Table of contents for 516 in Computeractive

I remember the first time I was hacked, about 15 years ago, when my bank told me they had spotted some strange activity on my account. I was shocked, having always assumed I’d be too clever to fall for any scams. Such youthful arrogance! That experience humbled me. Never again would I skip blithely through the internet, complacently ignoring security advice. Now, if anything, I’m probably over-cautious, but it means I’ve not been hacked for 12 years. I want to make that 13, so I’ll be following the advice in our Cover Feature. I urge you to do likewise. On a more festive note, several readers have asked me how late they can order our 2016 Back Issue CD on Amazon so it arrives for Christmas. Fairly late, is the…

UK broadband is the eighthcheapest out of 28 countries in western Europe, with lower prices (£30.70 per month) than the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium and Ireland, according to a new league table of global prices. Italy (£21.72) has the cheapest broadband, ahead of Germany (£25.62) in second. The figures, from research company BDRC Continental and broadband-comparison site Cable.co.uk, show that the UK is the world’s 63rd cheapest country, behind several nations with worse infrastructure, including Syria, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Albania. Iran is home to the world’s cheapest broadband, at just £4.06 a month (see box). Five of the 10 cheapest are countries that were part of the Soviet Union: Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Georgia. Many of the most expensive countries are in sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, or the Caribbean,…

Chancellor Philip Hammond (pictured) has pledged £190m to help deliver full-fibre broadband around the UK. Local councils will bid for a slice of the money, which was announced in November’s Budget. The Government said children in 100 East Midlands schools will be among the first to benefit. In full-fibre broadband, the fibre cables go all the way to the home, rather than ending in a street cabinet, where slower copper cables take over. The money comes from the National Productivity Investment Fund, and is part of £500m to be spent on “a range of initiatives” covering 5G and artificial intelligence, as well as broadband. The Chancellor earmarked £160m to boost 5G infrastructure, including £10m on facilities to test its security of new networks. A further £35m will go on 5G…

Junk Offender: DriverPack Solution Device drivers – don’t you love ’em? Me neither. I know I should regularly check for updates, but it’s a tedious task. So I was drawn to DriverPack Solution, a neat-looking little program that automatically downloads and installs the latest updates for your PC. It’s seductively easy to get started. Just visit the website (https://drp.su/en) and you’ll see a big green button labelled ‘Install all required drivers’. When you click this, your computer is scanned – there’s no installer – and you’ll see another big green button, which you can press to complete the process. Here’s where it gets sneaky. This button doesn’t just update your drivers. Hidden at the edge of the window is a notification that clicking it will also install eight – yes,…

Tell us what’s on your mind Email: letters@computeractive.co.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/computeractive Twitter: @ComputerActive www.twitter.com/computeractive GP video consultations? Public trust will take time When I retired as a GP a few years ago, I remember remarking to my younger colleague that she would soon be seeing all her patients by video. According to your news story about the NHS video trial (Issue 515, page 9), that date is already here. There will be many people unsure about this experiment, fearing it will weaken the relationship between doctor and patient. But if applied correctly, I believe it will prove greatly beneficial. As I’m sure all GPs will say, the simple truth is that we don’t need to see some patients face to face to work out what’s wrong. They are wasting their own…

Companies can only repair once, even if a further fault is different Many readers have asked us whether the law giving retailers one chance only to repair a product (part of the Consumer Rights Act introduced in 2014) still applies if a second or third fault occurs that’s different to the first. The answer is yes it does apply, letting you claim a refund or replacement no matter what the cause of subsequent problems. It’s a scenario we hope won’t arise in Eileen Scott’s case (see Consumeractive, Issue 515). Halfords’ attempt to fix the suction pad on her Nextbase dashcam failed, allowing Eileen to claim her money back. Instead, she agreed to Halfords’ offer of a new dashcam, with different suction pads. She told us she felt obligated to accept…

