Table of contents for 550 in Computeractive

USB sticks are recent additions to that mysterious group of miscellaneous items that clutter up kitchen drawers (scientifically known as bits and bobs). They’ve joined paperclips, string, staples, bottle tops and keys for long-lost padlocks as things you can’t bear to throw away just in case they prove useful one day. In the case of USB sticks, that day is today. I’ve not rummaged through Jonathan Parkyn’s drawers, but I imagine they’re home to significantly fewer USBs than a month ago. In our Cover Feature, he explains 20 ingenious ways to use these sticks (or keys, flash drives, thumb drives, etc). Have a read, and you’ll be glad you never got round to binning them. Next issue: 1,000 amazing things to do with a paperclip. Number one: clip paper. Number…

If it feels unnerving that Microsoft can yank an update without asking your permission, it’s better than suffering endless restarts as your PC struggles to swallow something it can’t stomach. In the past, Microsoft used to explain these messages after they started appearing, so we’re pleased it’s giving users plenty of warning. As for the Windows 7 warnings, we’re sceptical that saying you don’t want to be notified again will mean nine months of silence. Given Microsoft’s past form, we think it’ll find another way to pester you.…

Telecoms watchdog Ofcom will examine whether the BBC runs too many irrelevant news stories on its website, after newspaper bosses criticised it for “chasing online traffic”. A study of what the BBC covers online was proposed by the Cairncross Review, published in February, which looked into how newspaper journalism could survive in the face of intense online competition (see ‘Question of the Fortnight’, Issue 548). It comes amid fears that the breadth of online news, from Google and Facebook as well as the BBC, will ultimately lead to the death of both local and national newspapers. Since 2007 a quarter of the UK’s local papers – about 320 – have closed. They’ve been unable to cope with both readers and advertisers moving online. Critics of the BBC say its news…

Phishing scams increased by 250 per cent in 2018 as criminals continued to devise more sophisticated methods of attack, Microsoft has said. Its annual Security Intelligence Report claims that scammers use “a varied infrastructure with multiple points of attack”, including domain spoofing and user impersonation (see box). However, malware overall fell by 34 per cent, and ransomware in particular by around 60 per cent, which Microsoft says was down to improved detection of the threat, and better awareness of such scams among users. As a result, hackers shifted their focus to cryptocurrency mining, in which they exploit a victim’s PC resources to make digital money. In total, Microsoft scanned over 470 billion emails every month during 2018 for malware and phishing.…

1Gbps in schools? Fine, but ban phones too Giving schools faster 1Gbps broadband will be productive only if they also ban children bringing in phones (News, Issue 549, page 6). Kids being kids, they’ll find ways to take advantage of the super-fast speeds. In my day, we sat at the back of the class flicking through comics. What’s to stop 21st-century pupils secretly watching hours of videos when the teacher isn’t looking, or taking countless selfies? Phones have already been banned in France. My daughter who lives near Paris says everyone thinks it’s a great idea. Why can’t we follow suit here? Mark Rudd Custom-built PCs save you money I wonder if you’ve ever considered doing a piece on companies who make PCs and laptops to certain specifications, rather than…

Can I sue Amazon for illegally signing me up to Prime? LEAD CASE Q At the end of February I found I’d been signed up for a free month’s trial for Amazon Prime. I went online to cancel, then told Amazon I would sue in the small claims court because it had acted illegally by signing me up without my permission. Amazon insisted that someone had used my account to access Prime Video. What should I do? David Tootell A We wouldn’t advise suing Amazon – David would need to prove negligence and/or emotional distress, which would be very difficult. The odds are stacked against him because he would have to demonstrate that Amazon signed him up specifically to defraud him, or that it incompetently handled his account. It would…

Automatically identify faces in photos Reader David Lawes recently emailed us with a good question: “Is there software that will analyse a known face, and then allow comparison with unknown faces?” He’s keen to compare photos of his grandparents in later life with those that may show them in younger years. In the past, we’d have recommended Family Tree Builder, the free program from MyHeritage.com. Sadly, the current version appears to have dropped the facial-recognition tool that let you quickly scan photos looking for similar faces to match. Download old favourite Picasa Programs offering facial recognition are surprisingly thin on the ground. To find what David needs, we’ve been forced to go back to a program that’s been discontinued – Google Picasa. The good news is that you can still…

www.snipca.com/31008 What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 DVDs might be going out of fashion, but most of us still have shelves full of our favourite films. If you want to make sense of your collection, EMDB does all the hard work for you. Simply enter the film’s title, click Search IMDb, then choose your film from the results. EMDB will then import the DVD cover, the year it was made, actors, genre and much more. You can also add your own fields, such as when you bought it and how many times you’ve watched it. Once you’ve added all your films, you can search your collection based on any data and even use it to keep track of DVDs you’ve lent to other people. Version 3.38 is the…

