Table of contents for 499 in Computeractive

Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that we’ve changed our magazine slogan – the ‘tagline’ that appears under our logo – to ‘Learn something new in every issue’. Many readers have told me it’s why they look forward to reading Computeractive every fortnight, so I thought it would make a good motto. I hope you’ll think it applies to our Cover Feature (page 50), in which Jane Hoskyn recommends robust new software to keep your PC safe from hackers, burglars and Wi-Fistealing neighbours. As a victim of laptop theft last year, she knows only too well how important it is to back up files and install device-tracking software. Her advice may not diminish your anger should the worst happen, but you will be able to minimise the harm to your bank…

Google has launched in the UK the system it hopes will revolutionise Wi-Fi in your home. Called simply Google Wifi, it uses mesh networking, which spreads the connection among several routers, guaranteeing stronger signals in every room. Each device has a node that extends the range, helping to eliminate dead spots. At a launch event Google’s Suveer Kothari contrasted Google Wifi with the current single-router setup that most homes have, calling it a “sprinkler system rather than a firehose”. Mesh networking has also been described as providing a “blanket of Wi-Fi” in your home. To get started you’ll need to buy two Google routers, which costs £229. To enjoy the full effect throughout your home you’ll need extra routers, priced £129 each. Google has designed the router as a white…

Intel has launched its first storage device powered by 3D XPoint, a revolutionary type of computer memory that’s a thousand times faster than modern hard drives. But Intel is keeping how it works strictly secret. 3D XPoint (the ‘X’ is pronounced ‘cross’) is found in the Optane DC P4800X, a new 375GB SSD that was jointly built with US hardware manufacturer Micron. It combines the two types of memory computers use – hard drives and RAM. The former stores large amounts of permanent data (such as files) for long periods, while the latter is short-term memory needed by programs that are in use. Intel claims that besides being significantly faster than hard drives, the new technology can store 10 times more data than RAM. Speaking to Wired, Intel’s boss Brian…

Question of the Fortnight Less than a week after Khalid Masood killed four people in Westminster, Home Secretary Amber Rudd said that intelligence services must have access to encrypted messages sent through services like WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage. The police know that Masood used WhatsApp just minutes before the attack, but aren’t able to read any messages he may have sent because the service uses end-to-end encryption (E2EE). This means that only the sender and recipient can see the message, which, Ms Rudd says gives terrorists a “place to hide”. Her comments prompted a furious backlash from privacy campaigners and tech companies. They argue that building a ‘back door’ into encryption would actually leave us less safe because it would mean that anyone could access messages – not just MI5…

What are my rights for a second-hand iPad? Q I bought a second-hand iPad from an eBay seller, which I knew had a scratch on the screen. However, the scratch is worse than the seller described, so I think the iPad isn’t fit for purpose. But the seller refuses to refund me. Do I have less rights because the iPad is second hand? Jerry Taylor A No, Jerry’s rights remain the same. Just like buyers of brand new goods, he is covered by the Consumer Rights Act just as if he’d bought it new. That means they must be ‘as described’ and ‘fit for purpose’. However, if a fault is pointed out to you at the time of the sale, you have no automatic right to a refund. This is…

PC £800 from Chillblast www.snipca.com/23872 Chillblast Fusion Arrow A PC of a different stripe Eric stared at his new PC. It was perfect. A brand new Intel Kaby Lake i5-7400 processor. A GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card, delivering more computing power per pound sterling than almost any other component ever brought to market. A 250GB SSD for speed and a 1TB hard drive to store all his photos and videos. Plenty of bays, sockets and slots, and a big 600-watt power supply to keep up with all the upgrades he’d ever need. And all for a penny under 800 quid. Well-connected, expansion potential and it’s no slouch There was just one thing bothering him. He looked at the hefty black tower case, with its steel mesh grilles for maximum airflow,…

Alcatel, a French brand now licensed by a Chinese manufacturer, seems determined to keep the budget smartphone market alive, and we’re all for it. The Pop 4 costs just a tenner more than the 5in Pixi 4 (see our review, Issue 497) and upgrades that model’s very coarse 854x480-pixel screen to 1280x720. It’s quite slim and light, and looks OK. The raised lip around the front feels odd, but might help to protect the glass if dropped, and the camera also sticks out slightly. The screen is sharp enough to make text easy to read, and has decent brightness and contrast. At 79 per cent of the sRGB range, it won’t win awards for colour fidelity, but it’s not so bad that you’d notice without having a better phone handy…

