Table of contents for Vol. 454 in Computeractive

One topic has dominated emails from readers this year: Windows 10. You’ve asked some great questions, displaying the mix of enthusiasm, cynicism and curiosity that I believe is unique to Computeractive readers. Many of you are happy that it’s a free upgrade for Windows 7 and 8 users, but just as many appear to be thinking, ‘so what if it’s free - is it actually any good?’. At the heart of most emails is one core dilemma: ‘should I upgrade?’. It’s such an important question that we’ve devoted eight pages to answering it in this special issue. We give you several nuanced answers, from ‘yes, immediately’, to ‘maybe, just not yet’, to ‘no, are you mad?’. It all depends on your current operating system, and what type of PC user…

In a major computing breakthrough IBM has revealed the world’s first PC processor containing chips that are just seven nanometres (nm) long – just seven-billionths of a metre. IBM believes the revolutionary new processor could help to double the average PC speed. However, the company said it won’t start appearing in PCs, phones and tablets until 2017-18. So far, the 7nm chips have been made only in laboratory conditions. IBM is working on ways to make them in manufacturing plants. The components are roughly the same size as a red blood cell, and only three times wider than a strand of human DNA. Generally, smaller technology means a chip requires less power, and hence can run faster without overheating. The latest processors made by IBM’s rival Intel use 14nm technology.…

What they say HTTP/2(http://http2.github.io): “HTTP/2 is a replacement for how HTTP is expressed ‘on the wire’. It is not a ground-up rewrite of the protocol; HTTP methods, status codes and semantics are the same, and it should be possible to use the same APIs as HTTP/1.x to represent the protocol.” What they mean HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) is the process by which data moves around the web, and HTTP/2 is the same but better. If you like jargon, you are going to love HTTP/2’s Wikipedia page (www.snipca.com/17293).…

Tell us what’s on your mind Email: letters@computeractive.co.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/computeractive Twitter: @ComputerActive www.twitter.com/computeractive Not a Windows 10 fundamentalist, just ‘enthusiastic’ I think Philip James is being unfair in his Star Letter in Issue 453 when he describes Derek Key as a Windows 10 “fundamentalist”. I would say that Mr Key was just being enthusiastic about an operating system he is looking forward to downloading. What a cynical world we live in if someone is labelled a zealot just for being excited about something. Bill Coles Philip James comes across as a pompous killjoy. Like Derek Key I’m looking forward to Windows 10 because I think Microsoft have got it right this time (they got it very wrong with Windows 8). That doesn’t make me a “fundamentalist”. It means I’m a…

Contact us so we can investigate your case Email: consumeractive@computeractive.co.uk Write: Consumeractive, Computeractive, 30 Cleveland Street, London W1T 4JD Please include both your phone number and address. Unfortunately, we can’t reply to all your letters. Who’s responsible for honouring cashback promos? Q I had a hard time getting Lenovo to honour a cashback deal for £30 when I bought a laptop from Ebuyer. Ebuyer insisted it was Lenovo’s problem because it was offering the cashback so couldn’t help me. Lenovo finally paid, but who’s responsible for honouring this cashback deal? Gwyn Hughes A This was a promotion run by Lenovo so it has to honour it. But is there ever a time when a retailer promoting a cashback deal has to bear some responsibility? Even though the cashback is offered…

Q My Windows 8.1 PC came with a trial version of Microsoft Office, which included a tool for creating and printing Avery labels. Because I’m retired, I don’t need the full version of Office, but I miss the label-printing function. What should I use instead? Charles Machim A Microsoft’s Label Options tool (www.snipca.com/17181) didn’t survive the jump from Office 2013 to the free web-based version of the program, Office Online (https://www.office.live.com). Word Online has some great printing templates, including financial reports and even maps (snipca.com/17184), but no labels. If you wanted an alternative office suite, we’d recommend LibreOffice (www.libreoffice.org). It’s free, open-source and includes label design and printing tools (www.snipca.com/17185). But its size (220MB) and memory usage may be overkill in your case. So instead use Avery’s free web-based ‘Design…

Compared with Apple’s, it’s hard to see other smartphones without one word springing to mind: plastic. But Samsung finally went metal with last year’s Galaxy Alpha, and now you can get the same cool silvery durability (it also comes in black) in a mobile that costs less than £200 without a contract. It’s also available free with tariffs from under £20 a month. “Unlike some midpriced phones, it has a great camera” The Galaxy A3 is just slightly smaller than (and the same thickness as) an iPhone 6, but its screen has far fewer pixels, making it look coarser than most phones these days. Colour and contrast are excellent, though, so it’s only things like tiny text that suffer any noticeable lack of clarity. Unlike some mid-priced phones, it also…

