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I’m still some years away from my free bus pass, but already there are many things that make me feel old. One is when a technology you remember being hailed as ‘the future’ is later dismissed as obsolete. That’s what’s happening with CDs and DVDs. Back when clouds and streams existed only in nature, these formats felt immortal. You’d feel confident saving thousands of holiday photos and videos on a disc because it was hard to imagine a time when you wouldn’t be able to access them. But software updates now render discs unreadable, while – in a case of technology outpacing what the public actually wants – most new laptops come without optical drives, trapping your memories under a layer of reflective aluminium. It’s not a problem Kieran Prendiville…

The Government has admitted it made a mistake by claiming it had hit its target of making a minimum of 24Mbps ‘superfast’ broadband available to 97 per cent of UK premises. Digital Minister Margot James (pictured) made the claim during a debate in the House of Commons in early July. It came as a surprise to many industry experts because the Government had previously said the target wouldn’t be hit before March 2020. The Government confirmed that Mrs James meant to say that 96 per cent of homes and businesses could now get 24Mbps, a difference of around 300,000 premises. Set up in 2013, the Building Digital UK scheme hit its original target of delivering 24Mbps broadband to 95 per cent of homes and businesses by the end of 2017.…

Flash blocking in Chrome 76 www.google.com/chrome The demise of Flash has taken longer than an overacting thespian milking their character’s death. Adobe says it’ll stop supporting the once-mighty plug-in at the end of 2020, many years after it was widely condemned as a chronic security risk. Google would have swung the axe much earlier. In recent years it has added several options to discourage people using Flash while browsing the web in Chrome. The latest version of the browser goes further than before by completely switching off Flash by default. You won’t see the ‘Click to run’ option that previously let you run Flash on a particular website. Less than five per cent of websites now need Flash to run, so your browsing shouldn’t be affected too much. But you…

Here is a photo of my mum and dad taking a selfie in the mid-1930s. Dad is triggering the camera with his umbrella in some way! He was a keen photographer, and in the early years he developed all his own photos in the bathroom (I’m not sure my mum was happy about that though). When he died in 1974 he left us hundreds of happy memories as printed photos and slides. He also had a movie camera in the 1950s when I was growing up. There were many film shows in our front room. I have lots of my early digital photos stored on backup discs and like one of your recent letter writers I’ve had difficulty opening some of the files on them. I’ve serious concerns about the…

Sometimes companies seem determined to make life difficult for customers. Take the case of Alan Stevens (see Issue 556), who switched to Vodafone broadband after being promised a £50 Currys voucher. When it didn’t arrive, he turned to us, furious that Vodafone was ignorning his emails. His (understandable) mistake was to overlook Broadband Choices, the broadband-comparison site he used to switch to Vodafone. It was responsible for providing the voucher, not Vodafone. The site told us: “It was Vodafone’s offer but we act as the middle man by fulfilling the orders once the ISP lets us know the customer is eligible. So if an offer hasn’t been received people should contact us.” Alan says this isn’t made clear on the website, and we agree. We’ve told the site it should…

Can you recommend a good app or program for collecting and sharing family memories? Frank Guest If you use FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org), the obvious choice is the free FamilySearch Memories app for iOS and Android. It makes it easy to write stories, attach photos and record audio interviews, but if uploaded to the FamilySearch website and tagged they’ll be publicly shared with others. If that puts you off, then try the app and website Joyflips (https://joyflips.com), which lets you scan photos, then record people’s memories to attach to them. All material uploaded to Joyflips remains private. Have a genealogy question for Nick? Email letters@computeractive.co.uk with ‘Grow Your Family Tree’ in the subject line…

Junk offender: Skype Let me just start by saying that I’ve nothing against Skype. I don’t use it, personally, as I tend to use Apple’s FaceTime for video calls on my iPhone, and WhatsApp for everything else. But that’s not because I actively dislike Skype in any way. What I do actively dislike, however, is the way that Microsoft (Skype’s owners) continually tries to push its own apps at me. Ever since I downloaded the Windows 10 May 2019 Update, I’ve had to put up with a persistent Skype icon that appears in my PC’s notification area every time I log in. It means that some elements of the app are launching in the background every time I boot my PC, potentially slowing down startup and reducing my PC’s overall…

