Table of contents for 485 in Computeractive

I like to think of myself as a calm and rational person, but whenever my PC crashes it awakens my inner caveman. I go into Neanderthal Mode - like Safe Mode, but with more grunting - battering my keyboard with clenched fists, and banging my mouse like it’s a mallet. This kind of behaviour is probably why I wouldn’t have been a great choice to write this issue’s Cover Feature (page 50). Instead, David Ludlow (Windows expert and definitely not a caveman) reveals 12 common causes of crashes, and explains how to fix your computer afterwards. I hope you find it useful. Perhaps it’s lack of sleep that makes me a bit cranky. I try not to use my PC after 9pm, but it’s a rule I often break. All…

Tell us what’s on your mind Email: letters@computeractive.co.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/computeractive Twitter: @ComputerActive www.twitter.com/computeractive Signing online petitions is ‘do-it-yourself’ democracy I know Ken Rigsby’s rant against online petitions was meant to be light-hearted (The Final Straw, Issue 483), but he goes dangerously over the top. For instance, he calls people who sign them “bellyachers”. No they’re not. They are simply people concerned about a particular issue. I’m sure Ken wouldn’t be so dismissive of people who signed a petition in a village hall. I don’t wish to reopen Brexit wounds, but what’s wrong with four million people signing a petition for a second referendum? Ken almost seems upset that the internet makes it possible for so many people to register their disquiet about something. But surely this kind of do-it-yourself democracy…

LAPTOP | £900 from Currys www.snipca.com/21808 Once upon a time, laptops were big and heavy and made of plastic. Then, in 2008, Apple invented the MacBook Air. It was thin, light, wedge-shaped and metallic. The design was so distinctive it became the model for every other ‘ultraportable’, shamelessly copied by rivals for their premium Windows hardware. The world has moved on since then, but the MacBook Air hasn’t, and Asus’ 13.3in ZenBook UX330UA could be the last of its clones. It’s also one of the best. “Sharp screen, great performance and slick design” You could be forgiven for losing track of all the brushed-metal notebooks Asus has released (under confusingly similar part numbers), but this is more slender than most. That’s reflected by a degree of flexibility in the aluminium…

PHONE | £200 from Argos www.snipca.com/21798 Some companies, such as Motorola and HTC, have gained renown through mobile phones. Others, like Apple and Sony, were already well known before they made phones. And then there’s Bush. The company was founded in 1932 to sell the big horn-type loudspeakers that used to be attached to gramophones, and was named after Shepherd’s Bush, the west London suburb that was once the centre of the broadcasting industry. “A budget phone, with large storage, long battery life and big screen – shame about the photos” After various mergers, Bush shut up shop in the 1980s, but the brand name lived on – acquired by an even older rival, Alba – and was slapped on electronic goods made abroad. Then, in 2008, both names were…

Pinnacle Studio 20 Ultimate offers a host of stunning new tools that make it Pinnacle’s best video-editing software yet. It now caters for stop-motion animation and 360-degree video editing, and includes more than 2,000 effects, transitions and templates. It also handles multicamera editing for six cameras, and provides over 100 templates for DVD menus. To enter, email your address to cacomp@dennis.co.uk with ‘pinnacle’ in the subject line by midnight 11 October. Pinnacle Studio 20 Ultimate is available now for £99.95. New versions of Pinnacle Studio 20 (£49.95) and Pinnacle Studio 20 Plus (£79.95) are also available. For more information on Pinnacle’s Studio 20 range of software visit www.snipca.com/21574.…

ANDROID & iOS Turn your photos into works of art Issue 482’s Best New Apps section featured Prisma, an app that lets you transform your photos into artworks in the style of renowned painters. Prisma has since been updated with new artist filters and it turns your photos into artwork much quicker than before (it previously downloaded your photos to Prisma’s servers, now it works entirely offline). We’ll show you how to use the Android app (www.snipca.com/21400),but it works the same on iOS (www.snipca.com/21401). Open the app to launch your device’scamera. Tap the flash icon on the left to switch your flash on or off. The middle button lets you switch between your front and back camera. By default, the app adds a Prisma watermark to your photo. To remove…

WINDOWS XP, VISTA, 7, 8, 10 Hide Windows Media Player’s control panel Usually whenever you play a video using Windows Media Player (WMP), its playback control panel (buttons to play, pause, forward and rewind at the bottom of your screen) should fade out of view. However, if this doesn’t happen, then it’s probably because of your WMP settings. To rectify this, press F10 to display Windows Media Player’s menu bar at the top. Now click Tools at the top, then click Options. Tick ‘Allow autohide of playback controls’ (see screenshot below), then click the Performance tab, untick ‘Display full-screen controls’ (under the ‘View playback’ header). Finally, click Apply, then OK. Now play your video and you’ll notice that the playback controls get hidden after a few seconds. WINDOWS 7, 8,…

