TechLife March 2021

All work and no play makes Homer – and most of us – go a little crazy, so finding ways to do the maximum amount of work in the minimum amount of time is an important skill. And in the age of COVID, it’s even more so, especially if you’re now part of the cohort of newly-minted work-from-home types. Like me! Time was, if you needed some advice on how to do something a bit tricky in Word or Excel, you could ask the office expert, but in an office of one that’s a little harder. So it’s a great opportunity to brush up on what makes Office and Windows tick. There’s a lot more, of course. We help solve some common Mac problems, and we gaze into our crystal ball to get…

Deep clean Windows Make sure everything’s spic-and-span with Ascomp Cleaning Suite. Full version after registration. If your system boots up more and more slowly, then it is high time for a thorough system clean! But what data can be deleted without risk, or is still needed for smooth system and program operation? Cleaning Suite has the answer! A total of six helpers analyse your system and enable deep cleaning operations. For example, you can delete temporary files, clean browser histories, caches, and cookies from all popular Internet browsers, and prevent installed applications and tools from starting automatically at system startup. Download link: www.techlife.net/exclusives Streamline your boot Eliminate unwanted startup processes with Abelssoft StartupStar Full version worth $33 StartUpStar eliminates startup irritants! It’s an almost universal problem on Windows PCs – unneeded programs that run on startup, adding extraneous…

$TBC, www.lenovo.com/au/en/pc The Lenovo Yoga 9i comes in strong at the tail end of 2020 as one of the best laptops of the year, giving us an early look at what Intel Evo is capable of while keeping things stylish and functional. Though it’s a bit on the pricey side – especially with higher-end specs – it’s hard to argue that the extra expense is pretty justified given the price. The Lenovo Yoga 9i is available now in the US and UK, with an Australian release coming soon but no specific date is set at this time. It’s hard to argue with the design of the Yoga 9i, which is definitely one of the most stylish laptops we’ve seen this year, battling it out with the Dell XPS 13 (2020) and Dell…

Microsoft has confirmed some important changes to how it processes voice recordings. From now on, users of the company’s voice-enabled services like Cortana can decide whether their audio recordings are stored and analysed by the company to improve speech recognition or not. “If customers choose to opt-in, people may review these voice clips to improve the performance of Microsoft’s artificial intelligence systems across a diversity of people, speaking styles, accents, dialects, and acoustic environments,” John Roach, Microsoft’s Executive Architect of Digital Transformation Services, explained. “The goal is to make Microsoft’s speech recognition technologies more inclusive by making them easier and more natural to interact with… Customers who do not choose to contribute their voice clips for review by people will still be able to use all of Microsoft’s voice-enabled products and…

If you have a new Samsung TV, as well as a PS5 game console, you may have noticed some issues trying to get the best out of your hardware. Have no fear, however, as the problem is set to be resolved by a PS5 firmware update in March 2021. The PS5-specific issue seems to have prevented players from getting HDR onscreen as well as 4K/120Hz play, forcing anyone playing on a Samsung TV to pick one option over the other. This will only have affected a limited number of gamers, of course, given that few PS5 games support 4K/120Hz currently, and only Samsung TV owners will have had the issue. Still, it’s a teething pain that we’re sure people will be glad to see resolved. As reported by Forbes, the fix was confirmed…

Kids being walking germ-spreaders is enough of a problem at the best of times, let alone during a global pandemic. Classrooms have become major sticking points for governments aiming to limit the spread of Covid-19, but Acer has done its best to alleviate some of those concerns with the arrival of its new Chromebooks for education. Five new models are entering schools in the next few months, and those with touch displays – dubbed “Spin” devices with near-360 degree hinges for flexibility – will be fronted by antimicrobial Gorilla Glass and come equipped with a bacteria-resistant coating for the keyboard, touchpad, and palm-rest surfaces. Acer has made no bold claims regarding the effectiveness of the coating, but antimicrobial wipes, gels and surfaces are typically repellent against most common viruses, Covid-19 now being…