Table of contents for 496 in Computeractive

Whenever I ask readers what concerns they have about their home network, they usually ask how they can make it faster and more secure. We provide some of the answers in this issue’s Cover Feature, suggesting ways to test and boost your Wi-Fi and explaining how to keep your network password-protected. We also reveal the new home-networking tools that will be included in the Windows 10 Creators Update. Microsoft hasn’t told us when this will arrive, but we expect it by the end of April. Or possibly May if Microsoft’s developers eat too many Easter eggs and take a week off to recover. I hope they lay off the chocolate and release it early, because it promises to be a much better revamp than last year’s Anniversary Update (see page…

Gmail users still running Windows XP and Vista at the end of 2017 will run a greater risk of being hacked because Google is ending support for older versions of Chrome. Anyone using a version of Chrome prior to 53 is being shown a message urging them to upgrade to the latest, which is currently 56. In a blog post (www.snipca.com/23424 ), Google said that XP and Vista users “are the most likely to be affected” because the most recent version of Chrome that works with those operating systems is number 49. From December 2017 people using Gmail in an old version of Chrome will be able to use only a basic, slower version of the email service. Google will no longer add features to it, nor fix security flaws.…

Fresh from its initial drone trials for its Prime Air delivery service, Amazon continues to look for new ways to improve the system. A recent patent filing shows how the online shopping giant wants to use parachutes to drop deliveries onto your property. Rather than having to land the drone on your lawn, the new delivery system would see packages dropped from a height, letting them slowly float to the ground. There are some obvious issues to overcome, such as a strong breeze sending a package on to a neighbour’s roof, but the second part of the patent filing deals with that. After dropping a box, the drone hovers and monitors the descent. Should the package blow off course, the drone can deploy countermeasures, including lowering flaps or using bursts…

A parking firm has launched a controversial app that pays you £10 if you take a photo of a car that is parked illegally on private land. It will give UK Car Park Management (CPM), which operates car parks for McDonald’s, Halfords, Tesco and the NHS, the chance to fine drivers in places where they don’t have wardens on the ground. The app, called iTicket (www.ukparkingcontrol.com/ iTicket), is aimed at small businesses fed up with drivers taking their parking spaces. After users download the app CPM will post them signs to place on parking spaces. If a car then parks in that space, users can take photo of it on their phone and upload it anonymously to the app, submitting the licence-plate number too. The company then sends the driver…

I would like to add to Daniel Booth’s list of ‘when I were a lad’ observations (‘From the Editor’, Issue 495), bearing in mind it means going further back into the mists of time (the 1940s actually). Back then, tablets were for swallowing when you had indigestion, or maybe toothache. Few people had phones, ‘smart’ or otherwise. The only way you could catch a virus was by spending too much time with sick people. My ‘Flash memory’ was trying to remember the weekly cliffhangers in the Flash Gordon serial (pictured) at the local cinema. Amazon was a river in South America (actually, it still is), and ‘kindle’ was something you did to your coal fire. And the only PC we knew was our village bobby. If that makes me sound…

As we’ve explained in two of the cases this issue, you have more rights under the Consumer Rights Act (CRA) than under a manufacturer’s warranty. Computeractive reader John Robertson discovered this when he tried to get John Lewis to refund him the £840 he spent on a Samsung TV (see Issue 494) in November 2015. Because John didn’t make a claim using the CRA, which would’ve given John Lewis just one chance to fix the TV, the retailer chose instead to attempt multiple repairs under Samsung’s warranty. After we explained this to John Lewis we expected it to issue a refund, but it initially declined, saying it wanted to reexamine the TV. It was entitled to do this under the warranty, but it told John it would take some time,…

OFFICE SUITE LibreOffice 5.3 www.libreoffice.org What you need: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8/8.1 or 10 The best free alternative to Microsoft Office has finally released a big new version, its first in more than a year. Was The Document Foundation (the volunteer community behind LibreOffice) reading Issue 491? That’s when Best Free Software welcomed OnlyOffice (www.onlyoffice.com) as an easier-to-use rival and wondered what LibreOffice was up to. Now it’s back to show us who’s boss. As you’d expect, the new version is faster than its predecessor, and offers smoother support for DOCX and other Microsoft file formats. New features include support for signing PDFs and embedding them in documents; templates for presentations in Impress (the LibreOffice equivalent of PowerPoint); and keyboard shortcuts displayed in the right-click menu. But the most…

