Table of contents for Vol. 452 in Computeractive

Like an excited child before Christmas, I am now counting down the sleeps (47 as I write this) until Windows 10 is released on 29 July. It will, I think, come to be regarded as one of Microsoft’s best ever operating systems. But that doesn’t mean upgrading will be the right choice for everyone, even though it’s free for Windows 7 and 8 users. So over the next few months we’ll give you all the advice you need to make an informed decision, no matter what operating system you currently use (including Linux). In this issue, you can check if your existing software will be compatible with Windows 10 (page 57), and try its new tools without installing it (page 35). Whether or not you plan to upgrade, you should…

Tell us what’s on your mind Email: letters@computeractive.co.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/computeractive Twitter: @ComputerActive www.twitter.com/computeractive Sorry Amazon, I won’t spend £79 on Prime Further to your news article about Amazon doubling the free-delivery minimum order value, I believe Amazon are shooting themselves in the foot. I used to go straight to Amazon whenever I was looking to buy an item or two. But now I shop around on other sites for the best overall deals for items under £20. Like many other people I have received numerous cards through the post promoting Amazon’s 30-day free trial for Prime, but it’s of no interest to me. In fact, I use the cards for cleaning the frost off my car windscreen in winter. I most certainly will not consider paying £79 per annum for…

Have you been bombarded by cold-calling companies recently? If so, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) wants to hear from you. The data-protection regulator was given new powers in April to crack down on cold-calling companies. In order to take action the ICO no longer needs to prove that calls or texts had caused people “substantial damage or distress” (see ‘Question of the Fortnight’, Issue 445). This high burden of proof had meant many companies were able to slip through the net; over the past four years the ICO has only managed to successfully prosecute nine companies. These powers should make it easier for the ICO to hit companies with the maximum £500,000 fine, but it needs more cases to investigate. An ICO spokesman told us: “Initially there was a spike…

£72 driving licence con I needed to renew my driving licence, so looked online. Top of the search results was the website www.uklicenceservices.co.uk, which looks official. It says it “helps” you apply for a replacement. I answered all their questions, but towards the end I started to get suspicious, especially when it requested a payment of £72 by credit card. I deleted all my information and closed the site. I then went to the DVLA site (www.gov.uk/contactthe-dvla), and was given an 0300 number to ring. I gave my details, which the operator confirmed, then I paid only £20. Warn your fellow readers about scams at letters@computeractive.co.uk…

New products tested by our experts SMARTWATCH ❘ From £299 from www.snipca.com/16771 Apple is renowned for revolutionary products like the iPhone and iPad. This time it isn’t breaking new ground: other smartwatches exist, including the Pebble and products based on Google’s Android Wear. But the Apple Watch (not iWatch) has instantly become the most popular, but you can only use it if you also own an iPhone, to which it connects wirelessly. The 42mm face (from £339) feels average for a man’s or unisex watch, and the rounded edges make it easy to wear under a cuff. There’s a 38mm alternative, which costs slightly less (£299). Each size comes in three versions: Apple Watch Sport, (made of aluminium); Apple Watch (stainless steel); and Apple Watch Edition (solid gold from a…

E-READER ❘ £110 from www.snipca.com/16858 Back when Amazon was primarily a bookstore, it decided to sell electronic readers as well as the books to read on them. Its Kindle devices have remained the most popular, offering a paper-like matt display. But they have a number of competitors, and this could be the strongest yet for the Kindle Paperwhite. Both have a six-inch black-and-white touchscreen, but the Glo HD has about 50-per-cent more pixels. This makes text incredibly clear, even if you set the font size very small. You also get a much wider choice of fonts and sizes than on the Kindle, and what’s more you can set how bold and sharp you want the text. In fact, this even beats Amazon’s Voyage model. “The strongest rival yet to Amazon’s…

What you need: Windows 10 UX Pack 3.0; Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 Time required: 45 minutes In our lead Workshops in Issues 443 and 444, we showed you how to safely install and use the Windows 10 Technical Preview. If you aren’t able to install it for any reason or don’t want to, but still want a taste of how Windows 10 will look and feel, then you should install the free Windows 10 UX Pack. The latest version of this unofficial but completely safe program includes a new search bar, customisable Start menu and virtual Desktops – three elements that will be integral to Microsoft’s new operating system (out 29 July). STEP 1 Windows 10 UX Pack will not change any of your PC’s settings or modify any…

