Table of contents for 560 in Computeractive

It’s amazing what a good rummage can unearth. Last month, in a forgotten suitcase in the loft, I found my first ever mobile phone, bought a year before Computeractive hit the shelves. With battered buttons, a cracked screen and a snapped antenna, it’s not going to enjoy a second life as a security camera. But my four-year-old iPhone should be up to the job. If not, I’ll see whether it’ll make a good dashcam, or a remote control for my PC. These are three of 14 ingenious ways you can re-use an old phone or tablet, as Nik Rawlinson explains in our Cover Feature. Such devices aren’t as fast as they once were, but then again, who is? ‘Past their best’ doesn’t equal ‘totally useless’ – it just means tailoring…

Openreach is to cut the price it charges broadband providers to use its full-fibre network in a bid to get more people signed up to faster services. The company, which runs the UK’s broadband infrastructure, charges Sky, TalkTalk, Plusnet and other providers to deliver services to customers via their cables. From 1 September it will cut the price for 330Mbps by 36 per cent, while prices for the 110Mbps and 40Mbps services will fall by 20 and 10 per cent respectively. These are wholesale prices paid by broadband providers, so won’t be directly passed on to customers. But Openreach hopes they will help support its bid to deliver fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) broadband to 4 million homes and businesses by March 2021. This target could be extended to 15 million premises by…

When Martin Lewis took on Facebook, there was only going to be one winner. The MoneySavingExpert founder sued the company when it showed adverts for get-rich-quick schemes (ie, scams) featuring his face and endorsement. They settled out of court, with Facebook agreeing to add a UK-only tool for users to report scams. That tool has now arrived. If you see a scam on the site, click or tap the three dots at the top-right of the ad, then ‘Report ad’ (see screenshot), followed by ‘Misleading or scam ad’, then ‘Send a detailed scam report’ (you’ll see all these screens at www.snipca.com/32269). Facebook will then review the ad and remove it if it breaks its rules. It has also agreed to donate £3m to help set up Citizens Advice Scams Action…

You wait ages for a mention of Tomorrow’s World presenter Kieran Prendiville in Computeractive, then two appear in the same issue (559). I loved the YouTube clip of him demonstrating the wonders of compact discs (www.snipca.com/32137). I want to use it as an excuse to share my own favourite clip from Tomorrow’s World. Also available on YouTube (www.snipca.com/32344), it comes from 1967 and shows “Europe’s first home computer terminal” being operated by businessman Rex Malik in bed (similar to today’s laptops, I guess!). Rather wonderfully, it’s described as being attached to a “giant brain” in London. Information is printed (very noisily) rather than shown on a screen, but you can definitely see the thread from this prototype to today’s machines. What I find fascinating is that Rex’s four-year-old son used…

Sometimes cases are resolved in a way that leaves both parties dissatisfied. That’s the unfortunate outcome of John Evans’s case (see Issue 558) against a PC retailer (unnamed for legal reasons). He wanted to return a three-year-old £1,120 laptop because of a “faulty” keyboard, but the retailer wanted to charge him £50 to return it so it could inspect it. Retailers can inspect products before replacing or refunding, to see if a fault is inherent, though John was planning to pay for his own inspection. We persuaded the retailer to waive the postage fee in a goodwill gesture, but John dismissed this because he felt it would take too long to send it back from Poland (where he’s currently working) and get it – or a replacement – returned. In…

IMAGE EDITOR Paint.net 4.2 www.getpaint.net/download.html What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 Longstanding Computeractive favourite Paint.net has just been updated to version 4.2. It introduces enhanced support for larger file sizes and provides significant performance improvements when working with high-resolution images. It’s also now possible to save TIFF images at 24bit and 8bit depths, for choosing how much colour information is stored, and there are several new keyboard shortcuts for working with layers. But the big news is that the latest version supports the new High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIC), now used by iPhones. To unlock Paint.net’s HEIC support, you’ll need Windows 10 version 1809 or newer (click Start, Settings, System, About to check) and have an HEVC codec installed. Paint.net’s official advice is to install Microsoft’s own…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: RealPlayer Remember RealPlayer? If you owned a PC in the 1990s and 2000s, you almost certainly do. In fact, like me, you probably had it installed on your PC. At the time, RealPlayer was one of the only tools that provided, via a browser plug-in, the ability to stream audio and video content from the web. At one point, Microsoft even offered the program as an optional feature when you installed Windows. But, in the world of technology, fortunes have a habit of changing in a flash – specifically, in this case, Adobe Flash, which arrived on the scene and did RealPlayer’s job (but much better). Then HTML5 came along and killed RealPlayer off for good. Or so we thought. I inadvertently rediscovered RealPlayer’s website…

