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Which of the three Rs interested you most at school? You won’t be surprised to learn mine was writing. I like to think that my journey to becoming editor of Computeractive began with my early stories about alien robots invading my home town of Canterbury. Forty years on, and I find myself editing a Cover Feature on the four Rs that help you make Windows run like new. They’ve all come to my aid at different times. I refresh my computer at least once a week, relishing the opportunity to expose (and then remove) the programs that make my PC boot slowly. Restoring has rescued me many times, particularly when an update has given my computer the collywobbles (a technical term). Resetting is more drastic, something I’ve performed only a…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: Free YouTube Downloader YouTube is trying to get us to pay for stuff again – this time via its Music Premium service (https://music.youtube.com), which launched last month in the UK, US and Canada, with prices starting at £9.99 per month. As well as removing adverts, it lets you download content to play offline. If you’re thinking there are loads of tools that let you download YouTube videos for free – well, yes there are. But not only do tools like these contravene YouTube’s official terms of service (www.snipca.com/28215), many also come with their own hidden costs – in the shape of PUPs, adverts and other junk – and using them can pulverise your PC’s performance. Take Free YouTube Downloader (https://youtubedownloader.com), for example. A new version…

Can Royal Mail refuse refund for lost item? Q In February, I posted an iPod Touch back to the eBay seller I’d bought it from. This seller refused to accept the parcel but instead of returning it to me, Royal Mail lost it. However, it has refused to give me any compensation because of the service it says I used. Is this right? Alan Smith A Before we can answer, we need clarification from Alan about the postal service used. There’s some confusion because Alan says he paid for the return, while Royal Mail says he used a pre-paid returns label. If Alan paid then Royal Mail owes him compensation – how much depends on whether he paid for additional insurance. But if the eBay seller paid for the return,…

WATCH OUT FOR… Windows 10 hacks via Cortana What’s the threat? Hackers can use Windows 10’s voice-activated assistant Cortana to penetrate your computer. That’s according to security researchers at McAfee, who said they found a flaw in the operating system that let them launch Cortana from the lock screen, which is supposed to block access without a password. In its blog post (www.snipca.com/28193), McAfee explained how it summoned Cortana by typing any key as the voice assistant listened to a spoken query. This meant researchers could control Cortana without logging in, letting them search files and programs, and change passwords (a hacker could do this to lock you out of your computer). In some cases they could read previews of what the files contained. Even worse, they could use Cortana…

What can I use to print Avery labels? Q Can you recommend reliable software for creating Avery labels to a subscriber aged 78 who’s not very experienced with computers? Bob Wydell A We feel your pain, Bob - label printing can be an infuriating exercise in trial and error, no matter what your level of technical expertise. To avoid wasting lots of labels before getting it right, we recommend using Avery’s excellent Design & Print tool. To start, launch the tool online at www.snipca.com/28157, then enter the code for the Avery labels you’re using. You’ll find this on the front of the label’s packaging (something like J4722). You don’t say which labels you’re creating, but if you have a list of names and addresses in a spreadsheet ready for envelope…

At a time when we’re giving up plastic drinking straws, it’s scandalous that the disposable cartridges for inkjet printers contain as little as half a teaspoon of ink. That’s to make the unit price low enough for us to feel like we can afford it, while maintaining a price per litre higher than upmarket perfume. The profits subsidise the printers. Ink-tank models print pages the same way, but are refilled from bottles (see image). This doesn’t inherently save money – the price of ink has little to do with the actual cost of anything – but manufacturers choose to set a lower price for bottled ink and charge more for the printers. Those who print multipage documents every day will save money over the life of the printer. For occasional…

PHONE | £469 from OnePlus www.snipca.com/28150 We usually think of competition in the consumer-technology market as a race, but OnePlus has turned it into something more like whack-a-mole. Each year, all the major phone brands fill the shops with their new top-end models at 700-odd quid, and then along comes this direct-selling independent manufacturer, based in China’s Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, and announces something of very similar quality for under £500. And yes, they’ve done it again. “Its price tag may be mid-range, but its specs are high-end” What must make this all the more galling for rivals is that OnePlus don’t even copy other people’s designs. Their hardware is as distinctive as more expensive phones. This time you get a huge 6.3in screen, bigger and taller than the iPhone…