Windows Firewall Control 5 www.binisoft.org/wfc.php As we explain on page 55, using a firewall is still essential. We think Windows 10’s firewall is robust enough, but it’s not easy to customise, and lacks some advanced options. Many antivirus suites offer tools to tweak it, but a simpler option is to install Windows Firewall Control (WFC), which has been updated. One previously missing feature it adds is blocking outbound connections, stopping your computer accessing the internet. This prevents hackers from connecting to their servers should they infiltrate your PC, thereby thwarting their attempts to install malware. WFC blocks all outbound connections by default, which is too severe because it will also stop safe programs on your PC connecting to the web. So the first thing you should do after installing it…

New products tested by our experts PC ? £1,015 from Wired2Fire www.snipca.com/26219 We’ve often spoken in these pages about the appeal of the £1,000 PC – the magic price point at which, down the years, manufacturers have been able to put together a desktop machine with the best possible performance per pound. Today, with that pound beset by geopolitical pressures of all kinds, there’s a danger that the £1,000 PC will creep up to more like £1,200, which feels considerably less appealing. But here’s one that only breaks the budget by the price of a night down the pub and still delivers state-of-the-art excellence. It outperforms many more costly desktop PCs The heart of the machine is an AMD Ryzen 5 1600X processor that’s been overclocked from 3.6 to 3.8GHz.…

PRINTER | £119 from Amazon www.snipca.com/26245 We’re a fan of A4 printers like this, which feed the long side of the paper, meaning you can also use A3, at least for occasional jobs. An A3 poster is much more eye-catching, and fitting two pages on each side of an A3 sheet lets you print out, fold and staple an A4 magazine or brochure. You wouldn’t want to attempt a print run of thousands with an inkjet like the OfficeJet Pro 7720, but it’s a very practical format for the home or small office, and for most people it’ll work out cheaper to run than a laser. Print quality is generally good, and scans are sharp and accurate HP’s revamped case design has everything in familiar places, but looks notably neat…

SOLID-STATE DRIVE £186 from Amazon www.snipca.com/26247 Samsung’s T3 external SSDs are deservedly popular, and here’s the next edition, called the T5, because where would we be if tech companies numbered everything in logical order? The smart metal finish has changed from monochrome to a stylish blue, at least if you opt for 250GB (£123) or this 500GB model. Shell out for a terabyte (£369) and it’s black, while 2TB (£727) gets you black plus a raised eyebrow from your bank manager. As before, it’s slim and durable enough to take anywhere. The T5 is slim, fast and durable, with built-in encryption The NAND chips from which SSDs are made come in various types that trade off price against performance and reliability. Samsung uses TLC, storing three bits per cell, which…

TV-STREAMING STICK|£79 from Amazon www.snipca.com/26260 Roku’s video-streaming boxes compete with the likes of Amazon Fire and Apple TV, but aren’t tied to a branded content store. The range of its various boxes with illogical numbers has vexed us in the past, but the Streaming Stick Plus is a direct rival to the Amazon Fire TV (see our review, Issue 515). There’s also an Express version (£29.99), which we’ll have a look at in the next issue. This could save you quite a lot of money if you don’t have a TV with 4K resolution or HDR colour, but it lacks some other features too. A tidy interface and broad choice of channels – all in 4K Those features are, however, supported by the Streaming Stick Plus, which, like the new…

Winner of a Great Pick award in Computeractive, devolo’s GigaGate Wi-Fi bridge delivers lightning-fast internet around your home. Comprising a base and satellite, it provides an effective, targeted connection between your router’s location and your devices using the 5GHz band. The gigantic 2Gbps transmission capacity makes for a fantastic multimedia experience. To enter, email your address to cacomp@dennis.co.uk with ‘gigagate’ in the subject line by midnight 19 December. The devolo GigaGate Starter Kit is sold in selected high-street shops and online, including on Amazon (www.snipca.com/25979). It has an RRP of £219.99. Extra satellite units cost £129.99 each (www.snipca.com/ 25980). For more information visit www.devolo.com…