LAPTOP | From £1,400 from Razer www.snipca.com/32163 Sharp shooter Last year, the Razer Blade 15 delivered huge processing power in a remarkably compact 15in laptop, with screens offering a choice of 4K resolution or a flicker-free, super-responsive 144Hz refresh rate. Since then, there’s been a rash of gaming laptops rivalling its claims, though not its portability. Now the 2019 update brings even more muscle at up to 240Hz. None of that sounds cheap, but the range starts at a reasonable £1,480, discounted at the time of writing to £1,400. This gets you a do-it-all six-core i7-8750H processor, GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q graphics card – not a million miles behind the desktop equivalent – and a sensible 16GB of memory. The meagre 128GB SSD is accompanied by a 1TB hard drive…

PORTABLE PRINTER | £90 from Amazon www.snipca.com/32193 Instant replay This updated version of HP’s portable photo printer is called the Sprocket 200, Sprocket Second Generation or Sprocket New Edition, depending on who you ask. They might as well just call it Sprocket, because it’s basically the same gadget that’s been on sale for a couple of years. Last time we tested it, it took a minute to print a photo; the new model took, well, nearly a minute. Progress! HP has redesigned the outside, though, with a fabric strap to clip on to whatever it is that people clip portable printers on to, and a speckly finish, available in black, white or pink. The pink version, with red speckles (pictured), has obvious Instagrammer appeal, while the black-and-white version (also with…

TV SET-TOP BOX | £41 from Amazon www.snipca.com/32198 Sky’s the limit Previously, the Now TV box let you watch digital Freeview with an aerial and add online pay channels. But the Smart Box with 4K and Voice Search is purely an internet streaming device. That limits it to homes with fast broadband (at least 2.5Mbps, but 10 times that for reliable 4K) and puts it in direct competition with the likes of Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV. A unique selling point is the availability of Sky pay channels. Sky Sports, for example, costs £47 with Sky Q but £34 on Now TV. You can also buy one-off day or week passes. With no bundles, however, the benefit with fewer options turns into a disadvantage when you want more. And…

Find out what other products we liked. Buy our new 2018 Back Issue CD: £15 from www.snipca.com/30307 LAPTOP HP Envy 13 £799 from www.snipca.com/29555 Tested Issue 539 The combination of an eighthgeneration quad-core i5 chip and MX 150 graphics makes this an excellent all-round laptop, let down only by the poor colour reproduction of its Full HD touchscreen. Seven-hour battery life is adequate, and it’s nicely made ALTERNATIVE Dell XPS 13 This premium laptop starts at £1,200, but the best deal is with the brand new quad-core i7-8550 and QHD touchscreen. £1,349 from www.snipca.com/26796 DESKTOP PC Palicomp AMD Abyss (RYZ6) £700 from www.snipca.com/30754 Tested Issue 549 With a decent 8GB RX 570 graphics card and a stonking Ryzen 5 2600X processor, this all-round PC shows what Intel and Nvidia have…

If too many programs and background processes start when you boot your PC, it takes longer for Windows to get ready for use. As software can decide for itself whether it needs the ability to launch at the same time as the operating system, I check both in Settings and Task Scheduler to see what’s going on behind the scenes. In general, I’ll only remove something if I know I no longer need it, and don’t touch update processes for online storage services like Dropbox and OneDrive. Nik Rawlinson Which applications do you think it’s essential to launch when you start your PC? Let us know: letters@computeractive.co.uk…

WINDOWS 7, 8.1, 10 Customise your shortcuts with icons When you create a desktop shortcut in Windows (as in the DVD drive tip right), it will be given an icon (usually the same as the icon of the program it links to). Far better to choose an icon that you find easier to identify. To do this, right-click your shortcut icon, then select Properties. Click the Shortcut tab, then the ‘Change Icon…’ button at the bottom. Next, click Browse, then navigate to C:\windows\system32\shell32.dll (see screenshot below). You can now choose from over 300 shortcut icons. And if that’s not enough, you can download many more from sites such as www.iconarchive.com. If you find one you like, download the ‘.ico’ version, then follow the steps above to link it to your…

What is it? A fundamental limitation in computer power. It occurs because a computer’s bus – the system that transfers data between components – can’t access data memory and program memory simultaneously. This slows down the processor because it has to wait for data to move to or from memory. It’s also called a data tailback or a memory wall, though von Neumann bottleneck sounds more intriguing. Indeed. Who was von Neumann? John von Neumann (1903-1957, pictured below), a Hungarian-American computer scientist, physicist and mathematician, who during World War II worked on the Manhattan Project to develop nuclear weapons. In 1945 he published a paper that described how a “very high-speed automatic digital computing system” could be built using a processing unit, a control unit, memory that stores data and…