LAPTOP| £750 from Chillblast www.snipca.com/32341 Sunny disposition We’ve noted before how British PC builder Chillblast uses Taiwanese aluminium cases to put together laptops with more up-to-date components and better value than the big brands. This 14in machine pulls off the trick again. The quad-core i5-8265U processor is one of Intel’s latest, and a solid middle-of-the-road choice. We couldn’t get quite as much performance out of it as we’ve sometimes seen, thanks to throttling kicking in to prevent it overheating, but it’s adequate for jobs like photo editing as well as everyday Windows 10 tasks. “Sensible specs at a fair price, but battery life is not great” Two factors make this system feel faster than the raw figures suggest. First, it comes with 16GB of memory, twice as much as we’d…

LAPTOP| £2,249 from Vaio www.snipca.com/32357 Back with a whimper Sony’s Vaio once vied with Apple’s MacBook to satisfy the most demanding users across the consumer and business markets. But when the parent company sold it off five years ago, the laptop brand disappeared from Europe. Now it’s back with two machines, the A12 – a Windows 10 tablet – and this 14in laptop. “Practical design and high-quality screen can’t justify the cost of this flawed laptop” At one gram under a kilo, it’s about as light as proper laptops get, with an aluminium and carbon-fibre case finished in silver, black or copper. The lid does feel a bit bendy, with little wasted space at the sides of the screen but more than necessary at the top. Like Asus’s ZenBooks, the…

LAPTOP HP Envy 13 £799 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. £1,280 from www.snipca.com/26796 ANDROID TABLET Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 9.7 £424 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). Apple’s faster £319 iPad with optional £89 Pencil is superior, but lacks microSD expansion. ALTERNATIVE Amazon Fire…

ANDROID & iOS Save web pages as PDFs The default browsers on Android and iOS have built-in tools for converting web pages to PDF, so you can save them for your records and read them at your leisure offline. In Safari for iOS 12, the ‘Create PDF’ option is under the Share button. Let the whole web page load before you tap it, otherwise there’ll be bits missing from the PDF. Tap Done, then ‘Save File To…’ to choose a location. The process is slightly different in the new iOS 13, poised to come out of beta soon, which offers a ‘Save PDF to Files’ option when you take a screenshot. In Chrome for Android, load the web page then tap Share, Print, then the tiny arrow (top-right) and select…

WINDOWS 10 Open RAW image files RAW image files, as their name suggests, haven’t been edited since they were captured. They are literally the raw data recorded by the camera’s sensor, which hasn’t even been converted to JPEG. Professional photographers love RAW files, because they can be edited in software like Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Lightroom to recover lost details from shadows or burned-out areas, maximise or tone down colours, and perform the kind of frame-wide or selective edits that were previously only possible with traditional developing techniques. However, Windows itself can’t open them without a little help. Microsoft’s RAW Image Extension, which is free from the Microsoft Store (click the blue ‘Get’ button at www.snipca.com/32277, see screenshot below), both adds the ability to display thumbnail previews of RAW files…

When you click on a cell and drag down on its bottom border, its formula is replicated in the cells below. For example, if C1 was the sum of A1 and B1, dragging down on the bottom of its cell would update the contents in each new cell, so that C2 summed A2 and B2, and so on. This is a great timesaver, but what if you didn’t want those references to update? In the screenshot, we’ve recorded how many steps we walked each day, which we want to subtract from a target of 10,000. We’ve listed days in column A, the number of steps walked in column B, and the target step count in cell E2. In cell C1, we’ve entered the formula =SUM(E$2-B1) (see screenshot) to subtract the…

Obsolescence is built into every gadget you own. Nowhere is this more true than where smartphones and tablets are concerned. It’s as much a feature as their battery, screen or software, but the only party it seems to serve is the manufacturer: the sooner the hardware goes out of date, the sooner they hope you’ll buy another one. That’s a shame. Their components are rarely at the end of their useful life by the time their operating system and apps are too demanding to upgrade. At this point, we’d recommend against using them every day, because outdated software can be a security issue. However, reusing them for specific tasks, which don’t require access to your personal data, will give them a useful second life. In this Cover Feature, we’ll show…

PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT How do I insert symbols in Outlook? Q I’ve not long since upgraded from an ageing Windows 7 desktop PC to a peppy new Windows 10 laptop. All is good so far! As part of the upgrade I had a local technician transfer my documents and install Microsoft Office 2016, to replace a much-older version of Office that I’d been using for years. That, too, went smoothly. However, in Outlook 2016 I can’t for the life of me work out how to insert special symbols into replies, like the Euro symbol (€) for example. Online advice suggests that the necessary option is on the Insert tab. Well, that’s true – but only for new messages. Currently, I’m having to create a new message, insert the symbol…

Hackers are spreading ransomware by text messages to Android devices that falsely claim your photo appears in a ‘sex simulator’ game. Slovakian security firm ESET discovered the new strain of ransomware, which it has called Android/Filecoder.C. It said the ransomware is particularly severe because it locks files using encryption so strong that decrypting them is “close to impossible”. The messages contain a link to install a pornographic game (blurred in our screenshot). Clicking it infects your device with ransomware, allowing it to spread by sending more messages to your contacts. The hackers hope people will trust the messages because they appear to come from someone they know. Once it infects your device, Filecover encrypts your files, and claims it’ll wipe all your data if you don’t pay a Bitcoin ransom…

Robot scammers replace humans Most of the scam phone calls I’ve received have been from real people trying to trick me into letting them access my computer, but recently I’ve had several automated calls with robotic voices. Perhaps this is a change of tactic from fraudsters who realise the public are wising up to their tricks? The calls claim to come from my bank and warn me that there’s been “suspicious” activity in my account. Utter tosh, of course, but it might catch out those who are less wary. A search online shows me that these are increasing (as reported at www.snipca.com/32168). Doug Taylor Warn your fellow readers about scams at letters@computeractive.co.uk…

I think the BBC has made a horrendous mistake with the forthcoming TV-streaming service BritBox (Issue 559, page 6). I can see why they think they have to do something to stop haemorrhaging viewers to Netflix, but the answer isn’t to compete on the same terms as other TV streamers. The BBC has inadvertently set a trap for itself that could lead to the end of the licence fee. By charging viewers £5.99 a month for BritBox, it is encouraging the public to place it in the same bracket as Netflix, Amazon Prime and others. Nothing wrong with that in principle. But viewers aren’t stupid. They’ll realise that the BBC isn’t like those streaming services because you also have to pay a licence fee to watch it. You don’t pay…

In Issue 558’s Star Letter Dave Knight wrote of his problems finding a laptop with an optical drive. I had the same problem until I came across the Devon-based MicroDream (www.microdream.co.uk), who specialise in refurbished laptops and PCs. I bought a 14in HP EliteBook with the usual hard drive replaced by a 240GB SSD, a DVD drive, an Intel i5 processor and 64bit Windows 10 Pro. The service and delivery was brilliant and the performance of the laptop extremely fast. The build of the HP was very good, with no discolouring marks. It was as good as new. MicroDream stocks Dell, Lenovo and HP refurbs, and I would recommend the company to anyone. I have absolutely no connection to the company. At 85 I’m just grateful I can still use…

Can I move attachments from my phone to a PC? Q I have a lot of files ‘stuck’ in emails and messages on my mobile phone (an Android model) that I’d like to save to my computer. These days, there must be a more elegant solution than emailing them to myself or fiddling around with USB cables. What software would you suggest I use? Nick Tucker A Microsoft is improving its support for mobile devices with every major release of Windows 10, but we’re still a long way from being able to freely transfer files between devices without some kind of intermediary. One of our favourite third-party options is AirDroid – a multifunction tool that not only provides a means to transfer files between your devices wirelessly, but also lets…

Alex Scurtu and Gift Mangava If you’ve ever felt conned by fake ads, spare a thought for victims of this pair - the “brains” behind a scam that stole more than £550,000 via fake online adverts for non-existent goods and services. They tricked people into transferring funds to their bank accounts and, in some cases, sent fake texts that looked as if they’d been sent from the victims’ banks. Technology may have allowed the pair to commit fraud, but it also helped the police catch them. The identity of Mr Scurtu (left in our photo) was confirmed via phone analysis, while co-conspirators Darnel Morrison and Adideji Atitebi were identified through WhatsApp messages. All four were found guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud and launder money, and sentenced to a total…