What you need: Restore Point Creator; Windows Vista, 7, 8 or 10 Time required: 40 minutes Windows’ System Restore tool is the first choice for many people who roll back their PC to an earlier point when they have a problem with it. Restore Point Creator is a brilliant free alternative program that has lots of useful features that you won’t find in Microsoft’s default tool. For example, you can set your PC to create system restore points on a schedule and automatically delete older restore points so that they don’t consume storage space on your PC. STEP 1 To install the program, go to www.snipca.com/26216, click the Download Restore Point Creator Installer link near the top of the page, then run the downloaded setup file (the installer doesn’t contain…

Seeing AI Free iOS: www.snipca.com/26281 Designed for blind people and those with impaired vision, Microsoft’s Seeing AI recently launched in the UK. It recognises any text or barcodes you point your camera at, and speaks the text or product name back to you. You can also teach it to recognise your friends. The Guardian - VR Free Android: www.snipca.com/26284 iOS: www.snipca.com/26285 Created by The Guardian, this virtual-reality app lets you view the world from the point of view of a toddler and an Arctic explorer (among other experiences). You’ll need a new phone (2016 and later) and a VR headset (like these at www.snipca.com/26286). Temi Recorder - Speech to Text Free Android: www.snipca.com/26282 iOS: www.snipca.com/26283 This app lets you record audio of any length, then transcribes it for you in…

WINDOWS 10 Over the last few issues, we’ve explained how to install the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (FCU). For the first 10 days after you’ve updated, Microsoft saves a copy of your previous Windows installation files (the Creators Update, CU), which is around 30GB. This is useful if you’re having problems with the Fall Creators Update and want to revert to its predecessor. To do this, open Settings, click ‘Update & security’, then Recovery on the left. Now click the ‘Get started’ button below ‘Go back to the previous version of Windows 10’ and follow the onscreen prompts to revert to your earlier Windows version. If you don’t see ‘Go back to the previous version of Windows 10’ within Recovery, it means the 10-day ‘cooling off’ period has elapsed.…

Search Getty for exact phrases Getty’s photo archive, at www.snipca.com/26240, is easy to use but search terms aren’t always handled how you expect. If you type just a couple of words — golden and temple, say — then every result will include those two words. However, if you search for golden, temple and india, the results will include entries that contain any two of those terms, so might include Indian temples other than the Golden Temple. The more words you type, the more that might be discarded. To prevent this, put phrases in double quotes (so type “golden temple”, see screenshot above right) and add a plus sign to stop particular search terms being dropped — “golden temple” +india, for example. Use a minus symbol to exclude certain words: so…

ADBLOCK PLUS With nearly 14 million users, advert-blocker Adblock Plus is the most popular Firefox add-on by a country mile. You’d expect it to have been updated for Firefox Quantum – and you’d be right – but its developer certainly took its time doing so. To add it to Quantum go to www.snipca.com/26161. UBLOCK Firefox’s second most popular advert blocker – and the second most popular add-on overall – among Firefox users has been fully updated for Quantum. Go to www.snipca.com/26213 to install it. NOSCRIPT SECURITY SUITE This security add-on blocks active content such as Java, JavaScript and Flash from running on websites without your say so. Its developer is hoping to make it available for Quantum very soon. Go to www.snipca.com/26131 to see if it’s been released, or check…

What’s wrong with my fonts? QFollowing your recommendation (Issue 513, page 53) I removed OpenOffice and installed Libre Office. Doing so caused my old documents to become corrupted and I couldn’t open any new files. I uninstalled the program and reset Windows using system restore. However, the fonts displayed on websites, emails and documents are now much less clear than previously. How do I restore them and where did I go wrong with LibreOffice? Steve Ashcroft AOpenOffice and LibreOffice are closely related programs (they are both offshoots of a discontinued office suite called StarOffice), so they both open the same document types. Therefore, we can only assume that your LibreOffice installation has somehow become corrupted. If you download and install it again it will probably work perfectly. Your fonts problem…

