Table of contents for 529 in Computeractive

What advice would you give your younger self about computing? Don’t bother upgrading to Windows Vista? Don’t reply to that email from a Nigerian businessman offering riches? Untick all ‘bonus’ boxes when installing software? Ah, if only. In this issue’s Cover Feature (page 50), Jonathan Parkyn recommends Windows tricks that would have made life easier had you learned them years ago. While reading it I felt that bittersweet sensation of discovering I’ve being doing certain things wrong for years. Yes, it’s a relief to know you’ll no longer make those mistakes, but you can’t help feeling like a prize turnip for not realising sooner. Some tips are useful only in the here and now, such as solutions to problems caused by the April 2018 Update (see page 58). We’ve tried…

More than 50 MPs have said phone networks should be forced to improve their 4G coverage across the UK to boost access in rural areas. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Rural Services sent a letter to digital secretary Matt Hancock saying EE, O2, Three and Vodafone should be legally obliged to deliver mobile coverage to 95 per cent of the UK’s landmass by the end of 2022. The Government declared this ambition in December, estimating it would add £75 billion to UK GDP. However, regulator Ofcom says only 57 per cent of premises in rural areas can make calls on all four networks, compared with 90 per cent in towns and cities. The letter, signed by MPs from all major parties (read it at www.snipca.com/27857), said 4G must be improved…

The NHS has warned patients they may lose alerts about doctor and hospital appointments now that GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) has come into force. GDPR, which became law on 25 May, gives all EU citizens the right to know what personal data companies and organisations store on them. If they breach the regulations, they face fines of up to €20m (£17.5m) or four per cent of global turnover. To comply, companies, charities and public bodies have been asking people whether they want to continue to receive their emails and text messages. If customers fail to reply, they’re taken off companies’ lists. It has resulted in many users receiving hundreds of emails. In the days leading up to the deadline the NHS was texting people the message: “The law is…

Adults who want to watch porn online will be able to prove their age by buying codes from newsagents. Under forthcoming laws over-18s will be required to confirm their age to access porn sites. The legislation, part of the Digital Economy Act 2017, is aimed at preventing children encountering sexually explicit content. A 2016 NSPCC survey found that just under half of 11-16 year olds had seen porn online. That rises to two-thirds of 15-16 year olds. Adults will also be able to prove their age by entering credit-card or driving-licence details, but privacy campaigners have slammed this idea as being a hacker’s dream, warning it could leave users open to blackmail. The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), which is in charge of implementing the age checks, says 16-digit…

I’ve had a couple of Bad Tech Days. I visited a branch of Currys/PC World to buy a TV set. The model I wanted wasn’t in stock, so the very helpful assistant suggested I order it online and have it delivered to the store the next day. But the computer wanted to verify my card and the screen just turned white. The assistant tried again, with the same result. I queried if two TVs had now been ordered, but was told the payments hadn’t gone through. I then bought the TV online at home. I went to the store to collect it where, sure enough, there were three of them! I only took one and the assistant said I’d be refunded when the others were returned to the depot. I…

My Toshiba 4TB X300 hard drive (pictured) failed about 15 months after I bought it from an Amazon Marketplace seller. Because it was still under a two-year warranty I contacted Toshiba, rather then go through the seller. I emailed them through their online contact form, and they replied two days later telling me to use the warranty form on their site. I filled it out with the drive’s make, and model and serial number. Then I printed the return label and shipped it to Germany (they didn’t ask for proof of purchase). I received a new hard drive a few days later. It was absolutely brilliant customer service, and didn’t cost me a penny. I wish all companies were as good as this. Alan Rees Has a company impressed you…

Switched on to TV scam In May scammers rang me to say my BT TV subscription had expired and I was due an equipment upgrade. The speaker (female) had an Indian accent. I am a BT customer, but I hung up and did some research online. Action Fraud (www.snipca.com/27749) had a report about the scam, though didn’t mention BT specifically. I read elsewhere that Sky and Virgin customers are also being targeted. This scam could prove effective if it goes after older people who haven’t been subscribers to these services for long, and don’t fully understand how they work. Julie Dott Warn your fellow readers about scams at letters@computeractive.co.uk…