Find out what other products we liked. Buy our new 2017 Back Issue CD: £15 from www.snipca.com/26848 LAPTOP Asus Zen Book UX410UA £590 from www.snipca.com/26789 Tested: Issue 518 With a dual-core Intel i3 processor, 4GB of memory and 128GB SSD, this slim aluminium 14in has just enough power to make Windows 10 feel smooth – and unlike Asus’s cheaper models it has a very good Full HD screen. ALTERNATIVE: Dell XPS 13 This premium laptop starts at £1,149, but the best deal is with the brand new quad-core i7-8550 and QHD touchscreen. £1,200 from www.snipca.com/26796 DESKTOP PC Mesh Ryzen Gaming PCCS £600 from www.snipca.com/27705 Tested: Issue 528 With a six-core Ryzen 5 1600 processor and 4GB GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card, this is a brilliant all-round desktop PC for…

TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Listen to radio stations using VLC My friend noticed me switching to different radio station websites and he asked me why I didn’t use TuneIn Radio (www.tunein.com), a free online service that lets you listen to radio stations. He even showed me how to add the useful TuneIn Radio plug-in to VLC media player (www.videolan.org), so that I could access all the radio stations within VLC. To do this, go to www.snipca.com/28234, click the Download dropdown menu on the right, then click the ‘master.zip’ file to download it. Open this downloaded file, click the Extract tab in File Explorer, click ‘Extract all’, then Extract. Now open this extracted folder to see its files. Next, open another File Explorer window and go to the following PC location:…

AGES 0-5 Starfall ABCs Free www.snipca.com/28139 (Android) Free www.snipca.com/28140 (iOS) This game will teach your youngster how to write and pronounce letters. They will then progress to spelling simple words and constructing sentences. Each activity is followed by mini games that will help reinforce what they have learned. AGES 6-10 Helix Jump* Free www.snipca.com/28141 (Android) You can play Helix Jump with one hand because it involves simply swiping left or right to guide a bouncing ball through the labyrinthine tower. Timing is crucial and the game speeds up as you progress through the various levels. AGES 11-16 Reigns: Her Majesty £2.79 www.snipca.com/28143 (Android) £2.99 www.snipca.com/28144 (iOS) In Reigns, you play as a benevolent monarch making decisions that aim to thwart those who are out to depose you. There are four…

A smooth-running Windows installation just makes everything better. Your computer starts in a flash, programs load quickly and crashes are few and far between. If this sounds more dreamland than reality, it’s time to do something about it. The good news is that you don’t need any advanced technical expertise, and while some options demand a bit of your time, there are things you can do in just a few minutes to revitalise a tired-out Windows. In some cases, only a complete reinstallation of Windows will get it running like new. But Microsoft has a few useful tricks, including the ability to get the best of both worlds: a fresh Windows install, but with your user settings and personal files left intact. In this feature, we’ll look at the four…

While bugs affecting how Microsoft programs operate often have DIY workarounds, it’s not quite so easy to fix security flaws yourself. In an attempt to explain its thought process behind fixing security bugs, Microsoft recently issued a draft document entitled Microsoft Security Servicing Commitments. In this, the company details the criteria it uses to determine whether a bug will be repaired and how soon. It states that a bug will be fixed via a monthly or emergency security update if it both “violates a promise” Microsoft has made related to security and “meets the bar” in terms of severity. If the bug meets only one of the criteria, it’s likely the fix won’t arrive until the next version update. If neither criteria are met, the bug may never be fixed.…

Q I was interested in your reply to David Nunn, in Issue 527’s Problems Solved pages. Mr Nunn wanted to get copies of his late partner’s voicemails onto his PC. I would like to do much the same, in order to save some voicemails that I’d like to keep in perpetuity. I’ve followed your answer to Mr Nunn but I see no option to tap a voicemail. In fact, I’ve never seen such an option: I tap a button and then my iPhone calls a number, and then I have to tap numbers on the keypad to listen to voice messages. Was your advice wrong or for a different type of phone? Dave Smythe A Our advice wasn’t wrong, but the method described relies on a feature called Visual Voicemail.…