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. 720p/1080p/1440p Common types of high-definition video of 1280x720, 1920x1080 and 2560x1440 pixels respectively. 802.11ac A standard for wireless networks that allows for much higher transfer speeds than 802.11n. APK Android Package Kit. File format Android uses to install apps Augmented reality Lets you view the real world on a digital display and add elements from the digital world. BDXL Blu-ray discs with up to 128GB of data. 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.…

Microsoft is removing the SMS Connect feature from Skype at the end of August in a bid to get more people using its new Your Phone app for Windows 10. SMS Connect, which lets Android users send and receive text messages via Skype on their computers, had been previously dropped from Skype, but reappeared last year. The tool was a replacement for SMS Relay, which was available on the Skype app for Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile. Microsoft confirmed its removal on Skype’s support website (www.snipca.com/32259), saying that you’ll still be able to access all your messages and a “full history” on your phone. As a replacement, it recommends users install the Your Phone app from the Microsoft Store (www.snipca.com/32260). It lets you send and read messages (see screenshot),…

Dropbox has launched a service that lets you share files up to 100GB without having to email them. Called Dropbox Transfer, it means you can send files without having to worry about the attachment limit imposed by many email services. However, the 100GB option is available only to people signed up to Dropbox Professional (£19.99 a month). This falls to 2GB for Plus users (£9.99 a month) and 100MB for Basic users (free). To use it, you first need to upload the files to Dropbox. You can then email a link to these files to your recipient, who just needs to click the link to download and open them. The recipient doesn’t need a Dropbox account to open the files. When sending the files, you can add a password for…

Sky scam confirmed at third attempt I recently received an email apparently from Sky telling me about changes to its ‘Terms of Service’ and privacy policy. It told me I had to agree to the new terms to continue using the Sky/Yahoo email service. I clicked the links, but I could tell all was not well. Also, the email came from ‘aoviedo1966@prodigy.net.mx’, so I was suspicious. I phoned Sky’s customer service and spoke to three assistants. The first said it was genuine, the second wasn’t sure, and the third said it was a scam and told me to change my password. What is happening to Sky’s ‘help’ people? Jon Carter Warn your fellow readers about scams at letters@computeractive.co.uk…

I’m pleased Computeractive covered the scandal of Facebook and eBay selling fake reviews (News, Issue 558, page 9). You asked whether readers trust reviews submitted online, so here are my rules for judging their authenticity. First, never take the one-star or five-star reviews too seriously. The former are often ill-considered rants after a bad experience, or somebody having ridiculously high or specifically personal standards (wanting blue rather than red wallpaper in a hotel room, for example). To tell if someone’s unreasonable quirk has tainted a review, just check whether another reviewer has complained about it. As for five-star reviews, they can be dubious too because they’re typically very short, with excitable words like ‘Amazing’ or ‘Fantastic’, followed by a cascade of exclamation marks. Nothing can ever be that good. What…

Last November, I bought a Toshiba smart TV from Amazon, but in June some of the remotecontrol buttons stopped working. I contacted Amazon Support, who offered a full refund if I returned the TV. However, I had not kept the box - and it’s not easy to return a 55in TV without a box! Amazon were unable to deal with the faulty remote control, and that was the end of Amazon’s technical support. I thought I’d give Toshiba a call. What a difference! I spoke to a very efficient and knowledgable customer service agent. She got me to test a few things, and thought that a software upgrade was necessary, as well as a replacement remote control. Toshiba sent me a USB stick with very clear instructions within a couple…

OFFICE SUITE SoftMaker FreeOffice 2018 (Anniversary Update) www.freeoffice.com What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 While the open-source LibreOffice is still our favourite free office suite, anyone making the move from Microsoft Office may find the change in menu design takes a while to master. SoftMaker FreeOffice, on the other hand, is the spitting image of Microsoft’s suite, making the transition much easier. The suite comprises three components: TextMaker (similar to Word), PlanMaker (Excel) and Presentations (PowerPoint). On loading this new version of FreeOffice (released to celebrate SoftMaker’s 30th anniversary), you’re given a choice of three menu styles: two ribbon-based designs (the only difference is a splash of colour on one), and one with classic-style menus with smaller buttons. Choose one of the ribbon-based menus and you’ll see that…