PC | £600 from Overclockers UK www.snipca.com/27855 Overclockers UK Kinetic Z3 Cheap and cheerful Look toward the top of Intel’s range, or at AMD’s rival Ryzen series, and you’ll find processors with up to eight cores running at 4GHz (four billion cycles per second) and beyond, giving performance we’ve never seen before from all-purpose PCs. It’s all very exciting, but the i3-8100 (at the bottom of the eighth-generation range) offers something perhaps more practical: enough processing power to do justice to all the Windows jobs most of us normally need to attempt, at a price that makes it easy to put together a complete system at a very affordable cost. “Enough processing power for all the jobs most of us normally need to attempt” This modest chunk of silicon has…

What does it do? The i9-8950HK is the fastest processor Intel has ever made for laptops. It’s one of a number of new Coffee Lake chips that are coming out as part of the company’s eighth generation of Core processors (pictured). Why would I want it? To do more on the move. As we often point out, Intel’s use of the i3, i5 and i7 names across desktop PCs and laptops is quite misleading. There’s a big difference in the performance achievable in a slim battery-powered device versus a big box with a mains lead and lots of fans. In practice a laptop i7 is more like a desktop PC i3. So pushing up the upper range of laptop chips will be of interest to a lot of users –…

£140 from Amazon www.snipca.com/27888 WD’s distinctively styled NAS is the cheapest here (also available for £250 with 2x 2GB WD Red drives installed, or £375 with 2x 4GB). That price is due to a slow processor and just 1GB of memory, but somehow WD’s software manages to draw quite adequate performance out of these modest components for most purposes as well as offering very streamlined controls. Features are much less comprehensive than some, and there’s no monitor output, but it’s easy to set up for home and online storage, and media streaming. Even installing the hard drives is straightforward. If it’s enough for you, the My Cloud is a great deal. SPECIFICATIONS 2-bay SATA 6Gbps NAS • Maximum capacity 20TB • JBOD, RAID0, RAID1 • 1GB memory • Marvell Armada…

£258 from Amazon www.snipca.com/27879 With the full high-end DiskStation Manager (DSM) operating system, this neatly built NAS offers a wide range of features and Synology Hybrid RAID, which can use drives of different sizes. Large file transfers aren’t especially quick (a common failing of affordable NAS). There’s also no monitor output, and just one Ethernet port; while memory can’t be upgraded from 2GB. If those limitations don’t worry you, it’s a remarkably versatile device. A cheaper option is the 218j (£163 from Amazon www.snipca.com/27880), a successor to the 216j (see our review, Issue 510), which is less powerful and runs a cut-down DSM but still has features like the Photo Station image server. SPECIFICATIONS 2-bay SATA 6Gbps NAS • Maximum capacity 24TB • JBOD, RAID0, RAID1, SHR • 2GB memory…

Why does Galaxy Tab cost so much more than iPad? Q The new Apple iPad seems surprisingly good value at £319, while the equivalent Android tablet – the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 (pictured) – is £599. Am I missing something? Mary Eccles A Well, Samsung includes its S-Pen stylus, while Apple’s Pencil is £89 extra. This enables handwriting and improves art apps. Both come with 32GB of storage, but only the Tab S3 can be expanded. An A1-rated microSD card costs around £17 for 64GB. An iPad with 128GB is £409 (£498 with Pencil). Samsung sells a magnetic keyboard; there are third-party Bluetooth keyboards for the iPad. The iPad’s screen has thicker glass than the iPad Pro, so the Pencil doesn’t feel like it’s touching the pixels as closely, and…

The ideal present for Father’s Day, the Roku Streaming Stick+ gives you access to just about anything: blockbuster films, TV shows, live sports, news, music and specialist channels. In total it lets you watch more than 150,000 films and TV episodes across thousands of paid-for and free channels, including Netflix, NowTV, Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer and All 4. Also, unlike the Amazon Fire Stick, it has YouTube. The picture is stunning. Whether you’re streaming in HD, 4K or HDR, you’ll get picture quality that’s optimised for your TV, with crisp details and rich colour. Its advanced Wi-Fi receiver gives you a strong signal throughout your home, even on TVs located far away from your router. To enter, email your address to cacomp@dennis.co.uk with ‘roku’ in the subject line by midnight…