It might be bloated with features that I’ll never use and owned by a company that wants to track my every move, but I still like Microsoft Word. However, while I’ve got a copy of it on my work laptop, I’ve not been eligible for Microsoft’s student discount for many years, meaning I’d have to pay £120 for the downloadable Office suite (www.snipca.com/31003) to get it on each of my home PCs. Alternatively, I could sign up for an £60 annual Office 365 subscription (www.snipca.com/31005). But with the open-source LibreOffice Writer (www.libreoffice.org) offering almost everything Word provides (and a few things it doesn’t), why on earth would I do that? Writer’s interface may look a little dated, but at least I feel I’m the one in control. When Microsoft introduced…

In America, they have this thing called a Renaissance Faire. It’s basically a cross between a funfair and a farmer’s market, vaguely themed on Elizabethan England. Costumes and references may stray into other periods, random European countries, anything faintly olde-worlde, or the Lord of the Rings, but the essential element of a Renaissance Faire is that everything must be depicted not as it would have appeared in real life, but as a cheesy 1960s Hollywood film would have depicted it. “A much faster PC than we were seeing in this price bracket even a year ago” It’s impossible to see the Apollo S2’s tower case without being reminded of a knight’s helmet from a Renaissance Faire. With its intimidating combination of raven-black plastic, enigmatic grilles and heraldic diagonal styling, it…

Q I read with interest your article on SSDs (Issue 545, page 24). I have a Lenovo C440 all-in-one PC. Could you advise on the most suitable drive to upgrade it? Edd Webb A The C440 has only one drive bay, so you’d need to replace the 3.5in hard drive with a 2.5in SSD. Choose any compatible 2.5in drive, or specify the C440 when ordering from a company such as Crucial (www.snipca.com/30911), Mr Memory (www.snipca.com/30912) or Kingston (www.snipca.com/30913). You’ll also need a standard 2.5 to 3.5in bracket. First, install the SSD in an external 2.5/3.5in USB SATA drive caddy (under £20; try this: www.snipca.com/30931), then install Windows on it. Next, swap the SSD into the C440 and the hard drive into the caddy, where you can continue to use it.…

What was it? Launched in 1993, Apple’s Newton MessagePad (pictured) was the first ‘personal digital assistant’, a hand-held computer designed for organisational and communication tasks. The paperback-sized device had a black-and-white screen on which users entered text by writing with a stylus. Why did it die? Too small to replace a laptop, too big for most pockets, the Newton embodied exciting ideas but little practicality. Handwriting recognition initially worked badly and even after major improvements it didn’t catch on in the way tiny phone keyboards later would. Wireless communication was limited to another MessagePad less than a metre away. After five years and several models, the MessagePad was discontinued. But it helped to pave the way for touchscreen tablets and smartphones, not least by using chips from British manufacturer ARM,…

Windows 10’s next big update lands in April, with improved search, bug fixes and more. Fully patching your PC now reduces potential problems installing it, so follow the steps below to update your drivers. By default, Windows 10 only installs drivers with a digital signature. If this is a problem, try disabling this feature (see www.snipca.com/30854). Make a system restore point first to avoid any mishaps by pressing the Windows key and typing system restore. Pick the top result and click ‘System Restore…’ in the System Properties window. STEP 1 As a home user, you might not have come across Microsoft Update Catalog before. It’s a download service for network administrators, which allows them to retrieve updates for the machines they look after. They can roll them out across their…

AUDIO Increase video volume when streaming to TV Some of my MP4 videos have a low volume. When streaming, the TV’s volume needs to be increased considerably. This can result in a deafening blast if I forget to reduce the volume for broadcast viewing. I found a piece of software called Free Video Volume Booster (see screenshot), which overcomes this problem and allows a variable increase in MP4 volume. It’s easy to use and can be downloaded for free from www.snipca.com/30876. For a list of the developers’ other tools, visit www.dvdavitools.com/products. David Ward PODCASTS Listen to Sherlock Holmes and Goon Show podcasts Thanks for the superb Cover Feature in Issue 547 (‘Download the Web’s Best-kept Secrets’). However, the article is missing Fourble (https://fourble. co.uk/podcasts), which is an amazing source of free podcasts.…

ANDROID Write emails faster with Gmail’s sentence-completing tool Whether you love or hate the latest feature in Gmail’s Android app may depend on how you feel about predictive text and people who finish your sentences for you. Smart Compose (www.snipca.com/30949), which is enabled by default in the latest Gmail version (9.2.3 – www.snipca.com/30971), aims to free you from your fiddly keypad by auto-completing your emails. Its suggested words appear in grey, and you can add them to your message by swiping across them. For example, if you type How are you? Hope, it might suggest ‘you are well’ as the next words (see screenshot below left). We can see Smart Compose could be handy when you need to reply to an email at an inconvenient time, especially if it’s a fairly…

WINDOWS 10 Create shortcuts for text you copy often Copy Space is a useful free Windows 10 app that lets you save any text you type often (say, your address, email address, certain paragraphs in emails, and so on) to insert when you need it. You can then open the relevant app and instantly copy saved text and paste it into relevant websites or documents. To install the app, press the Windows key, type copy space, click the ‘Install app’ link to open the app in the Microsoft Store, then install and open it. In the window that opens, type the text you want to save in the field below, then click the yellow tick at the bottom right. Repeat this to add more text. Anything you add will appear in…

