Tabla de contenidos para 541 en Computeractive

My four-year-old daughter already grasps the power of the small black box in our living room, with its flickering blue lights and pointy antennae. It is “the thing that makes the internet work”. It’s an almost unimprovable description, and yet routers are capable of so much more, as Will Stapley explains in our Cover Feature (page 50). In fact, few devices are as little understood as routers. As long as the Wi-Fi works, they are largely left unexamined. What a waste of their potential. I hope our feature inspires you to try tasks like accessing your router remotely, using it to run a VPN, and adding network storage via a USB. But if our instructions don’t exactly fit your router’s settings, please email our Reader Support team for help (see…

LEAD CASE Can Ebuyer force me to pay for an SSD I didn’t order? ebuyer.com Q I tried to place an order with Ebuyer for an SSD, but got a notification saying it couldn’t be processed. I tried again, this time successfully. However, I’ve been charged for (and now received) two SSDs, because the first order did actually go through. I consider this to be Ebuyer’s fault, and think I shouldn’t have to pay for two SSDs. Nor should I have to pay to return the unwanted SSD. What do you think? Barry Vipond A We completely agree, but legally it depends whether a contract was formed between Barry and Ebuyer for the first SSD. A contract is any agreement between parties to exchange things of value, such as goods…

Find foreign-born ancestors What happens when you stumble upon an ancestor who was born overseas, but then raised in the UK? That was the quandary facing reader Peter Grundy, who contacted us about his great-grandfather James. When James Grundy first appears on the census record in 1861, living with his grandparents, he’s listed as being born in Genoa, Italy, in 1853. Peter wanted to know if it was possible to not just trace his ancestor’s birth record, but perhaps find out what happened to his great-great-grandparents. Peter provided plenty of background information about James’s parents and siblings to help focus our search. This yielded no clues why the family might have been in Genoa, but it may have been related to the Crimean War, in which Britain was allied with…

Q I’d like to read and edit the metadata for photos taken on my phone. Can you recommend suitable software for this? S Smith A There are plenty of options for viewing and editing this kind of metadata, also known as EXIF data. Because the photos are already on your phone, it’s worth considering a mobile app. For Android phones, our favourite is Photo Exif Editor (www.snipca.com/29655). Once installed, you’ll be prompted to grant it access to your photo library (it needs this to view and edit the EXIF data). Click Photos, then tap any image to see its EXIF data, including the aperture and shutter speed, whether the flash was used and location information (see screenshot). Most of the EXIF data is editable - simply tap an entry, then…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: iTunes I’m not going to get into the whole Apple Mac vs PC debate, but there was a time when Apple’s iTunes was a pretty good media player, regardless of whether you were a Mac OS or a Windows type. It helped that, back then, the integrated iTunes Store was one of the better music-download sources. And if you owned an iPod, iPhone or iPad, you needed iTunes to transfer media files and sync data between your devices. Over the years, however, iTunes has become a bloated, irrelevant mess. Install it on your PC and you’ll find that you’ve inadvertently installed a load of uninvited guests, such as the Bonjour networking tool and the annoying Apple Software Update (which attempts to install further Apple tools,…

Nobody knows what the ‘R’ stands for. Maybe it’s just ‘right’. This is the phone we wanted from Apple last year: beautiful, powerful, futuristic, but not £999. Even at £749, it’s not cheap, and unlike Android phones it won’t be discounted. But with all the networks carrying it, there’s a wide choice of contracts, and Apple itself offers interest-free credit to spread the cost of buying it outright. The point is, the iPhone XR is actually worth it. “Justifies price tag with uncompromising features and performance” Finished in a toughened glass front and back, in six colours, it’s a slim, rounded slab that feels lovely to hold. The sides are matt aluminium rather than the X’s shiny steel, and there’s only one camera on the back. That distinguishes it from…

The storage space on my Motorola G6 Android phone was filling up quickly because I like to take a lot of photos and shoot video clips. I eventually bought a microSD card (a 64GB SanDisk one for £16 from Amazon www.snipca.com/29611) having discovered that it’s easy to set this as your default internal storage on an Android phone or tablet. Once you’ve done this, all your files, photos and videos will automatically be saved to the card. Even better, some apps that can be stored on an SD card will automatically be moved there. To set this up, insert the card into your device’s SD card slot. Now go to Settings, tap Storage, then tap your SD card. Next, tap the three dots at the top right, select ‘Storage settings’,…