This wireless speaker from a famous British hi-fi company isn’t new, but its price has recently fallen to a very reasonable level. £119 is a low-tomiddling budget for a quality Bluetooth box, and in this case it buys you something that both looks and sounds distinguished. The 10-inch pillar, in grey, white or gold, has a rounded square cross-section that bends back at the top, giving it the look of a futuristic skyscraper. A traditional speaker cloth covers the front, but can be detached to reveal two bass drivers and a shiny ceramic-coated dome tweeter. The drivers are slightly angled to the left and right, and when you connect up a Bluetooth device and output your favourite music, audiobook or radio station, you’ll notice this gives a broader sound stage…

What’s the best tablet for everyday tasks? Q I’d like a reasonably priced 10in tablet for music, ebooks, email and the internet. I see Huawei and Lenovo have models for around £200. I’m keen on a crisp, bright screen and the ability to handle Word and Excel files. My wife has an old 9.7in iPad, but I don’t like typing on the screen and am put off by Apple’s prices. Jim Corrigan A We found the Huawei MediaPad M2 10in (£200 from Currys www.snipca.com/23896, see our review, Issue 477, pictured) well made and usable. Its 16GB of storage can be supplemented with a microSD card. We haven’t tested Lenovo’s Yoga Tab 3 (£200 from John Lewis www.snipca.com/23899), but its processor is less powerful. Apple’s latest 9.7in iPad costs £339 with…

Products we would like to see No.17: CHEAPER TECH This doesn’t sound like something you’d have to put on a wish list. Technology gets cheaper all the time, doesn’t it? In fact, while the cost of making components often plummets after they go into mass production, the retail prices of the finished products on the shelves don’t usually follow suit. Take smartphones. When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, it cost $499 (we’ll use American prices to avoid exchange rate confusions). That’s $586 in today’s money. But the current iPhone 7 starts at $649. There are cheaper phones around. But market research firm TrendForce reports that Chinese brands like Gionee (pictured) are now raising their prices, a trend that could mark ‘the end of “affordable premium”’. China makes most of…

14 pages of easy-to-follow workshops and expert tips PULL OUT & KEEP Issue 499 Find and update unsafe software What you need: Kaspersky Software Updater; Any version of Windows (XP to 10) Time required: 30 minutes Not every program will automatically update to (or prompt you to install) their latest version – and outdated programs can put your PC at risk. Kaspersky Software Updater is a great free program that scans your PC for obsolete program versions and lets you update them in one go. It also lets you schedule automatic scans. Our favourite antivirus program Kaspersky Internet Security 2017 (see our Reader Offer, page 68) has this ‘software updater’ feature built in. We’ll show you how to tweak its default settings for better results. STEP 1 Skip to Step…

ScotlandVR Free Android: www.snipca.com/23945 iOS: www.snipca.com/23946 You don’t need a virtual-reality headset to enjoy this app from VisitScotland. Choose Mobile Mode for 360-degree views of the likes of Edinburgh Castle and the Kelpie sculptures. Switch to Night Mode to witness the Northern Lights. Podcast Go Free Android: www.snipca.com/23948 This podcast app offers 15 categories to make your choice easier, including Arts, Business, Health, Music, Sports, TV and Film. You can subscribe to your favourite shows, download podcasts to listen to offline and save episodes to your memory card to save storage on your phone. Workflow Free iOS: www.snipca.com/23947 This IFTTT-like app previously cost £2.99 but Apple recently bought it and made it free. You can use it to add homescreen icons that let you call a contact or get directions…

EXCEL Colour-code data to identify values at a glance Excel has a brilliant feature called Conditional Formatting, which is very useful when you’re dealing with lots of data. It basically lets you identify certain numbers (or a range of numbers) quickly using colours or indicators. So, for example, you can apply a red highlight to the 10 highest values within your selected data, or add coloured bars to cells to indicate high or low values. First, highlight the data range, then click the Conditional Formatting dropdown menu. You’ll see five options – Highlight Cell Rules, Top/ Bottom Rules, Data Bars, Color Scales and Icon Sets. Move your cursor over each of these to see further options that you can apply. Highlight Cell Rules has options to highlight (in red) all…

Your antivirus (AV) is the first and most powerful line of defence against ransomware, Trojans and the other online threats we warn you about every issue. But are you sure your AV is enough? Firefox developer Mozilla recently surveyed 30,000 computer users and found that eight out of ten of us are worried they’ll be hacked, and nine out of ten are “unsure” how to avoid it – and that’s despite using an AV (www.snipca.com/23791). Hackers can break into your PC using a zero-day attack, which means they’ll target weaknesses in Windows and your programs that are so new your AV won’t know to block them. They’ll also hack into company servers to steal your login details (as happened to Yahoo in 2014). And a really determined hacker can try…