Some things have been around for so long that they just seem to become a fixture of everyday life. Take me, for instance: I’m sure that Mrs Rigsby wishes someone would. But for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, she’s stuck with me. Even so, I’m sure that after many years together she’d be just a little bit sad if I suddenly disappeared. I was thinking about this recently, when it was announced that AOL Instant Messenger would be closing. The servers that run AIM, as it became known, will be switched off on 15 December, a little over 20 years since they were first fired up. It would be easy to describe AIM as a technology dinosaur. But to continue the evolutionary analogy it was closer…

A leading teacher has said web companies have a “moral duty” to filter pornography from phones, warning that schools and parents need help to protect children from harmful images. Charlotte Avery (pictured), president of the Girls’ Schools Association (GSA), said that children are being robbed of their innocence by seeing inappropriate content, which is often “just three clicks away”. Talking to the Daily Mail ahead of the GSA annual conference in Manchester, Ms Avery, 47, urged tech companies to “get out advertising campaigns and work very closely with parents, maybe around national days aimed at internet safety or antibullying”. She said anti-porn filters should be automatically turned on, because many parents don’t know how to enable them, or even that they exist. Ms Avery, head of the private St Mary’s…

A bus company has been accused of discriminating against pensioners by charging passengers more if they don’t pay with a phone app. It comes amid growing concerns that elderly people are being alienated by the number of everyday tasks that now require a smartphone. First Bus in Bath is increasing the price of some tickets for customers who pay in cash, rather than use its m-Tickets app. Passengers buy electronic tickets through the app, then show it to the bus driver on their phone’s screen (see screenshot). The app’s FAQ says it’s “your responsibility to ensure that your phone has enough battery power”. First Bus says the system makes boarding quicker and improves journey times. But it has angered some locals, with one telling the Bath Chronicle that it “actively…

Amazon This is only my third Named & Shamed, but you may have already twigged that I love a bit of online shopping. However, when my goodies arrive I’m often baffled and frustrated by the packaging. The other week I ordered a new microSD card for my Raspberry Pi – a tiny thing, smaller than my fingernail. Amazon, in their wisdom, delivered it in a box big enough to hold a hi-fi system. I’m sure we’ve all had similar experiences. Paul Jacobs of Gosport (pictured) recently had a shock when a roll of bubblewrap he’d ordered from Amazon arrived in a box that was nearly as big as he was – padded with crumpled brown paper (watch him unpack all 100 feet at www.snipca.com/26301). It’s worth repeating that: Amazon’s bubblewrap,…

In Issue 511 (page 20), you reviewed the Wired2Fire Pyro VX PC. You could say that on impulse I ordered one, because my Mesh computer was showing its age (I got it on the day the company went bust in 2011!). The specification of the Pyro VX suited my needs, and so my finger hovered over the keyboard while I convinced myself that I should press the ‘send’ button to place my order. From that moment on the staff at Wired2Fire were great. They kept me informed by email throughout the 15 days they built and tested the PC. The national courier service they use is also worthy of a mention because early in the morning I received an email with the time of delivery together with a photograph of…

www.snipca.com/26249 What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 VIDEO-EDITING SOFTWARE This isn’t some flimsy tool for warping faces or adding cheesy animations to your home movies. Avid Media Composer First is an industry-level video-editing suite designed to provide you with complete control over your video projects – whether that’s trimming clips, enhancing footage, adding audio, effects and transitions, or sharing your finished work. As Avid is keen to point out, around 95 per cent of all mainstream movies are edited using the full version of Media Composer, including recent Hollywood hits like Baby Driver and The Martian. This free version imposes a few restrictions. Editing is limited to four video tracks and eight audio tracks, for example, and output quality is capped at 1080p (so no 4K). There are…