ANDROID & iOS Turn your offline reading list into a podcast In Issue 540’s Best New Apps, we told you how our favourite offline reading app Pocket (www.getpocket.com) had added a brilliant new feature that lets you listen to articles you’ve saved to your reading list like a podcast. To do this, open the the app (Android www.snipca.com/29619; iOS www.snipca.com/29620) and log into your account. To save articles to read offline, open an article in your browser app, tap the Share icon, then select Pocket. You can also save online articles via your PC by installing the Pocket extension for Microsoft Edge (www.snipca.com/29621), Chrome (www.snipca.com/29622) or Firefox (built in). In the mobile app, select any article you’ve saved for offline reading. You’ll now see a headphone icon at the top.…

WINDOWS 7, 8.1, 10 Keep a log of print jobs on your PC There’s an easy way to keep a record of everything you print from your PC. This can be useful, for example, if you want to find out if someone is printing material without your knowledge, or if you want to keep on top of how much ink you’re using. To do this, press the Windows key, type event viewer, then Enter. Now go to the following location by expanding the dropdown menus on the left: Application and Services Log>Microsoft>Windows>PrintService. On the right, you’ll see two options – Admin and Operational. Right-click Operational, then click Properties. In the window that opens, tick ‘Enable logging’, click Apply, then OK (see screenshot below). Windows will now start keeping a record…

Some years ago I checked my Wi-Fi signal and found there were several channel 6 users nearby, so I moved to channel 11. My computer is directly wired to the router, but my wife’s is in another room. About a year ago I decided that I should get a fibre-broadband link to my router, which gives me a very steady 38Mbps. TalkTalk sent me a faster router to allow for the extra speed - it had both 2.4 and 5GHz bands. Recently my wife complained of very poor Wi-Fi, so I checked it and found there were 18 different networks hugging the 2.4GHz band and none in the 5GHz band. After reading your excellent ‘How To…’ article in Issue 537 on setting up dual-band Wi-Fi (pictured), I moved my wife’s…

In Issue 538, we inadvertently revived a service that ended several years ago: Royal Mail’s registered post. We suggested Peter Cooke should use it to write to PowerGuider.com to ask for a refund. Reader Diane Cashell spotted our error, saying that for a letter people should instead pay for Royal Mail’s Signed For service, which costs from £1.77 (first class) or £1.68 (second class). Diane is spot on. Using Signed For you get a certificate of posting at the Post Office when you post the letter, and can track its delivery on Royal Mail’s website (www.royalmail.com/trackyour-item). She pointed out that Special Delivery Guaranteed, which replaced registered mail, costs from £6.50, and is therefore better suited for high-value items like phones. You can see prices for the full range of Royal…

Following your suggestion in Issue 536, I’ve installed RootsMagic Essentials (www.rootsmagic.com/Essentials), but can’t find a way to download files from FamilySearch to it. Can you help? Chris Gustar The original advice will only download your basic tree (people and key dates). Import missing data by going to File, FamilySearch Central. After logging in, click Matched to select each ancestor in turn to see what data can be downloaded to your tree. RootsMagic can’t currently download photos and other memories to FamilySearch. For that, get Ancestral Quest (www.ancquest.com, $29.95 - about £23). Have a genealogy question for Nick? Email letters@computeractive.co.uk with ‘Grow Your Family Tree’ in the subject line.…

Compared with previous versions of the operating system, Windows 10 runs incredibly smoothly, with those dreaded blue screens of death now few and far between. However, it still throws up the occasional unresponsive program. And when that happens, what do I do? I turn to good ol’ Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Escape), which usually helps me identify the culprit in just a few seconds. But there’s more to Task Manager than identifying stalled programs. Recently, I was just a few minutes into using my laptop when the fans ramped up and even simple tasks such as opening a new File Explorer window took an age. I opened Task Manager, clicked the Performance tab and noticed both my CPU and Disk usage were touching 100 per cent capacity. So I sorted the Processes…

