Table of contents for 643 in Computeractive

Photos, videos, games, software, operating systems, browsers, emails, documents, passwords, my immortal soul – I’ve saved them all to USB sticks over the years. But I’ve never paid much attention to organising these files once they’re on a stick. I just assumed there was a USB stick fairy that does it for you – a cousin no doubt of the sock fairy that always pairs them up whenever I throw them sloppily into my drawer. Well, no more. Robert Irvine’s outstanding Cover Feature has shamed me into realising I must manage my sticks better. I’ve got about 30 tucked away, many older than my children (and better behaved). Following Robert’s tips, I’m going to partition them, sync them to my PC, change their drive letters and index their contents so…

Cancelling Netflix doesn’t mean you live in poverty Perhaps I’m missing something, but why is it so shocking that people who pay for broadband, mobile, TV and streaming subscriptions might find it a struggle to afford them all when times are tough (‘Question of the Fortnight’, Issue 642)? We now seem to live in an age when most people think they should never be expected to cut back on life’s little luxuries. As an example, during one radio phone-in I listened to a caller who claimed he was living in poverty because he could no longer afford to subscribe to Netflix. That was bad enough, but rather than challenging the caller on this, the presenter sympathised with him. Ofcom seems to suggest that nine per cent of customers cancelling a…

Recently my Toshiba smart TV stopped working just two-and-a-half years after buying it. I realised it was out of warranty, but still informed Toshiba of my disappointment with their product. I was getting nowhere despite talking to both Toshiba and Currys, where I had bought the TV. I was also quoted some astonishing prices for repairing the set. I could have bought a new one for the price I’d have to pay. Toshiba finally informed me they were going to close the case, but I could contact their complaint-escalation team if I wished. I did this and was eventually told that they would repair the TV for free. They collected it and returned it in fully working condition. It pays to keep pressing your case (politely, of course). Well done…

A touch of glass The Wired2Fire Ultima WS Home Office Workstation (www.snipca.com/41500) has been our Buy It! favourite PC for a few months now, but it’s finally met its match. In our review in Issue 630 (page 22), it earned our admiration because it offered a powerful yet affordable Windows PC that relied on the processor’s built-in graphics rather than a separate (and expensive) graphics card. For those who aren’t focused on gaming, this amounts to a few hundred pounds well saved. “Makes sensible compromises to offer powerful performance at an affordable price” Palicomp has clearly learned a lesson from the success of its rival and produced a version of its own, albeit with a unique spin. The main point of difference here is that the AMD Cobra’s processor is…

Making a stand Chinese company Huawei makes a growing range of PC monitors, with this 23.8in MateView SE lying in the middle ground between its budget models and its upmarket offerings. As such it strikes an impressive balance between price and quality. Its decent IPS display can’t match the high quality of an OLED model, but offers good value for money instead. “A fully adjustable stand and impressive screen, but has limited connections” In our colorimeter tests we found it covered 100 per cent of the sRGB colour standard and 85 per cent of the more demanding DCI-P3 standard (as long as you set it to the ‘P3 color’ mode using the simple but responsive on-screen controls). Whites look great and there’s no sign of the unsightly contrast drop-off you…

TP-Link’s Deco X20 AX1800 is a Whole Home Mesh Wi-Fi 6 system that can deliver exceptional speeds around the home of up to 1.2Gbps (5GHz) and 574Mbps (2.4GHz). It uses OFDMA and MU-MIMO technology to quadruple capacity, which allows more of your devices to connect and benefit from the fast speeds. It also has Ultra-Low Latency, which enables smoother gaming and video chatting. WPA3 encryption means it’s very secure, while TP-Link’s HomeShield provides personalised features including Parental Controls, Antivirus and Quality of Service (QoS) to ensure a safer online experience. In this competition, we’re offering two prizes each containing two units (as pictured). To enter, answer the question at www.snipca.com/42444 and submit your details. It runs until midnight Tuesday 8 November. You can buy a two-pack of TP-Link’s Deco X20…

TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Stop Chrome’s spellcheck saving your passwords Google uses its Enhanced Spellcheck tool to improve spelling suggestions, which sounds innocent enough. So I was rather shocked to watch a YouTube video (www.snipca.com/43605) explaining how it sends everything you type to Google’s servers, including passwords and other sensitive information. Enhanced Spellcheck isn’t activated by default, but I vaguely remembered turning it on a few months ago. I checked by typing chrome://settings/? search=Enhanced+Spell+Check into Chrome’s address bar (copy and paste this from www.snipca.com/43608), and sure enough the ‘Enhanced Spell Check’ option was selected. Admittedly, it says ‘text that you type in the browser is sent to Google’, but who would think that included passwords? I instantly unselected ‘Enhanced spell check’ (1 in our screenshot), and left ‘Basic spell check’…

WINDOWS 11 Calibrate your HDR monitor Monitors with high-dynamic range (HDR, minimum of 1920x1080 pixels) are becoming more common, though they’re still on the expensive side. It improves picture quality by delivering more vivid images with greater contrast, and a wider array of colours. However, you may need to fine-tune your HDR monitor to get the full benefi One way to do this is by installing Microsoft’s new HDR Calibration app for Windows 11 (free from the Microsoft Store at www.snipca.com/43649, pictured below). Once installed, follow the steps to set levels for minimum and maximum brightness and colour saturation. Of course, the app is only worth installing if your monitor has HDR. To check this in Windows 10 or 11 follow Microsoft’s instructions at www.snipca.com/43667. If yours doesn’t have it…

What is it? A new AI technology from Facebook owners Meta that automatically turns descriptive text into videos. The company claims that “with just a few words or lines of text, Make-A-Video can bring imagination to life and create one-of-a-kind videos full of vivid colours, characters and landscapes”. Do you have any examples? Cast your eyes right to the two images. Meta said that the video captured in the first image was created from the words ‘A golden retriever eating ice cream on a beautiful tropical beach at sunset, high resolution’. Other examples on its site (https://makeavideo.studio) include ‘A dog wearing a Superhero outfit with red cape flying through the sky’(see second image) and ‘A confused grizzly bear in calculus class’. They’re all surreal, weird and a little creepy. Er,…

Unlike printed photos, which can be damaged by creases, rips and stains, we tend to assume that our digital snaps and videos are indestructible. But, as we reported in Issue 642 (page 7), some Google Photos users recently found that pictures they’d uploaded to the service a few years ago showed signs of ageing like physical photos, including cracks, discolouration and blurring that looked like water damage. Digital files themselves don’t degrade over time, but – as proved by the Google Photos flaw – other factors can make their data distorted and unreadable. Here, we explain how you can prevent digital decay to preserve the quality of your photos and videos. Save photos in a lossless format Although digital photos don’t gradually decay, every time you edit and save an…

1080p Of the common types of high-definition video, this is the best quality: 1920x1080 pixels. 256bit AES encryption Military-grade level of encryption. 2FA Two-factor authentication. A system that uses two different means to identify the user. For example, a code sent to your phone in addition to a password. 3G/4G/5G Technologies that deliver faster mobile broadband. 7z Also known as 7-Zip. A free, open-source file archiver. AAC Advanced Audio Coding. A type of music file. AI Artificial Intelligence. Intelligence demonstrated by a machine rather than a human being. Often used to describe technology that can perform human-like tasks. Benchmarking Comparing software and products with an accepted standard. Bootable Describes a device or disc with system files on it so it can be used to start up your computer. CAPTCHA Distorted…

PayPal has insisted that it doesn’t plan to fine customers for spreading “misinformation”, saying a change in policy which suggested otherwise contained “incorrect information”. In late September, it changed the US version of its Acceptable Use policy to state that people who send, post or publish “any messages, content, or materials that… promote misinformation” could be penalised by having up $2,500 removed from their accounts. Reports suggested the policy would begin on 3 November. This quickly spread through social media, sparking a ferocious backlash. Former PayPal president David Marcus tweeted that it “goes against everything I believe in”, to which former PayPal CEO Elon Musk replied “Agreed”. PayPal responded by saying that it’s “not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy”,…