POWERPOINT Customise default animation effects in your slides You may already know how to insert charts into your slides then add PowerPoint’s default animation effects to them, but you can also customise these effects for more variety. For example, you can choose when the animation starts, prolong the animation, and even divide a chart into sections and make each section appear one after the other. To add a chart, click the Insert tab, Chart in the Illustrations section, select one of the options, then click OK. You can modify the chart’s design by clicking the Design tab at the top then choosing one of the options. By default, the chart will display as a whole when you move to its slide. However, there are ways to emphasise different sections of the…

Not so long ago, the ubiquitous USB stick was an essential piece of hardware. Physically more portable than an external hard drive or a recordable DVD, but offering generous capacities at low costs, these brilliantly flexible storage devices helped us perform vital tasks, such as backing up data, transporting files from between PCs, and more. These days, though, it’s easy to find yourself with a drawer full of the things, no longer serving any purpose other than to gather dust. You can blame that on the rise in mobile devices with their own built-in storage, and the simultaneous proliferation of free ‘cloud’ storage. Together, these factors have rendered the once all-conquering USB stick more or less redundant. But instead of tipping your drawer of flash memories into the bin, why…

No software is completely safe. Even if you’re running the latest programs and have up-to-date antivirus protection, you can still be vulnerable to security flaws that hackers discover before the software developers do. If you’re using software that’s been discontinued by the developer and is therefore no longer receiving any updates, it’s only ever going to get more unsafe as the years go by. Exactly how unsafe depends on the type of program and how you use it. Here, we give our verdict on eight popular old programs and operating systems, but if you’re running another one, there are a few things you can do to check how safe it is. Run a search for the software on CVE Details (www.cvedetails.com), which lists all known security flaws for a wide…

If you only discover your ISP is offering free internet security after you’ve paid for security software elsewhere, you may be able to secure a refund on the latter. McAfee, for example, will refund any purchase within 30 days. If you paid through an automatic renewal, this is extended to 60 days. Norton offers 60-day refunds on all purchases. Be warned that those dreaded loyalty taxes are rife in the world of security software. So when you renew or reach the end of a free trial, never settle for the full amount you’ve been quoted. Check how much the same package is being offered to new customers, then refuse to pay more than this. Stick to your guns and you should be offered a better deal.…

Email us your problem and we’ll try to help: noproblem@computeractive.co.uk Why is my Facebook account freezing? Q I have no idea what’s happened, but all of a sudden Facebook seems to hate me. When I scroll down my feed it soon locks up, so I can go no further. It used to be fine, but since around January this is now a daily experience. It’s very frustrating, as you can imagine. I use Chrome incidentally, and no other websites seem to be affected. I don’t remember it being a problem before the Windows 10 October Update, so perhaps that’s to blame? Anthony Hughes A We doubt this has anything to do with the latest Windows 10 update. Instead, this is almost certainly down to something saved in your web browser’s…

32bit/64bit A measure of how much data a PC can process at once. Most older computers are 32bit, more modern ones are 64bit. 3G/4G A set of technologies that delivers faster mobile broadband. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 5G The next (fifth) generation of mobile networks, to eventually supersede 4G. 802.11ac A standard for wireless networks that allows for much higher transfer speeds than 802.11n. Add-in Microsoft’s name for tools that can be added to Office software. Add-on A program that adds extra features to your browser. AMOLED Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode. An alternative technology to LCD for creating flat-panel displays. Bandwidth A measure of how much data can be transferred through a connection at one time. Beta A version of software that’s being tested.…

EDITORIAL Group Editor Daniel Booth Deputy Editor Will Stapley Production Editor Graham Brown Art Editor Katie Peat Contributors Adam Banks, Dinah Greek, Jane Hoskyn, Jonathan Parkyn, Nick Peers, Nik Rawlinson, Wayne Williams ADVERTISING Advertising Director Charlotte Milligan Advertising Manager Alexa Dracos MARKETING AND CIRCULATION Subscriptions Rachel Hare Marketing Production Manager Gemma Hills For subscription enquiries ring 0330 333 9493 PRODUCTION Group Production Manager Stephen Catherall Production Controller Sophie Griffin MANAGEMENT Managing Director John Garewal MD of Advertising Julian Lloyd-Evans Commercial and Retail Director David Barker CFO/COO Brett Reynolds Chief Executive James Tye Company Founder Felix Dennis BRAND USAGE AND REPRINTS Companies can obtain a licence to use approved quotations from articles, the Computeractive logo and Buy It! logo. Reprints of articles are also available. Please contact Ryan Chambers for more…