Apple has launched its cheapest ever iPad, although at £339 it is still more expensive than many highly rated Android tablets. It has a 9.7in screen, and comes with Apple’s Retina display, which is the company’s name for resolutions so high that you can’t detect the pixels when using it. The £339 model has 32GB storage and lets you connect to the web via Wi-Fi only. For £469 you can add ‘cellular’ connectivity that lets you access the web via mobile networks. There’s also a 128GB model priced £429 (Wi-Fi only) and £559 (cellular), but no 16GB or 64GB versions. It weighs about 1lb, has back and front-facing cameras, and comes in silver, gold and ‘space grey’. The new iPad replaces the iPad Air 2 – which at £379 was…

Computeractive readers are bidding an unsentimental ‘good riddance’ to Windows Vista, which stopped receiving Microsoft’s security updates on 11 April. You’ve told us that the operating system, launched in January 2007, was one of the worst versions of Windows ever, and should have been consigned to history long ago. You listed its many faults on our Facebook page (www.snipca.com/23994). Reader Chris Tye called it “abysmal”, adding that “it took forever to boot up”, slowed his computer “to a crawl” and “looked rubbish”. Slow start-up times was a common complaint from readers, as was frequent crashes. Reader Jason Bowyer wrote that he regularly saw the “blue screen of death”, and that his settings “messed up usually after every update”. Even readers who initially liked Vista said that they grew to hate…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: IObit Uninstaller Free Oh, IObit. Let me count the ways you annoy me. You put Upgrade buttons where Uninstall buttons should be, then swap them round. You bundle pre-ticked junk in your installers. Now you’ve filled my PC with junk files and folders without asking me, or indeed telling me. And yet, I still use IObit Uninstaller Free. In fact, I love it. Partly because I’m used to it, but also because it’s great for removing leftover files that other uninstallers leave behind. But its pros may soon be overtaken by its cons. This week, Malwarebytes AdwCleaner (www.malwarebytes.com/adwcleaner) found three dodgy IObit items on my PC: a folder called ASCDownloader and two rogue IObit registry entries. ASC is Advanced SystemCare. This useless extra program is…

Tell us what’s on your mind Email: letters@computeractive.co.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/computeractive Twitter: @ComputerActive www.twitter.com/computeractive My Vista PC is like an old chest in the attic After reading your ‘Question of the Fortnight’ in Issue 498 (‘What should Windows Vista users do now?’), I feel like a very odd person indeed! That’s because I always rather liked Vista, and thought criticism of it was overblown. Perhaps this is because I skipped XP, and so never compared it with that operating system – which seems to be as overrated as Vista is underrated. Anyway, I wanted to tell you what I intend to do now. I’ve bought a new Windows 10 PC, which seems to do everything I want it to. I’ll leave my Vista PC offline to dodge the hackers, and will keep…

Reader Michael Mearns has every reason to smile (with freshly brushed teeth) following the resolution of his case against Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Boots. P&G and Boots put smile back on reader’s face As we reported in Issue 498, P&G’s repair (under warranty) of Michael’s £45 Oral-B Trizone 3000 electric toothbrush failed 11 months later. The company had tried to repair the handle so the toothbrush could recharge. Michael told us that P&G was refusing to help him again, which we think was unfair because repairs have to be ‘of satisfactory quality’ and ‘fit for purpose’. Happily, P&G relented after we contacted it, saying that as a “goodwill gesture” it will inspect the toothbrush, then repair or replace it. While this is pleasing, we should point out that in…

AUDIO Audacity 2.1.3 www.audacityteam.org What you need: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8/8.1 or 10 Record internet radio, digitise your music collection and record voice memos using this superb open-source program that now, in its own words, “properly supports Windows 10”. In other words, you can finally run Audacity on Windows 10 without seeing an annoying Internet PortAudio error message (www.snipca.com/23916). If you enjoy audio and you don’t already use Audacity, here’s your chance to get acquainted. It’s the best program of its kind. It is bamboozling at first, but once you find your way around you’ll be recording, cutting, splicing and adding effects in no time. And unlike many other free audio and video-recording tools (the awful CamStudio and Free YouTube Downloader, for example), it’s completely safe and junk-free. Audacity…