ANDROID & iOS Use WhatsApp’s new group chat features WhatsApp Messenger has recently added some useful new group-chat features. These let you quickly catch up on your group messages if you’ve been out of contact for a while, add a group description, and search for any group member by name – very handy for those larger groups. If you’ve been out of contact for some time (maybe you put your phone on silent mode) and a group member replied to one of your messages or sent a new message directly to you (by typing @ followed by your name), you’ll see a new ‘@’ symbol at the bottom right of the chat window. Tap this to go directly to messages addressed to you within the chat. Tap the three dots…

WINDOWS 7, 8.1, 10 Create a Notepad file listing items in any folder There’s an easy way to create a list of all the files in any folder on your PC using Command Prompt or PowerShell (depending on which Windows version you use). This method saves a list of all items within any folder as a Notepad file, which is useful if you’d like to see its contents at a glance. Press the Shift button, right-click your chosen folder, then click ‘Open PowerShell window here’ (in Windows 10 – see screenshot above) or ‘Open Command Prompt window here’ (Windows 7 and 8.1). Next, type dir > filename.txt (replacing ‘filename’ with the name you want to use for the Notepad file), then press Enter. Now close your PowerShell or Command Prompt…

“It uses voices and speech patterns that sound astonishingly – some say alarmingly – lifelike” What is it? New artificial-intelligence (AI) technology that makes automated phone calls for you, booking appointments while you get on with other jobs. It uses voices and speech patterns that sound astonishingly - some say alarmingly - lifelike. So not like a robot then? Nothing like a robot at all. To hear it visit Google’s AI blog (www.snipca.com/27854) then click the play buttons (see screenshot below). You’ll hear Duplex booking a hairdresser’s appointment and a restaurant table. That voice you hear saying “Hi, I’m calling to book a women’s haircut for a client” is Duplex, not a real person. Yes, we couldn’t believe it either. You can also watch it being demonstrated last month by…

“Elevate is the most expensive brain-training package I’ve tried. Turns out it’s also the best” And now, the end is near, and so I face the final… pairs-matching game. Yes, this is my last attempt at exercising the old grey matter. Thus, I went hunting for the ‘ultimate’ brain-training packages, the ones that saw themselves as must-haves. Uberwords for iOS (www.snipca.com/27873), for instance, sells itself as “the ultimate brain training game”, which – you won’t be surprised to hear - quite clearly isn’t. It is quite a nifty word game, though, that challenges you to make a longer word using the one shown and adding to it using letters at the bottom. It’s easier to explain if you look at the screenshot right. You’ll see ‘Fire’. And, if I’m not…

BT has launched the UK’s first joint broadband and 4G package, promising to keep you connected when there are problems with your service. Called BT Plus, the new deal guarantees you free unlimited mobile data if your broadband goes down, giving you continued access to the internet. The company said it will switch on mobile data within a hour of you contacting them, and send a free 4G Wi-Fi Mini Hub to arrive the next day. The 4G is provided by EE, which BT bought for £12.5bn in 2016. BT Plus customers will receive just one bill for both broadband and mobile. Customers can buy a broadband-mobile bundle, or broadband first, then add mobile data later. BT Plus bundles start from £61.99 a month for 18 months, then rise to…

Google has launched a new offline mode for Gmail, letting you use it when not connected to the internet. Previously, you had to add the Gmail Offline extension (www.snipca.com/27863) to do this. When offline you’ll be able to write emails, search your inbox and delete or archive messages. Your activity will be synchronised with Gmail when you next go online. This means emails you write offline will be kept in an Outbox folder, then automatically sent when you’re next connected to the web. It works only in the Chrome browser, however. To access the tool, which is being rolled out over the next few weeks, you’ll need to make sure you’re using the new version of Gmail. Click the top-right Settings cog, then ‘Try the new Gmail’. Once the new…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: Memory Optimizer 2 “Memory Optimizer 2 takes a few seconds to clean up your RAM,” (quote-unquotes the program’s website, www.snipca.com/27926). “As a result your Windows PC runs smoother and faster – all within just a couple of clicks,” it adds. This impartial recommendation from, er, the company’s marketing director sounds great, doesn’t it? Except that, “as a result” of installing Memory Optimizer 2, you could wind up handing over your PC’s processing power and your bandwidth to complete strangers. These days, I’ve learned to live with programs trying to gather data on how I use my PC. So, it’s no surprise that Memory Optimizer 2’s installer has a pre-ticked ‘Send anonymous data for analytical purposes’ box. What I’m more vexed about is the ethically questionable…