The UK inventor of a reading tool has settled a trademark dispute with Microsoft by changing its name from Word Windows to Word Window. Kate McKenzie, a teacher from Northampton, had created the handheld tool (pictured) to assist children who had problems learning to read. It places a box – or a ‘window’ – on the page that children can open and close, helping them focus on specific sounds within a word. Mrs McKenzie had suffered from dyslexia as a child, and was inspired to create the tool because her son was having similar difficulties. Microsoft’s lawyers contacted her in June, just nine days before the product was due to go on sale. They objected to the similarity of her tool’s name to the company’s word-processing software and its operating…

Why won’t Amazon refund me after wrong item sent? LEAD CASE Q I feel like Amazon has conned me. I ordered a laptop for £599, but instead received a pair of £23 speakers and a cable. I returned these immediately, saying the wrong item had been posted. However, Amazon is saying it won’t refund me because I didn’t return the laptop. But how could I return it if I never received it? Nick Butcher A Well, quite! Put like that, it sounds more like a philosophical dilemma than a consumer one. We’ll do our best to help Nick because it sounds like Amazon hasn’t taken his complaint seriously. When a customer returns items claiming the wrong goods were delivered, the retailer should investigate why this error occured. It seems that…

The recent funeral of Queen Elizabeth II offered the world a magnificent view of the pageantry of the Royal Household on ceremonial occasions. Historically, the Royal Household consisted of three departments. The Lord Chamberlain was responsible for employing craftsmen, chaplains, physicians, musicians, watermen and the Yeomen of the Guard; the Lord Steward (now Master of the Household) employed kitchen and household staff; and the Master of the Horse managed the stables and transport requirements for the monarch’s family, employing coachmen, helpers, chauffeurs and footmen. Employment records for all departments are held at the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, with many now available on Findmypast’s ‘Royal Household Staff 1526-1924’ database, also known as the Royal Archives Special Collection. The site also has records for the Privy Purse, which includes information on…

I’ve always found that having the radio on in the background while I browse the web or work helps me focus. Personally I prefer music stations that keep inane chatter to a minimum. Over the past few years I’ve moved away from having a physical radio (after a short-lived dalliance with a digital set) and embraced the world of internet radio. Things have come a long way since the days of RealPlayer and Live365. If you know where to look, you can run streams for your favourite radio stations in your own media player. In fact, this is another great reason to install VLC Media Player (www.videolan.org/vlc) on your computer. One of its many features beyond video playback is playing radio shows, and even letting you record them to listen…

Second among equals Palicomp isn’t the only PC manufacturer to have considered the merits of providing Windows users with a powerful desktop PC without a graphics card. As a result, there are many similarities between the Aurora Spark R, and the AMD Cobra reviewed opposite. “It’s a pretty good PC in its own right, but pales in comparison with direct rivals” The key similarities between the two are this lack of a dedicated graphics card and that both have AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600G processor at their heart. However, the Aurora Spark R is around £140 more expensive. It’s an interesting gamble on PCSpecialist’s part, because like the Cobra it too only comes with 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Unfortunately, when it comes to performance this takes its toll.…

Welcome matte This is the cheapest smartphone Sony has launched in 2022. It’s a mid-range phone without any of th advanced features. The big question is whether it strikes the right balance between price and the kind of functionality many will be looking for. “A mid-range phone with a decent camera and battery life, but so-so performance” With a thickness of 8.3mm, a weight of 161 grams and a 6in screen, the Xperia 10 IV is one of the smaller Android phones currently available. We particularly like the matte finish of the plastic case around the edges and on the rear, and the simple look of the phone as a whole. It has an IP65 protection rating, meaning it should survive being immersed in 1.5m of water for up to…

Make it snappy If you thought the photographic film industry had been completely killed off by digital cameras and smartphones, it might surprise you to know there are still small pockets that remain. One of these is instant prints – cameras from the likes of Polaroid, which let you take a snap and instantly churn out a print. Fujifilm offers a range of instant cameras, but with the Instax Link Wide photo printer, it’s removed the camera from the printing process and replaced it with a Bluetooth connection. It’s a great idea, letting you use your smartphone as the camera, but providing the kind of gratification you can only get by passing around a printed photo that you’ve just taken. “Portable printer creates higher-quality instant snaps” There are benefits to…