My local council will tell you just just how much I hate fly tipping – I report it to them every time I see it. Dumping rubbish illegally on public land is unsightly, inconvenient and environmentally unfriendly. Happily, my council has a handy online tool that lets me notify them of any fly tipping within a couple of quick clicks. You can show the authorities exactly where the rubbish is on a map and even upload a photo. But, while I’ve sometimes reported the odd abandoned PC, I’ve never seen anything quite like this huge pile of computer keyboards, recently discovered dumped in big heap on the side of the B6479 in Yorkshire. Let’s hope the perpetrators are caught and fined (lifting fingerprints shouldn’t be too difficult).…

The Q3279VWFD8 replaces another AOC monitor, the Q3279VWF. To save you reading that four times, it’s just the same model number without the ‘D8’. Although it looks almost identical, it has a completely different LED panel. The original used VA (vertical alignment) technology, known for its very high contrast (achieved by making black pixels properly black) but poor response times, causing some ghosting, and limited colour quality. Sure enough, these were problems with the Q3279VWF, and the new version fixes them. This 31.5in screen has a resolution of 2560x1440, also known as 1440p or WQHD – the same as many mid-range 27in monitors. Windows and your photos and videos won’t look ultra sharp, but it’s enough for a big, detailed desktop, with two A4 text pages or several websites clearly…

Because Google makes the Android software used by almost all non-Apple phones, you’d expect its devices to lead the way. In reality, its Nexus and Pixel smartphones have had a patchy record. Launched with great fanfare in 2016, the Pixel was distinctive but not groundbreaking. It did have a great camera, and this third incarnation continues that trend. It needs more than that to justify its price tag, at £110 more than last year’s Pixel 2 – which, gallingly, remains on sale with no price reduction. The back panel - in white, black or ‘not pink’ (it’s pink) - still has a two-tone design, with matt glass going up to a polished top inch. The difference is subtle enough to miss from some angles, and seems a bit pointless. Above…

What was it? Launched in November 2006, the Zune 30 (pictured) was a handheld music and video player running Microsoft’s Portable Media Center interface on a 3in colour screen. Competing directly with Apple’s highly successful iPod, it was finished in white, black or, for some reason, brown silicone. Why did it die? The Zune 30 was generally considered attractive (except the brown one). But it was bulkier than an iPod, lacked features, and didn’t work with content sold under the widely adopted PlaysForSure scheme operated by… Microsoft. A built-in Wi-Fi chip was innovative, but initially could only share music between Zunes – content still had to be bought on a PC and transferred by cable. Matters weren’t helped when, on New Year’s Eve 2008, every Zune 30 stopped working for…

Did you know that we spend 90 per cent of our time indoors, where air can be up to eight times more polluted than outdoors? This pollution comes from what we do, the products we use, and outdoor pollution coming inside. Foobot lets you monitor the air quality in your home, using internal sensors to check for harmful chemicals like carbon monoxide and particulate matter such as dust, pollen and pet dander. It also measures excessive humidity, which provides ideal conditions for dust mites and mould. It alerts you on the companion app (pictured left) and via the LEDs on the device. Foobot is perfect for people with allergies or asthma, and those returning from the smog-filled commute home. To enter, email your address to cacomp@computeractive.co.uk by midnight 4 December.…

Photoshop I work as a freelance photographer and had always used Adobe Photoshop for all my editing needs. A few years ago Adobe turned Photoshop into a subscription service (£19.95 a month), which means you’re paying for Adobe’s entire Creative Cloud suite, even if you don’t need it all. Despite being an online service, the program still takes up over 2GB of storage space, so I decided to cancel my subscription and uninstall it. And what I use instead… I tried many photo-editing alternatives before eventually settling on GIMP (www.gimp.org - see screenshot). The program takes a little getting used to, but it has all the features available in Photoshop. Even better, it doesn’t cost a penny, is smaller and less resource-intensive. You can even expand its functionality by installing…

Facebook Messenger Free Android www.snipca.com/29625 iOS www.snipca.com/29626 Facebook has redesigned its Messenger app, making it easier to use without removing any features. The app now has three tabs at the bottom - Chats, People (who are online) and Discover (to play games, make room/table reservations, chase orders, etc). The Official DVSA Hazard Perception Practice £2.99 Android www.snipca.com/29629 iOS www.snipca.com/29630 This app is great if you (or someone you know) is preparing for their driving theory test. As well as sound advice from people who set the test, it explains the tricky hazard-perception test in detail, with 14 video clips to test your knowledge. This Morning Free Android www.snipca.com/29627 iOS www.snipca.com/29628 New to iOS, this app will help you catch up on everything you’ve missed on ITV’s flagship daytime show. As…