BT When is a free upgrade not a free upgrade? BT customers may already know the answer to this riddle. Thousands of customers recently received a letter offering an upgrade to Superfast Fibre Plus “for no extra monthly cost” in big letters on the envelope (pictured). However, reading the letter inside revealed that the upgrade would, in fact, cost £8.50 a month (not to mention the £9.99 fee for delivery of a new hub). It’s not known whether any customers have lost money as a result of this gaffe, but it’s safe to say that lots of people have been left deeply confused. Many took to social media to point out the glaring flaw in BT’s definition of the word ‘free’. The company has since apologised.…

With content from all the major TV networks and providers like Netflix available over the internet on PCs, phones and tablets, there’s no obvious need for a ‘set-top box’. But to watch on your living-room telly, you’ll need a gadget to receive video either direct from your broadband router or from an app on your phone or tablet. Some smart TVs have Miracast (for Android devices), Google’s Chromecast (for compatible Android and Apple apps) or Apple’s AirPlay 2 (for iPhones and iPads) built in, but some services block transmission to these while others don’t work reliably. Apple TV 4K (£179 from www.snipca.com/32218, pictured) covers most major content providers and has lots of apps and games available to install; you can also control it or stream to it from iPhones and…

1 Start Task Manager, then click ‘Create Task…’ in the sidebar. Give the task a name. As you can set as many tasks as you want, choose something meaningful. ‘Start from wake’ 1 would be suitable because you’d immediately know what to edit if you want to make a change. 2 Optionally, give your task a description, which will be shown when you click it in the Task Manager Library. Then, click the Triggers tab, click ‘New…’, then choose when you want the task to run. This can be timebased, upon logging in, or when a specific event occurs. Choose ‘On an event’ 1. 3 Click the menu beside Log, then select System. Next, click the menu beside Source and select ‘Power-Troubleshooter’ 1. Leave everything else as it is, then…

Use Microsoft’s tools on an Android phone I have just read Issue 556’s ‘Problem of the Fortnight’ from Graham Beck (‘How do I shift from Windows 10 Mobile to Android?’). Please let him know that it isn’t at all painful to swap. I, too, am a Windows man through and through and was very pleased to buy and use Windows phones – first a Nokia Lumia with Windows 8 and then a Microsoft Lumia with Windows 10. When I was advised of the impending ‘closure’ of Windows phones I bit the bullet and purchased a Huawei P smartphone (running Android) on a Sky contract. I moved all the Google stuff that came with the phone to two folders, and instead now use Outlook, Edge and Microsoft Office. I also use…

MICROSOFT WORD Cut and paste multiple sections of text in one go If you need to cut a lot of text from a Word document, but want to save it in another one, using the Cut (Ctrl+X) and Paste (Ctrl+V) commands for each passage of text takes time. Word has a nifty tool called Spike that lets you collect multiple extracted sections of a document, then lets you paste them into another in one go. To use it, highlight the first section of text you want to remove, press Ctrl+F3 and the text will disappear. Repeat this process until you’ve removed all the text you need to. Now open a new document and press Ctrl+Shift+F3 to paste all the cut sections in one go. You can use this process on…

Most media formats come and go in the blink of an eye. Remember the HiPac tape cartridge? Or the UMD disc? No, us neither. CDs and DVDs, on the other hand, have outlived hundreds of lesser formats. Their winning combination of generous capacity, versatility and cost effectiveness has allowed them to prosper in a changing world for almost four decades. But, for anyone who still regularly uses these shiny optical discs to play, store, back up or share digital media, there’s a dark shadow on the horizon. For the first time in the all-conquering format’s 37 years of existence, the threat of obsolescence is looming. High-street stores are removing CDs and DVDs from their shelves, and computer manufacturers are dropping support for the format. In Issue 558 we published a…

PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT Can I create a custom Excel series? Q Issue 556’s Make Office Better page referred to the ability to fill cells in Excel based on a series. I use a spreadsheet in which I sort census data according to surname, first name, town and so on. To restore the data to its original order I’ve given each household its unique number, and each resident has a unique letter added. So the head of the household might be identified as 34a, the next person as 34b, with 34c for the third. When I have a new household, I would like to be able to enter, say, 45a against the first entry and then click and drag to insert 45b, 45c and so on. I know I could…