Google is doing Microsoft’s work for it by urging Windows 7 users to upgrade to Windows 10, after discovering a security flaw in the 10-year-old operating system. The company said it told Microsoft about the flaw on 27 February, before going public on 7 March (www.snipca.com/31010). It added that hackers could exploit the flaw, together with a separate bug found in Chrome, to remotely access computers. It released an update on 1 March to fix the Chrome flaw. Chrome updates are applied automatically, so check your version is 72.0.3626.121 or later – click the top-right menu button (three vertical dots), then About Google Chrome. Microsoft said it will release a Windows 7 fix “as soon as possible”.…

AMAZON ECHO ADDED TO INFLATION LIST Smart speakers such as the Amazon Echo (Alexa) and Google Home are so popular they’ve been added to the list of 700 products used to calculate inflation. The Office of National Statistics said the decision reflects “modern spending habits”. It has also added portable speakers, but removed Hi-fi systems. Envelopes are out too, as email and texting grows more popular. VIRGIN ROUTER UPDATES ‘BOOSTS SPEED’ Virgin Media has released firmware updates for its Hub 3.0 Wi-Fi routers (pictured) that it claims will boost your service. New features include band steering, which switches devices between 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz to maintain a strong signal. There’s a new app called Connect that lets you test your signal strength, while Virgin is also offering a Wi-Fi extender for…

The BBC and ITV are mad if it thinks people are going to pay £5 a month to watch a bunch of old shows on BritBox. The principle will put many people off: why should you have to pay twice for the same content? I was paying my Licence Fee when Fawlty Towers was first broadcast in the Seventies, so why should I have to pay extra to watch it again? Other viewers won’t bother simply because they either already have the programmes on DVD, or watch the many repeats on channels like Gold and Dave. I’ve recorded loads of series from both. Netflix produces amazing, thought-provoking TV from just £6 a month. I watch it every night. BritBox, by the sound of it, will charge almost the same amount…

This update concerns two recurring themes in recent Consumeractive cases: being ignored by Chinese sellers, and companies refusing to take responsibility for guaranteeing safe delivery of an item. Reader Andy Rook was struggling to get a refund from PayPal after shelves he bought on eBay were delivered by courier Yodel to the wrong address (see Issue 547). He asked the seller to look into it, but it didn’t respond (as is not uncommon for sellers in China). Next he tried PayPal, but it wanted proof from Yodel that the shelves went to a wrong address. Yodel refused, citing data privacy. None of this was Andy’s fault. It’s never down to the customer to chase a missing item; it’s the retailer’s duty. We reminded PayPal of this, pointing out that Andy…

I’m trying to find proof of an Irish marriage between my paternal grandmother (Annie Henderson, born in London) and grandfather (William Lyons). Can you help? Jim Lyons Jim gave us useful background detail, which helped locate Annie’s entries in the Irish 1901 and 1911 censuses (www.census.nationalarchives.ie). This revealed 1901 as a likely marriage date. A search in the Irish Marriages records at Find My Past showed Annie Henderson was married in 1901. The site automatically cross-referenced her entry with all eligible males, and sure enough William Lyons appeared as one of four matches. Armed with this information, Jim can now order a certificate from www.certificates.ie. Have a genealogy question for Nick? Email letters@computeractive.co.uk with ‘Grow Your Family Tree’ in the subject line.…

www.snipca.com/31011 What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 AnvilStudio is a superb music creation and editing tool for both virtuoso and budding musicians. You create your compositions by adding tracks for each instrument, then use the on-screen keyboard to play and record the notes, which appear on the score at the top of the screen as you play. You can also connect a MIDIcompatible instrument to your computer (such as an electronic keyboard) and AnvilStudio will record from it directly. Although AnvilStudio is free, some features cost extra - for example, if you want to print high-resolution scores, you’ll need to buy the Print Sheet add-on, which costs £30. New features include setting more precise tempos for your tracks (up to two decimal places) and support for high-contrast displays.…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: FileZilla Don’t you just hate it when something you’ve personally recommended ends up letting you down? For years, I’ve been praising FileZilla. It’s an FTP tool that lets you securely transfer files to and from online servers – essential if you’re running your own website, for example. Although it’s pretty old (it launched in 2001), FileZilla is safe, regularly updated, fast and relatively straightforward. And being open-source, it’s also free. But there’s a problem. I read online that FileZilla’s developer has started bundling junk into its installer. I tested it for myself and, sure enough, the program’s installer tried to trick me into installing several tools, including McAfee WebAdvisor, the browser Opera, and something called Search Offer from Microsoft’s Bing. The installer uses misleadingly worded…

As regular readers will know, the arrival of a new Moto G in the Computeractive office is something of a nail-biter. Launched by Motorola in 2013, shortly before the brand moved from Google to Lenovo, it was a great budget phone that kept getting better. Then other budget phones appeared, and the mighty G fell behind. Last year it rocketed back up the leaderboard with the G6 (see our review, Issue 530), and here’s the successor… costing 20 quid more. Sigh. That’s for the Moto G7. There’s also the Moto G7 Plus (£270), which has a better processor and camera; the G7 Power (£180), with lower specs but a bigger battery; or the G7 Play (£150), which also has lower specs and is smaller. Although we weren’t able to set…