If you notice you can’t install or update apps from the Microsoft Store, then there’s likely to be a problem with the Store’s app cache. There are two ways to clear this cache and resolve the problem. First, press Windows+R to open the Run box, type WSReset.exe into it, then press Enter. An empty Command Prompt window will open and the cache will then be emptied. Once the cache is cleared, this window will close and the Microsoft Store will open on your desktop. If this doesn’t resolve the problem, then try the second method. Press the Windows key, type cmd, right-click the Command Prompt option, click ‘Run as administrator’, then click Yes. Now type the following into the Command Prompt window: whoami/users, press Enter, then minimise your Command Prompt…

Ensure newsletters don’t go into spam If your newsletters are not having the desired impact, it’s a good idea to find out if they are ending up in your recipients’ spam/junk folders. Here we’ll explain how email spam filters work and how to ensure your newsletter avoids them. We'll also tell you about a useful free service that lets you test the likelihood of your newsletter being flagged as spam. HOW SPAM FILTERS WORK The two most common filters used by email services are Bayesian filters and email firewalls. The former works by monitoring what other users mark as Spam and then looks for common traits in these emails' subject line, content, links, sender list and so on. Email firewalls add an added layer of security, similar to your PC’s…

WHAT YOU CAN DO • Use a spare USB stick as network storage • Change your DNS servers to browse the web faster • Identify all connected devices and control their internet access • Set up a VPN on your router Not so long ago, your Wi-Fi router was used for little more than connecting your desktop PC and maybe a laptop - both to each other and to the internet. Fast forward a few years and the once humble router is now used to provide internet access to everything from phones and tablets to TVs, smart speakers, and maybe even your central heating. Despite our increasingly heavy reliance on routers, many of us never bother reviewing its settings so that we get the most out of it. It can…

PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT Where are my Skype smileys? Q Since a Windows 10 update I can no longer use emotions in Skype. For example, when I type a colon followed by a bracket I just get those two characters, as normal text, not the smiley face picture I got before. Has a setting been altered? I use emotions when contacting my grandchildren. Please help! Gordon Liversage A These are commonly referred to as emoticons, which is a portmanteau of ‘emotion’ and ‘icons’. They’re also sometimes known as emojis, from a similar Japanese portmanteau. Emoticons are currently problematic in the world of Skype, along with much else. To understand why, we need to explore a little background. Bluntly, Microsoft has made a pig’s ear of Skype. Indeed, by many users’…

SAMSUNG ‘FOLDABLE’ PHONE REVEALED Samsung has unveiled its long-awaited foldable phone (pictured), saying production will start within months. Using technology called Infinity Flex Display, its ‘cover display’ acts as a screen when closed. When unfolded, it resembles a 7.3in tablet. Watch it being demonstrated at www.snipca.com/29686. UK BROADBAND FIFTH CHEAPEST IN EUROPE The UK has the fifth cheapest broadband in western Europe, with an average of £30.10 per month, according to new research from comparison site Cable.co.uk. Italy has the cheapest, at around £22.40, followed by France, Germany and Monaco. However, the UK’s broadband is only the 15th fastest in Europe, and 35th fastest in the world. Ukraine has the world’s cheapest broadband, at £3.80. See all the figures at www.snipca.com/29680. USE STICKY NOTES ON THE WEB Microsoft has released…

Adblock Plus 3.4 www.snipca.com/29647 An effective way to block scam adverts (like the one described above) is to use an ad-blocking web extension. And one of the best is Adblock Plus, which has been relaunched to use 50 per cent less memory, so it won’t slow your browsing as much as before (not that we’d noticed this). It also has a crisp new design, making it a delight to use. Install the extension (click the URL above then choose the download link for your browser - Chrome, Firefox or Opera), then start browsing the web. Keep an eye on Adblock Plus’s icon at the top right of your browser (‘ABP’ inside a red stop-sign octagon). It will show you the number of adverts blocked on the web page you’re currently…