Liberty Global, the company that owns Virgin Media, is reported to be working on plans to set up a new firm to deliver full-fibre broadband to rural areas and smaller towns. The project, which sources told the FT is at an “early stage”, would invest billions of pounds to build a fibre-tothe-premises (FTTP) network to rival Openreach’s, allowing other broadband providers to use it. At present, Virgin Media’s Project Lightning prioritises its up-to-500Mbps cable network in wealthier urban areas, allowing them to cover over half of all premises across the UK. The new company could reach an extra 2 million premises, though it would require substantial private investment, and possibly Government money. It comes at a time when smaller alternative networks like Hyperoptic, City Fibre and Gigaclear – collectively dubbed…

GOVERNMENT RETRAINS WORKERS REPLACED BY ROBOTS The Government is launching a scheme to retrain workers who lose their jobs as a result of automation. The National Retraining Scheme will be trialled in Liverpool before being extended throughout the UK. Analysis firm Oxford Economics says that by 2030 robots could replace up to 20 million manufacturing jobs worldwide. DISABLED EMOJIS COMING TO IPHONE Apple has announced new emojis to help represent disabled people better. The images, which you can send in phone messages, include a wheelchair user, a guide dog for the blind, and a hearingaid user (all pictured). They will be made available for the iPhone and iPad in the autumn. SONY SHOWS OFF FASTEST CARD READER Sony has unveiled what it’s calling the “world’s fastest” UHS-II SD card reader,…

More than 10 million people have been tricked into installing a scam app that claims to speed up Android updates on Samsung phones and tablets. The app, called ‘Updates for Samsung’ (see screenshot), had been available on the Google Play Store for six years. It sent users to a website crammed with adverts and genuine updates for Samsung devices, but limits their speed to just 56Kbps. Many customers complained that at 56Kbps updates took so long they’d crash or be timed out. The app encourages frustrated users to upgrade to the ‘Premium’ version for $34.99 to lift the speed restriction. This broke Google’s rules, which forces apps to use the payment system provided by the Play Store, not independent methods that are less secure. Sending money to the app would…

WATCH OUT FOR… Android malware that records your banking What’s the threat? A deadly Android virus has returned armed with the ability to record your phone or tablet screen, allowing it to ‘read’ sensitive data like your banking username and password. The malware, called BianLian (‘Facechanging’ in Chinese), emerged last October as a ‘dropper’, which is a Trojan that allows other types of virus to infect a machine, before evolving into banking malware in its own right. Discovered by Californian security firm Fortinet, the latest version repeatedly asks permission to access Android’s accessibility tools (see screenshot), such as options to increase the font size or turn on the screen reader. It’s common for Android malware to abuse accessibility functions because it lets them secretly use tools that can steal your…

My biggest mistake: not cloning Windows 10 In Issue 558’s Cover Feature (‘30 biggest PC mistakes you don’t even realise you’re making’, pictured), you asked readers for mistakes they’ve made. My biggest was the occasion I had two versions of Windows running (Windows 8.1 Pro and Windows 10 Pro) and decided I no longer needed the earlier version. I had then, as I do now, six drives in my PC: C, D, F, G, J, and E (which was allocated to drives attached via USB). Windows 10 Pro was installed on drive D (SATA hard drive) and 8.1 Pro on C (SSD), because I had upgraded while keeping 8.1. I formatted the C drive in readiness for cloning Windows 10 at a later date. I wanted Windows on the faster…

Can I get refund from bankrupt company? LEAD CASE Q I bought a shower with accessories from Better Bathrooms (www.betterbathrooms.com), and after a few problems were sorted out, the company owed me £69.95. It promised me this, but the money never arrived. The company went into receivership in February and was bought by Buy It Direct (www.buyitdirect.co.uk), but it’s still emailing me. This company said it’s not responsible for claims against Better Bathrooms. Is this true? Robert Lucking A Yes it is. Buy It Direct bought Better Bathrooms’ business assets, including the brand name, but not the firm’s liabilities. This means it has no responsibility to Better Bathrooms’ original customers. The bought assets must have included the company’s customer contact lists, which is why Robert is still receiving emails (he…