Find out what other products we liked. Buy our new 2018 Back Issue CD: £15 from www.snipca.com/30307 LAPTOP HP Envy 13 £750 from www.snipca.com/29555 Tested Issue 539 The combination of an eighth-generation quad-core i5 chip and MX 150 graphics makes this an excellent all-round laptop, let down only by the poor colour reproduction of its Full HD touchscreen. Seven-hour battery life is adequate, and it’s nicely made. ALTERNATIVE Dell XPS 13 This premium laptop starts at £1,200, but the best deal is with the brand new quad-core i7-8550 and QHD touchscreen. £1,300 from www.snipca.com/26796 ANDROID TABLET Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 9.7 £428 from www.snipca.com/30707 Tested Issue 501 Now discounted and with a stylus included, this full-size HDR tablet is a better deal than the new Tab S4 (see Issue 540).…

I love learning new languages, so I listen to internet radio as a way of helping my comprehension. I find the foreign-language talk radio stations far easier to follow than foreign-language podcasts because they tend to have higher production values and usually fewer participants talking over one another. Do you listen to online radio stations? If so, please recommend one you think your fellow readers would enjoy. Please let us know: letters@computeractive.co.uk…

Windows System Restore The problem with System Restore is that it’s not very versatile. In particular, it can only be accessed once the computer has booted up. And what I use instead… Many years ago I learned from your brilliant magazine of a program called RollBack Rx, which takes ‘snapshots’ of your system either manually or on a schedule decided by you. It’s saved my bacon time and again. I use the paid-for ‘Professional’ version, which loads as the computer boots up and can be accessed even if Windows won’t load. In the past I would have had to call out a computer engineer to get me back into the system, as I’m an oldie with no technical knowledge. Now, I merely access RollBack from the boot-up screen, then choose…

AccessAble Free Android www.snipca.com/30937 iOS www.snipca.com/30938 If you’re in a wheelchair or less nimble than you used to be, take the worry out of planning trips by using this new app from www.accessable. co.uk (formerly DisabledGo). Search its huge database of UK locations and venues, and share your experiences. Super Scanner Free Android www.snipca.com/30993 Turn that messy pile of bills, letters and receipts into sharp, tidy PDF files with built-in OCR (optical character recognition), which converts to editable text. There’s also image-editing and batch-scanning tools. Sadly, this outstanding app was launched too late for Jane Hoskyn to take advantage (see page 74). Trackpad Free* Android www.snipca.com/30946 Tap tiny, hard-to-tap mobile browser links with ease, using this ingenious new open-source app. Scroll your screen to position the cursor (a mouse icon)…

Microsoft has released a new Chrome extension called Web Activities that lets you view your browsing history from any Windows 10 PC via Task View. This makes it possible to see websites you’ve browsed in Chrome recently by scrolling down your Windows timeline. To use these features, first click the Task View button on your taskbar (to the right of the search/Cortana bar – see screenshot) and scroll to the bottom of your timeline. If you see a ‘Sign in’ button, click it and log in using your Microsoft account details. To install Web Activities, open the browser, go to www.snipca.com/30850, click the blue ‘Add to Chrome’ button, then ‘Add extension’. You’ll see a message in your browser toolbar saying ‘Web Activities has been added to Chrome’. Click the extension…

Collect membership payments and donations through PayPal Cash is so 1990s. It’s dirty and, if you’re a small club that relies on it to settle dues and membership fees, counting and banking it is an administrative burden you could probably do without. Fortunately, there’s a simple solution, and it’s one your members will probably be comfortable using already: they can settle their debts using PayPal. With just a smartphone, tablet or laptop to hand, they can even pay at the door if they forget to send you their money in advance, so there won’t be any empty promises of “bringing it next week”. Although more often used to pay for eBay purchases, PayPal also lets your members send their fees direct from their bank account or linked debit or credit…

We’ve talked a lot about creating ‘bootable’ USB sticks in this feature, but you may find that your PC isn’t set up to boot to USB devices by default. If Windows just starts as normal whenever you try to boot to a USB stick, you’ll need to check your PC’s BIOS or UEFI settings to change the order in which your system checks for bootable devices so that USB gets priority over your internal hard drive. The method for accessing these settings varies from PC to PC. On newer ones, you can access the UEFI by opening Settings, then clicking ‘Update & Security’, Recovery, then ‘Restart now’ under ‘Advanced start-up’. When your PC restarts, click Troubleshoot, ‘Advanced options’, then UEFI Firmware Settings. On older PCs, you’ll usually need to tap…

Deprecated / Obsolete Software that is no longer in development. It may be removed or discontinued in the near future, but should still be safe to use until that time. Microsoft describes the Windows programs Paint and Snipping Tool as deprecated. Extended Support Used by Microsoft to describe software that won’t receive any new features, but will get security updates. For example, Windows 7’s five-year Extended Support phase will end on January 14, 2020, at which point all security updates will cease. Discontinued / End of Life / Unsupported Software that is no longer receiving any updates – security or otherwise. This software may continue to work normally, but any security flaws that are discovered won’t be fixed and may not even be reported.…