I’ve read the letters in recent issues about offering free Wi-Fi to high-street shoppers, but none of the contributors said whether they run their own store. Well, I do - a local, relatively small electronics store. In my experience, free Wi-Fi has been a disaster. I’ll explain why. As a shop selling computers, phones and suchlike, I thought free Wi-Fi would attract relevant consumers, namely those with an interest in technology. I introduced it a couple of years ago, mentioned it in my local adverts, and stuck a notice on the window. At first, shoppers told me it was a good idea. These were the type of people I hoped to attract - computing enthusiasts. They seemed to appreciate the effort I’d put into providing free Wi-Fi, and said they…

I recently bought items from Amazon and a couple of days later received two emails related to purchases I didn’t make. They were both plausible and well put together, though they came from two different email addresses – neither of which I use to buy from Amazon. It could have been a coincidence that I received the emails so soon after shopping on Amazon, but I was a victim of the TalkTalk data breach in 2015 (which affected 156,000 accounts), and so am I wary about scams. I rang Amazon Customer Service, and was answered quickly. They checked my details were all correct, and confirmed they hadn’t sent either of the emails. They said the messages must be scams. Well done, Amazon. It is often slated, but Amazon’s customer service…

BACKUP Macrium Reflect 7.2 www.snipca.com/29671 What you need: Windows XP, Vista, 8/8.1, 10 Backing up your files is always a good idea. You could use the File History tool in Windows 10 - you’ll find it in Settings, ‘Update & Security’, then Backup. System restore can also help you roll back Windows to a previous point in time, but it doesn’t always work flawlessly. Creating a full system image is the only way to ensure all your files and settings are protected. The free version of Macrium Reflect is ideal for this task, offering plenty of advanced features, while ensuring basic tasks are straightforward. To create a backup, for example, simply select the relevant partitions in the main screen, click the ‘Image this disk’ link, then choose where to store…

I often use the Performance tab to find out whether it’s my processor, memory or disk usage that’s causing my computer to slow down (or all three). However, Task Manager’s graphs only show information for the previous 30 seconds (see screenshot) when the ‘Update speed’ is set to High – and it only starts tracking after I click the Performance tab. I’d like to see performance graphs cover a full minute, perhaps with the ability to click any point in the graph to reveal the biggest resource-eating processes at that moment.…

What kind of PC can you get for five hundred quid? A fairly basic one, you’d imagine. This chunky little tower can be yours for as little as £420 if you already have a spare Windows 10 licence, and with Windows 10 Home included it’s still just £510. It’s sold as a gaming system, which means it has a dedicated graphics card. And that, in turn, makes it capable in theory of taking on almost any task, within reason. “Great speeds without compromising on capacity” The graphics card in question is a GeForce GTX 1050, which may come from the bottom of Nvidia’s current range but packs in a lot more pixel-pushing power than the integrated graphics in the mid-range CPUs you’d expect to find in this price bracket. Most…

What does it do? The Ember Ceramic Mug (pictured) is, well, a ceramic mug. What catapults this mundane pottery-based technology into the digital age is its built-in heating element, controlled wirelessly by a smartphone app. Set your exact preferred temperature, and the mug will automatically maintain it. Why would I want it? Your drink never gets cold. No more half-drunk, luke-warm cups languishing on your desk. What’s the catch? The Ember Ceramic Mug isn’t designed to heat things up from cold. You still need to make your hot drink first. Can I pop it in the microwave? Er, no, it can’t go in the microwave. Can the mug lower the temperature? No, it can’t cool down liquids. So it keeps my tea warm – even if I forget about it?…

Q My husband and I are planning to upgrade our smartphones for Christmas. We’d like to make sure we can charge them quickly, because we often forget. We’ve seen ‘fast chargers’, but do they work with any phone? Susan Williams A Nearly all smartphones charge via USB, and any USB charger will work with any phone, given the right cable. If a higher wattage (volts x amps) is available, the phone will safely take advantage. Most basic USB wall adapters are 5V/1A or 5V/2.4A. USB 3.1 chargers can go much higher. The latest iPhones support USB-PD fast charging, but come with basic slow chargers. Apple’s 30W USB-C Power Adapter (£49 from www.snipca.com/29559, pictured) works much faster. Other manufacturers use non-standard fast-charging systems. Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 goes up to 18W,…