Mid-range smartphones are hard to get excited about, but the A5 is quietly impressive. Like last year’s model, it has a plain but classy design with a metal frame and tapered back. The 5.2in size feels modern without being too big. It comes in black, gold, pink or ‘Blue Mist’, the nearest option to white, which is a bit of an acquired taste. As you’d expect from Samsung, the screen is AMOLED and looks great, covering the full sRGB colour range with excellent accuracy. Its Full HD resolution looks very sharp indeed, even if it’s not quite enough for Samsung to certify this phone for use with its Gear VR headset – not something most people will care about. Brightness isn’t quite up to iPhone standards, but we didn’t find…

Chances are you know someone by now who’s given up their landline. Many people find themselves using their mobile phones for everything, so it makes no sense to pay out line rental every month. If you’re at home a lot of the time, though, a landline may still work out cheaper, as well as avoiding problems with mobile reception, which is often worst indoors. But most of us like the convenience of a mobile as well. If only the two systems could be combined! Well, with this box they can be. Sort of. The Voice Bridge uses VoIP (voice over IP) to forward your phone calls over the internet. Besides a mains plug, it needs two connections: to a landline phone socket (using one of the two Ethernet cables and…

Find out what other products we liked. Buy our new 2016 Back Issue CD: £15 fromwww.snipca.com/23209 LAPTOP Dell Inspiron 15 5000 £699 from www.snipca.com/23375 Tested: Issue 459 Now updated with Intel’s seventhgeneration processors, this laptop ( not the 2-in-1 version) now edges the ZenBook below and starts at just £449, but mid-range configurations with SSD and AMD R7 graphics are the best choice. ALTERNATIVE: Asus ZenBook UX305CA If you want something sleeker, this offers basic performance in a superbly slim and light metal case. £600 from www.snipca.com/23376 DESKTOP PC Wired2FireDiabloUltimaV2 £800 from www.snipca.com/23767 Tested: Issue 497 Teaming Intel’s latest i5 processor with a Radeon RX 460 graphics card, this delivers great all-round performance and adequate gaming, helped by a fast M.2 SSD plus a generous 2GB hard drive and 16GB of memory.…

Email us your tips: letters@computeractive.co.uk TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Revert to standard W10 version from Insider Preview I followed your ‘Get Windows 10’s future tools today’ Workshop in Issue 496 (page 35) and tried the Windows 10 Insider Preview. After switching to the Fast Ring, I sampled some of the new features that will form part of the imminent Windows 10 Creators Update. Once in the Insider Preview, I found it difficult to switch back to the standard version of Windows 10. However, after receiving the latest batch of Insider Preview updates, I noticed a new setting that lets you revert to the standard version more easily. Go to Settings, ‘Update & security’, then click Windows Insider Program at the bottom left. Here, click the new ‘Stop Insider Preview builds’…

AGES 0-5 Spell Bear Free www.snipca.com/23949 (Android) 99p www.snipca.com/23950 (iOS) This educational app is designed to teach your toddler how to spell simple words. Your child will hear what each letter sounds like after which they need to drag and drop the letters into the correct outline. Every correct answer wins your child a reward. AGES 6-10 Super Mario Run* Free www.snipca.com/23951 (Android) Free www.snipca.com/23952 (iOS) This Nintendo classic set a download record on Apple’s App Store upon its release in December. It’s now available on Android. Timing your jumps is crucial in this one-handed game. The first four levels are free, after which you’ll need to pay £9.99 to unlock the full version. AGES 11-16 Really Bad Chess* Free www.snipca.com/23953 (iOS) Really Bad Chess is actually really good fun…

Pocket (https://getpocket.com) is the brilliant free tool that lets you save anything you find online (a great news article, for example) so that you can read it later – even if you don’t have access to the internet. However, there’s more to Pocket than just saving web pages. Change themes on Pocket’s app If you already use Pocket’s iOS (www.snipca.com/23907) or Android app (www.snipca.com/23908) you’ve probably seen adverts pushing the paid-for Premium edition. One of its selling points is the addition of new themes that make Pocket easier to read. However, the free app has three themes of its own. To find them, open a saved web page by tapping it, then tap the menu button (three dots at the bottom in iOS or top right in Android), then Display…

PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT How do I stop Windows 10 updates? Q We live in a rural area and the best any internet service provider can offer is 1Mbps. This is tolerable until Microsoft carries out one of its increasingly frequent Windows 10 updates. My wife and I both have PCs and when the updates come along, both begin to download. This continues for hours or until the update fails because the network fails. Meanwhile, the network connection becomes too slow for us to work online. I have the ‘Updates from more than one place’ switch set to ‘PCs on my local network’, but that doesn’t seem to help. As well, the update checks seem to be at varying times with no way to control them, so I can’t schedule…