What does it do? Named after the popular US biscuit (pictured), Oreo is the official nickname of Android 8, the latest version of the phone and tablet operating system that’s developed by Google and licensed to hardware makers (along with the Google Play Store and other extras). As you’d expect of an update, it does the same things as before, but better. Why would I want it? That’s not immediately obvious: there are no big visible changes this time. Behind the scenes, though, Google has tried to make Android work more smoothly, and people who’ve tried Oreo – only available on Google’s Pixel phones at the time of writing – are impressed. You may notice the Settings page is simpler, with options nested into categories, and notifications have been tidied…

Q My iPad is good for watching films in bed, but I feel daft watching it in the living room with a much bigger TV screen sat in the corner. I know one solution is to buy an Apple TV, but at £149 it seems expensive. Is there any other way to send the picture to the telly? I have a Full HD TV with HDMI sockets. A Apple TV is the best answer, but you’re right, £149 is pretty steep. You could pick up a thirdgeneration model on eBay for around £85, although you won’t get the new Siri remote control, which lets you find content on iTunes and other services by saying aloud what you want. Another option is Google’s Chromecast (pictured). This costs £30 from shops like…

Macintosh Portable WHAT WAS IT? The Apple Macintosh Portable, released in September 1989, was one of the first mainstream laptops with an LCD screen that folded against a keyboard. Flat screens were extremely expensive at the time, and not yet in general use as desktop monitors. It cost $7,300 (£11,000) with a hard drive and there was a slot on the side for 3.5in floppy disks HOW HAVE THINGS CHANGED? The Macintosh Portable was built around three lead-acid cells, essentially a car battery, that could power it for up to 12 hours. Unfortunately, that meant it weighed around 7.5kg, about the same as six modern laptops. The 9.8in screen displayed 640x400 pixels, one-twelfth the resolution of a current 9.7in iPad, in one-bit black-andwhite LCD, like a calculator. With no backlight,…

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.…

Email us your tips: letters@computeractive.co.uk TIPOFTHEFORTNIGHT Get paid-for programs for free Some websites let you download paid-for programs for free providing you promote them on Facebook. Take the example of the brilliant website Giveaway of the Day (giveawayoftheday.com). Every day it displays different paid-for PC programs (up to £50) that you can download and use without paying a penny. However, in order to install these programs, you need to promote the website’s offer on Facebook. I found an easy way to take advantage of this offer without annoying your Facebook friends with your posts. Open the website, then click the ‘Proceed to download page’ button below the daily free program you want to install. Next, click the green Download Now button on the right. Now click ‘Share & Download’ inside…

AGES 0-5 Meet the Alphablocks Free www.snipca.com/26287 (iOS) Based on the popular CBeebies TV show, this game will teach your kids to identify letters and how they sound. Simple activities include selecting the letters they hear and tapping objects that begin with a specific letter. AGES 6-10 Plato Free www.snipca.com/26288 (Android) Free www.snipca.com/26289 (iOS) This app can be played by every member of your family using their own devices. It has over 20 games (including Uno, Chess, Pool and Ludo) and you can also chat with opponents within the app. It’s a great way to play with your kids when you’re away. AGES 11-16 Words With Friends 2* Free www.snipca.com/26290 (Android) Free www.snipca.com/26291 (iOS) The rules of this Scrabble-style game are similar to the original. However, it has new modes…

POWERPOINT Add animated effects to items in your slides You can make your presentation more visually interesting by adding animated effects to items (charts, shapes, photos, etc). We’ll show you how to animate images, but you can use this method for other items. First, select the image you want to animate, then click the Animations tab. You’ll see a selection of effects (Appear, Fade, Fly In, Split, and so on) in the Animation section at the top. Click the dropdown menu at the bottom right of this section to see more effects. Move your cursor over any animation option to see the effect on your image. Click to select the one you want. To customise your effect, click the Effect Options dropdown menu (see screenshot above), move your cursor over…