Duplicate Cleaner Pro 4.0 Format: Windows Website: www.duplicatecleaner.com Price: £19.95 Free trial period: 15 days Two years ago I decided to upgrade my computer’s hard drive. Out went my old, creaking 500GB drive and in its place came a shiny 2TB one. So, what did I do next? Filled it up with files from my old hard drive, and photos from my phone and tablet of course. I could – and should – have taken the time then to remove duplicate files to make sure my new hard drive stayed as clutter-free as possible… but, of course, I didn’t. Two years later and my 2TB drive is more disorganised than my 500GB one ever was. There is one silver lining – my PC is now the perfect testing ground to…

I loved reading about John Bull’s epic battle to cancel his Virgin Media contract (News, Issue 484). He took it in good humour considering Virgin wasted four hours of his life. I’ve had similar experiences when trying to cancel contracts. What really annoys me is when the salespeople try to persuade you to stay. OK, sometimes you can get a better deal this way, but most people just want to cancel as quickly as possible. In one case with a nameless internet service provider, the person asked me why I wanted to cancel my broadband contract. I was taken aback that she should even ask this question. Maybe she was lonely and wanted someone to talk to. Whatever her reason, I told her it was none of her business, although…

DISK MANAGEMENT EaseUS Partition Master Free 11.8 www.snipca.com/21735 What you need: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 or 10 Microsoft has improved many of Windows’ built-in tools over the years, but Disk Management is most definitely not one of them. For a start, it’s tucked away awkwardly in the nether regions of the Windows Computer Management console, which itself is hidden deep within the bowels of the Start menu. Not only that, but its abilities are strictly limited. If you want to do anything much more than shrink a partition or change a drive letter, you’ll almost certainly need to look elsewhere. And by ‘elsewhere’, we mean EaseUS Partition Master Free 11.8. In stark contrast to Microsoft’s barely adequate offering, Partition Master comes with a raft of useful features, including quick…

PHONE | £234 from Amazon www.snipca.com/21769 Picture editing is a fascinating job. Less so, to be honest, when you work on a computer magazine. While your colleagues in the national press are poring over snaps of celebrities on red carpets and politicians in compromising situations, you’re trying to match endless photos of silver and black plastic cases to similar-sounding product descriptions. Samsung helps out, at least, by writing its name in big letters on the front of its phones, but this one still had us stumped. “An attractive phone with exceptional battery life” In pictures, you see, the new Galaxy A3 is indistinguishable from the new Galaxy A5 (see review, Issue 483). No, really, get out your copy of that issue and have a look. After much triple-checking, we’ve definitely…

Where can I buy a refurbished W10 laptop?  Q I’m hoping to buy a refurbished laptop, ideally with Windows 10, for less than £200. Can you suggest a supplier? Paul Jarvis A Bear in mind you can buy a basic Windows 10 laptop for under £200 new, such as the Acer Aspire One Cloudbook 14 (£200 from Amazon www.snipca.com/21783, pictured) or the touchscreen Asus Transformer Book Flip TP200SA (£196 from Debenhams Plus www.snipca.com/21785). A few companies do specialise in refurbished PCs (‘refurbs’) or overstock. Refurbs are often customer returns, which may be almost like new (‘Grade A’), but some are used. Overstock just means unsold items. Check Windows 10 is installed. Microsoft closed its free offer so it’s expensive to upgrade. Morgan (www.snipca.com/21782) is an established name in overstock sales…

No.3 A NATURAL VIDEO CHAT SCREEN Video chat keeps getting reinvented, but it’s always worked basically the same way. Skype made it easier and more universal – you can use it on any device that has a front camera. FaceTime improved the quality, but only works between Apple users. Now there’s Google’s Duo app. But every system has the same problem: when you look at the person you’re talking to on the screen, you’re not looking at the camera, so in the image of you on their screen, you’re looking away. You can force yourself to look at the camera, but then you’ll miss a lot. What we need is a video chat screen where the camera sensor is built into the pixels, not mounted at the top or side.…