Q I want to transfer photos from my wife’s iPad Mini to a Windows 10 PC and vice versa. A number of sites offer software for this task, but I don’t know which one to trust. Any suggestions? I find iTunes an absolute pain. Barry Milne A The old ‘I find iTunes an absolute pain’ problem. You’re not alone, Barry. Apple’s loathsome tool seems designed to frustrate and confuse – and alternative programs tend to be expensive or unsafe. If money were no object we’d recommend TunesGo (https:// tunesgo.wondershare.com). This easy-to-use program lets you transfer photos, contacts, music and other files between iOS and PC, and currently costs $49.95 (£40) for a lifetime licence. That is a lot to pay just to move your own files, but by comparison, a…

PRINTER ? £95 from Amazon www.snipca.com/23500 This isn’t a photo printer. It’s important to say that first, because we’re all used to thinking of inkjet printers as the machine on our desk at home that’s a bit slow and eats ink but, fed a packet of photo paper, delivers prints just as good as the ones you used to get from Snappy Snaps. Laser printers, by contrast, sit in the corner at work and churn out boring black-andwhite documents faster than your boss can ask if you’ve done that print-out yet If printing photos isn’t your thing, this is a fast inkjet at a reasonable price As the name of Epson’s WorkForce range indicates, it’s aimed more at the latter kind of task, built for speed rather than aesthetic merit.…

PHONE ? £207 from Amazon www.snipca.com/23445 Apple started the trend of selling old models of its phones at lower prices, and other makers have followed suit with cut-down versions of current phones. This doesn’t always go well: the HTC 10 Evo (see our review, Issue 493) was just a rubbish phone named after a good phone. Huawei has done a better job with the P9 Lite, which is about half the price of the fully featured P9 (see Issue 476) and shares quite a few of its virtues The case is plastic rather than aluminium, but looks and feels similar, though it’s harder to scratch and slightly bulkier. The screen has the same dimensions and resolution, and looked just as good to us, covering an impressive 98 per cent of…

HEADPHONES ? £110 from Amazon www.snipca.com/23517 Active noise cancellation (ANC) means that a pair of headphones doesn’t merely block out background noise but also detects sounds around you before generating an inverse waveform to cancel them out. This works best for low-level continuous humming sounds, like when you’re on a plane, but should help to cut out most everyday annoyances. “Noise cancellation, warm audio and a comfortable fit” ANC is a feature that generally comes at a hefty price. Bose – which pioneered the technology, charges over £200 for its QuietComfort range – but it is getting cheaper, and this is one of the few options from other big brands that comes close to the £100 mark. The headphones have big padded cups that go around your ears, and we…

Find out what other products we liked. Buy our new 2016 Back Issue CD: £15 fromwww.snipca.com/23209 LAPTOP Dell Inspiron 15 5000 £699 from www.snipca.com/23375 Tested: Issue 459 NEW ENTRY Now updated with Intel’s seventhgeneration processors, this laptop ( not the 2-in-1 version) now edges the ZenBook below and starts at just £449, but mid-range configurations with SSD and AMD R7 graphics are the best choice. ALTERNATIVE: Asus ZenBook UX305CA If you want something sleeker, this ultrabook offers basic performance in a superbly slim and light metal case. £570 from www.snipca.com/23376 DESKTOP PC Wired2FireDiabloNucleus £600 from www.snipca.com/22628 Tested: Issue 491 NEW ENTRY The Intel Skylake i5-6500 quad-core processor and AMD RX 460 graphics card are no longer the newest, but this is still great value for an all-round PC. A fast…