Pixelmator £3.99 iOS: www.snipca.com/16865 This powerful photo-editing app, which launched on iPads last year, is now available for iPhones. It lets you apply one-touch filter effects, blur and sharpen selected portions of an image, and even cut and paste objects from one image to another. If you’ve already bought the iPad app, then you can install this for free. Inbox by Gmail Free Android: www.snipca.com/16867 iOS: www.snipca.com/16868 Previously invite-only, Google’s emailmanaging app for Gmail is now available for everyone. A new feature is the ability to retrieve an email that you’ve sent by tapping the Undo button that appears. The app also lets you delay emails until a specified time or when you reach a particular place. CloudMesh Pro £1.49 Windows Phone: www.snipca.com/16869 This brilliant file manager lets you access…

OUTLOOK.COM Automatically send emails to specific folders As with its PC program counterpart, Outlook.com has a powerful ‘rules’ system that lets you set criteria that will automatically send certain emails you receive to specific folders. Criteria can include the sender’s name or specific words in the subject line. In our example, we’ll show you how to send all emails you receive from TripAdvisor containing the word ‘review’ in the subject line to a newly created folder. First, log into Outlook.com using your Outlook or Hotmail account. Click the ‘New folder’ link at the bottom of the left-hand pane, name the folder and press Enter. Next, open the folder, click the ‘make rules’ link at the top, then click New to start creating your rule. In the ‘Create rule’ window you’ll…

WHAT YOU CAN DO • Use built-in tools to discover your PC’s biggest junk files • Instantly see which folders and files take up the most space • Weed out pointless files and folders that Windows hides • Delete large files and folders quickly using easy Windows hacks Hard drives are getting bigger, but digital files are getting bigger faster. Two minutes of video shot on a budget smartphone equals around 200MB. Ten minutes is a gigabyte (GB). Save that 10-minute clip to your PC, create a couple of edited versions and an accidental duplicate or three, and suddenly your humble video has swallowed a tenth of your hard drive – far more space than you can free up every time you run CCleaner. The trouble with big files It’s…

Guest OS doesn’t respond to new CDs/DVDs If you’re using VirtualBox to run a guest operating system (OS), such as an older version of Windows, you may find it fails to recognise your optical (CD/DVD) drive. A quick Registry tweak should fix the problem. Back up the Registry first, by creating a system restore point. Then, in your guest OS, type regedit into Start and press Enter to open Registry Editor. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ System\CurrentControlSet\Services\ cdrom. Right-click AutoRun in the right-hand pane and choose Modify. Change the ‘Value data’ field to ‘1’ and then restart the guest OS. Unable to access BIOS settings VirtualBox doesn’t allow user access to the BIOS in the same way as a real PC, so tapping Delete or F2 when starting a virtual machine won’t…

1080p Of the common types of high-definition video, this is the best quality: 1920x1080 pixels. 802.11n A standard for wireless networks that allows for high transfer speeds. AMOLED Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode. An alternative technology to LCD for creating flat-panel displays. Most commonly used in smartphones, tablets and smartwatches. Audio loops A set musical pattern that repeats itself. Beta A version of software that’s being tested. Beta versions are often released so problems can be ironed out. BIOS Basic Input-Output System. Essential software built into every PC that connects the vital components. It’s visible for a few seconds when the PC starts. Bus channel A target channel you send audio content to in music recording software. A bus channel helps you add effects such as reverb. Cache A temporary space…

What happened? Thousands of Android users were targeted by a new wave of ransomware that uses a particularly cynical trick to torment victims. When the device is infected, it displays a fake message from the FBI saying you’ve broken the law by visiting “forbidden” pornographic websites (see screenshot). As a result, the message says, the device has been locked. It demands a ransom of $500 (about £330) to unlock it. To make the warning appear genuine, the ransomware adds screenshots of porn websites to your browsing history, making it look like you have visited them. Understandably, rather than pay, most people will try to unlock the device – but this is where the hackers add insult to injury. The ransomware detects any attempt to unlock the device, and responds by…

CLIPBOARD TOOL Clipboard Master 4.0 www.snipca.com/16927 What you need: Windows XP, Vista, 7 or 8/8.1 Windows’ default Clipboard tool is useful but seriously limited. It can only hold one clipping at a time, so as soon as you copy a new chunk of text, image or other item to it, your previous clipping is overwritten. This makes it all too easy to overwrite items accidentally by pressing Ctrl+C (copy) when you meant to press Ctrl+V (paste). In our ‘Use your PC as a Secretary’ feature (Issue 451), we showed you how to reduce clipboard-overwriting mishaps using the free tool ClipX (www.snipca.com/16928), which lets you access a list of clippings. The new version of Clipboard Master is even more useful than ClipX, because it lets you organise saved clippings into folders,…