What you need: Windows, Android, or iOS Time required: 30 minutes Voice recognition is improving every year, and getting cheaper too. A decade ago, if you wanted to talk to your computer rather than type, you’d have had to spend several hundred pounds on special dictation software. This would intercept everything you said, translate it into characters, and send it on to whichever program you were using. Things have changed considerably since then. Now, you can dictate directly into a Google Docs document using 'Voice typing' if you’re logged in through Chrome. To enable it, click Tools at the top of a document, followed by ‘Voice typing’, then click the on-screen microphone and start talking. Tools like voice typing are a considerable time-saver if you’re working on a lengthy document,…

BRAVE Block cookie consent pop-ups automatically In Issue 642 (page 42) we lamented that one of our favourite extensions, I Don’t Care About Cookies, had been sold to Avast and recommended using Consent-O-Matic (www.snipca.com/43417) instead. Brave 1.45, which was released earlier this month, saves you having to install an add-on to hide cookie consent pop-ups on websites, because it blocks them automatically. When you install or update the browser, you’ll see a message from its Shields feature asking if you’re ‘Tired of cookie consent notices?’. Click ‘Yes, block cookie consent notices’ (see screenshot below right) and Brave will hide the annoying banners that nag you to agree to or reject cookies when you visit a new site. If you accidentally click ‘No thanks’, you can activate the setting manually. Click…

MICROSOFT OFFICE Add descriptions so your pictures can be read aloud When someone uses a screen-reading tool to read aloud an email, document, spreadsheet or presentation, they won’t know they’ve come to a picture unless you’ve added a description for the program to read. You can add this description using the Alt Text tool. Here, we’ll explain how to do it for a Word document using Office 2013. The instructions are similar for PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook in both the 2013 and 2016 editions of Office, though for later versions and Microsoft 365 see Microsoft’s advice at www.snipca.com/43585. In Word, right-click the image you want to add a description for, then select Format Picture. In the panel that opens on the right, click the ‘Layout & Properties’ button (1 in…

Netflix is launching a cheaper subscription option that comes with adverts, in an attempt to stop viewers leaving. It lost more than one million subscribers in the first half of this year, as people switched off amid the rising cost of living. The new ‘Basic with Adverts’ package costs £4.99 a month, and will contain an average of four to five minutes of adverts per hour, each lasting 15 to 30 seconds. It launches at 4pm on 3 November. Shows will be broadcast at a resolution of 1280x720p (high-definition). Netflix said that because of licensing rules around five to 10 per cent of its programmes and films won’t be available on the package, though it hasn’t named which ones. Netflix will continue to offer other subscriptions that don’t contain adverts:…

HEAR LOST DESERT ISLAND DISCS EPISODES Old episodes of Desert Island Discs that were thought lost are now available to play on the BBC Sounds app. Visit www.snipca.com/43661 to hear highlights of interviews with guests including Ronnie Corbett, Noel Coward, Bing Crosby, Dudley Moore and James Stewart. In total 90 episodes were recently discovered by audio collector Richard Harrison from Lowestoft, Suffolk. GOOGLE PIXEL TABLET COMING IN 2023 Google will release a tablet in 2023 that can be used as a smart speaker or digital photo frame when attached to a charging dock (pictured). It said that the processor will be fast enough to allow smooth video calling and photo editing, though it hasn’t confirmed specifications such as RAM, storage or screen size. Read more at www.snipca.com/43664. VODAFONE FIRST TO…

We’re delighted that cashback site Complete Savings (www.completesavings.co.uk) has given Paul Bambridge a full refund of £135, after he unintentionally signed up for its membership scheme. As explained in Issue 641, he ended up paying the site £15 a month for nine months after using it to make an order with greetings-card site Moonpig. Most cashback sites are free to use, but Complete Savings charges a monthly fee in return for much higher payments – a guaranteed minimum of 10 per cent each time. Paul didn’t realise this is how the site worked, and turned to us for help with what he thought were “unauthorised transactions”. To give the site credit, it does state on its homepage that you pay £15 a month after a free 30-day trial (see screenshot).…