‘Name and shame’ drivers caught using phones I support the RAC’s call for the Government to introduce cameras that take photos of motorists using phones (News, Issue 528, page 7). I’d go further and suggest that these photos be put online in a gallery to name and shame those breaking the law. If, as surveys suggest, half of drivers use phones, clearly the law isn’t a strong enough deterrent. Perhaps being humiliated online would be more effective. It would also help to make this dangerous practise appear less socially acceptable. Simon Laidlaw Windows 10 update took just 29 mins John Oakley in Issue 528 complains that his latest Windows update took longer than the 30 minutes promised by Microsoft. I’d like to report a happier experience. My PC, which isn’t…

Can Dell ignore faulty laptop after three repairs? Q In 2015, I bought a Dell XPS 15 laptop. After two weeks the touchscreen developed a fault. Dell had to replace this three times, but now the battery has swollen, pushing the keyboard and screen out of line. Dell refuses to help because the laptop’s out of warranty. What are my rights? Liam Carr A Dell can refuse to help only if it didn’t sell the laptop directly to Liam. We need to find this out from Liam. He shouldn’t worry about the laptop being out of warranty because the swelling battery sounds like an inherent fault, which means the retailer (Dell or another company) must sort it out. If Liam bought the laptop before November 2015, he’ll be covered by…

WATCH OUT FOR… GDPR-related phishing scams What’s the threat? Cyber-criminals are sending fake GDPR-related emails hoping to trick people into revealing personal data. Implemented on 25 May, GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is major EU-wide legislation that gives you more say about how and where your data is used. To comply with the law, companies are emailing customers asking them to ‘re-consent’ to receive further messages. Fraudsters are exploiting this to send emails pretending to be a company’s official request for reconsent. They urge customers to click links then submit personal details. In one scam, spotted by UK security company Redscan, customers of property-rental service Airbnb are told they couldn’t take any more bookings until they accept its new privacy policy. It adds that the changes are “mandatory because of the…

IMAGE VIEWER Veneta Viewer https://sourceforge.net/projects/veneta-viewer What you need: Windows 7, 8/8.1 or 10 Image viewers like XnView and IrfanView are great, but they can feel old fashioned. If you’re after a tool with a more modern feel to browse photos, then brand-new Veneta Viewer might be the ticket. It supports a range of formats, including RAW and APNG files, and is hardware-accelerated, so it loads quickly, and flipping through high-resolution images is fast. Veneta’s interface is basic but uncluttered. Photos take centre stage, with a strip of useful info along the bottom of the program window. Navigation controls and icons for customising how you view images are along the top of the preview area. You can enable or disable colour channels here using the red, green and blue icons. The…

£299 from Amazon www.snipca.com/27874 The priciest box in this group test justifies itself with support for just about every service and protocol; lots of ports to access USB drives and cards; and two HDMI outputs for up to 4K TVs, with a remote control to play your videos. Synology Surveillance Station licences are included to run two security cameras, and the Linux Station app lets you use the TS-251A as a Linux PC (although you may want to upgrade the basic 2GB of memory). Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are optional extras, and if you need more space you can add a second unit. It’s a superbly comprehensive device, but for most people it’ll be overkill. SPECIFICATIONS 2-bay SATA 6Gbps NAS • Maximum capacity 20TB • Single, JBOD, RAID0, RAID1 • 2GB…