What you need: Paint.NET; Windows 7, 8 or 10 Time required: 25 minutes Paint.NET is already one of the best free photoediting programs and packed with useful options, but you can expand its capabilities even further by installing plug-ins made by other software developers. This is similar to adding extensions in Chrome and Firefox, but the method is slightly different. We’ll show you how to install plug-ins individually as well as plug-in packs that add several new features at once. STEP 1 To download the latest version of Paint.NET, go to www.snipca.com/23471 and click the Free Download Now link at the top right. Run the downloaded setup file and install the program. If you already use the program, click the Settings icon 1 , Updates 2 , then Check Now…

AGES 0?5 Fish School Grandma’s Preschool £3.99 www.snipca.com/23544 (iOS) Narrated by a friendly grandmother, this app contains educational videos and simple games and tests that teach your toddlers the alphabet, simple spelling, numbers (one to 10) and shapes. It also offers painting and drawing activities. AGES 6?10 I Love Hue* Free www.snipca.com/23545 (Android) Free www.snipca.com/23546 (iOS) In this game of colour perception your child needs to rearrange the multi-coloured squares on a grid according to their shade – darkest colours at one edge fanning out toward lighter ones. The game is simple at the start but becomes more challenging the more you play. AGES 11?16 Cribbage With Grandpas £2.79 www.snipca.com/23547 (Android) £2.99 www.snipca.com/23548 (iOS) Famous for its wooden board and unique scoring system, Cribbage has been played for centuries. The…

OUTLOOK.COM Personalise Outlook.com to suit your needs Last year, Microsoft began rolling out the new version of Outlook.com to users worldwide. It recently said that 99.99 per cent of its users have now been upgraded to the latest version. To make sure you’ve been updated, go to www.outlook.com, log in using your Microsoft account details and look at the Outlook banner at the top. If it says Outlook Mail or Outlook Email, you have the latest version Outlook.com displays your inbox and folders on the left and your emails in the right-hand pane. There’s an easy way to customise this default arrangement to make your emails easier to read. To do that, click the cog icon at the top right, then click ‘Display settings’. You’ll see three tabbed options at…

Email us your problem and we’ll try to help: noproblem@computeractive.co.uk Q My Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop died mid-use. A local shop deemed a repair not worthwhile, so I bought a new laptop. However, I have a load of files on the old laptop’s hard drives that I’d like to recover. A friend advised me to purchase some cases, which would let me turn the old drives into external drives. I did, but found that the Toshiba hard drives extracted from my laptop had different connections. Specifically, on the laptop drives there’s a vertical slot that guides into a matching slot on the laptop’s connector, plus the pins were bigger. Why the mismatch here? Is there a solution? Brian Newbery A Your specific Inspiron laptop is pretty long in the tooth…

Q I have an Acer Aspire Z5610 PC that ejects DVDs as soon as they’re inserted, no matter the type of disc. It used to be fine. Could you please advise me on the possible cause and remedy? Stan Storry A This behaviour usually happens when the drive can’t read the disc, but as this is happening with every disc you insert, and irrespective of type, it suggests a problem with the drive. We know that your machine has a slot-loading drive, so check that there’s nothing physically obstructing the entrance. Also, use a torch to peer inside to see if you can see anything obviously in the way. Kids love to poke stuff through slots, so perhaps a child or grandchild got busy when you weren’t looking? A blast…

Confusing icon The past few years have seen the proliferation of a design trend that has, in my very humble (but obviously correct) opinion, made technology just a bit harder to use. It didn’t happen overnight, but its effects are now everywhere. That design trend is the ‘flattening’ of user interfaces (UIs). You might not have heard of the concept, but if you’ve used Windows 10, own a modern smartphone or tablet, or have simply visited one of a gazillion websites influenced by the fashion for flat design, then you’ll certainly recognise it. Raised 3D buttons have been ironed out, shadows behind windows have been removed, colour palettes are now restricted, curved edges are squared, and icons have become plain line drawings. These modern hieroglyphics all look very neat and…