Q Having been forced to ‘upgrade’ to Windows 10, I am now without Microsoft Office. The new laptop came with Apache OpenOffice. However, I would like to know how this suite differs from LibreOffice, which seems to be mentioned much more frequently in Computeractive. Incidentally, I think you are the best computer magazine on the market! I don’t expect this query to be printed but any advice would be very much appreciated. Barry Simmons A Thanks for the compliment. Hopefully, this answer will be a nice surprise! We could actually summarise our answer by saying that, on the whole, there’s really not a lot of difference between these two suites – but that wouldn’t be very satisfying, would it? First, we should say that both differ significantly from the paid-for…

Patients at 1,000 GP practices across England can now use the new NHS app to book appointments, view their records and order repeat prescriptions, NHS England has claimed. It announced the milestone in early March, adding that it means 15 per cent of people in England can now access their GP’s services digitally. The app is on track to be “fully functional” in all practices by July, NHS England said, but some digital services are struggling to work with the app. This includes Babylon Health, whose ‘GP at hand’ app (www.gpathand.nhs.uk) is used by 40,000 patients. Dr Farah Jameel, head of IT at the General Practitioners Committee, said that because third-party apps like ‘GP at hand’ use different software to the NHS app, it wasn’t surprising they’ve had difficulties. However,…

Around 10 per cent of the population are still not using the internet and lack essential digital skills, according to a new report on the UK’s digital divide. The Office of National Statistics’ (ONS) survey of internet usage for 2018 classifies 5.3m people as “non-internet users” – described as those who have never been online, or haven’t used the web in the past three months. This is a slight drop from 2017 when 5.8m (11 per cent) didn’t use the internet. Northern Ireland is the region with most non-users (14.2 per cent); London has the fewest (seven per cent). As in previous years, over half of all adult non-users were aged over 75. Disabled people also make up a large proportion of non-users, at 56 per cent, much higher than…

You can now record video calls while chatting on the web version of Skype, but only if you use the tool on Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge on a Windows 10 PC. Microsoft has added video recording along with a range of other features, including high-definition calls and the option to search for messages (read more on Skype’s blog: www.snipca.com/30929). But none of these will be available on Firefox or Opera, or on any browser on a PC running Windows 7 or 8.1. If you try to use ‘Skype for Web’ (https://web.skype.com) on these platforms, you’ll be asked to download the desktop version instead (see screenshot), which has had these new tools since last year. Launched in 2015, the online version of Skype lets you chat to people without having…

Google Play Protect www.android.com/play-protect Google has a hard job keeping dangerous apps out of its Play Store for Android. Every day last year it scanned 50 billion apps to check for malware. It didn’t always succeed (see Protect Your Tech, Issue 544), so we’re pleased it has strengthened Android security by turning on Play Protect by default. This defends your phone and tablet against dodgy apps by warning you if you’re about to install one. To make sure it’s switched on, tap your device’s Google Play Store app, then tap Menu (three horizontal lines), Play Protect. If the slider is off, tap ‘Scan device for security threats’ so it turns blue. You should see a message confirming that it’s working (see screenshot above). Google has also added information to the…

I was interested to read Edmund Hobby’s letter in Issue 548 (‘Don’t force difficult tech on disabled people’). I am 85 years old, deaf (and so can’t use the phone), and confined to the house. I live in an area where there is no mobile signal and therefore no texting. The internet has been a saviour to people like me as I can order my groceries for delivery online, and email is my only contact with friends and family. Everything I need I can get online, and I do all my banking that way too. But now I have been hit with a bombshell as Tesco and Capital One have both notified me that in future when ordering online I will have to prove my identity by getting a code…

Early one recent Saturday morning the dreaded red light on my Vodafone router started flashing. I carried out all the usual checks without success. My call to Vodafone was answered immediately by an assistant called Ahmet. He carried out tests and identified an outage in my area. He added 50GB of data to my mobile phone to allow me internet coverage until the problem was fixed. This allowed me to use my mobile as a hotspot connection for my computer. Vodafone had the outage fixed by noon the same day. I got a call back checking all was well and to tell me that I could keep the extra data. Fantastic service! Can I add that I live in a rural town in Scotland and enjoy consistently high speed coverage…

SYSTEM TOOL Winaero Tweaker www.snipca.com/31001 What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 As much as we love the ability to tweak almost every aspect of Windows, its settings are scattered over multiple menus, making them hard to find. Winaero Tweaker simplifies things by bundling them together in a single menu. It’s not the only Windows tweaker available (see also Ultimate Windows Tweaker, www.snipca.com/31000), but it’s the most comprehensive and easiest to use. Winaero Tweaker has a simple design, with all available tweaks arranged in categories that are listed down the left-hand side. These include Appearance (change colours, animations, and so on), Behavior (disable tools such as Windows Timeline) and Boot (remove the Windows lock screen, change the lock-screen image, and so on). Scrolling through these to find what you…