£260 from Amazon www.snipca.com/27885 TerraMaster is a Chinese brand selling exclusively via Amazon over here. Like the Thecus N2810Pro, this compact box also comes in a version with a slower processor and half the memory – the F-220, which brings the price down to £180. Even the F2-420 delivered sluggish file transfers in our tests, but the TOS software – based, as always, on Linux – provides a reasonable set of built-in and third-party apps for file transfer, web hosting and media. There’s no monitor output, though. Nicely presented setup screens made configuration fairly simple, and the supplied screwdriver was all we needed to get our drives mounted in the drive caddies and slotted into place. SPECIFICATIONS 2-bay SATA 6Gbps NAS • Maximum capacity 20TB • Single, JBOD, RAID0, RAID1…

PHONE | £217 from Amazon www.snipca.com/27891 This latest phone from HMD Global (the Finnish company that bought the Nokia brand) isn’t quite as cheap as the disappointing Nokia 2 (see our review, Issue 526) or Nokia 3 (see Issue 508), but it does well in an even more competitive price bracket. For a while, the territory between £200 and £250 was dominated by Motorola, with its Moto G series, but their last few models haven’t impressed us much. Lenovo’s P2 was an exciting entry, but disappeared from stock almost as soon as it arrived. Probably the best recent attempt is Huawei’s Honor 9 Lite (see Issue 524), with its fashionably tall screen and dual cameras front and back. “Dual cameras take photos simultaneously, good-quality screen and decent battery” The 6…

NiCad battery WHAT WAS IT? Batteries with nickel and cadmium electrodes, invented by Waldemar Jungner in 1899, were the first type of alkaline battery. Sealed versions were used from the mid-20th century for kit such as two-way radios and aircraft equipment. In the 1980s, their light weight and long life made NiCad cells the standard choice for portable digital products. They were used in laptops (like the Toshiba model pictured) and other gadgets into the 1990s. HOW HAVE THINGS CHANGED? NiCads had drawbacks. They gave a steady voltage but required care to avoid damage during charging. Repeatedly partially discharging and then recharging a NiCad battery could lead to output dropping before the cell was discharged, so users were advised to periodically fully discharge it. To prevent a risk of explosion,…

What you need: GIMP; Any Windows version (XP to 10) Time required: 40 minutes In Issue 528 (see Best Free Software, page 18), we recommended the latest version of the photo editor GIMP (its first update in over five years). We’ll show you how to use one of its best new features, which lets you compare any edits you make with the original image using a slider bar before you confirm your changes. We’ll also show you how to use its new Transform and Panorama Projection tools, and how to customise its new dark theme and icons. STEP 1 To install the program go to www.snipca.com/27869 and click the orange ‘Download 2.10.0 directly’ button. Open the downloaded setup file, click Yes, OK (to set English as your language), then click…

Google News Free Android: www.snipca.com/27934 iOS: www.snipca.com/27935 Google News aims to “organise what’s happening in the world” to help you follow stories that interest you”. Tap Favourites to add a list of topics and news sources. Swipe the Headlines tab to read an article’s main points before deciding whether to read it in full. Sketchbook Free Android: www.snipca.com/27936 iOS: www.snipca.com/27937 Sketchbook is one of the best free apps for creating drawings on your mobile device. Until recently, its Pro Tools cost $2.99 but these are now free. They include a customisable canvas, over 130 brushes and unlimited undo actions. You get more control using a stylus, but there’s nothing stopping you just using your finger. NearMinder Free Android: www.snipca.com/27938 This great app lets you set reminders that are triggered whenever…

Windows has accumulated a lot of handy features over the years, but many of them are so buried in the bowels of the operating system you could use your PC for years and never know they were there. Granted, Windows is a hugely complex operating system, and it’s difficult for Microsoft to enlighten its users to every single built-in tool or setting available. But the sorry truth is that the company does a pretty poor job of explaining many of its most useful abilities. Moreover, whenever a new version of Windows comes along, Microsoft tends to focus its publicity push on the new features it thinks you want to hear about, rather than the ones that are actually any good. The recent April 2018 Update is a case in point.…

Microsoft has once again claimed that laptop batteries last longer when browsing the web in Edge, outlasting Chrome and Firefox. It posted a video on YouTube (www.snipca.com/27950, pictured) showing three “identical” Surface laptops streaming the same video, with one running in Edge, one in Chrome, the other in Firefox. The laptop running edge Edge lasted over 14 hours, beating the one running Chrome (12 hours) and Firefox (seven). However, Microsoft admits - in small print at the bottom - that the results may vary on other devices, and that battery life overall depends on “settings, usage and other factors”. The company’s claim, made to promote the release of the April 2018 Update for Windows 10, repeats the test it has run several times, with Edge winning in each one. In…