100,000 WORDPRESS WEBSITES HACKED WordPress has urged all users to update their websites after 100,000 were hacked. Version 4.7.2 of the site-building software contains a fix that prevents hackers from changing the content of anything written on a WordPress site. You can download it from www.snipca.com/23429. BANKS ATTACKED BY ‘FILELESS’ MALWARE Around 140 banks, telecoms companies and government institutions have been attacked by an increasingly prevalent type of malware that’s extremely hard to spot, according to a new Kaspersky report ( www.snipca.com/23483). Called ‘fileless malware’, it hides in a computer’s memory, not in the hard drive, which means it often bypasses antivirus software. Previously used by rogue nations for cyber-warfare, it’s now being exploited by criminal gangs to steal money and passwords. Kaspersky says the UK is one of the…

NOKIA 3310 TO BE RE?RELEASED The classic Nokia 3310, heralded by many as the most reliable phone ever, looks set for re-release. HMD Global, the Finnish firm that acquired the rights to use the Nokia brand name, is said to be relaunching it at the Mobile World Congress trade show. According to reports, it will cost £50 and offer the same days-long battery life of the original. Hopefully, it will still have the Snake game, too WIKIPEDIA BANS DAILY MAIL The Daily Mail and its website will no longer be cited by Wikipedia based on its “reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism and flat-out fabrication”. Site editors have suggested all 12,000 existing links should be re-evaluated. Discussion of the Mail highlighted a need for other sources to be evaluated. It’s…

BBC SHUTS iPLAYER WINDOWS APP The BBC will close the Windows Phone version of its iPlayer app in April. However, if you use Windows 10 Mobile you’ll still be able to play programmes on your phone and tablet by visiting the iPlayer website in the Edge browser. In a statement on its website (www.snipca.com/23406 ), the BBC said it was no longer “cost effective” to keep the app running. PAEDOPHILE CAN’T DELETE GOOGLE LINKS A Japanese paedophile has been told that search results containing details of his arrest will not be deleted by Google. He appealed to Japan’s Supreme Court asking for protection similar to that offered by Europe’s ‘right to be forgotten’ law, which since 2014 has allowed EU’s citizens to request that links to sensitive results are removed…

There’s a disturbing trend in technology at the moment, and it makes me feel worried about the future. We seem to be losing the importance of human interaction in the rush to adopt things that are meant to be better and faster. As I flick through Issue 495 of Computeractive I can see a couple of examples. Turn to page 9 and you read about paying for items at Tesco using your phone. Fine, I can see why some people would think this is convenient, but I’ll always prefer to speak to a human being when buying goods, even if it means queuing for longer. These moments of conversation can all add up to make your day brighter. Go back a couple of pages to page 7 and in the…

DESKTOP PC ? £800 from Palicomp www.snipca.com/23531 Through the 5GHz barrier Every processor chip is designed to run at a certain clock speed. But with a little bit of technical knowledge and some trial and error, it’s often possible to increase that speed. It’s all done by altering the BIOS settings for the PC’s motherboard, and it can get you a faster computer for the same money, as long as you carefully monitor temperature to ensure the chip doesn’t burn itself out. But just how far can you go? “This is a fast PC for the price, but beware overcooked chips” A few months back we tested a desktop PC from computer builder Palicomp that successfully overclocked an AMD Athlon X4 880K processor from 4GHz to 4.5GHz (see our review,…

What does it do? The seventh generation of Intel’s modern PC processor range, nicknamed Kaby Lake, was released on 3 January 2017. It’s the next step in the x86 CPU architecture, following Skylake, and these are the chips you’ll see at the heart of most PCs this year Why would I want it? New chips generally aim to offer better performance for the same price, and Kaby Lake is no exception. It has faster clock speeds and – because the number of instructions per clock cycle is the same as in Skylake chips – can do more work in the same amount of time. It also supports more PCI Express ‘lanes’ for expansion, although this is only useful to high-end users. What’s the catch? Kaby Lake really doesn’t change very…

PHONE ? £217 from Amazon www.snipca.com/23447 WileyFox’s phones aren’t made in the UK, but they are designed here, and its first model, the Swift (see our review, Issue 460) came as a pleasant surprise. Since then it’s released a succession of less interesting phones at higher prices, which says something about the state of today’s consumer-technology market. Now the Swift 2X, at over £200, heads dangerously for the border between budget and mid-range. WileyFox’s love-it-or-hate-it navy blue colour scheme remains, but this is now an all-metal phone with an Android Pay fingerprint reader on the back. We found it wasn’t as quick to unlock as rivals, including the Huawei P9 Lite (above), but it has a larger 5.2in screen which is now proper Full HD, making it sharp. Contrast is…