Egotistical tech bosses “Ican’t stand this indecision. Married with a lack of wisdom. Everybody wants to rule the world” So said Roland Orzabal. Who? Exactly! Well, Roly was – and apparently still is – the singer-songwriter in popular beat combo, Tears For Fears. Who? Exactly! Actually, to be fair some of you may have heard of Tears For Fears. But if you haven’t, I’d say it’s very likely that you’re familiar with the group’s smash-hit song from whose lyrics those lines were hewn. Unsurprisingly, the track was called Everybody Wants to Rule the World, and the record hit number one around the world in 1986. Millions bought it, and many millions more will remember it. You’re probably humming it to yourself now, aren’t you? You see, when it comes to…

Motorists will be able to show their driving licence on their phones from spring 2018, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has said. The new system will be tested from September 2017, before being made fully available six months later. The plans were revealed in the DVLA’s business plan for 2017-18. It said the service will be “quick, easy and secure”, and will let drivers share information with “trusted” companies, such as insurers. It won’t replace the full driving licence, and the existing plastic licence will remain valid. Only drivers who have “authenticated” themselves on the Gov.uk site will be able to use it. The digital driving licence was first announced by DVLA chief executive Oliver Morley last May, when he posted a photo of a “protoype” on Twitter…

MORE BROADBAND ENGINEERS TRAINED Openreach is to hire 1,500 trainee engineers over the next eight months to improve the UK’s broadband network. The announcement came just a week after BT agreed to separate from Openreach following pressure from Ofcom. BT had been heavily criticised by MPs and rival internet service providers for underinvesting in the UK’s broadband infrastructure. See more details at www.snipca.com/23926. WATCH VIDEOS IN GMAIL Google has updated Gmail to let you watch video attachments without having to download them first. You simply need to click the thumbnail image of the video to play it. It works only with videos smaller than 25MB – any larger than that are automatically saved to Google Drive – and only on computers, not phones or tablets. APPLE SHOULD ‘WARN OVER PHONE…

Once the web’s great one-stop shop, Yahoo is now a hacked has-been, clogging our inboxes with demands to change our old passwords, because it failed to secure our data properly. Even its profit announcements are met with “nobody really cares” (www.snipca.com/23974). Poor old Yahoo. So what’s it doing to win back its users? Why, by enraging them so much they write to us to let off steam. “I would like to nominate Yahoo Mail as Villain of the Fortnight,” writes Mandy Dixon. A long-time paying Yahoo Mail subscriber, Mandy was billed for a “much more expensive” new subscription after changing her bank card. After managing to persuade Yahoo to bill her correctly, she discovered the service she paid for had been withdrawn. “The final straw came when I found a…

Google will ‘magically’ find a way to block obscene videos I’m sickened by the arrogance and aloofness of companies like Google when it comes to checking the legality of content on their site as demonstrated by Google’s Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs, Peter Barron (pictured, see News, Issue 498, page 8). It seems to me completely insufficient that they rely on YouTube users to spot videos showing sexual abuse of children, or clips promoting terrorism. Surely, if you search for that kind of content you have an interest in watching it, and therefore won’t ask YouTube to take it down. Google needs to realise that YouTube isn’t a small forum run by a local jam-making society. It’s a massive media behemoth that – like the BBC or ITV…

WATCH OUT FOR… Star Trek-themed ransomware What’s the threat? Ransomware that boldly goes where many have gone before - locking your files then demanding money to decrypt them. What makes this one different is that it appears to be a tribute to the original Star Trek TV series rather than malware, although the effects are just as devastating. Called ‘Kirk’, it encrypts 625 file types, adding the extension ‘.kirked’. When completed it shows you an image of Captain Kirk and Mr Spock made out of computer code (see image). Like most ransomware Kirk demands payment in cryptocurrency, but instead of asking for Bitcoins, as is common, it’s thought to be the first to ask for Monero units. Created in 2014, this currency has rocketed in value since last August. Kirk…

How can I make visiting cards for our hospital? Q As a lay chaplain at our local hospital, I always need visiting cards when on duty. When I used Windows XP I had an excellent paid-for program for making these, but it doesn’t work now that I’ve upgraded to Windows 10. Can you recommend suitable tools, free or otherwise? Kevin Keeley A Nowadays there are so many free websites for creating greetings cards and flyers that traditional Desktop Publishing (DTP) software is all but redundant. The best of these web tools is Canva (www.canva.com), which is basically a design program in your browser. Choose from thousands of templates, then tweak the design and text (see screenshot). You can print your designs or save them using your free 1GB of storage.…