Find out what other products we liked in 2014. Buy our Back Issue CD (now only £11.83): www.snipca.com/14981 LAPTOP Asus X555LA-XX290H £300 from www.snipca.com/16158 Tested: Issue 446 Asus has made all the right choices with this budget Windows 8.1 laptop. Its comfortable keyboard, fast performance, respectably lengthy battery life and bright screen are all the more impressive given its low price. ALTERNATIVE Asus Chromebook C200 A cheap Chrome OS ultra-portable laptop with a bright screen, lengthy battery life and a great keyboard. £200 from www.snipca.com/17296 NEW ENTRY PHONE Samsung Galaxy A3 £190 from www.snipca.com/17193 Tested: Issue 454 Similar in size to an iPhone 6, this Android phone doesn’t have a high-res screen or high-end performance for advanced games and creative apps, but it lasts over 14 hours on a charge, has a…

Handy hints and tips from your fellow readers Email us your tips: letters@computeractive.co.uk TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Tweak Kaspersky’s settings for better protection Last year I was inspired by your Workshop on Kaspersky Internet Security 2014 (Issue 419) to start using it as my antivirus. My one-year licence expired last week. Thankfully, the brilliant program is still available as a Reader Offer (page 68). So I have now bought Kaspersky Internet Security 2015, which comes with even better security features than its predecessor. However, upon delving deeper into the program I was surprised to find that a few vital settings are turned off by default. To remedy this, open the program and click Settings at the bottom. Now click Protection Center at the top left, scroll down the list on…

AGES 0-5 Fireman Sam – Fire and Rescue £1.99 www.snipca.com/17232 (Android) £1.99 www.snipca.com/17233 (iOS) This app comprises five games in which your toddler needs to rescue people using simple swipe gestures. Our favourite game involves saving people from a building by dragging the fire engine to the right spot. AGES 6-10 Thinkrolls £2.29 www.snipca.com/17234 (Android) £2.29 www.snipca.com/17235 (iOS) In this physics-based game, you need to navigate your character through a maze by discovering how to manipulate obstacles in its path. For example, use rocks to break surfaces and ice blocks to douse fires. There are over 200 levels to complete. AGES 11-16 Stick Tennis Free www.snipca.com/17236 (Android) Free www.snipca.com/17237 (iOS) If you’re suffering from a Wimbledon hangover, this is the perfect cure. As your player moves across the court, you…

Split big files Glary’s File Splitter tool lets you get around size limits on attachments imposed by internet service providers, freeing you up to email files of any size. In File Splitter’s ‘Split file’ tab, use the first Browse button to select the original file, then the second Browse button to choose a destination for the split files. Now select the ‘User defined file size’ button, then type your (or your recipient’s) attachment limit in the box below – 10MB is a typical limit. Tick ‘Add Self-Joining Functionality to the split files set’, then click Split Now. You can now send each of the resulting files as an attachment on individual emails. When all pieces have been received, your recipient needs to doubleclick the EXE file to have the original…

After months of waiting, fuelled by expectation, rumour and more than a little confusion, Windows 10 is finally here. As you’ll know by now, Microsoft’s new operating system (OS) brings a number of key improvements, but it will still feel familiar to all Windows users – which couldn’t be said for its predecessor, Windows 8, which was dramatically different from Windows 7. Windows 10, by contrast, is essentially a streamlined version of Windows as we’ve known it for years. It’s also safer, faster and, for a large number of people, completely free. WHAT YOU CAN DO • Find out why Windows 10 may be your perfect OS • Discover the Windows XP, 7 and 8 features you’ll lose • Get a Start menu that also works as a Start screen…

Email us your problem and we’ll try to help: noproblem@computeractive.co.uk PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT Where are my OneDrive files? Q In a recent article about OneDrive you referred to ‘OneDrive online’ and also ‘One Drive on your PC’, which I didn’t really understand. I have recently had problems with OneDrive and don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I have a Windows 8.1 laptop with Office 2013 and a Vista desktop PC with Office 2007. There are two Excel files that I want to access from my desktop PC when I’m home and from my laptop when I’m away. Most of the time I can achieve what I want, but occasionally I find one of the above machines offers me an older copy from somewhere and I can’t seem able to…