We solve your buying dilemmas Q My four-year-old Medion PC still performs well, but it’s rather large. My wife recently got a nice 24in Acer all-in-one, and now I’m envious of how neat her desk looks! My Medion has a 500GB SSD and three 2TB hard drives, all backed up to a 5TB external drive. This is for my huge library of family photos, genealogy documents and so on. I’m also into astrophotography, microscopy and film-making. If I get my own all-in-one PC, it won’t have room for as many drives. Would a NAS device be a sensible solution instead? Jim Beston A Yes, this seems an excellent use for a NAS (network-attached storage) box. Shop around for a two- or four-bay unit from brands like Synology (pictured) or Asustor…

PC MONITOR ? £1,246 from Misco www.snipca.com/23503 All right, yes, it’s a monitor that costs over a thousand pounds. Obviously you’re not going to buy one, and nor are we. But it’s always worth keeping an eye on what manufacturers are up to at the high end, because it’s what we’ll all be using a few years down the line. In this case we’re really looking forward to that, because this 5K monitor looks amazing. Even 4K resolution (3840x2160 pixels) is incredibly sharp. Philips, following the lead of Apple’s current iMacs, has packed 5120x2880 pixels into the 275P4VYKEB’s 27 inches. It effectively doesn’t have pixels at all, just a continuous image that looks as solid as real life. Makes everything look as solid as real life – pity about the…

Win 1 of 2 Winner of a four-star ‘Great Pick’ award in Issue 493, this is a USB 3.0 solid-state drive, giving you very fast external storage. It has an LED capacity meter on the front, so you can quickly check how much free space it has. It’s small enough to fit inside your pocket, so it’s easy to carry around. To enter this competition, email your address to cacomp@dennis.co.uk with ‘lexar’ in the subject line by midnight 14 March. You can buy the 512GB model for £135, or a 256GB model for £100. For more information visit www.lexar.com, follow @LexarMemory and ‘like’ www.facebook.com/LexarMemory.…

ANDROID Get directions faster than ever Google has redesigned its default Maps app to help you find useful information faster. One of its best new features is the option to save a list of the places you regularly visit (for example, a restaurant or friend’s address) so you can summon directions with just a couple of taps. Open the app, type the postcode of the destination, then tap to select the correct option in the list. Next, tap the pin icon on the map, then tap Save. From now on, whenever you open the app and swipe up from the bottom of your screen, you’ll see a new section with three icons (see screenshot below). Tap the car icon to see driving directions to all the places you’ve saved, then…

WINDOWS 10 Change the background on your desktop and lock screen Microsoft has added a new category of wallpaper apps to its Windows Store to help you liven up your PC’s desktop and lock screen. Open the Windows Store, type wallpapers in the search field, then press Enter to see a list of wallpaper apps that you can click to install (see screenshot below). Some of these apps – such as ‘Wallpaper HD (Background HD)’ – feature sections like Categories and Collections. If you click the latter, you’ll see two dropdown menus at the top. The first contains various categories (including Cities, Castles and Football), while the second has a choice of wallpaper resolutions. Select your chosen options from the dropdown menus to see several thumbnails of backgrounds you can…

Personalise your YouTube homepage Everyone will see a slightly different homepage when they first visit www.youtube.com. First-time visitors will see a selection of popular videos from so-called YouTube ‘celebrities’, which regular visitors will see videos based on their past viewing habits. To tailor what you see on your homepage, click ‘Sign in’ (top right) and enter your Google username and password. Click ‘browse channels’ on the left side of the page, then type anything you’re interested in (UK news, for example) into the ‘Search channels’ box (see screenshot below) then press Enter. You’ll now see a list of channels. Click Subscribe to add any to your homepage. Once you’ve finished, click Home at the top left to see your revamped homepage. You might also see a row of videos marked…

