licence scams targeting over-75s What’s the threat? Scammers are targeting over-75s with emails demanding they pay the TV Licence fee, exploiting the BBC’s decision to end free licences for that age group. The National Cyber Security Centre, part of GCHQ, said the number of scam licence-fee emails rose in July, and it was working hard to block them. Fraudsters are using a variety of devious tactics. One email, titled ‘Information about your TV Licence’, reads: “Oops! Something went wrong with your payment. We’re sorry to let you know that your TV Licence could not be automatically renewed.” It adds: “If you don’t keep up with your payments, we may be forced to cancel your licence or pass your details to a debt collection agency.” The email…

LEAD CASE Why did Currys refuse to honour my warranty? Q I’ve had problems with a new HP computer I bought from Currys two months ago, with the screen freezing. Currys said it’s an “operating fault”, so wasn’t covered by warranty and has charged me £45 to fix it. Why didn’t the warranty cover me? Ernest Dempsey A The warranty probably does cover Ernest, but it was issued by HP (the manufacturer), not Currys (the retailer). If he wants to continue pursuing the warranty, he should get in touch with HP. But a better route would be to contact Currys, citing the Consumer Rights Act. If the fault is inherent, as seems likely, then Ernest will be entitled to return the laptop. Currys will be allowed to attempt one repair…

Check who died of Spanish Flu The current coronavirus pandemic has no parallels in modern history. For the most recent comparison, you have to go back to 1918 when Spanish Flu infected one-third of the world’s population over the course of four deadly waves in two years. The pandemic swept through Britain, killing over 220,000 people, so your ancestors’ lives would have been affected. Here, we’ll reveal how to identify which family members succumbed to the deadly disease. Identify potential victims First, you need to identify relatives who died between the years of 1918 and 1920. Rather than go through your tree one person at a time, use your family-history program’s reporting tools to generate a list you can print or save. For example, Family Tree Maker users should switch…

If you’ve ever ruined something in a moment of clumsiness, you’ll know how I felt when I reached over to grab my favourite drink (rum and lemonade, since you ask) and managed to knock a nearly full glass all over my laptop. I reacted quickly by turning off the computer, unplugging it and removing the battery, but the damage was done. The laptop was fried, and probably a bit tipsy. Fortunately, I have an old spare laptop. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a very big hard drive, and it’s a dual-boot system – I can choose between Windows 10 or Linux Mint when it boots – which divides my drive in two. When I start Windows, I only have 200GB of usable space, which really isn’t enough to install all the…

Q I have an HP Photosmart 6520 inkjet printer/scanner that’s been making a few grinding sounds recently. This model is no longer available from HP. Can you recommend a replacement for £50-£100? My requirements are modest: letters, home accounts, occasional colour copying and AirPrint. Terry Harvey A Keep your Photosmart going as long as you can – it’s a tricky time to be shopping for a printer. Manufacturing slowdowns and high demand from home workers have left only a few models on the shelves, at inflated prices. Epson’s XP-6100, for example, was previously a good buy at around £90, but currently sells for £160. HP’s budget Envy printers are solidly average, and at the time of writing the Envy 6020 is in stock (£70 from Amazon www.snipca.com/35767, pictured). Although we…

WIRELESS EARPHONES | £79 from OnePlus www.snipca.com/35810 We’ve seen plenty of fully wireless earphones in the past couple of years, but the OnePlus Buds are unusual in resting in the outer part of your ear, a bit like Apple’s original AirPods, rather than having soft tips that push inside. They even share the AirPods’ dangling tails, like the start of a cable that doesn’t go anywhere, which accommodates some of the electronics, leaving the main part of the earpiece smaller and neater than most rivals. “Both music and audiobooks sounded very good” If you’ve tried different earphones, you’ll know whether or not this type suits you. If you normally avoid earphones because you don’t like the feeling of something stuck in your ear, you might be pleasantly surprised. We found…

Hello, I’d like to thank you for continuing to read Computeractive during lockdown. It has been a difficult time for everyone, but I’m glad we could provide a semblance of normality. Getting to the shops was obviously tricky during lockdown, so it didn’t surprise me that we saw a rise in people subscribing to Computeractive. It must have been a comfort to know you could rely on the magazine dropping through your letterbox once a fortnight. A big thank you to everyone who signed up. There remains the possibility of further lockdowns, both regional and national, with shops closing again. Should that happen, I expect there’ll be another rise in subscriptions. To prepare, we’re putting additional effort into our deliveries to make sure you get your copy on time (several…