Like phone cameras, webcams now go up to 4K resolution. Unless you’re an agent of SPECTRE, the person you’re talking to probably isn’t watching you on a massive screen, so that’s far more pixels than you need. In fact, it would generally be daft to try to transmit in 4K – you’re better off using the available bandwidth to get a smooth frame rate in 1080p Full HD, with a quarter of the data per frame. Even 720p HD cameras can produce an adequate feed, but higher resolution gives you the option of zooming in: webcams don’t have real zoom lenses, so you’ll just be magnifying the pixels. Remember, picture quality depends on more factors than resolution, including the camera’s exposure (making sure the image isn’t too bright or dark),…

What is it? Motion sensing will be familiar to anyone who uses game consoles (notably Nintendo’s Wii and Switch), plays mobile-phone games that use the device’s built-in sensors to respond to tilt, and wears VR headsets supplied with handheld controllers that you wave around in the air. Gesture sensing is similar, but with nothing to hold. The system just detects you waving your hands around. Google has confirmed its upcoming Pixel 4 phone will have a gesture sensing feature called Motion Sense (watch it being used at www.snipca.com/32392). What does it do? Like swipes and pinches on a touchscreen, gestures in the air can trigger whatever kind of interaction software developers choose to link to them. At the futuristic end of this spectrum there are interfaces like in the Iron…

The CHERRY DW 9000 SLIM keyboard-and-mouse set has innovative functions and is designed to be easy to use. You can connect it using the 2.4GHz wireless USB receiver included with the set, or by Bluetooth – just flick a switch to swap between. It has rechargeable lithium batteries you can charge using the microUSB cable included. The keyboard contains an integrated metal plate to prevent bending while typing, making it sturdy and stable. If you want a steeper angle while typing, simply adjust the keyboard using the four rubber feet. LEDs built into the keyboard tell you whether the CAPS LOCK, SCROLL and NUM keys are activated. The mouse fits comfortably in your hand thanks to its rubber-coated side parts and a compact design. The resolution can be set in…

CCleaner I used CCleaner, but with every update it became more of a marketing tool, rather than an efficient junk-removal tool. Also, I wanted more advanced settings when wiping data. And what I used instead… Eraser (free from www.snipca.com/31965) provided these advanced settings. To use it, press Ctrl+N, then choose how you want to run it (manually, immediately, etc). The first time you use it, select ‘Run immediately’, then click Add Data below the ‘Data to erase’ box. Next, select File from the ‘Target type’ menu on the following page, then ‘British HMG IS5 (Baseline) (1 pass)’ from the ‘Erasure method’ menu (see screenshot). There are other options to overwrite data, but they take too long. Click Browse…, then navigate to the files you want to remove and click OK.…

AirDroid Remote Support Free Android, iOS www.snipca.com/32349 Help out friends and family when they’re having problems with their phone, using this free new remote-access tool that doesn’t require any rooting or PC-tethering. Instead, you each install the app then use a secure ‘connection code’ to connect. You can then help each other out via screen mirroring, in-app calls and a clever ‘suggested taps’ option. Offliner Free* Android https://offliner.io You know how to save web pages to read offline (see tip above), so why bother with this app? Because as well as web pages it can also save videos and audio files for offline consumption. You are limited to one every two hours, unless you pay 99p per 10 downloads. For £17.99 per year you get unlimited downloads, including YouTube playlists.…

One of the many improvements Microsoft made to Windows 10 in the May Update (also known as build or version 1903) was to simplify the way fonts are installed and managed. Once you’ve downloaded a font, unzip it to the desktop, then either click the cog on the side of the Start menu, or hold the Windows key and press I [letter] to open Settings. Click Personalisation, followed by Fonts in the sidebar. Now, drop your font file on the dotted box where it says ‘Drag and drop to install’ (see screenshot), and it will be added to your collection. To remove a font, click it below the installer panel, followed by the Uninstall button. From this screen, you can also preview it in a range of sizes using your…