Office 2013 and later editions include a tool that lets you search for and insert photos without leaving your document (or spreadsheet or presentation). It also has an option to limit results to photos tagged with a Creative Commons licence, so the search shows only images that should be free to use. To use this feature go to the position in your document where you want to insert the image and then, on the ribbon at the top, select the Insert tab. Now, in the Illustrations category, click Online Pictures. Type your search term into the box alongside Bing Image Search and then hit Enter. To the left of ‘Clear filters’, click All and then select Creative Commons to filter the list to show only photos with that tag. Finally,…

Q I have been a reader of your magazine for many years, and I now find myself writing to you, to see if you can help me with a problem I have. I am using LibreOffice Writer for all my letters, and have been very pleased indeed with the program. But, after a recent update, I cannot find the Envelope option, which used to be on the Insert menu. I have looked and looked, all to no avail. Do you know if this option has been removed from the program? Leslie Simmons A The Envelope remains in LibreOffice Writer and, in fact, is still on the Insert menu. However, for reasons best known to the developers, the option has shifted position to virtually the bottom of the Insert menu, just…

Microsoft is testing a new search box that ‘floats’ on your PC’s screen (see screenshot), drawing comparisons to the Spotlight search in Apple Macs. It appears in the latest preview version of Windows 10 (17040), available to users on the Insider Program. The box includes the same results you currently find in the Start Menu or by using Cortana. To open it, press Windows key+S, or click the Cortana button in the taskbar. You can sort the results using several filters, including All, Documents, Settings and Web (through Microsoft’s search engine Bing). You can also search for files, pictures, videos, music, settings and apps. The new search box is likely to be part of the next major Windows update, codenamed Redstone 4, due in March. You’ll like this… Google is…

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates (pictured) is donating $100m (about £76m) of his £90bn fortune to the fight against dementia. He will first give $50m to the London-based Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF), which brings together industry and government to develop new treatments. This will be followed by another $50m to new companies conducting experimental research. The investment is a private one from Bill Gates, and doesn’t come from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which pays to enhance healthcare and reduce poverty worldwide. Despite years of study, no treatment can slow the progression of dementia. Existing drugs can only ease the symptoms. The disease is expected to affect one million people in the UK by 2025. Gates said it’s a “growing problem”, but is “optimistic” that well-funded innovation will lead to…

Can I get a refund for my watch strap? I bought a Garmin Approach S1 watch over three years ago for £99 from American Golf (www.americangolf.co.uk), but about six months ago the strap broke. Being an integral part of the watch, I couldn’t simply replace it. Online reviews indicate lots of people have had problems with the strap. However, Garmin refuses to acknowledge there’s a problem. I’d have to pay £61.27 for a replacement watch, rather than buy a strap separately. What are my rights? Bob Pudney A We think Bob has a strong case for a free repair or replacement under the Sales of Goods Act, regardless of whether it’s a problem specific to his watch or one that affects many. He should tell American Golf that his particular…

WATCH OUT FOR… Multi-stage malware in apps What’s the threat? Malicious Android apps have been found on the Google Play Store that try to fool defences by waiting before doing anything nasty, thereby avoiding instant detection. Malware uses this ‘multi-stage’ approach to lurk under the radar of antivirus before striking. The apps, spotted by Slovakian security company ESET, were designed to look like legitimate news services and junk-removing tools (see screenshot). Like all multi-stage malware, these apps didn’t immediately display any suspicious behaviour, such as asking for permissions they don’t need. They even appeared to perform the tasks expected. Like a disease without symptoms, there’s nothing to suggest anything is wrong. Having tricked the user and antivirus, the apps move on to the second stage – connecting to a URL.…

Q I often find myself moving files from one location to another, so the ability to view two locations at once in the same File Explorer window would be very useful. Is there any way of enabling this? Or perhaps an alternative I can use instead? Chris Poole A We agree – having the option to switch to a dual-pane or a browser-like tabbed view in File Explorer would be useful, but Microsoft hasn’t seen the light. You can crowbar features like tabs into File Explorer using an extension called Clover 3. But we don’t recommend it, because it can make other Windows tools stop working. Instead, try installing a non-Microsoft alternative to File Explorer that supports the features you need. Free options include Explorer++ (https://explorerplusplus.com). Doubleclick the tab bar…