How far can you go with just one document? That was the challenge given to us by Computeractive reader Shirley Moulsley. She wanted to research the tree of her father, Flight Sergeant William Albert Butcher, who died during World War II aged 23, when Shirley was just four months old. On a visit to the Archives & Library in Canterbury Cathedral (www.snipca.com/31980) she found a record of his baptism in Faversham, Kent, but could find no trace of his birth certificate. Looking for birth records As we said in Issue 551, FreeBMD (www.freebmd.org.uk) offers the best way to search for birth registrations. But even our own tips failed to yield any results. We widened the search by removing dates and likely locations, searched only for his mother’s maiden name (‘Curling’,…

How can I make my audio recordings play at the same volume? Q I recently converted a large collection of old cassettes and vinyl to MP3 files on my PC. But when I put them into a playlist in Windows Media Player they all play at different volumes. Is there any free software that can help sort my volume woes? G J Barnes A This is a common problem when recording audio from different sources. The solution is to perform what’s called ‘normalisation’ to your tracks, which brings their audio levels in line with each other. Audio editors such as Audacity (www.audacityteam.org) will get the job done, but it’s easier to use a dedicated program such as MP3Gain (free from www.snipca.com/32212). MP3Gain saves changes directly to your music files, so…

Q I need to replace my PC, a Packard Bell Imedia S2185. As well as the usual home office stuff, I use ProgeCAD, an alternative to AutoCAD. This requires a 2.5GHz or faster processor and a dedicated Nvidia or AMD graphics card, but runs fine on my existing PC, which has an AMD E1-2500 ‘APU’ with integrated Radeon HD 8200/R3 Series graphics. I’m aiming to spend about £500. Do I really need a graphics card, and which one? Keith Adamson A ProgeCAD is based on the IntelliCAD engine, which uses the OpenGL graphics framework. OpenGL is supported by all mainstream graphics cards, although some users have reported better results with Nvidia GeForce GTX cards than AMD Radeon. Without a graphics card (GPU), almost anything can be done, albeit more slowly,…

SECURITY CAMERA | £179 from Amazon www.snipca.com/32255 Not daylight robbery Despite the name, this isn’t a security camera for armed robberies. It’s a general-purpose indoor/outdoor Wi-Fi camera from the maker of the Ring Video Doorbell (see our review, Issue 534, page 25), which costs the same. Confusingly, neither includes an actual doorbell. The Stick Up Cam is more versatile, mounted on a hinged stand that can be adjusted to sit on a surface or attach to a wall or ceiling. It’s IPX5 rated, so rain won’t harm it. “A decent camera with versatile mounting indoors or outside and easy to set up” While the Video Doorbell had a battery, which you could either keep charged by connecting it to the mains or just remove and recharge every few months, the…

ANDROID & iOS Watch YouTube without adverts on your phone and tablet You can’t block adverts in the YouTube app (Android www.snipca.com/32200, iOS www.snipca.com/32201). Google’s app developers have made sure of that. Don’t waste device space, and definitely not money, on apps that claim to integrate with YouTube to block ads in it. They’re useless at best. The only way to remove ads in the app is to pay £11.99 per month for YouTube Premium (www.youtube.com/premium). It does give you three months free, but only after you’ve handed over all your payment details. YouTube Premium does have other features, such as the YouTube Music service and offline viewing, but if you just want to block ads, don’t bother with it. Instead, ditch the YouTube app and visit its website in…

If you regularly send letters (newsletters, forms or other correspondence) to your club members, you’ll know that writing each address by hand can be a real hassle. Far better to get your computer to print labels for you - these will be more durable, more professional-looking and save you a lot of time. One option is to use your existing printer. A standard inkjet printer will be fine, but laser printers work best because the label is less likely to get smudged when you attach it to an envelope (and won’t become illegible if it gets rained on). You’ll also need to buy sheets of labels to print your addresses on. Avery (www.avery.co.uk) is the market leader, but there are cheaper options available on sites such as Amazon. Whichever service…

Where do I get the Thunderbird app? Q Twice recently you’ve mentioned that Thunderbird is now available as a Microsoft Store app – in Issue 557’s Readers’ Tips (see page 43) and in the News section of Issue 556 (page 9). I clicked the published snipca link, only to be told that ‘Thunderbird is currently not available’ (see screenshot below). Any idea what’s going on? Roger Hughes A In our original News article about this Thunderbird app, we did say that it was not an official release from Mozilla – the company that makes Thunderbird. Instead, it was put together by a little-known outfit called Store Ports. Unfortunately, shortly after the publication of our second mention of this, in Issue 557, the app was pulled from the Microsoft Store. We…