How can I split audiobooks into smaller files? Q I enjoy listening to audiobooks on my computer, but often forget where I left off. Can you recommend software that splits my audiobooks into smaller, more manageable files? J C Wright A Instead of splitting your audiobooks, you could use the bookmarking feature in VLC (www.videolan.org). First, open your audiobook in VLC by pressing Ctrl+O. When you’re ready to create a bookmark, press Ctrl+B, click Create, then Close. You then need to save your audiobook as a playlist (otherwise your bookmarks will be lost when you close VLC). Press Ctrl+Y to do this. When you next want to listen to your audiobook, open the playlist you saved rather than the original file, then access your saved bookmarks by pressing Ctrl+B. If…

When will Facebook stop wantonly abusing people’s personal data? Among all the other revelations about the site, it’s easy to miss the recent discovery that Facebook’s two-factor authentication (2FA) potentially exposes your mobile phone numbers. In what seems to be an astonishing breach of trust – even for Facebook – its 2FA system, which is supposed to protect your account by adding an extra layer of security, actually compromises your privacy by allowing others to look you up using your mobile number. Worse, it’s not even possible to opt out. The setting can’t be disabled and the only thing you can do is limit exposure to your existing Facebook friends. As yet, Facebook has shown no signs of fixing this. We’ll let you know when it does. Until then, brace…

In the last couple of years we’ve talked a lot about mesh routers, like BT’s Whole Home Wi-Fi. These replace the single wireless router, which does its best to send signals all round your house, with a set of two to four boxes spread around. Mesh routers are pricey, though, at around £200 to £450, and they’re not always the best solution where you’re getting decent reception except for one tricky spot. There are two alternatives: repeaters and powerline adapters. A Wi-Fi repeater is like a router, but instead of connecting to your broadband via a cable, it connects to your existing Wi-Fi router, then passes on the data to and from nearer devices. The clever part is that it shows the same Wi-Fi network name and accepts the same…

What does it do? Cleans your teeth. Wise guy, huh? All right, Bluetooth toothbrushes – Bluetoothbrushes, as we’ve just decided to call them – not only clean your teeth but detect how well they’re doing it, reporting back to you through a smartphone app. Why would I want it? Although an electric toothbrush’s motor does the work of rotating or oscillating the brush head, it’s still the responsibility of the user to navigate it around their mouth. A smart brush like the Philips Sonicare FlexCare Platinum Connected (around £130, discounted from £270, pictured) or Oral-B’s Genius X (coming this summer) has sensors in the handle that detect where and how hard you’re brushing, so the app can warn you where you missed a bit or if you’re damaging your gums…

After comprehensive testing, we can report that if you try hard, you can eventually stop calling this the Fobo Korma. Kobo deserves some respect for being the last significant rival to Amazon in the market for e-readers, no doubt helped by the fact its parent company, Rakuten, is an online shopping giant in its own right. The Forma looks strikingly similar to the top-end Kindle Oasis (£230 from www.snipca.com/26084, see our review, Issue 515), with narrow borders on three sides of its IPX8 waterproof black plastic case and a wider area on the fourth, so you can hold it without covering up any text. It has an 8in screen compared with the Oasis’ 7in, though, and the rubbery finish, rounded shape and angled grip panel feel better in use. “Not…

Lioncast’s exceptional new LX60 headset adapts flexibly to any head shape, helped by the Ultra Comfort headband, which guarantees the best wearing comfort in every situation. The flexible Ear Cup and Memory Foam suspensions also provide ultracomfortable support whatever you use the headphones for – and no matter how long you wear them. Lights tell you whether your microphone is active or muted. Two 60mm neodymium drivers and a built-in USB sound card guarantee a powerful, sophisticated sound across multiple devices (PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Mac, laptops, tablets and smartphones). It’s perfect for gamers who want to immerse themselves in the experience, or for audiophiles who want the best sound possible. To enter this competition, email your address to cacomp@dennis.co.uk with ‘LX60’ in the subject line by midnight…

I have just read Will Stapley’s Cover Feature in Issue 548 about persuading your ISP to send you a faster router for free. This is of interest to me because I have just received a new BT Smart Hub 2 (pictured) for switching to BT’s Superfast Fibre Plus package. The router performs very well and the single mesh Wi-Fi disc that I received with it gives me a huge boost in signal strength at my desktop PC which is, of necessity, a fair distance away. However, the new router has one serious drawback: it is no longer possible to give the 2.4 and 5GHz networks unique SSIDs (BT confirms this on its website: www.snipca.com/30879). If you change one, the router automatically changes the other to match. When you ask Windows…

Microsoft Surface Go (£600 from Amazon www.snipca.com/29108) I’m quite an active 70-something, and need access to my Office files as I travel around the UK. In the past I’ve always struggled to find the right balance of portability and functionality. Laptops were either fast but too heavy, or light and too slow. That’s no longer the case. I bought the Microsoft Surface Go earlier this year, encouraged by your ‘Great Pick’ review in Issue 537 (page 23). After a word with my bank manager (aka the wife), I splashed out £600 on the version that gives you 8GB, and a 128GB SSD. Every time it boots in seconds and opens files smoothly. I’m grateful I made this decision. Some of my techy friends said I should’ve bought a Chromebook instead,…