To stop being bombarded by adverts, the first domains you should consider blocking are the biggest ad services on the web. Among them is the Google-owned Doubleclick – with domains at doubleclick.net and ad.doubleclick.net. Check the list at www.snipca.com/35696 for other Google domains you might like to add to the list for wider coverage. As with all the domains here, you must type them after 127.0.0.1 – just like in our BBC example. Be careful not to add services you use, like Google Drive and search. As shown above, if you include entries that interrupt your web use, you can remove them. Just delete all the Google entries, then add them back one at a time, testing after each one. To block Facebook adverts, also add ads.ak.facebook.com and creative.ak.facebook.com. If…

TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Change Outlook password in Credential Manager Some time ago I received a notification from Microsoft that I needed to change the password for my Outlook 2010 email account, which I did via the Microsoft website. However, afterwards it didn’t recognise my new password and I had to enter it manually each time. According to the Microsoft Community forums (https://answers. microsoft.com), I needed to update the password in Outlook’s settings. But this feature was in a different location. I have since updated to Outlook 2019 and had the same problem, together with my account not loading at all. The latter was solved by deleting the account from Outlook 2019 and reinstalling it. The issue with the password was finally resolved by visiting Credential Manager in Windows, then…

MICROSOFT WORD Add a calculator to Word When you need to work out some figures to add to a Microsoft Word document, you probably fire up the Calculator app or maybe use Excel. You don’t need to do either, however, as Word has a built-in calculator that you can add to the Quick Access bar at the top of the screen. Click File and select Options at the bottom left. The ‘Word Options’ box will open. Click on ‘Quick Access Toolbar’ on the left and select All Commands in the ‘Choose commands from’ dropdown menu. Scroll down the list of commands until you get to Calculate (you can save some time here by clicking in the box and hitting C on the keyboard). Select ‘Calculate’ (see screenshot 1) and click…

How would you like a second PC for free? Sounds great. There’s one caveat: this would be a virtual PC. But don’t let that put you off. This would be – to all intents and purposes – a fully functioning PC that happens to sit within the confines of a window on your main PC’s desktop. Instead of physical components, it uses a process called virtualisation to create a software-based processor, memory and hard drive. As we show you here, it’s easy and free to create a simple virtual PC, and once it’s up and running you can treat it just like any other PC. Best of all, what goes on inside your virtual PC stays inside your virtual PC. This makes them perfect for trying out registry tweaks, testing…

How do I convert WordStar files? Q I was interested in your reply to Peter Brown in Issue 584’s Problems Solved pages, where you told him how to convert his old Microsoft Works documents using Zamzar (www.zamzar.com). I have even older documents I wish to convert, created using WordStar 4 and with the file extension. ws4. Many years ago, Microsoft had a converter that allowed me to convert these files to Word format, but this tool seems no more. I tried Zamzar but the people there confirmed that it doesn’t include WordStar 4. I’ve looked online for a converter. Although there are various options, the links always seem dead or missing. Any ideas? Mike Hayes A WordStar 4.0 was released in 1987, with the last version arriving in 1999. It…

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. Add-on A program that adds extra features to your browser. Adobe RGB A wider colour space than sRGB. ADSL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. A technology that converts a standard phone line into a broadband internet connection. Alpha channel Represents the degree of transparency (or opacity) of a colour. AMOLED Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode. An alternative technology to LCD for…

Turn his handwriting into a font It’s been so long since I wrote anything substantial that I’ve almost forgotten what my handwriting looks like. I type thousands of words every week with a speed only 25 years of practice gives you, but that fluency vanishes when I pick up a pen. How do you use one, again? As someone who used to write 10-page stories at school, that makes me feel sad. I now watch my own six-year-old daughter begin to write stories (including one morbid tale that ended “and they died happily ever after”), and it makes me nostalgic for pen and paper. It made me wonder if I could combine old and new by scanning my handwriting and then turning it into a digital font. Calligraphr (www.calligraphr.com) promised…