Schedule emails you send to members If you’ve subscribed to several newsletters, you might notice that they tend to arrive in batches. This isn’t a coincidence. Marketing professionals have spent years working out when you’re most likely to open a message from a mailing list and work to a limited timetable to increase the chances of getting your attention. According to Mailchimp, a newsletter management tool, more people open newsletters sent on weekdays than weekends, with 10am on a Thursday being the sweet spot (www.snipca.com/32250). Use Mailchimp to send emails Mailchimp lets you write your newsletter whenever is most convenient, and delay its dispatch until it will be most effective. It’s free to use if you have fewer than 2,000 mailing-list contacts and don’t send more than 10,000 emails a…

The language of nature is being replaced by references to technology, research shows, leading us to lose our “connection” with the outside world. A study by Leeds University found that mentions of tweets, streams and clouds in conversation increasingly refer to their technological purpose, not their natural meaning. Modern usage of ‘tweet’, for example, now refers to social media rather than birdsong in 99 per cent of cases. ‘Stream’ refers to a small river only 36 per cent of the time. Researchers compared informal public conversations from the 1990s with today. Back then, every mention of ‘cloud’ was about the sky; that has now fallen to 77 per cent today. References to the natural meaning of ‘web’ have fallen from 71 per cent to seven per cent. The National Trust…

SAMSUNG FIXES BROKEN FOLDABLE PHONE Samsung says it has fixed the fault in its foldable phone that caused the screen to break and delayed its launch. The Galaxy Fold (pictured) will now hit the shelves in September, five months after it was meant to go on sale. Improvements include strengthening the hinge with new protection caps. The phone costs nearly $2,000 (£1,603) and will be sold in “select markets”. GIFFGAFF FINED £1.4M FOR OVERCHARGING Ofcom has fined phone network Giffgaff £1.4m for the “unacceptable mistake” of overcharging customers. The network admitted that 2.6m customers who bought a ‘goodybag’ bundle using pre-paid credit paid too much. Giffgaff has refunded most of the £2.9m that its customers were overcharged. Check whether you’re due a refund at www.snipca.com/32370. UPDATE YOUR iPHONE & iPAD…

Three has been heavily criticised for being the only UK mobile network to have “refused” Ofcom’s proposal to automatically reduce prices when customers’ minimum contracts end. Ofcom has asked mobile networks to end the “loyalty penalty” customers face at the end of their contract, so they are treated more fairly. EE, O2, Tesco Mobile, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone will cut prices (see box) from February 2020. Changes to monthly bills will only be made if they result in a lower charge, addressing the concern that some customers may end up paying more by being moved to a SIM-only deal. But Three says Ofcom’s proposal risks “creating a stagnant market whereby consumers are not encouraged to shop around for the best deal at the end of their minimum term”. Ofcom says…

WATCH OUT FOR… Hackers mousejacking Logitech dongles What’s the threat? Hackers armed with wireless transmitters can intercept Logitech USB dongles paired with wireless keyboards and mice by exploiting security flaws in the devices. Security researcher Marcus Mengs, who discovered four new vulnerabilities in the dongles, said attackers would be able to record what you type on your computer, and ultimately take full control of it. They could even steal the encryption key if you use one to protect the dongle and the device. The flaw affects Logitech’s Unifying dongles, which have been sold with wireless keyboards, mice, presentation clickers and trackballs since 2007. In addition, Mengs found that Logitech was still selling some dongles that contained flaws which the company released fixes for three years ago. The company fixed the…

Why do I need BritBox when I can watch all these? In the past month or so I’ve watched the following programmes on various channels on my TV: Dad’s Army, The Professionals, Porridge, The Two Ronnies, Blackadder, Perry Mason, Gunsmoke (pictured), M*A*S*H, The Sweeney, Inspector Morse, Downton Abbey, All Creatures Great and Small, Steptoe and Son, The New Avengers, Space: 1999 and many more. They’re not free of course because I pay for some of the channels, but it’s excellent value. Plus, I have loads of DVDs of classic BBC and ITV dramas from the 60s, 70s and 80s. So, my question is simple. Why on earth would I pay £5.99 a month to watch all these on BritBox, when I’ve already paid several thousands of pounds over the years…