PC ❘ £600 from www.snipca.com/16709 Laptops may be more popular, but a tower system is still the way to get the most capable PC for your money, and with room to upgrade parts later. The Palicomp Intel i5 Elite has an excellent specification for just £600. In fact, it’s surprising just how much you can get for this amount of money when the manufacturer has spent it wisely. This PC is based on Intel’s Core i5-4690K CPU chip, which you might expect to find in a computer costing well over £1,000. And Palicomp has made the most of it by overclocking it from 3.5GHz to 4.6GHz. This shouldn’t have any ill effect except using a little more power and generating more heat, which would be a problem in a laptop,…

Find out what other products we liked in 2014. Buy our Back Issue CD now: www.snipca.com/14981 LAPTOP Asus X555LA-XX290H £300 from www.snipca.com/16158 Tested: Issue 446 Asus has made all the right choices with this budget Windows 8.1 laptop. Its comfortable keyboard, fast performance, respectably lengthy battery life and bright screen are all the more impressive given its low price. ALTERNATIVE Asus Chromebook C200 A cheap Chrome OS ultra-portable laptop with a bright screen, lengthy battery life and a great keyboard. £199 from www.snipca.com/16705 PHONE Motorola Moto G 4G (second generation) £150 (without contract) from www.snipca.com/16160 Tested: Issue 436 Moto G 4G has been updated with a 5in screen, 4G and a microSD card slot. The 3G version has dual SIM slots. ALTERNATIVE: Apple iPhone 5s An excellent smartphone with a…

Handy hints and tips from your fellow readers Email us your tips: letters@computeractive.co.uk Download the program that turns YouTube into a TV Many moons ago, you featured the brilliant website www.pluto.tv that turns YouTube into an online TV (see Readers’ Tips, Issue 422). Pluto TV consists of handily categorised channels (such as News, Education, Sports, Kids and Art & Culture), each featuring more specific sections (such as Nature, Science and Space in the Education channel). Simply select the section you want and start watching a never-ending stream of related content. The other day, I was watching one of the News channels when the website prompted me to download its new free PC program. To download it, go to the website, click the download icon at thebottom left (middle of the…

AGES 0-5 Sago Mini Forest Flyer £2.29 www.snipca.com/16870 (iOS) In this fun game, your toddler needs to tap and drag Robin the bird through a number of obstacles in the forest. Whenever they see a yellow marker, they need to direct the bird to it, after which a short animated clip will play. After they finish you can ask them to describe the places and animals they saw on the screen. AGES 6–10 Word Academy Free www.snipca.com/16871 (Android) Free www.snipca.com/16872 (iOS) In this challenging word-search game, your child links adjoining letters in a grid to form words that correspond to the number of letters in the boxes below. As they improve, the levels of difficulty increase and there are hundreds of them to complete. You can buy ‘hint packs’ to…

Measure objects and distances in 3D The measurement tools in the standard version of Google Earth are limited to the planet’s two surface dimensions, but with Google Earth Pro (GEP, now free from www.snipca.com/16836) you can reach for the skies with a set of 3D rulers. First, enable 3D objects by ticking both the 3D Buildings and Terrain boxes in the Layers pane. Now find an object of interest, and orient the view ready for your measurement (see next tip for help with orientation). Next, open the Tools menu and choose Ruler, then select the ‘3D path’ tab. To measure height, for example, left-click once at the foot of a building or object and then left-click at the top. To measure a 3D area – such as the front of…

SYSTEM VOLUME INFORMATION What is it? This hidden folder contains your PC’s system restore data, including restore points. How big is it? About 10GB if your PC is new or recently wiped, but it can grow to 200GB or more as new restore points are saved and old ones aren’t deleted. Can I delete it? You can, by right-clicking it in TreeSize Free and clicking Delete, but you shouldn’t. Some of the files in System Volume Information are needed by your OS. However, you can and should delete old restore points, which are no longer useful and can take up several gigabytes each. HIBERNATION FILE (HIBERFIL.SYS) What is it? This file stores data about your PC’s current state, so you can go straight back to that state after using Hibernate…

STUART ANDREWS is Computeractive’s Mr Angry I’ll admit to a childish chuckle when I first saw the image that forced Google to suspend editing in its Map Maker tool (www.google.co.uk/mapmaker). There, on the outskirts of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, was the Android robot, cheerfully relieving itself on the Apple logo (see it at www.snipca.com/16631). While I’m no fan of mindless vandalism online, it’s the kind of thing that’s easily removed. It’s little more than the digital equivalent of the puerile images schoolboys used to scrawl with a compass on the underside of desks (apologies to Mr B at my old school whose portrait I unflatteringly captured). “I couldn’t help sniggering when someone edited Eric Pickles’ Wikipedia entry to suggest he’s an egg-headed Doctor Who alien” The other trigger for Google’s decision was…