VIRTUALISATION TOOL VirtualBox 7.0 www.snipca.com/43636 What you need: Windows 7, 8.1, 10 or 11, macOS or Linux VirtualBox provides a free way to try different operating systems within your current OS by running them in a virtual PC (VM). It’s the most popular tool of its kind, and this new version makes it even more useful. The biggest change in VirtualBox 7.0 is the addition of support for Windows 11. Previously, when you tried to install Windows 11 in a virtual machine, hardware-compatibility problems prevented you from doing so, even if your PC met Microsoft’s system requirements. Although you could beat this restriction by tweaking the Windows registry, it was a major hassle. Now, running Windows 11 on a compatible PC is as simple as clicking New in the Machine…

SOFTWARE WARNING! Deja vu with IObit Driver Booster 10 Just getting your hands on IObit Driver Booster 10 is something of a challenge. When I visited the software’s website (www.snipca.com/43554), I was faced with two choices: Free Download or Free Trial. Free Download attempted to download IObit Driver Booster 8 (not 10), but it was thwarted by my Edge browser’s security, which warned “this file can’t be downloaded securely”. Not the best start. Selecting ‘Free Trial’ yielded better results, actually downloading the installer for Driver Booster 10 without triggering the security police. But the installation routine did trigger a nasty sense of deja vu from when I covered IObit Uninstaller in Issue 618 – with the company up to its old tricks. It had pre-ticked boxes to bundle iTop VPN…

Means business Lenovo’s not trying to reinvent the wheel with this laptop. Instead, this is designed to be a solid and reliable machine for carrying out everyday Windows tasks, which is something it can do very well. The specification we’re reviewing here isn’t an off-the-shelf model that you’d find on the high street. You need to visit Lenovo’s customisation page (www.snipca/43540) and make sure the specifications you enter match the details we’ve listed below. We increased the RAM to 16GB, chose the more powerful 57Wh battery, and switched Windows 11 Pro to Windows 11 Home (a £60 saving). It also means you may be waiting a few weeks for Lenovo to put together your specification. “A larger screen, comfortable keyboard and long battery life, but the screen is dull” That…

ANDROID & iOS Customise the content in your Facebook feed As well as cluttering your news feed with ads, Facebook also recommends content from companies, communities and people that might interest you, or that’s been ‘liked’ by your friends. These posts can prove annoying when they’re irrelevant and unnnerving when they relate to your activities in other apps, so we’re pleased that Facebook has introduced new ways to customise the content you see. When a recommended post appears in your feed, you can now tap the three-dot icon in its top-right corner and choose ‘Show less’ (see screenshot below left) to see fewer posts like it, or ‘Show more’ if – for some reason – you want to see more of that type of content. The same options are available…

Set up an online booking system Creating a booking system for classes and events your club runs is a great way of ensuring that you don’t get too many people turning up at once, and that you also have some idea of how many people are coming. One of the best online-booking systems we’ve used is the (mostly) free service called Picktime. It’s easy to use and gives you lots of options to manage events efficiently. Choose people to run classes To start, visit www.picktime.com and sign up for an account, then enter your club name and location. If you have multiple locations then, once you’ve finished signing up, you can add them by clicking the Locations button in the sidebar. Next you need to add Team Members. These are…

Why doesn’t resetting Edge fix my PDF problem? Q Thanks for answering my question in Issue 639 (page 66) on why PDFs are opening in the background. I tried resetting my browser (Edge) as you advised, but it made no difference. Would you be able to suggest another solution? Strangely, this doesn’t happen if I open a PDF in Chrome. Bob Shilson A This one has us stumped. Without knowing more details, it’s difficult to diagnose what’s causing this problem. Bob may simply have to abandon Edge and instead set Chrome as his default program for opening PDFs. In Windows 10, click Start, Settings, Apps, then click ‘Default apps’ on the left. Now click ‘Choose default applications by file type’ on the right. Here you’ll see a list of file…