1080p Of the common types of high-definition video, this is the best quality: 1920x1080 pixels. 64bit A technology that processes information in larger chunks. 720p A common resolution of HD video: 1280x720 pixels. ADSL2+ Provides subscribers with faster download speeds than traditional ADSL connections. Beta A version of software that’s being tested. BIOS Basic Input-Output System. Essential software built into PCs that connects the vital components. Cache A temporary space for storing information. DirectX 9 An old version of DirectX. DisplayPort A new socket for connecting monitors that’s still relatively rare. DNS Domain Name System. A technology that associates PCs with their addresses on the internet. Driver A file that tells Windows how to work with a peripheral device. Dual boot To set up a PC with two operating systems,…

There are some people who believe in what they call the singularity: the advent of an artificial intelligence so brilliant that it will transform life on Earth profoundly for the better. There are others who imagine a doomsday scenario, where some realworld cousin of the Matrix or The Terminator’s Skynet becomes self-aware and destroys humanity. Me? I’m neither too hopeful nor too worried, because the more complex the computer systems we create, the more likely they are to fall flat on their face. A real-world singularity or Skynet would probably collapse over some minor, unforeseen fault – running out of RAM, for example, as it ponders some problem of little consequence. “Behind every IT disaster are companies who’ve been paid very well to set things up and keep them going”…

The most learned judges of Espoo (stop sniggering at the back – it’s a city in Finland) recently chose to let a prolific hacker off with a slap on the wrist, citing his young age and his lack of “capacity to understand the harmfulness of the crimes”. What was he, six? No, he was 16. Julius Kivimaki, aka Zeekill, broke into 50,700 computers, including thousands at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), to steal credit-card details that he used to buy champagne and vouchers. He’s also accused of laundering Bitcoin to fund a trip to Mexico, and is a member of the Lizard Squad gang of internet vandals. Now, while I applaud the ingenuity of a kid who can hack the world’s leading technology university, I do feel that his actions…

Malcolm Carpenter obviously has never been a forum moderator (‘Moderators on forums adopt autocratic attitude’, Letters, Issue 453). Maybe he should give it a go and experience for himself the constant problems that have to be endured from members, some of whom deliberately cause problems purely to bait the mod, others who cannot discuss anything without resorting to abuse. There are complaints about such members from other people, countercomplaints and demands for action. That’s not to mention members who think they are entitled to break all the rules and post whatever they like – pornography links included – and then complain about, and frequently threaten, the mods when they take action. Mr Carpenter should walk a mile in a mod’s shoes before making such sweeping judgements about “power going to…

WATCH OUT FOR… Scam ‘TalkTalk’ phone calls What happened? TalkTalk customers have been warned that phone scammers are still targeting them, months after the criminal campaign first came to light. In February, the ISP sent an email to every customer admitting that in 2014 criminals had stolen some account details and phone numbers, saying the total was in the “small thousands” (see News, Issue 445). At the time TalkTalk warned customers that fraudsters might phone them, pretending to be from the company. Scammers tried to trick customers into revealing their bank details, or told them there was a problem with their broadband, and that they needed to download a piece of software from the internet. Any person downloading this would give the criminals instant access to their PC. The most…

New products tested by our experts Slimmer and prettier may be the tech industry’s current obsessions, but for many of us the perfect PC is one that can tackle anything from web browsing to video editing without stuttering to a halt, and has accessible innards for future upgrades – regardless of whether it looks like the back of a bus. Not that the PC Specialist Trion 960 is unattractive. Its black monolith of a case, made by Corsair, is inoffensively understated, with neat white LED indicators on the front, along with two of the six USB ports and a DVD drive – often omitted from smaller machines. Inside is a fast 3.5GHz Intel Core i5 quad-core processor that’s been overclocked to make it even faster. This generates more heat, but…

I have Parkinson’s – is there a phone for me? Q I have Parkinson’s disease and can’t easily use a touchscreen. Is there a phone that uses apps but doesn’t require touch control? John Jones A Mobile devices can be very useful to people with disabilities, but Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android were designed from the ground up for touchscreens, which require the kind of unsupported fine movements that can prove difficult. No mainstream smartphones are based on input methods other than touch, and built-in accessibility features focus on voice control, which is poorly suited to tasks beyond opening apps and dictating text. Assistive accessories such as switches help users with very limited motor skills, but only work with a few apps. A stylus could help. These come in all…