TESCO DIRECT TO CLOSE IN JULY Tesco Direct (www.tesco.com/direct), which sells non-food items like clothing, will close on 9 July, having failed to compete with Amazon. Next-day delivery is no longer available. Instead items will take two to five days to arrive. You’ll still be able to use coupons and vouchers. Its normal returns policy applies, though after 9 July it may offer refunds only, not repairs nor replacements. Read more on Tesco’s site: www.snipca.com/27913. CHROME TO REMOVE ‘SECURE’ LABEL Google has said from September that Chrome will stop marking sites that use HTTPS encryption as ‘Secure’ because it wants to promote the expectation that the web should be safe “by default”. It will continue to show sites that use the older HTTP protocol as ‘Not Secure’. Google reveals more…

Robots will start looking after elderly people in care homes in a trial scheme relatives say lacks the “human touch”. From September Advinia Health Care, working with Bedfordshire University, will use the four-foot humanoid Pepper robot (pictured) in some of its 38 care homes across the UK. The robot, built by Japanese company SoftBank, uses artificial intelligence to adapt to the specific needs of the person it’s caring for. Screens on the robot’s chest will allow residents to contact family via Skype, and provide reminders of when to take medication. It can even tailor its conversation to match different personalities. The £2.5m trial, funded by the European Union, is designed to help ease the pressure on over-burdened carers, family and friends. However, Judy Downey from the Relatives and Residents Association…

Here’s a little story. Once upon a time in Latvia, there lived a helpful young chap called Ruslan. He felt sorry for all the busy, overworked malware creators of the world and decided to co-create a counter-antivirus (CAV) website called Scan4You (pictured), to help them make sure their viruses and other nasty programs could evade security software. Cyber-crooks could upload samples of their malicious code to the site, which would analyse them against the latest security tools. Ruslan’s site helped create lots of malware, including the Citadel botnet, used to hack the US retail company Target in 2013 and steal millions of users’ credit-card details. Then one day the FBI found out what Ruslan was doing and extradited him to the US. He’s now been prosecuted on two counts of…

There’s a flaw in Clive Biggs’s defence of personalised adverts online (Star Letter, Issue 528). I continue to see adverts for items I’ve already bought or places I’ve just visited. Last year, I bought a lawnmower online. For months afterwards all I saw were adverts for other lawnmowers. Why would I buy two? I recently spent a weekend in a Suffolk cottage. Ever since, adverts for other cottages have been stalking me. I love visiting Suffolk, but once a year is enough. Like Clive, I’m not against personalised adverts in theory, and can see when they’d be handy. For example, after I bought my lawnmower, seeing adverts for other garden equipment would have been useful. These would be similar to Amazon’s ‘you may also like’ recommendations. But instead I was…

It’s not often we have to update a resolved dispute, but we want readers to know that if promises made to us by a company aren’t honoured, we’ll continue to battle on your behalf. As we reported in Issue 527, Alexander Shand signed up to a Daily Mail offer for a year’s subscription to Mail Plus, the app version of the newspaper. This came with a free Kindle Fire tablet. Alex had to pay four months subscription (£9.99) upfront, but the code sent to buy the tablet from Amazon didn’t work. The Daily Mail apologised for the problem, telling us all the activation codes it had received had expired. It claimed a new batch was being sent out and Alexander would receive his in the next few days. With this…

Chrome, Firefox and Opera are all great browsers, but they leave too much of the security work to you. To protect your privacy you have to turn on numerous settings and install extensions. Not so with Avast Secure Browser (the new name for SafeZone), which has been built to provide maximum protection from the moment you install it. When you open it click Avast’s logo at the top right to launch the Security & Privacy Center (change it to ‘Centre’ by clicking the Options button then selecting ‘English United Kingdom’). This shows you all the tools Avast includes (see screenshot), and which you therefore won’t need to add as extensions. Adblock, Anti-Phishing, Anti-Tracking, Flash Blocker, Extension Guard, and HTTPS Encryption are turned on by default, as they should be. The…