Computeractive is owned by Dennis Publishing, which owns a hi-tech facility for testing the latest technology. You’ll often read references to our benchmark testing, which is a method of assessing products using the same criteria. For example, we test the speed of every PC and the battery life of every tablet in exactly the same way. This makes our reviews authoritative, rigorous and accurate. Dennis Publishing also owns the magazines PC Pro, Computer Shopper and Web User and the websites Expert Reviews (www.expertreviews.co.uk) and Alphr (www.alphr.com). This means we can test thousands of products before choosing the most relevant for Computeractive. FAIR AND IMPARTIAL Our writers follow strict guidelines to ensure the reviews are fair and impartial. The manufacturer has no involvement in our tests. OUR AWARDS We award every…

PROGRAMMABLE ROBOT | £200 from Amazon www.snipca.com/26143 New to the UK, this robot is small enough to sit on an adult’s hand – although he’ll seem bigger to kids. We’re not sure how robot gender works. Anki calls Cozmo ‘he’ – your kids may beg to differ. He looks like a digger, with mechanical arms to lift the three light-up cubes supplied (pictured). But Cozmo’s unique attraction is his personality, expressed through the big blue pixellated eyes displayed on his front screen. If you have younger members of the family, these remind you of another well-known robot. And that’s no coincidence: an animator from Pixar, the studio that made animated sci-fi film Wall-E, helped design Cozmo, and his expressions and reactions – including sounds – feel endearingly real. Cozmo works…

SPECIAL OFFER! Free case with each phone purchase this year! HERE AT MOBILE, We believe in spending money where it matters. When we design our phones, we want them to look good, to speed through everyday tasks and to be affordable. That philosphy is obvious through our pair of new phones, the all-metal M2 and M3 (the only key difference is the size of the screen). Based on Android 7, with no additional bloatware or overlays, they’re simple to use and boast a slim, stylish design. As always with NUU Mobile phones, they include space for two SIMs. If you’re holidaying abroad, that means you can buy a local SIM and not have to worry about how much data you’re using – and you can keep your normal SIM in…

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 £1,015 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 there’s plenty of ports. ALTERNATIVE: Palicomp i5 Titanium Good all-round performance from a Kaby Lake…

What you need: Android phone or tablet Time required: 25 minutes Microsoft recently overhauled its Android launcher app with several useful new features. The best of these is ‘Continue on PC’. This lets you instantly send photos, documents and web pages from your phone and tablet to your Windows 10 PC (as long as you’re running the Fall Creators Update). The launcher also lets you hide apps on your homescreen and app drawer so others can’t see them, use swipe gestures to launch apps, and force-close background apps to prolong your battery life. STEP 1 Install and open the Microsoft Launcher app (www.snipca.com/26246) on your phone or tablet, then tap the ‘Get started’ button at the bottom. You now need to choose from five theme colours 1 (the colour of…

ANDROID Find out waiting times at restaurants Google has added a new feature to its default Search app that can help you if you plan to eat out but don’t have a table reservation. Now whenever you search for a restaurant and tap the time you’re planning to visit it, you’ll see a pop-up telling you whether the place is likely to be busy and approximately how long you may need to wait to get a table. Open the default Google search app (white circular icon with multicoloured ‘G’), type the name of the restaurant you plan to visit, tap to select it in the results, then scroll down to the ‘Popular times’ section. The time bars feature (introduced last year) gives you an indication of the restaurant’s peak times.…

WINDOWS 7, 8, 10 Launch specific programs when you start your PC It can be very handy and time-saving to have the programs you use regularly launch automatically when you boot your PC – such as your browser and email program. You shouldn’t set it to launch more than three items because this can slow your PC’s startup. First create desktop shortcuts of the programs you want to launch at startup. The quickest way to do this is to open your Start menu, then drag them on to your desktop. Next, press the Windows key+R to open the Run box, type shell:startup into it (see screenshot above), then press Enter. Doing this opens an empty folder on your PC. Drag and drop the desktop shortcuts you created into this folder,…