LEAD CASE Can I replace my overheating MacBook battery? Q I’ve had a problem with the battery on my old MacBook since I bought it about two years ago. It gets so hot that I have to switch it off. I am outside the warranty so doubt Apple will help. Are batteries covered by consumer law or do I have to bite the bullet and buy another? Dean Rainsford A People often get confused because manufacturer’s warranties typically don’t cover batteries after about six months. However, they are covered by the Consumer Rights Act (CRA) if they’re inherently faulty, giving you up to six years (five in Scotland) to seek redress. But there is a proviso: not all products (or components) are designed to last that long and the law…

Build a family-tree timeline Getting others to appreciate the fruits of your genealogical labours can be tough, so it helps to find the right method to present your work. One particularly effective approach is to tell your ancestors’ stories using a timeline. There are several free online tools for sharing your research this way, including Treelines (www.treelines.com) and Timetoast (www.timetoast.com), but the slickest and easiest is Twile. Go to www.twile.com and click Register to sign up with your name, email address and a suitably strong password. You’ll see options for importing your tree from FamilySearch or a GEDCOM file, which saves time. This brings in your family tree along with the key events of your ancestors’ lives. Build your basic timeline Once that’s done, you’ll be directed to the timeline…

Storage Sense in Windows (find it in Settings, System, Storage) does a good job of purging obvious junk from my computer, such as items in my recycle bin. But it can’t help to identify harder-to-find junk, like large files I’ve downloaded then subsequently plopped in a random, far-flung folder. For this, I use a free tool called WinDirStat (https://windirstat.net). The tool asks what it should scan every time I load it. The default is to analyse all drives, but you can narrow this down to a single folder. However, I prefer to concentrate the analysis on my main Windows partition by selecting Individual Drives, then ‘OS (C:\)’. WinDirStat then takes a few moments to scan my drive. Once the scan is complete, I’m presented with a glorious, multicolour view of…

PC £1,599 from PCSpecialist www.snipca.com/32335 Fast, current With only PC Specialist’s new logo adorning the uncompromisingly plain metal NZXT H500 case, this is a big black slab of a PC, its flat front unbroken even by LED fan lights. In fact, there are no coolers behind this perforated panel: instead, there’s an exhaust fan in the roof, and at the back is a water-cooling system with a fan and radiator to draw heat from £1,599’s worth of components. A peek through the glass panel on the left side reveals what you’re getting for your money. “The Vortex produced some of the fastest scores we’ve seen in speed tests” The biggest chunk has been spent on an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card with 8GB of its own memory. Replacing the…

Should I switch to a desktop PC? Q I’m thinking of upgrading from my Acer Aspire All-In-One U5-710, and would like a 27in screen. As I also have a laptop and tablet, I was wondering if a desktop PC would be better? Jenny Panther A The Aspire U5 was commonly sold with a quad-core i5-6400T or i7-6700T processor and Nvidia GeForce GT940M graphics. These are components designed for restricted power consumption, and thus more like what you’d expect in a laptop than a desktop PC, but even so, it’s not a bad spec, and still fine for many Windows 10 tasks. However, you could get higher performance from a PC such as Overclockers’ XVI Essential Gaming PC (pictured, £665 from www.snipca.com/31749, see Issue 556, page 22), perhaps with the £24…

What was it? Launched in 2000 by US telecoms firm 3Com, Audrey was an ‘internet appliance’, a kind of computer that wasn’t as versatile as a PC but would display simple online content. Sold for $499 (then £339, equivalent to £575 today), it had a processor similar to an Intel 80386, introduced in 1986, and an 8in touchscreen. Supplied with a stylus and keyboard, it was designed for use in the kitchen and named after Hollywood star Audrey Hepburn. Why did it die? Users might have liked a system that was cheaper than a PC, but not when it did less and they needed to buy one for each room. This fad for ‘network computers’ was already waning, and Audrey’s user interface, based on turning a knob to flip between…

SHORTCUTS Open the Downloads folder using AutoHotkey shortcut Will Stapley and I have something in common: we both love AutoHotkey (www.autohotkey.com). I enjoyed his account of using it (Issue 558, page 20), and wanted to give you a couple of my favourite scripts for the program, both of which are to do with folders. First, it’s easy to open your most-used folder using a shortcut. If it’s your Downloads folder, for example, use this script: ^+d::Run “C:\Users\[YOUR USER_ NAME]\Downloads” ; return You’ll need to replace ‘YOUR USER_ NAME’ with your name, separated by an underscore – so mine would be andy_ sheffield. The second tip lets you move up a folder within File Explorer by clicking your mouse wheel. Set this up by typing #IfWinActive, ahk_class CabinetWClass ~MButton::Send !{Up} #IfWinActive…