Last year’s Pixel 2 XL used a different screen technology and suffered quality-control problems, with many users reporting a flickering effect. There’s no sign of any such fault with the Pixel 3 XL, but its 6.3in 2960x1440-pixel screen has its own little quirk. Unlike the smaller handset, the screen goes right to the top, with a notch for the dual front cameras. In all other respects it’s very similar, but of course even more expensive, at £869. Even if you like a big screen, that might be a budget stretch too far.…

LAPTOP HP Envy 13 £849 from www.snipca.com/29555 Tested Issue 539 The combination of an eighth-generation quad-core i5 chip and MX 150 graphics makes this an excellent all-round laptop, let down only by the poor colour reproduction of its Full HD touchscreen. Seven-hour battery life is adequate, and it’s nicely made. ALTERNATIVE Dell XPS 13 This premium laptop starts at £1,200, but the best deal is with the brand new quad-core i7-8550 and QHD touchscreen. £1,449 from www.snipca.com/26796 DESKTOP PC Mesh Ryzen Gaming PC CS £650 from www.snipca.com/27705 Tested Issue 528 With a six-core Ryzen 5 1600 processor and 4GB GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card, this is a brilliant all-round desktop PC for the money, completed by 8GB of memory, 120GB SSD and 1TB hard drive. ALTERNATIVE Lenovo IdeaCentre 620s…

What’s needed: a PC (or laptop), a smartphone or a tablet Time required: 60 minutes Christmas is coming. If you’re lucky enough to receive a new laptop, PC, tablet or phone over the festive season, we’d urge you not to bin your existing kit. Quite apart from the fact that computer hardware contains environmentally harmful metals and chemicals, almost every device will have some residual value. You could try selling them through stores like CEX or Game, or simply hand them on to younger family members. Either way, it’s vital that you first remove all of your data and apps. Why? To reduce the risk of identity theft, and to avoid breaking the terms of the licences covering your software use, some of which may forbid its resale. In this…

BROWSERS Open multiple websites in one tab My wife retired last year, so we decided we’d travel a bit and visit places that weren’t an option when our children were growing up. Looking for good travel deals online, I found myself opening multiple tabs in Chrome to compare prices, which got very difficult to keep on top of. I recently read about a great new feature in the Vivaldi browser (https://vivaldi.com) that lets you open a number of websites in one tab. First you open your websites in separate tabs, then you need to ‘stack’ them. To do this, click and drag any tab over another one, then release it. You can stack a maximum of four tabs. To see your stacked tabs in one tab, click the ‘Page tiling’…

Nest Hello £229 from Nest www.snipca.com/29614 I’ve always been keen to try these fancy new doorbells that double up as security cameras, and so decided to buy the Nest Hello. Before purchasing the unit, I recommend you follow the steps at www.snipca.com/29651 to see if you need someone from Nest to install it for you (an additional £100). If not, the product’s box contains everything you need to install it - wiring cable, drill bit, a mount and a setup guide. The first thing that impressed me was the HDR video quality of its camera - I could even see across the street clearly. It has night vision so you can still see visitors after dark. As well as your doorbell ringing, you receive a notification on your phone, which…

Met Office Weather Forecast* Free Android www.snipca.com/29633 iOS www.snipca.com/29634 Many apps take their weather data from the Met Office, so it’s great to have accurate, up-to-the-minute forecasts directly from the source. You receive instant weather alerts for any saved locations. The app provides detailed data but its interface takes some getting used to. Best for: Detailed information and instant alerts BBC Weather Free Android www.snipca.com/29631 iOS www.snipca.com/29632 BBC Weather displays hourly weather updates, previews what you can expect over the coming fortnight, and lets you save favourite locations. We love its customisable homescreen widget, which shows accurate weather data at a glance. Best for: Seeing the weather at a glance Yahoo Weather Free Android www.snipca.com/29635 iOS www.snipca.com/29636 Yahoo’s app shows you stunning Flickr images of your location against the backdrop…