10bit HDR High Dynamic Range means better contrast, greater brightness and more colours. 10bit can store more images than 8bit. 32bit/64bit A measure of how much information a computer can process at once. Most older computers are 32bit, more modern ones are 64bit>. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 802.11ac A standard for wireless networks that allows for much higher transfer speeds than 802.11n. Action camera A digital camera designed to record action while attached to a person’s body or equipment, such as a helmet. AMOLED Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode. An alternative technology to LCD for creating flat-panel screens. Aperture An opening that controls the amount of light entering a camera lens. Bandwidth A measure of how much information can be transferred through a connection. Beta…

Reader’s 85 per cent refund after catching Argos on a good day While we have strong consumer-rights laws in the UK, one obstacle shoppers face is proving a product is inherently faulty. Once six months have passed from purchase, this is the shopper’s responsibility, and can involve an expensive examination of the product. Before this deadline, the retailer has to prove it isn’t faulty. Computeractive reader Malcolm Haswell (see Issue 528) faced this hassle with a Garmin fitness watch he’d bought from Argos for £189.99 in December 2016. It stopped charging within six months of purchase, so Garmin sent him a new USB cable under its warranty. But when the problem reappeared months after the warranty ended, Garmin wanted to charge Malcolm £100 to replace the watch. However, if Malcolm…

What does it do? In iOS 12, the upcoming software for iPhones and iPads, improvements to the Siri voice assistant focus on actively suggesting things it could do to help you, rather than waiting for you to give a command. Other companies developing virtual assistants also want them to be more proactive, using machine learning to analyse your activity and offer help. Why would I want it? When PCs arrived in the early 1980s, they had a fixed list of functions. Over time this got a lot longer, but the model never really changed. Now that we can ask assistants questions, a logical next step is for them to suggest without prompting what else they could do. It makes even more sense when they can analyse our data. For example,…

SMART SPEAKER | £117 from Amazon www.snipca.com/28225 Bigger than the Amazon Echo, which it competes with, this fabric-covered Alexa smart speaker has a distinctive shape and places the obligatory LED ring on the front rather than the top, so you’ll be able to see it better if you put the unit on a shelf rather than a sideboard or kitchen counter. Turning the ring adjusts the volume, although the light merely flashes to show it’s responding, rather than dimming or brightening to reflect the level, which would have been helpful. As well as a button to mute the microphones when you feel like chatting without broadcasting your thoughts to a server somewhere in the US, there’s another to switch between smart speaker operation and audio input via Bluetooth or a…

ACTION CAMERA | £100 from Argos www.snipca.com/28229 A 4K action camera for 100 quid sounds like a great deal, especially when the GoPro Hero Session – the leading brand’s cheapest 4K model – costs £50 more and has a tiny black-and-white screen, while the Vision 4K has a colour display. To see if it’s really such a great buy, however, you have to look closer. Video shot in 4K is incredibly sharp, but it’s not the main thing you want from action footage. That’s just as well, because the Vision 4K doesn’t actually shoot 4K. It shoots one-third fewer pixels than that, and upsamples them. If that was what 4K meant, every digital camera could be ‘4K’! As we’ve said, however, 4K isn’t a priority in this type of camera,…

This bundle of powerful multimedia tools gives you fast, precise editing, incredible special effects, audio mastering, music creation and more. You can perfect your productions using 30 premium-quality project templates, boost your video quality with sophisticated film-style plug-ins from BorisFX, and compose your own music with Music Maker. The Suite also comes with 13 excellent plugins from HitFilm, experts in special effects. Once you’ve finished your video, you can share it in all the popular formats. Upload it to YouTube and Facebook, or burn it to disc. To enter the competition, email your address to cacomp@dennis.co.uk with ‘vegas’ in the subject line by midnight 17 July. VEGAS Movie Studio 15 Suite is available to buy now from www.vegascreativesoftware.com priced £99.99. There are also Standard (£39.99) and Platinum (£59.99) versions available.…