When Google launched its popular Chromecast dongle (www.snipca.com/21744), you needed to install a Chrome browser extension to ‘cast’ content from websites – such as YouTube and BBC iPlayer – to your TV. The latest version of Chrome (number 53) has this function built in, so you no longer need to add an extension. This makes it a great way to watch online videos, read emails and browse the web on your TV’s bigger screen. STEP 1 If you don’t have Chrome on your PC, install it from chrome.google.co.uk and go straight to Step 2. If you already use Chrome, you’ll need to update it to the latest version. Do this by clicking the menu button (three horizontal lines) 1 , moving your cursor to Help 2 , then clicking About…

Reach Out Free Android: www.snipca.com/21811 iOS: www.snipca.com/21812 Reach Out is a virtual support group for people suffering from serious illness, including heart conditions, diabetes, mental illness, chronic pain and cancer. Post your circumstances on the message board to receive supportive and helpful feedback. Airmail £3.99 iOS: www.snipca.com/21813 This popular email app has been updated with many new features. These include the option to recall an email you’ve sent within a few seconds. You can also choose to receive notifications only for messages from contacts, thereby avoiding being bothered by endless junk emails. Matissa Free Windows Phone: www.snipca.com/21814 Prisma is a great app for adding artistic effects to your photos (see above). Matissa lets you add similar effects to photos taken on your Windows Phone. As with Prisma, you can then…

OFFICE Edit your Office files from any PC Even though it may not have the wide range of editing features of its PC-based equivalent, Office Online is great if you want to access your Office files from any PC (assuming it has an internet connection). We’ll show you how to upload a presentation created using PowerPoint software to PowerPoint Online, edit it from any PC, then download the edited file. The same instructions apply to Word Online and Excel Online. Office Online files are saved to OneDrive by default, so first go to www.onedrive.com, log into your Microsoft account, select the folder you want to save to (or create a new one and name it), then drag and drop your presentation into it. You can now access this file on…

Photo folders won’t fully synchronise Folders and subfolders might be a great way to catalogue your photos for faster access, but if you keep your digital photos in several levels of subfolders you could be preventing OneDrive from synchronising them properly. This is because OneDrive struggles syncing photos whose file-location paths contain more than 255 characters. This includes everything from the drive letter to the name of the photo, for example C:\Users\<UserName>\ Pictures\2016\August\Summer Holiday\ Family\By the pool.jpg. To check the number of characters in a file-location path, open your Pictures folder in Explorer, navigate to and select a photo within a subfolder that won’t sync and click the address bar to highlight the file-location path (see screenshot above). Right-click the text and select Copy. Open a Word document and paste…

You know what the biggest problem with penning an opinion column is these days? It’s certainly not having the opinions. That bit’s easy, and we all have them. Why, only yesterday I thought: I bet I’ll regret writing this particular opinion column. But let’s take a step back. In his famous allegorical novel Animal Farm, George Orwell imagined that pigs might one day elevate themselves to the very highest levels of government — and ex-prime minister David Cameron’s alleged porcine adventures suggest that Orwell’s fantasy wasn’t all that far-fetched. But Orwell also wrote of another world that at the time seemed similarly outlandish. In Nineteen Eighty-Four the novelist envisioned a terrifying dystopian future, which included the Thinkpol — or Thought Police. In the book, the Thought Police were charged with…

Can Virgin force me to pay for a service I can’t get? Q I changed my TV, broadband and phone package to Virgin Media in April this year. I told the salesman my house was on the market but he said this wouldn’t be a problem and that I could transfer my contract to my new house. However, Virgin’s service isn’t available in my new location. I now have to pay £250 for the remaining seven months of the contract. Do I need to pay this? Shirley Gill A Yes, we’re afraid Shirley will probably will have to pay, unless she can prove she was missold the contract. If she can’t, Virgin is entitled to ask her to pay the remaining seven months of her contract. The salesman was correct…

PC ❘ £490 from Chillblast www.snipca.com/21830 Every year, PC components with the same processing power cost less than before, yet the PC you want to buy never seems to get any cheaper than last time you bought one. If Lewis Carroll were writing Through the Looking-Glass today, Alice would surely point out that this doesn’t add up. The reason, of course, is that as fast as hardware makers improve performance, Microsoft and other software developers add features that eat it up – whether to accommodate innovations like HD and now 4K video, or just to make icons bounce more attractively. As customers, we don’t get much of a say in this arms race, just an awkward choice between mid-range computers that cost a little bit more than we might like,…

What does it do? Based on the plugs used by 19th-century telephone operators, the 3.5mm (1/8in) headphone jack is an analogue interface that provides contacts to form an electrical circuit. Modern devices translate digital audio into a voltage that passes through the circuit to your headphones, which convert it into sound. The stereo jack plug is known as ‘TRS’, because its three contact points are called the tip, ring and sleeve. Why would I want one? For a simple connection to any audio equipment, from cheap headphones to fancy hi-fi units. Nobody owns the headphone jack design, so anyone can make hardware for it. In contrast, to make accessories for the Lightning connection (see image), companies have to pay Apple. What’s the catch? Phones are getting too slim for the…