If Word has a nasty habit of rephrasing your split infinitives, or you’re left tearing your hair out whenever your email client fails to catch a spelling slip, you’re not alone. The built-in spellcheckers of your favourite programs can seem to throw the rules of English grammar out of the window at times, but there are things you can do to get them under control. Here we’ll explain how to replace or expand your spell-checking options to produce error-free documents and emails. Expand Word’s dictionary Word’s spellchecker can come in handy when correcting the odd spelling mistake, but it can also be heavy-handed – underlining entire sentences that it thinks you should rephrase or insisting you change what you’ve just typed. Try typing 1/2 without Word changing it to ‘½’,…

Q When I use the YouTube app on my iPad Air 2 I can watch videos in full screen, no problem. However, if I visit the YouTube website in the Safari browser and press the button to make the video fill the screen, this doesn’t actually happen. Instead, the video fits only the browsing area — so the URL bar, tabs and navigation buttons remain at the top. I find them distracting, and it also means I’m not seeing the video as big as it could possibly be. Am I doing something wrong? Daniel Brooker A You’re not doing anything wrong, but this is just the way that the mobile version of the YouTube website behaves — and when visiting with a mobile device like an iPad or a smartphone…

Q Many years ago I bought my first laptop. I can’t remember much about it other that instead of a touchpad it had a kind of joystick thing in the middle of the keyboard, which one could waggle to move the mouse pointer. I’m pretty sure too that I also used it to play games. I now have a laptop with a touchpad for mouse control. This works well enough but it’s no good for controlling the action in games. So, I’m wondering whatever happened to these little built-in joysticks? Do you know what I’m talking about? And, as an aside, can I add a joystick to my current Windows 10 laptop? If so, how? Alex Foster A What you’re talking about is called a ‘pointing stick’, a technology invented…

What POP3 settings should I use? QIn a recent article you wrote about replacing Windows Live Mail (WLM) with eM Client (Issue 494, page 60). I followed your advice but have a problem relating to the setting up of a POP3 email account. I used the same TalkTalk settings in eM Client as I had in WLM but my emails won’t sync with the server. Denis Doyle APOP3 accounts can be difficult to set up and our usual advice is to visit your ISP’s website for the exact instructions. However, having suggested Denis try TalkTalk’s recommended settings (www.snipca.com/23523) we found they were unreliable. TalkTalk says to use Port 995 for incoming emails, but Denis informed us that this didn’t work, while using Port 110 did. This is something of an…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: NCH Software Have YOU seen this shortcut? It’s NCH in big letters, with its full name underneath – like in a police mugshot. Has this interloper found a way on to your desktop? Well, it turned up on mine. It hitched a lift with PhotoStage Slideshow Producer by NCH Software (www.nchsoftware.com/slideshow ). PhotoStage is a decent enough program I considered including in Best Free Software, but it excluded itself by inviting its annoying friend NCH Suite isn’t a program so much as an advert. Clicking it opens a window full of NCH programs under various tabs – Video, Audio, Graphics, Converters and so on – each with a green Try It Now button (see screenshot). Ooh, which one shall I click? Let’s go for ‘Golden…

Tell us what’s on your mind Email: letters@computeractive.co.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/computeractive Twitter: @ComputerActive www.twitter.com/computeractive Robots can’t be friendly, but I’d use one I think Heather Robertson is overreacting to the ElliQ (Star Letter, Issue 495) when she calls it “insulting”. I share her view that older people are often ignored by their younger friends and relatives, but a device like the ElliQ (pictured above) can’t do any harm, surely? Marketing people will try to market the device as a “friendly companion” or a “helpful robot” – and that’s absurd. A computer can’t be friendly. They don’t have emotions (yet). All it can do is provide a gateway through which people can find happiness, or discover new stuff to do. So as long as potential users are realistic about the ElliQ’s limitations,…

Should I contact the retailer or manufacturer? Q I’m thinking of buying a Samsung DVD RW from Aria (www.aria.co.uk), but I’m confused about my rights if something goes wrong. Having read Computeractive for years, I was under the impression it was the retailer’s responsibility to fix items. But in the product info Samsung says customers who buy its warranty should contact its care centre. So if it breaks should I return it to Aria or Samsung? Steve Hicks A We understand Steve’s confusion. Under the Consumer Rights Act, the retailer is responsible for fixing a faulty product, not the manufacturer. Steve realises this, but also thinks that retailers must deal with complaints that customers pursue citing the manufacturer’s warranty. That’s not the case. If you want to use the warranty,…