Vodafone Smart X9 £99 from www.snipca.com/31261 I’d like to echo the advice you gave reader Michael Sharp in Issue 552 (page 26), when you said the Vodafone Smart X9 is a good ‘basic’ phone. My iPhone-obsessed son laughs when I tell him this, but the Smart X9 does everything I need. Texting? Yep. Good-quality calls? Yep. Half-decent photos? Yep. OK, it may not be suited to augmented reality, but then I’m not quite sure what that is anyway. My son scoffs and says, ‘But it’s made of plastic’. True, but so what? It still makes calls and takes photos. Vodafone’s pay-as-you-go package suits me fine because I don’t spend all day on my phone. I’d recommend this phone to anyone who feels they should finally upgrade to a smartphone, but…

OUTLOOK.COM Snooze emails to read later It’s too easy to open an email, read it, and close it to deal with later, only to then forget about it. Outlook.com’s new snooze tool, which is rolling out to accounts now, can help avoid the embarrassment of needing to apologise for such an oversight. When you don’t have time to deal with an email right away, open it, then click Snooze on the toolbar immediately above the address line. Next, pick from later today, this evening, tomorrow, this weekend, next week, or a date of your choice. When that time comes around, the email will reappear at the top of your message list. If you use the Outlook email program rather than Outlook.com, you can perform a similar trick by clicking Follow…

What is it? A US company that wants to connect the human brain to a computer interface, letting people control PCs with the power of thought. Its founder, Elon Musk (pictured below), says the technology could ultimately lead to an era of “superintelligence”. Who’s Elon Musk again? A man with many dreams and a lot of money. He’s been CEO of PayPal, founded spacecraft company SpaceX and electric car firm Tesla, and is now worth around £19bn. But he’s best known for his visionary ideas. He wants to help colonise Mars to make humans a “multi-planetary species”; he’s building tunnels under Los Angeles to transport people at speeds of 760mph; and he wants 12,000 satellites to provide broadband to the world’s poorest areas. And in July he unveiled a Neuralink…

Data.gov.uk (https://data.gov.uk) Free-to-access data collected by the UK government, including maps, crime stats, town planning and transport info. Google Maps Platform (www.snipca.com/32288) Google’s tool for customising its maps with data and images. National Archives (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk) Historical government catalogues including map archives, English Heritage databases and old census records. Natural England Open Data (www.snipca.com/32318) Free-to-access data from Defra on forests, coasts, road planning, wildlife, farming and more. Office for National Statistics (www.ons.gov.uk):Runs the census and gathers an annual population estimate every October. Its data-sharing service is Nomis (www.nomisweb.co.uk), where you can sign up for free. OpenGeoscience (www.bgs.ac.uk/opengeoscience) Maps, photos and research from the British Geological Survey, all free to view and many free to download. OpenStreetMap (www.openstreetmap.org) Open-source global map that anyone can edit, Wikipedia-style, and use in websites and apps.…

Did you recommend a virus? Q Issue 557’s Cover Feature about Command Prompt was a great article – so thank you for that. However, when I tried to download NirSoft’s ProduKey tool (www.snipca.com/31883), as recommended in Tip 36, my security software displayed a virus warning. The downloaded file was then deleted. So is this a false alarm, and if so how can I use this tool? Gordon Mashiter A Yes, this is what’s known as a false positive. By its very nature ProduKey carries out activities that make it look like a virus, so it is often identified as one by security software. However, the program is a trusted tool that’s been around for well over a decade. NirSoft is well aware of this annoyance, and explains the problem (and…

32bit/64bit A measure of how much data a PC can process at once. Most older PCs are 32bit, more modern ones are 64bit. 3G/4G/5G Technologies that deliver faster mobile broadband. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 720p/1080p/1440p Common types of high-definition video of 1280x720, 1920x1080 and 2560x1440 pixels respectively. 802.11n A standard for wireless networks that allows for high transfer speeds. Add-in Tools that can be added to Microsoft Office software. Adobe RGB A wider colour range than sRGB. Augmented reality Lets you view the real world on a digital display and add digital elements. 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. Calibration The process of checking that colours…