ANDROID Stop apps accessing personal info when they don’t need to Whenever you open an app for the first time, you’ll see a range of permission requests (for example, Facebook will ask to use your location, camera and microphone). Without thinking, many of us tap Accept to these requests for what is – after all – fairly sensitive data. From time to time, it’s a good idea to check which permissions apps have been granted that they don’t really need, and revoke these. Thankfully, this is fairly easy to do on both Android and iOS. On Android, open Settings, tap ‘Apps & notifications’, then ‘App permissions’ (or Permissions). You’ll see permissions listed for, among others, Calendar, Contacts, Camera, Location, Microphone and SMS. Select one to see all the apps that…

WINDOWS 10 Add subtitles to your favourite films and TV shows If you like to watch foreign-language films and TV shows on your PC or you’re a little hard of hearing, there’s an easy way to download free subtitles and add them to your videos using Windows 10’s default Movies & TV app. Websites like www.subscene.com, www.opensubtitles.org and www.tvsubtitles.net let you search for and download film and TV subtitles. In some cases, you may need to extract the relevant subtitle file using a file-compression program (we recommend PeaZip - www.peazip.org). Double-click the video file to open it in the default Movies & TV app. Next, click the speech-bubble icon (see screenshot below), ‘Choose subtitle file’, navigate to the downloaded (and if necessary, extracted) subtitle file, select it, then click Open.…

Perform faster searches Windows Search Indexer aims to do for your computer what Google does for the internet: make it searchable. It powers the search function in File Explorer and the Start menu, and when operating well it works a charm. Sadly, it’s not always this way, with searches sometimes sluggish and inaccurate. You can improve search performance by telling Windows Search Indexer to ignore folders or drives that you don’t want to include, meaning they won’t appear in search results. Click Start, type indexing options, then press Enter. You’ll see the current indexed folders listed under Included Locations. To change these, click Modify. Browse through the folders (click the small arrows to expand them), ticking or clearing the relevant boxes to include/exclude. By removing locations, you’ll speed up searches…

Microsoft seems to have got itself in a bit of a muddle with Windows 10’s reset tools. It’s always good to provide options, but when the difference between them is unclear it just creates confusion. We tried the Reset and Fresh Start methods on the same computer, and both had very similar results. The only noticeable difference was the time taken: Reset took 45 minutes; Fresh Start just over an hour, presumably due to the latter jumping online to download the latest version of Windows. Exactly how they compare on your computer will depend on the version of Windows included in your recovery partition and the speed of your internet connection. Since Fresh Start automatically downloads the latest release of Windows 10, we’d recommend that over the Reset alternative. Why…

When you need to make a mobile-phone call, which bit of the house do you head for? Downstairs loo? Hanging out the kitchen window? Or the back of the garden, where you stand shouting, “Sorry you’re breaking up”? If you can get a signal at all, that is. Thankfully, there’s a way to fix mobile dead spots without network providers having to stick mobile masts on every corner. Wi-Fi calling routes all your calls and texts over the internet instead of cellular networks, so you can chat from the comfort of your armchair, or even wandering around the house. In April this year, BT Mobile became the latest company to join the fray (www.snipca.com/28163), while EE (which BT bought back in 2015) has just extended its Wi-Fi calling service to…

CHANGE YOUR FLIGHTRADAR24 PASSWORD Flightradar24 has emailed some subscribers to its paid-for service advising them to change their log-in details following a security breach. The website, which shows flights in real time on screen, said “a small subset” of email addresses and hashed passwords were leaked, but no payment information. For more details email support@fr24.com and visit the site’s forum: www.snipca.com/28219. LENOVO LAUNCHES FIRST 128GB LAPTOP Lenovo has unveiled the world’s first laptop with 128GB RAM, aimed at professionals who work with 3D content and virtual reality. The ThinkPad P52 (pictured), which also has 6TB storage and a 15.6in screen, weighs a chunky 2.45kg. Lenovo hasn’t revealed pricing, but it’s likely to be thousands of pounds. Its ThinkPad P71, with 64GB RAM, costs £3,432 (www.snipca.com/28232). US RECLAIMS SUPERCOMPUTER TITLE The…