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. Q I’ve lost patience with John Lewis because it’s advertising a laptop that isn’t actually available. I bought an Asus ZenBook Pro with a 256MB SSD, 12GB RAM and a 1TB hard drive. The laptop I received had a larger SSD, but no 1TB hard drive. John Lewis did offer a full refund, or £60 towards the cost of a hard drive, but I find this derisory. Is John Lewis guilty of misleading customers? Tony Slater A We don’t think John Lewis is deliberately misleading customers, but Tony is entitled to a refund if the…

Tech companies are growing increasingly worried that you’ll abandon them over fears that they’re not taking your privacy seriously. To reassure you, they’re changing how their privacy settings look, using attractive illustrations and language that’s easier to understand (although still riddled with jargon). Already this year Microsoft has launched a privacy ‘dashboard’ (see Issue 495’s Cover Feature), and now Facebook has revamped its Privacy Basics section. Open it by clicking the top-right padlock on your profile page, then the Privacy Basics link at the bottom (see screenshot). The most important section is ‘Manage Your Privacy’ in the left-hand menu. From here you can learn how to control who sees photos you upload and comments you make. You can also ‘untag’ yourself from photos other people upload, which means they won’t…

www.snipca.com/23506 What you need: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8/8.1 or 10 Get the weather delivered to your PC’s desktop using this new opensource tool. Temps describes itself as an ‘app’ but it’s really just an oldfashioned portable program – and we mean that as a compliment. After you download and run it, it adds a system-tray icon that changes to reflect current conditions (sun, cloud, rain and so on). Click the icon to open a box displaying the current weather and a four-day forecast. Unlike an app, Temps doesn’t need to be installed. Click Download at the link above, then click 32bit or 64bit, depending on your version of Windows. Save the ZIP, extract its contents, then double-click ‘Temps.exe’ to run it. By default, Temps shows the weather for Berlin…

PC ? £1,069 from Cyberpower www.snipca.com/23433 Your body is made up of about 37 trillion cells. They vary in size, but you’ll need a microscope to see any of these tiny haggises stuffed with biological bits and bobs. Inside most cells you’ll find the rough endoplasmic reticulum, a folded-up maze of membranes. If your microscope is powerful enough – we’re now inside a small part of a single cell, after all – you’ll see that those membranes are studded with little dots. The little dots are ribosomes, which convert your genetic code into sequences of amino acids. Yes, you are still reading Computeractive, not a medical journal, and here’s the point: each ribosome is bigger than one of the transistors in today’s Intel CPU chips Style over substance – this…

WI?FI EXTENDER ? £300 from BT Shop www.snipca.com/23436 In recent years we’ve seen 802.11ac Wi-Fi take over from 802.11n, bringing higher speeds and better reception. Now there’s another standard you need to know about: 802.11s. This defines how a set of wireless routers can form a ‘mesh’, expanding coverage over a wider area – so you won’t lose contact in the back bedroom or the shed. It’s paved the way for a new category of affordable mesh systems aimed at home users With a self-explanatory name, BT’s product comes as three dinner-platesized plastic dishes with little chrome stands. It looks like very small aliens have invaded, then parked. To set it up you’ll need an Apple or Android device to run the accompanying app (see screenshots below). The first dish…

Products we would like to see No.14: NO MORE WIRES We’ve had wireless networks for nearly 20 years – they just don’t always work properly (see our cover feature, page 50). And wireless charging is now available for some devices. Except, you still need a charging pad that has to be connected to the mains with… a wire. It should really be called ‘plugless’. It’s getting better, though. Mesh routers such as BT’s Whole Home Wi-Fi (pictured, see page 25) spread your Wi-Fi into every nook and cranny of your home. Charging pads are being built into Ikea furniture (see www.snipca.com/23558 ), and maybe – with Apple joining the Wireless Power Consortium, which standardises wireless charging – other furniture makers will follow suit. New wireless networking technologies such as long-range…