How can I clone my hard drive to an SSD? Q I have used Samsung SSDs in the past and the cloning software that came with them worked perfectly. However, it only works with Samsung SSDs, as I found when I bought a cheaper Western Digital SSD for an old laptop. Samsung’s software won’t let me move data to the WD drive. I’m having difficulty finding a free cloning program that will. I could use expert help! R Stevens A It’s common for free cloning software given with SSDs to be locked to the manufacturer’s products. There are free disk-cloning tools available, but many show errors if you’re trying to migrate from a larger-capacity hard drive to a smaller SSD. They’ll only migrate from a drive that’s the same size…

PC | £1,559 Cyberpower www.snipca.com/27899 It’s hardly surprising that this smart-looking tower costs more than the classic thousand-pound PC. For a start, the Intel i7-8700K processor is from the top of Intel’s current consumer range, as is the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card, complete with 8GB of its own memory. Main memory comes in the form of two 8GB sticks of 3GHz DDR4, paired for maximum performance. But all of that wasn’t enough for Cyberpower. The ‘K’ in 8600K means this already excessively capable six-core chip can be overclocked, and that’s exactly what they’ve done, not just by a few percent but from 3.7GHz to a dizzying 4.8GHz. And this edition of the GTX 1080 also allows overclocking, so they’ve tweaked that too, albeit less dramatically. “Powerful processing with…

A NAS is effectively a small PC running its own operating system, with apps for various server tasks. At home, it’s commonly used for keeping collections of music and video files that can be played from anywhere. The NAS itself can be connected to a TV as a home entertainment centre. You can also use it to store and display photos, host websites, control security cameras and more, and to store any shared files. There may be ports to access USB drives or printers too. Most affordable NAS boxes have two or four drive bays containing multiple hard drives, which will appear as one volume. Hard drives don’t last forever, and when you set up your NAS you can choose a configuration that balances risk against speed and space. One…

£263 from Scan www.snipca.com/27882 As its industrial look forewarned, we found this the fiddliest NAS to set up, both in the fitting of the drives and the clunky software. Thecus’s operating system (OS7) has a new look but still feels quite daunting. Features can’t match Synology, but media is well covered, with servers like Plex and Twonky, and HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, plus a variety of apps to find TV shows and films online (some of these may link to illegal sources). With fast file transfers and smooth 4K video, this could be a good choice for more technically confident users. The slower but decent non-Pro model is under £200, while the N4810 gives you four bays for under £300. SPECIFICATIONS 2-bay SATA 6Gbps NAS • Maximum capacity 28TB •…

The Nokia 6 comes with Android One, which needs a bit of explaining. The Android operating system is made by Google, which releases it as open-source software, so anyone can install or modify it. But there are some elements found on almost all Android phones that aren’t open source. The whole point of the Google Play Store is that it’s controlled by Google, which decides which apps can be made available through it, so that users can be confident they’ll work as described and not do anything horrible. Besides licensing the Google Play Store, most phone makers also fiddle about with the core Android platform to add a few features of their own, sometimes to make better use of their hardware and sometimes seemingly just to be different. You might…

LAPTOP Asus ZenBook 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 ANDROID TABLET Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 9.7 £600 from www.snipca.com/27058 Tested: Issue 501 Samsung’s new mid-sized tablet has a wonderful HDR screen and comes with a pen included, unlike Apple’s iPad Pro. But its processor isn’t the fastest and it’s disappointingly expensive, especially compared to the £339 iPad 9.7in. ALTERNATIVE: Asus ZenPad 3S…

What you need: Windows 10 Time required: 25 minutes Windows’ major updates (such as the recent April 2018 Update) are usually huge (often exceeding 30GB). What’s more, they save their installation files on your PC, eating up a huge chunk of your PC’s storage space. This can slow your PC, especially older ones. Thankfully, the April 2018 update provides a way to delete these redundant files in one go. We’ll show you how to do that, as well as a few other handy tips for recovering valuable space. STEP 1 Skip to Step 2 if you’re already running the April 2018 Update. If not, click ‘Update & Security’, then ‘Check for updates’. Windows will now install any outstanding updates (the April 2018 update will be listed as ‘Feature update to…

TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Install programs that do what Windows can’t In Issue 527’s Letters, John Young expressed his apathy with Microsoft’s April 2018 Update. He suggested three features he would really like to see, including tabbed browsing in Windows Explorer, the option to colour folders, and a clipboard that automatically saves everything you copy. He’ll be pleased to know that all three features are available via free programs. I’ve read that the next big Microsoft Update will add tabs to Windows Explorer. Until then, I recommend Explorer++ (www.snipca.com/27907). Like File Explorer, it displays your PC’s locations in a left-hand pane. Right-click any of these, then click ‘Open in New Tab’ to see that location as a separate tab in the right-hand pane (see screenshot). I, too, would love it…

AGES 0-5 Chicken Scream* Free www.snipca.com/27939 (Android) Free www.snipca.com/27940 (iOS) In this fun game, you control the actions of a chicken using your voice. Talk or sing to make the chicken move, stop walking or slow down, and shout loud to make it jump. Best played when no one else is around! AGES 6-10 Woody Puzzle* Free www.snipca.com/27941 (Android) Free www.snipca.com/27942 (iOS) Jigsaw game Woody Puzzle is like Tetris but uses virtual wooden blocks and a larger 10x10 grid. Use the blocks at the bottom to create horizontal lines (which then disappear) to score points. AGES 11-16 Trivia Guy* Free www.snipca.com/27946 (Android) Free www.snipca.com/27947 (iOS) Created by a British developer Steven McDade, this game asks you questions in various categories (including Sport, Music, History, Literature). Each quiz is accompanied by…

Attach emails to emails Email providers often ‘clip’ forwarded emails so that the recipient only sees the first few lines. To ensure your recipient sees the whole message, send it as an attachment instead. This is easy in Outlook thanks to Microsoft’s EML (email) file format, which can be read in Outlook, Mail and Notepad. Open the email you want to forward, click More, then ‘Forward as Attachment’ (or press Ctrl+Alt+F) to save it as EML and automatically attach it to a new message (see screenshot below). To attach several emails in one go, highlight them then press Ctrl+Alt+F. To forward all emails as attachments by default, click File, Options, Mail and then select ‘Attach original message’ from the ‘When forwarding a message’ dropdown menu. Gmail doesn’t support EML, but…

Q Why am I being told I have no operating system? I think the April 2018 Update has destroyed my Windows 10 laptop. The installation reached 100 per cent, then a blue screen asked me to select a language, which I did. Another blue screen gave me five options – the first was to roll back. The screen then went black with a message saying there was no operating system on the device. I realise I should have kept a record of everything on the laptop and created a rescue disc. Can you help? Harry Fry A We’ve had a number of similar emails from readers about the update falling at the last hurdle. In your case, it sounds like a clean install of Windows may be the best option.…

Q Where’s my Rufus ISO file? I found Issue 527’s Secret Free Software Cover Feature an interesting read. On page 55 you suggested using a program called Rufus to create a bootable Windows USB stick. I duly went to download this but was offered only an MS-DOS .exe file, not an ISO image. What am I doing wrong? Douglas Wilks A You may have misread our instructions. Rufus is an executable (.exe) program for Windows, not MS-DOS. When you double-click this EXE file to run Rufus you will need to direct the program to the location of an ISO file – it is not itself an ISO file, and does not come with one. So, if you want to make a bootable Windows 10 USB stick, you’ll need to point…

32bit/64bit A measure of how much data a computer can process at once. Older computers are 32bit, modern ones are 64bit. 3G/4G A set of technologies that delivers faster mobile broadband. 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. Add-on See Extension. AMOLED Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode. An alternative technology to LCD for creating flat-panel displays. APNG Animated Portable Network Graphics. A file type that allows animated PNG files to act as GIFs. Bandwidth A measure of how much data can be transferred through a connection at one time. Benchmarking Comparing software and products with an accepted standard. BIOS Basic Input-Output System. Software built into every PC that connects the vital components. Botnet…