Regular readers will know we’re a tad sceptical about 3D printing as an everyday activity for ordinary folk who don’t enjoy paying through the nose for a ball of plastic string, then spending hours cleaning it off a blocked nozzle before printing a grotesque blob of green pizza cheese that was meant to be a tiny model of the Taj Mahal. It’s good value if you want to get started with 3D printing However, for 200 quid, here’s one that promises about as much simplicity as you’re ever going to get. The Minimaker is even styled in primary colours to convince everyone that it’s not scary. As an option, you might prefer the da Vinci Mini, which comes in a workmanlike plain orange finish and adds Wi-Fi connectivity (pictured right).…

Phone, keys, wallet… we all have a little mental list of things not to forget when we go out. The real challenge is making sure you still have them when you come back. It’s a toss-up which is the worst to misplace, now that the average phone is a gold-plated weapons-grade supercomputer with a price to match – but losing your wallet probably still ranks highest. Even if you don’t keep Arthur Daley quantities of cash about your person, the hassle of remembering which bank cards you have and ringing round them all, not to mention replacing all your loyalty and membership tokens, could really put a dent in your day. And unlike your phone, your wallet doesn’t have a tracking chip. Enter the Woolet. It has nothing to do…

Win 1 of 6 Lexar 633x 128GB microSD cards Winner of a ‘Great Pick’ award in Issue 497, Lexar’s 633x microSD card is one of the bestvalue models you can buy. In our tests it achieved a read speed of 78.1MB/s, and a write speed of 42.7MB/s, and is recommended by GoPro for its Hero4 and Hero5 action cameras. It’s available with a choice of a full-size SD card shell or a USB 3.0 adapter. To enter, email your address to cacomp@dennis.co.uk with ‘lexar’ in the subject line by midnight 25 April. The 633x comes in three sizes - 32GB (£14), 64GB (£25) and 128GB (£50) - and are available to buy from Amazon: www.snipca.com/23667. For more information on Lexar’s products visit www.lexar.com and follow @LexarMemory on Twitter.…

ANDROID & iOS Save Flipboard articles to read offline By default, news app Flipboard (Android www.snipca.com/23937; iOS www.snipca.com/23938) doesn’t let you save articles to read offline. However, it has a useful option that lets you save articles to your Pocket or Instapaper account. Once this is set up, you can read Flipboard articles offline using either of the two services. First, ensure you have the Pocket (Android www.snipca.com/23939; iOS www.snipca.com/23940) or Instapaper app (Android www.snipca.com/23941; iOS www.snipca.com/23942) installed on your device. We’ll show you how to link your Flipboard account to Pocket, (the process is exactly the same for Instapaper). The way to enable this feature does, however, vary on Android and iOS. On Android, open the Flipboard app, swipe left to access your account page, then tap the settings…

WINDOWS 10 Sync your wallpaper across multiple PCs If you have more than one Windows 10 PC, and you have a desktop wallpaper on one of them that you particularly like, there’s an easy way to sync this across all your other PCs. First, do the following on all your PCs. Open Settings, then click Accounts. If you log in using your Microsoft account, you’ll see your email address at the top (if you don’t, click ‘Sign in with a Microsoft account’ and log in using your Hotmail/ Outlook email address). Next, click the ‘Sync your settings’ on the left, then turn on the sliders below ‘Sync settings’ and ‘Theme’ (see screenshot below). To change your wallpaper, open Settings on any PC, click Personalization, then select your wallpaper using the…

Why won’t Kodi’s iPlayer add-on install? QI tried to install the iPlayer WWW add-on for Kodi (Issue 498, page 53), but it won’t install. Instead I see a message that says: ‘The dependency on inputstream.adaptive version 1.06’. What’s going on? Helen Timms AFor iPlayer WWW to work a particular setting has to be turned on. This is switched off when Kodi is installed on some PCs. To switch it on from Kodi’s main menu, click Add-ons, the box icon (top left), ‘My add-ons’, VideoPlayer InputStream, InputStream Adaptive, then click Enable at the bottom of the screen (see screenshot above right). iPlayer WWW should now install. Why is the Met Office add-on crashing in Kodi? QI followed the steps in your Kodi Cover Feature (Issue 498) and have added the Met…