LIBREOFFICE WRITER Arrange text around images and charts in your document Whenever you insert something (such as an image, chart or shape) into your document, you’ll notice that your text moves to accommodate it. There’s an easy way to reconfigure how your added object sits within your text. First, right-click the image, chart or shape, then move your cursor to Wrap (see screenshot below). The first option Wrap Off sandwiches your object between full lines of text. Page Wrap ensures that text flows around all four sides of your object. Optimal Page Wrap is similar to Page Wrap but it leaves a little more space between object and text. You can also wrap text only to the left or right of your object. Wrap Through flows text over your object.…

What is it? Microsoft’s rumoured codename for the Windows 10 Feature Update due to arrive next October. Hang on - isn’t Microsoft still fixing this October’s update? Yes, but the company works months in advance on Windows updates, and needs memorable codenames its developers can all refer to. Hence Vanadium. OK. But what is vanadium? Found mostly in Russia and China, it’s a hard, silvery-grey metal (pictured) used to produce steel alloys for gears, axles and crankshafts, particularly in jet engines. In combination with chrome (the metal, not Google’s browser), it’s also used to make spanners. Microsoft rightly thought it’s a more interesting name than ‘19H2’. Is that another codename? A now-defunct one, it seems. 19H1 still exists as the codename for the next Feature update, due in April -…

Cable or broadband If you have an old ADSL broadband connection, you’ll normally need a router with an ADSL2+ modem built in. Newer (and faster) fibre broadband requires a router with VDSL2 support. If you’re a Virgin Media cable customer, you should be able to switch the router to ‘modem’ mode and connect a new router that has a WAN port. Tri-band Most modern routers are dual-band, meaning they can broadcast on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. Tri-band routers add an additional 5GHz band, meaning you can connect more devices and have them operate at high speed. If you have a lot of wireless devices, opt for a tri-band model. Mesh routers Comprising a main router and one or more wireless satellite units placed around your home, mesh Wi-Fi increases…

We love VPNs. They let you access websites blocked in the UK and browse anonymously. But what they can’t do, at least not without help, is block targeted adverts. When you use a VPN, your actual IP address is effectively hidden (instead, you’re given a temporary IP address). This prevents sites such as Amazon and Google from recognising you via your IP address, but if you log into them they’ll still know who you are and will be able to track your activity using cookies. Additionally, a VPN won’t block existing cookies, which means that an advert that stalked you before using a VPN will still be able to do so after you switch it on. To stop it, you’ll need to delete your cookies as described on page 60.…

How do I select my Wi-Fi channel? Q In Issue 537 (page 35) you describe how to best use the 2.4 and 5GHz bands on a router. I have a BT Smart Hub and, as it’s one of the examples you cited, I thought it would be a nice and easy job. And it was up to a point. However, when I used the recommended WiFi Analyzer for Windows (www.snipca.com/29066) I found that all my neighbours were mostly using three channels – 1, 6 and 11 on the 2.4GHz band. So I thought I’d switch to one of the in-between channels. However, it seems that BT has decided to limit our options to just three channels for each frequency. There’s also a ‘smart’ option, but that’s also restricted to the…

1080p High-definition video of 1920x1080 pixels. 32bit/64bit A measure of how much data a PC can process at once. Most older computers are 32bit, more modern ones are 64bit. 4G Technology that delivers faster mobile broadband. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 720p A common resolution of high-definition video: 1280x720 pixels. 802.11n A standard for wireless networks that allows for high transfer speeds. ADSL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. A technology that converts a standard phone line into a broadband internet connection. AES 28 Bit Advanced Encryption Standard. An extremely secure method of encrypting data. ARC Format for compressing files, used in late 1980s and early 1990s. Augmented reality Lets you view the real world on a screen and add digital elements. Bandwidth A measure of how…

Ever wish you were on a different continent? A proxy server can grant that wish right now, sort of. It’s a tech trick we can only dream of using in real life, like Ctrl+Z. But unlike Ctrl+Z, proxies are fiddly blighters. Proxies have similar benefits to VPNs. Browse anonymously; watch BBC iPlayer in Spain; buy US-only Amazon items from the comfort of your spare room in Warrington, that kind of thing. But they achieve it in different ways. A VPN shrouds and encrypts your entire network, while a proxy is more ad-hoc. It redirects a particular “request” (typing a URL or clicking a link) through a server in a different country, so your target website thinks that’s where you are. “Grab a US proxy IP address, point Windows at it…