Can I be billed for a non-existent internet service? Q I moved house in February, informing my ISP Fuel Broadband, and was told there’d be no problem transferring the service. But despite receiving various start dates in March, in April, I never got a new internet service, so I cancelled the contract. I’ve now received a bill for £27.68 for services provided in April. Do I have to pay? Dennis Allen A Fuel Broadband hasn’t provided any services to Dennis so he doesn’t have to pay this ISP a penny. We’ve advised him to contact the company again explaining this, and also to point out that because it failed to honour the contract it signed with him (to provide a broadband service at his new home from March), he’s within…

What’s the best calendar software with notification tools? Q Years ago I had a calendar program that put notifications on my Desktop when important events were coming up. Is anything like this available now, either free or paid-for? Many thanks. Malcolm Wheatley A The best calendar tools are free online, and the best examples are made by the biggest names in software: Microsoft’s Outlook.com Calendar (www.outlook.com; click the little grid of squares and then click Calendar) and Google Calendar (www.google.com/calendar). So if you have a Microsoft or Google account, you already have a brilliant calendar tool at your disposal. Both tools can easily be configured to send notifications to your Desktop and email, as well as to your tablet and phone. Google’s Help site explains how to create notifications (www.snipca.com/16933),…

PRINTER ❘ £112 from www.snipca.com/16909 This is a good idea from Brother: an A4-size colour multi-function printer that can take A3 sheets, twice the size, when you need bigger prints. It saves paying for a full A3 model and finding the extra desk space. The trick is that the print carriage matches the long side of A4 rather than the short side. Ordinary-sized paper goes into the front tray sideways, which takes a bit of getting used to. When you want to use A3, you feed it in from the back by hand, one sheet at a time. This means holding the paper up to the slot until the printer grabs it, supporting it by hand as it’s pulled into the printer, waiting for it to finish, then pressing a…

Win 1 of 2 Asus VivoMini UN42 mini PCs Powered by 4th-generation Intel processors, the Asus VivoMini UN42 PC won our five-star Buy It! award in Issue 451. It’s one of the best mini PCs we’ve ever tested. It’s affordable, very quiet (no noisy fan) and surprisingly easy to upgrade for such a small PC. To enter, email your address to cacomp@dennis.co.uk by midnight 7 July. The Asus VivoMini UN42 is available to buy now for £199.99 from PC World (www.snipca.com/16877). For more information visit www.asus.com/uk and follow Asus on Twitter (@ASUSUK).…

ANDROID Instantly search words or phrases in Chrome The Chrome mobile browser (www.snipca.com/16860) now lets you run a Google search for a word or phrase by simply tapping the word/phrase, then tapping the Google icon that appears below it. When you’re reading an article in Chrome and want to get more information about a word or its definition, simply tap it (on some websites, you’ll need to tap and hold it). Next, drag the sliders to select it, then tap the circular, blue Google icon at the bottom of your screen. The first time you do this, you’ll need to tap Allow. Now swipe up to see all the Google search results for your selected word/phrase with relevant links that you can tap to open. ANDROID Silence your phone for…

WINDOWS 7, 8, 8.1 Use an XP-style program switcher In every Windows OS since XP, pressing Alt+Tab has let you switch between open programs on your Desktop. Try it out by keeping the Alt key pressed, then repeatedly pressing the Tab key to move between your open programs. You’ll see these programs represented as tiles on a grid. Simply release the Alt key when you reach the tile of the program you want to use. If you ever used this shortcut in Windows XP, you’d have seen program icons instead of tiles. If you’re a former XP user who preferred this interface to the more recent tile-based grid, there’s an easy way to revert to it. Press the Windows key, type regedit.exe and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.…

What are they? Internet-connected toys that appear to come alive when children interact with them. It’s yet another idea from Google that sounds as mad as it does fun. The company applied for a patent for the concept in 2012 (www.snipca.com/16743), receiving approval in May. What do they do? Interpret the commands of children playing with them, and “express curiosity” through a series of actions, such as tilting and scratching their heads, as well as furrowing their brows. A camera and microphone would be installed in the head of the toy, picking up the gestures and voice of the child. Doesn’t that sound a bit creepy? Many people think so, with some comparing it to the psychotic doll Chucky in the Child’s Play horror films (www.snipca.com/16791). Security concerns have been…

Why won’t my digibox loop through when in standby? Q I recently bought a Humax HDR-2000T hard drivebased personal video recorder. I’ve set it up but found that the RF loop-through doesn’t work when the machine is in standby, though it works fine when switched on. In my experience, this is unusual behaviour for these types of digital boxes. Do you think this is a fault, or is it the way it’s designed to be used? It’s only a minor irritation that can be overcome by not using standby, but I use the RF loop-through to carry the incoming aerial feed to other equipment. Victor Attwood A This isn’t a fault but a design decision that Humax’s engineers evidently decided was a bad one, because the company has recently issued…