PictureThis Free* Android www.snipca.com/30941 iOS www.snipca.com/30942 Snap a plant using this new app, and it will use artificial intelligence and a 30,000-strong database to tell you what it is. You only get seven IDs free unless you upgrade to the Premium version, which costs $1.99 (£1.52) per month after a seven-day trial. Best For: A walk in the woods Gardroid Free* Android www.snipca.com/30945 Go self-sufficient and grow your own fruit and veg with the help of this new kitchen garden companion. It offers monthly tips on what to plant now, and includes tools for planning your crops, tracking their progress and setting harvesting alerts. Best For: Cultivating classy carrots GardenTags Free* Android www.snipca.com/30943 iOS www.snipca.com/30944 Many of us do gardening to get away from people, but if you’re more sociable…

Using a simple formula, there’s an easy way to find out the percentage change between cells in two adjacent columns in both Microsoft Excel and LibreOffice Calc. In our example, we have data for 2017 and 2018 in columns B and C respectively. Our formula will calculate the percentage change and display it in column D. First, you need to calculate the percentage change from cell B2 to C2. After you’ve done that, you simply apply the same formula down column D. To do this, select cell D2, click inside the Function field at the top, type =(B2-C2)/B2 (see screenshot), then press Enter. You’ll see 0.3 inside cell D2. To convert this to a percentage, click the Percentage symbol in the Number section of the Home tab in Excel. In…

What is it? An arithmetic calculator program, introduced with Windows 1.0 in 1985 and included in every version since. A scientific mode was added in Windows 3.0 (1990), followed by tools for statistics and converting units in Windows 7.0 (2009). It hasn’t been significantly improved since, though that may soon change. How so? Microsoft recently made Calculator open source, meaning anyone can see the code it was built with, and use this to tweak it and add new tools. Developers will also be able to build Calculator into their own apps and software, and fix flaws. Calculator’s code – all 35,000 lines of it – is now available on GitHub (https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator). What’s GitHub? An online community of 31 million developers who work together on software projects. Microsoft bought it last…

Before you give (or throw) away any unwanted USB sticks, be aware that – like hard drives – it may still be possible to recover files from them, even if you’ve erased all the data they contain. We therefore recommend using a file-shredding tool, such as the recently updated Alternative File Shredder (free from www.snipca.com/30936, pictured) to securely wipe your USB sticks clean before disposing of them. Plug the drive in, then fire up Alternative File Shredder and click ‘Add folder’. Navigate to your stick, then click ‘Shred files’, ‘Yes to all’. Then, when it’s done, click ‘Shred free space’. If you’re still concerned about sensitive files falling into the wrong hands, a heavy mallet and some protective eyewear might be your next stop.…

BT All BT Broadband packages come with the company’s free Virus Protect security software, which is a rebranded McAfee suite. If you have one of BT’s Essential or Fibre packages, you can install the software on up to two devices (Windows PCs, Macs, Android and iOS phones and tablets); Fibre 2 and Fibre Plus customers can install the software on up to 15 devices. Virus Protect will remain active for as long as you’re a BT Broadband customer. Additionally, you get McAfee TrueKey password manager on up to five devices, which would otherwise cost £19.99 per year each. Non-BT customers should consider LastPass (www.lastpass.com) – a free alternative that works on an unlimited number of devices. Depending on which package you have, you also get between 10GB and 1,000GB of…

How do I run Alfred? Q As suggested in Issue 548’s ‘Beat the Burglars’ feature (page 60) I decided to turn my old iPhone 3GS phone into a security camera. However, the recommended Alfred app (www.snipca.com/30573) doesn’t appear to be compatible. My phone runs iOS 6.1.6, but Alfred requires iOS 8.0 or later. Is there a workaround, or must my old phone return to gathering dust? John Watkin A Alfred is designed and marketed as a way to turn old smartphones into security cameras. However, it doesn’t actually work with really old phones, so your confusion is understandable. There’s no fix, unless Alfred’s developer decides to support older versions of iOS, but that seems unlikely. As you say, Alfred requires an iPhone with at least iOS 8.0. The oldest iPhone…

Create a paper-digitising workflow Paper is heaven (especially when made into magazines) but paperwork is hell. Over the years I’ve managed my paper mountain by shoving it into a filing cabinet, whose folder names have long since ceased to be useful (‘Phone’, ‘Bank’, the inevitable ‘Misc’). E-bills and digital prescriptions have made life tidier, but recently I’ve been forced back to the filing cabinet by a profession wedded to paper: solicitors. The conveyancing community, currently injecting daily torture into my efforts to move house, is like one of those rainforest tribes that carry on oblivious to the internal combustion engine. Solicitors throw (our) money at conveyancing websites that don’t work. They create company logos of such gigabytitude that they crash your email inbox. And they circulate documents via email and…