Want advanced tools? Get Windows 10 Pro I enjoyed your feature about getting Windows 10 Pro features in other versions of Windows (Issue 530, page 58, pictured below). I upgraded from Windows 10 Home to Pro using an old product key (as you mentioned in your article) and it worked well. This gave me features like Group Policy Editor and options to delay updates (both of which I use). Previously, I had tried to put these on my Windows 10 Home laptop, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t change settings or restrict options. I support your feature and agree with everything you said. If you want advanced features, get the advanced version of Windows. Ben Ward Windows 10 is ‘Microsoft’s best ever operating system’ In response to Eric Cooper’s letter…

Here’s my experience with Turtle Beach (https://uk.turtle beach.com) regarding my Z300 wireless gaming headset (pictured), bought in 2014. I used it through 2014 then packed it away for a few years. In late 2017 I got into the fabulous Elite Dangerous PC game, and the Z300 was perfect. But it had become loose around the ears, and one of the sliding adjustment arms had cracked, rendering the headset useless. I asked Turtle Beach if there was a way to fix it (at my cost of course), knowing it was out of warranty. I expected nothing more than a link to their current list of headsets. So I was surprised when they asked for pictures of the fault and proof of purchase, which I sent. They quickly replied with a return…

FLIGHT SIMULATOR FlightGear 2018.2.2 http://home.flightgear.org What you need: Windows 7, 8/8.1 or 10 First things first: if you’re looking for a quick-and-easy flight simulator, FlightGear isn’t for you. Make no mistake, this is a serious simulator that takes time to master. It’s also open source, which means the program is passionately updated by an army of volunteers. While it’s not as polished as paid-for alternatives such as X-Plane (www.x-plane.com), it makes up for this in detail and realism. With over 20,000 airports and hundreds of aircraft to choose from (from the double-decker Airbus A380 through to gliders and even a Zeppelin), deciding where to start is your first challenge. Select a Boeing 747, for example, and you get a feeling for just how daunting it would be to sit behind…

PC ∣ £1,350 from Chillblast www.snipca.com/28152 This very capable desktop PC manages to keep its top-end components cool with the aid of just one 120mm fan, which is barely audible except for a low whine when hard work calls it into action. That’s less surprising when you peek through the glass side panel of the Phanteks Eclipse P300 case and do a quick double-take as you wonder who’s nicked the PC out of your PC. “Eliminates delays that interrupt your use of Windows 10” This may not be a particularly big tower, but it’s a lot bigger than the Gigabyte B360M DS3H Micro ATX motherboard inside it, which sits in the top left corner surrounded by the kind of space you could rent out for a decent income in parts…

How can I upgrade my PC to speed it up? Q My PC isn’t very old and has a good specification (i5-6600K processor, 8GB of memory, 1TB hard drive), but it’s starting to feel slow. Which components should I upgrade for the greatest improvement, or do I have to think about replacing it? Alan Garber A If you bought a desktop PC with Intel’s latest eighth-generation i5-8600K, you’d see a substantial increase in processing speed. But the improvement between your Skylake chip and the Kaby Lake version that followed was less noticeable, so your CPU isn’t very far behind the times. Instead, consider the hard drive. Replacing it with an SSD wouldn’t make it faster to perform processor-intensive operations such as applying photo filters or converting video files. But by…

WebTV WHAT WAS IT? In 1996, WebTV Networks announced a service that would deliver the web to living rooms without a PC. The company had a rocky start: it had burned through $1.5m when Sony, a major partner, pulled out, leaving founder Steve Perlman to mortgage his house while trying to persuade others to invest. They did, and Sony eventually returned, along with Philips and others. Less than a year later, Microsoft bought the company for half a billion dollars. WebTV made money for a while, but never really caught on. HOW HAVE THINGS CHANGED? WebTV boxes, made by Philips and Sony, cost around $350 (equivalent to $560 today, or £425) and had a 33.6Kbps modem connection. Today, Windows 10 laptops are available for less, with built-in screens that have…

What you need: Scribus; Any Windows version (XP to 10) Time required: 40 minutes Desktop publishing programs tend to be very expensive. The most popular one, Adobe InDesign, costs £30 a month as part of Adobe Creative Suite. Scribus is a brilliant open-source desktop-publishing program that has many of the tools you’ll find in paid-for software. We’ll show you how to use this free tool to create a simple booklet page with images and text. You can then use what you’ve learned to design other pages and print your finished booklet, or export it as a PDF. STEP 1 To download Scribus, go to www.snipca.com/28231 and click the Download button 1. Open the downloaded file, click Yes, OK (to set English as your chosen language), click Next, select ‘I accept…