Find out what other products we liked. Buy our new 2015 Back Issue CD: £15 from www.snipca.com/21619 LAPTOP Asus ZenBook UX305CA £549 from www.snipca.com/21649 Tested: Issue 475 This metal-cased ‘ultrabook’ looks much more expensive than it is. There’s no touchscreen or 36-degree hinge, just great quality all round and an ultra-sharp display. The M3 processor is adequate for most tasks, though not gaming. ALTERNATIVE Dell Inspiron 15 5000 If you need a full-size Windows 10 laptop with a DVD drive and a desktop PC-level i5 processor, this is a solid choice. £529 from www.snipca.com/21650 ANDROID TABLET Samsung Galaxy S2 9.7 £334 from www.snipca.com/21678 Tested: Issue 462 The Sony Xperia Z4 is too expensive and Google’s cheaper Nexus 9 has been discontinued, leaving the 32GB S2 9.7 as the best mid-sized…

Email us your tips: letters@computeractive.co.uk TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Get a £30 backup program for free (until Nov 1) My Windows 7 PC has slowed to a crawl, so I’ve decided to upgrade to Windows 10. While looking for a free program to back up my PC, I stumbled upon the latest version Paragon Backup & Recovery 16. It usually costs $40 (around £30), but you can get it for free if you install it before November 1. So, I decided to take advantage of the offer. Go to the program’s website (www.snipca.com/21833) and click the appropriate ‘Download for free’ button for your system type (32bit or 64bit). When it launches, you’ll be asked for a serial number. Click ‘create an account’, then enter your name, email address, select United…

AGES 0-5 Weather Puzzles* Free www.snipca.com/21815 (Android) Free www.snipca.com/21816 (iOS) This app has 12 simple weather-related puzzles, each of which comes to life when completed. As your child improves, you can tweak the puzzles to make them more challenging. AGES 6-10 Lego Junior Create and Cruise Free www.snipca.com/21817 (Android) Free www.snipca.com/21818 (iOS) This free virtual LEGO game will enhance your child’s creativity. They need to navigate their vehicle around a track to collect coins, which are then used to upgrade their vehicle, driver and track. AGES 11-16 Pixel Cup Soccer 16 £2.79 www.snipca.com/21819 (Android) £2.29 www.snipca.com/21820 (iOS) Our national football teams don’t seem to fare well in international tournaments (Wales aside), but your teenager can change their fortunes in this game. After practicing, they can compete in the World Cup,…

Burn files across multiple discs CDBurnerXP (https://cdburnerxp.se) is an excellent free CD burner that you can use to create audio, video and data discs. One of its best features is that it lets you save very large folders across multiple CDs, helping you overcome the 700MB limit on a standard CD. To do this, click ‘Data disc’ in the main menu (you’ll see this whenever you open the program), drag and drop the files you want to burn and click Disc, then ‘Disc spanning’. In the pop-up window (see screenshot below) select the size of the disc you’re using. Next, select ‘Use as few discs as possible’ if you want the software to split large folders between discs (or ‘Do not split folder contents unnecessarily’ if you don’t) and click…

NEW! THE ADVANCED GUIDE TO WINDOWS 10 Written by Computeractive’s PC specialists, The Advanced Guide to Windows 10 is a musthave manual for anyone who uses Microsoft’s operating system. Its 196 pages are packed with expert advice written in plain English, helping you unlock every hidden tool. You’ll learn how to customise Windows 10 so it works exactly how you want it to, and how to reverse settings that Microsoft keeps changing. It’s also the ideal trouble-shooting guide, providing fixes for every conceivable problem. Don’t turn on your PC without it! BUY IT NOW FROM AMAZON at www.snipca.com/21617 THE A-Z JARGON BUSTER BOOK This A-Z guide contains over 900 definitions of computing and tech jargon, helping you take back control of your PC. It tells you in plain English what…

32bit 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. 64bit A technology that processes information in larger chunks. Most modern computers are 64bit. AMOLED Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode. An alternative technology to LCD for creating flat-panel displays. Most commonly used in smartphones, tablets and smartwatches. AVI Audio Video Interleave. A type of video file. AVI is known as a container format, as it can hold many types of audio and video. Beta A version of software that’s being tested. Beta versions are often released so problems can be ironed out. BIOS Basic Input-Output System. Essential software built into every PC that connects the vital components. It’s…