Friendly for Facebook Free Android www.snipca.com/23538 iOS www.snipca.com/23539 Facebook’s official app can eat into battery life and storage, so you may want to consider this less demanding alternative. It lets you access Facebook and Messenger from one place, filter your newsfeed by keyword, and sort your posts chronologically or by popularity. Epic! Free (for one month) Android www.snipca.com/23542 iOS www.snipca.com/23543 If your child or grandchild loves reading, this app is a godsend. After a month’s free trial period, the £3.99 monthly subscription fee gives you access to over 15,000 quality children’s books and audiobooks. Flipboard Free Android www.snipca.com/23540 iOS www.snipca.com/23541 Flipboard, one of the best news apps around, has a new feature called Smart Magazines. Search for a category (say, Photography) to see more sub-categories (including ‘Landscape photography’, Sony, Canon,…

Clicking the Windows 10 notifications icon at the right of your taskbar displays your Action Centre. Aside from PC notifications such as new emails, Skype calls and app updates, you’ll see 14 buttons (called ‘quick actions’) at the bottom. These let you control various aspects of your PC, including Wi-Fi, monitor brightness levels, location settings and more. For greater control, you can determine which quick-actions buttons appear here, and which programs and apps send you notifications To do this, click the ‘All settings’ button in your Action Centre, click System, then ‘Notifications & actions’. Here, click the ‘Add or remove quick actions’ link (see screenshot) to see all 14 options as a list. By default, all their sliders are turned on, but you can turn off the sliders for actions…

One feature of YouTube that’s often overlooked is the option to watch live videos. These can be anything from streams of the launch of a new mobile phone, to footage of an eagle’s nest (see www.snipca.com/23373 for a great example of a live feed from Florida). To enjoy YouTube Live go to www.snipca.com/23378 – click the Subscribe button if you want to add it to your homepage. Scroll down the page to see the various live channels, including Sports, News, Technology and Animals (where you’ll find our eagles and more). Click the arrow at the far right of each row to see more videos in that category (keep clicking the arrow and you’ll eventually see a link to ‘View XX+ more’. Some live feeds have multiple camera angles to choose…

Q On some websites I receive a virus warning on a new browser tab. The warning displays a phone number for me to call to get it removed, along with a countdown warning that my hard drive will be deleted after five minutes. I can successfully leave by signing out but I’m wondering what’s causing this? I have Kaspersky Internet Security installed and running a full scan reveals that there is no threat. I have also run Advanced SystemCare 9 and IObit Malware Fighter, both of which show no threats Derek Kemp A You should always pay close attention to messages of this ilk, but these are almost certainly scam adverts, expressly designed to scare people and fool them into calling the displayed number. If you fell for the fraud…

Q We have two office PCs still on XP, because they run bespoke XP-only software. One recently suffered a hard-drive failure. While reinstalling Windows we also had to download hundreds of updates, then reinstall our bespoke software. My worry is that Microsoft might one day withdraw these updates, so if we suffered another failure then we’d be stuck. Can I download all the updates and store them on a DVD for when we may need to use them? Les Chadwick A A tool like nLite (www.nliteos.com ) will create what’s known as a ‘slipstreamed’ XP installation disc, with Service Pack 3 and all relevant security updates, ready for a fresh installation. However, it’s quite labour-intensive. In your particular situation, it will be simpler to create system images of both computers’…

32bit A measure of how much information a computer can process at once. Most older computers are 32bit. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 64bit A technology that processes information in larger chunks. Most modern computers are 64bit. 802.11ac A standard for wireless networks that allows for much higher transfer speeds than 802.11n. 802.11n A standard for wireless networks that allows for high transfer speeds. Add-in Microsoft’s name for tools that can be added to Office software. Add-on See Extensions aptX Software that’s used to compress audio so it can be transmitted over Bluetooth with minimal loss in quality. Benchmarking Comparing software and products with an accepted standard. Beta A version of software that’s being tested. BIOS Basic Input-Output System. Software built into every PC that…