Horizon Explorer Free Android: www.snipca.com/28133 iOS: www.snipca.com/28134 If you find yourself in an unfamiliar landscape or city and want to know more, this app will provide the answer. Open it and point your camera at the landmark in question to display its name, its distance from you and altitude. WHExperience Free Android: www.snipca.com/28135 iOS: www.snipca.com/28136 Few of us will get to visit the White House, so instead take a virtual tour through one of America’s most prestigious buildings. You can also take a selfie and find out which president or first lady you most resemble based on the White House’s collection of portraits. Bottled Free Android: www.snipca.com/28137 iOS: www.snipca.com/28138 Bottled lets you send a virtual ‘message in a bottle’ to other users of the app across the world. They can…

If you tend to visit certain websites regularly you can customise Microsoft Edge so that they open whenever you launch the browser. You can also choose to open Edge in a dark theme (ideal when you’re browsing at night) and even choose what happens when you open new tabs. Click the three dots at the top right of Edge, then click Settings at the bottom. You’ll now see three options with dropdown menus - ‘Choose a theme’, ‘Open Microsoft Edge with’ and ‘Open new tabs with’ (see screenshot). To choose the darker theme as your default, change the first dropdown menu to Dark. To open specific web pages (in separate tabs) on launching Edge, click the second dropdown menu and select ‘A specific page or pages’. Now type (or copy…

What is it? Amazon’s top-secret research laboratory where scientists work on groundbreaking projects, including the ultimate medical goal – finding a cure for cancer. How secret can it be if you know about it? Good point. It’s fair to assume that all the tech giants have similar departments devoted to ‘inventing the future’. And while the projects are secret, the companies are happy to tease the world with glimpses of what might be possible. In other words, they’re doing top-secret research, but they’re desperately keen for you to know because it makes them seem both virtuous and cutting edge. Among the tech community these hushhush projects are known as moonshots. Why’s that? It refers to perhaps the most ambitious human project of all time - sending a man to the…

• PAYG and budget-device support: Budget-conscious mobile users stick to cheaper devices (such as the excellent Moto G smartphone, a regular on our Buy It pages) and then pay for their minutes, texts and data as they go. It’s the smart choice, but it excludes you from Wi-Fi calling. EE and O2 do at least allow Wi-Fi calling on their SIM-only plans, but only with high-end phones. Given that it helps out when network providers can’t provide a decent signal, we’d like to see Wi-Fi calling available to all. • Wi-Fi calling abroad: None of the networks currently let you use Wi-Fi calling outside the EU, because it would eat into their lucrative roaming revenue. Users who claim it “works abroad” have used VPNs to fake their location: www.snipca.com/28187. •…

Where’s my Android ringtone option? Q I tried to follow Peter Warbuton’s tip to set a custom ringtone on my Android phone (page 43, Issue 529). This would be useful because the only people from whom I really ever accept calls are my wife and my two grown-up children, so it’d be good to distinguish their calls from others. However, I couldn’t see any option to tap Contacts at the bottom of my screen. Any ideas? My phone is an Asus, not a Google Pixel. Nelly Simon A Welcome to the wonderful world of Android, where manufacturers are free to shift options around or otherwise alter the ‘standard’ Android interface enough to make providing universal instructions all but impossible. So, while Peter’s instructions are fine for his Pixel XL phone,…

“After half an hour it found more than 50,000 duplicate photos, which I didn’t believe. No way was I going to delete them all” The closest I’ve ever got to Twitter fame is when Countdown’s lexicographer Susie Dent ‘liked’ my phrase “dupe-spotting”. Sadly I couldn’t offer any fascinating etymological explanation for the phrase. It was merely a Twitter-sized description of an evening I’d spent spotting doubled-up entries for an online quiz. Perhaps if I now fill a whole page of Computeractive with “dupe-spotting”, I’ll catch the attention of the lovely Ms Dent once more and my made-up phrase will end up in next year’s Oxford English Dictionary. So it’s with an unusually high level of motivation that I turn to this fortnight’s tech task. My PC’s hard drive is stuffed…