Xara’s Web Designer Premium is our new favourite web-design software. Winning a five-star Buy It! award in Issue 453, the package has great new features that make it easier to build your website. Crucially, you can make your site ‘responsive’, so it looks great on PCs as well as phones and tablets. It’s a must-buy for anyone looking to improve their site or build their first one. To enter, email your address to cacomp@dennis. co.uk by midnight 4 August. Xara Web Designer Premium 11 is available to buy priced £69.99 from www.xara.com/uk/web-designer/buy. Visit that site for info on Xara’s other products, including the new Photo & Graphic Designer 11. Follow Xara on Twitter @XaraGroup.…

The latest version of Glary Utilities (version 5.28) has a design that reminds us of Windows 8.1’s Modern interface, with a flatter graphical look and feel, so you might not have noticed the tiny blue dots at the left-hand side of the bottom toolbar (see screenshot). If you click the lower one of these, the toolbar will flip to display a selection of links to tips hosted on the Filepuma website (www.filepuma.com), hosted by Glary’s publisher Glarysoft (www.glarysoft.com). Just click a link to open the tip in your web browser. These tip links are updated all the time, so check back now and then for the latest additions. Also look for the similar pair of dots to the right-hand side of the Advanced Tools tab in the main Glary window:…

The Windows Command Prompt (‘command line’) is your PC’s last living link to MS-DOS. It’s barely aged a day and remains one of Windows’ most powerful tools, but it’s sorely under-used. No surprise, really: it’s stuffed with jargon and looks like something a nostalgic hacker would dream about. Windows 10 will make the command line a little more user-friendly by letting you paste text into it. But whatever version of Windows you’re using, this age-old tool makes life easier by giving you quick control of tasks that would otherwise involve lots of clicking around in the Control Panel – anything from shutting down your PC to copying multiple files from one directory to another. Open it by typing cmd into Start and pressing Enter. Type a ‘command’ at the ‘prompt’…

The BBC has announced ambitious plans to give every year-seven child in the UK a free mini computer to help them learn more about coding. Over a million 11- to 13-year-olds will receive a micro:bit (pictured) in October as part of the BBC’s 2015 Make it Digital initiative (www.bbc.co.uk/makeitdigital). The 4cm x 5cm board has 25 red LEDs which children can use to make games and display messages. Two programmable buttons allow the micro:bit to be used as a games controller, or to pause and play songs. Other features include Bluetooth and a built-in compass. The computer has been called the “spiritual successor” of the BBC Micro, the much-loved PC of the early 1980s. Partners on the project include Microsoft, Samsung, Barclays and British processor company ARM. BBC Director-General Tony…

WARNING – Junk ahead Junk offender: Free YouTube Downloader Remember how excited you were when you got your first video recorder? Probably not as excited as Rick from ’80s comedy The Young Ones (www.snipca.com/17289) but pretty happy nonetheless. Fast forward 35-odd years and we’re still in love with the idea of recording video to keep, especially from YouTube. Software developers know this, and they take advantage by offering useless, adware-ridden tools. Wajam, bam, thank you ma’am Free YouTube Downloader (http://youtubedownloader.com) is currently particularly popular. Its Download button takes you to Cnet (http://download.com), a site so riddled with PUPs that I’ll devote this whole page to it one day. The program’s installer doesn’t hesitate to offer a couple of unwanted extras: search engine Wajam and something called Safer Browser, which doesn’t…

I feel that I must respond to the many comments made by readers with regard to courier deliveries. To date all the comments that I have read have originated from disgruntled recipients of deliveries that they have felt were inadequate for one reason or another. I would like to offer a viewpoint from the other side of the coin. People should be aware that the courier delivering to their door will have to make, on average, 120 deliveries that day (for a typical urban round) and will be given little more than a minute at each address. By doing the maths it is easy to work out that a mere 30-second delay at each address results in an extra hour added to that courier’s working day, which is time they…

ThinCharger £11 from www.snipca.com/17078 The first British Standardsapproved folding plug remains the only one where the live pins don’t move. The collapsible earth pin, as usual, is just a plastic prong to activate the socket’s shutters. The ThinCharger provides 5 volts at 2.1 amps, enough for most Mu Classic £15 from www.snipca.com/17076 Designed by Royal College of Art student Min-Kyu Choi, the Mu folds to a neat square with just the tip of the plastic earth pin poking out. To use it, you fold two wings back and rotate the live pins into place. The single USB socket delivers 5 volts at 1 amp, suitable for phones; Mu Tablet (£24) offers higher power. An international version is in the works. Apple 5W USB Power Adapter (Folding Pins) £25 from www.snipca.com/17079…