EXCEL Excel offers a great selection of chart-customisation options. We’ll show you how to create a chart, customise it and change the default font to one of your choice. To create a chart, highlight the Excel data you want to include, click the Insert tab, select one of the chart dropdown menus in the Charts section at the top, then select the chart style you want (we opted for the Pie dropdown menu and chose ‘3-D Pie’). To customise it, click the Design tab. The Chart Layouts and Chart Styles sections include one-click customise options (see top of our screenshot). Click the dropdown menus at the bottom right of either section to see more options. To change the default font style, right-click any text in the chart, then click the…

We know what you’re thinking: is it still safe to use Kaspersky, given the accusations thrown at the Russian company? To recap, both the United States’ General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of Homeland Security has banned the US government from using Kaspersky products, in the wake of an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. There have been allegations of ties between Kaspersky staff and Russian intelligence, while in October The Wall Street Journal claimed Kremlin-backed hackers used Kaspersky to hack into a computer owned by a National Security Agency employee. Kaspersky has dismissed the claims as a “witch hunt”, and we’re inclined to agree. Banning Kaspersky within US government systems feels like an overreaction borne from nothing more than a vague mistrust of Russia. Are…

Is my old tablet fit for Windows 10? Q Some time ago I bought an Acer E13 ES1-311-C4Q6 laptop. I updated it to Windows 10 but never really got on with it, so haven’t used it much. I read an article that said some Windows 10 machines are no longer being supported. I followed the instructions to check my processor and found that my Windows 10 version is 1607 (Anniversary Update), and the processor is a 2.16GHz Intel Celeron N2840. It would seem that the Creators Update either wasn’t offered or failed. Can I assume my Acer is one of those now-defunct machines, fit only for the scrapheap? Len Jones A Windows 10’s minimum requirements are actually quite modest, and haven’t changed for Creators Update (1703) or the more recent…

Q Following the advice in Issue 513, I downloaded LibreOffice with a view to replacing Microsoft Office. However, the downloaded file has a suffix of. man, rather than.exe. As a result, Windows 10 doesn’t know what to do with it. Help! R P Truscott A This is actually the result of the way Internet Explorer (IE) downloads from certain types of server, including some of the ones used to host LibreOffice. The details are complicated but in particular circumstances IE misidentifies. msi (‘Microsoft installer’) downloads as. man files. These. man files are for the Unix operating system, and Windows cannot run these. Incidentally, an. msi file is much the same as an.exe file — and just needs to be doubleclicked to be launched. We can’t do anything about the way…

Q I want to switch from Windows Live Mail to eM Client (www.emclient.com). I looked on my ISP’s support pages for setup help and found details for both POPE and IMAP servers. I don’t really understand the difference or why I would choose one over the other. Could you advise? Tom Haynes A First, let’s clear up a confusion: it’s not POPE, but POP3. This stands for ‘Post Office Protocol 3’, indicating the third version of the standard that was invented in the 1980s by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF, www.ietf.org). IMAP is short for Internet Message Access Protocol, which is an alternative email-synchronisation system also introduced in the 1980s by the IETF. There are many technical differences between the two standards but the basics are straightforward. If you…

Bust more jargon in our A-Z book: www.snipca.com/21616 1080p Of the common types of high-definition video, this is the best quality: 1920x1080 pixels. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 5G The next (fifth) generation of mobile networks, to eventually supersede 4G. Active content Content on a website that’s interactive (such as a poll) or dynamic (such as animations and streaming videos). Add-on A program that adds extra features to your browser. Bandwidth A measure of how much info can be transferred through a connection at one time. Benchmarking Comparing software and products with an accepted standard. Beta A version of software that’s being tested. Beta versions are often released so problems can be ironed out. Biometric Using measurable personal characteristics, such as fingerprints, for identification. Blue…