802.11ac is the latest Wi-Fi standard. Theoretically faster than 802.11n, it uses the 5GHz band, which is less likely to suffer interference, and boosts range, so you’re more likely to get good reception. The Archer D9 is TP-Link’s top-of-therange 802.11ac modem router. It supports regular ADSL2+ broadband, or can be used alongside the modem supplied with a cable or fibre (VDSL) connection. But if you do have cable broadband, such as Virgin Media’s, consider the C9, which omits ADSL to save a few pounds. Neither model can replace a VDSL modem router such as BT Infinity’s HomeHub 5. The white and transparent plastic case looks stylish. Its integral stand props it at a slight angle. At the back, four Gigabit Ethernet ports connect PCs, printers or network-attached storage (NAS) directly,…

AUTUMN 2015 According to reports, this year’s iPhone 6s could have Force Touch – as on the latest MacBooks – letting you perform different tasks depending on how hard you press. Another possibility is a big camera upgrade. AUTUMN 2015 A new Google Nexus phone is expected to be the first device to use Android M, the successor to Lollipop. Other mobile phone and tablet makers will quickly follow when the new operating system appears, probably in September. AUTUMN 2015 Apple’s iOS 9 will be a free upgrade for any iPhone or iPad that can currently run iOS 8. Among lots of new features, you’ll be able to ‘slide over’ a different app while still seeing the one you’re using. With the iPad Air 2, you can even run two…

Solid Explorer Free Android: www.snipca.com/17230 Your phone or tablet gets sluggish when its storage is full. Solid Explorer helps to solve this problem by telling you which items are taking up the most space. It then lets you move these to your cloud-storage accounts. This will free up space and make your device faster. Dark Sky £2.99 iOS: www.snipca.com/17231 One of the best iOS weather apps just got better. You can now create custom weather alerts to inform you when it will rain or when the weather will exceed 30 degrees, for example. Use the new daily summary to set a time to receive a weather forecast for the rest of the day. Flick Free Android and iOS: www.getflick.io Windows Phone: www.snipca.com/17241 Flick (not to be confused with Flickr) lets…

OUTLOOK.COM Create email reminders in Outlook.com It’s easy to use Microsoft’s powerful Calendar app to receive email reminders of important events in Outlook.com. To do this, first go to www.outlook.com and log in with your Microsoft (Outlook or Hotmail) account. Now click the icon with nine dots at the top left to see a selection of Microsoft Online apps, then click the purple Calendar tile. To create a new event, click the New dropdown menu at the top left, then select Task (you can also click Event). Now click the ‘Due date’ dropdown menu and select the date of your event on the calendar. Next, click the Time dropdown menu (showing half-hour slots) and set the time for the event. You can choose a Status (‘Not started’, ‘In progress’ or…

What is it? Apple’s new music-streaming service (www.apple.com/uk/music), which is a major rival to Spotify. On the surface they appear similar: for £9.99 a month they both let you listen to (online and offline) an unlimited selection of 30 million tracks. But Apple Music has a secret weapon called Beats 1 Radio. What’s that? A 24-hour radio station broadcasting online from Los Angeles, New York and London. It features news, interviews and, crucially, songs picked by people Apple calls “music experts”, including ex-Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe. It will have more appeal than Spotify’s radio stations, which are little more than personalised playlists of your favourite tracks. Plus, you don’t need to pay the monthly fee to listen to it. Will Terry Wogan be on it? Sadly not, nor Ken…

Skype won’t launch If you can’t get Skype to launch, first make sure you’ve got the latest version (from www.snipca.com/16969). If it still fails to launch, temporarily disable some security tools, such as your firewall (but be wary of disabling your main antivirus program). To disable Windows Firewall, visit Control Panel’s ‘System and Security’ section, click Windows Firewall and then ‘Turn Windows Firewall on or off’, select ‘Turn off Windows Firewall (not recommended)’ and click OK. If Skype now launches, re-enable your security software then look for any reasons for the blocking. In Windows Firewall, for example, click ‘Allow a program or feature through Windows Firewall’, then make sure that Skype is ticked. Finally, a corrupted Skype file can sometimes prevent launch. Press Windows key+R to open the Run box,…