Table of contents for 600 in Computeractive

USB sticks have been the unsung heroes of our 600 issues. Other devices grab the headlines, as laptops get lighter and phones get smarter, but these pocket-sized gizmos remain as quietly popular as ever for reasons that stretch far beyond transferring files. In our Cover Feature Will Stapley explains some of the cleverest new ways you can use them. To celebrate reaching 600 not out (beat that, Joe Root), we’ve got a special competition. Turn to page 31 and you’ll see we’re giving away £600 worth of Amazon vouchers to one lucky reader. That’s enough to buy over 100 USB sticks, though we suspect your cupboards and drawers are already bursting with them. We hit 600 in strange times, but one thing is unchanged: we couldn’t do this without you.…

Facebook is being sued in a mass legal action for “losing control” of the data of about one million people in the UK. The lawsuit, filed in the High Court, claims that Facebook’s privacy settings allowed an app called This Is Your Digital Life to gather not only users’ information, but also details about their friends. This Is Your Digital Life was a personality quiz created by US data scientist Aleksandr Kogan. It allegedly transferred information on 87 million people worldwide – one million of whom were in the UK – from Facebook to British political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica. The lawsuit alleges that the app had access to users’ information between November 2013 and May 2015, without them or their friends knowing. It claims the app gathered information including…

51 MORE EXCHANGES MOVE TO VOIP CALLS Openreach has named the latest 51 telephone exchanges that will move from old copper-based analogue services to a new VoIP network. The locations, which cover all four nations of the UK, include Carrickfergus, Fife, Gwynedd, Leeds and Sevenoaks (see a full list at www.snipca.com/37280). The firm hopes to upgrade all exchanges by the end of 2025. UNLOCK iPHONES EVEN WITH FACE MASK ON Apple iPhones will soon recognise users wearing a face mask, but only if the owners are also wearing an Apple Watch. It means iPhone owners will be able to use Face ID to unlock their phone, even if their nose and mouth are covered by a mask. The feature will be added as part of iOS 14.5, which is currently…

A water-treatment plant that was hacked in Oldsmar, Florida was still using computers running Windows 7, making it easier for the attacker to infiltrate the system. Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 7 in January 2020, though some businesses and organisations can pay for extended support. Reports in the US quote investigators as saying that “the cyber actors likely accessed the system by exploiting cybersecurity weaknesses, including poor password security and an outdated Windows 7 operating system to compromise software used to remotely manage water treatment”. They added that the hacker probably used TeamViewer to remotely access and control the plant’s computers. The staff also use TeamViewer to access computers, but it seems they all shared the same password, meaning the hacker had to guess only one to take over the system.…

Misplaced comma revealed Royal Mail scam I get about five parcels a month from Royal Mail, so I wasn’t surprised to get a text supposedly from them about a delivery I was due to receive. But it was surprising that it said I owed them £2.99, and that I should click a link (https://royalmail.help) to enter my personal details. They called this payment a “settlement”, which sounded a bit odd, and the message used a comma where a full stop should have been. I’ve never had to pay to receive parcels before, so I assumed it was a scam. I had this suspicion confirmed online: www.snipca.com/37276. Warn your fellow readers about scams at letters@computeractive.co.uk…

It’s always a gamble to get your device independently inspected. If an inherent fault is found, you can pass the charge on to the retailer. But if you’re to blame for the fault, you could end up with a hefty bill. Thankfully, reader Peter Webster (see Issue 599) avoided a bill when his local repair shop examined his Lenovo laptop, which he bought from Laptops Direct in March 2020. Its technicians judged that the broken hinges were caused by wear and tear (“customer-induced damage” to use the legal term), and therefore the fault wasn’t inherent. They could see this with a quick look, without applying special techniques, and so decided not to charge Peter. The shop’s verdict backs up what Laptops Direct said when Peter approached the retailer last November.…

Can you provide any strategies for searching for a case-sensitive word? The family name was ‘Given’ (since changed to ‘Givan’), but searching for this on Ancestry and other sites brings up numerous false matches for the common word ‘given’. Howard Givan This shouldn’t happen on sites like Ancestry when using the site’s own search tool – just make sure ‘Given’ is typed into the Surname box. When it comes to Google, use the free AncestorSearch tool (www.randymajors.org/ancestorsearch), which takes your search terms and formats them into a Google search to increase your chances of finding actual people rather than generic references to the word ‘given’. Have a genealogy question for Nick? Email letters@computeractive.co.uk with ‘Grow Your Family Tree’ in the subject line.…

HOW I USE… Throughout what has been a difficult time for everyone, I’ve been fortunate to have none other than Stephen Fry keep my kids entertained. Don’t worry, we haven’t been breaking lockdown laws – Stephen’s stayed within the confines of the CD player in my lounge, diligently reading the first five books in the Harry Potter series. Although I’ve tried to teach my kids the importance of looking after CDs and stress how easily they can be damaged, I still find the discs strewn around the lounge (if you saw my desk, you’d know where they got that trait). A world without Stephen reading to my kids doesn’t bear thinking about, so I recently decided to digitise the collection – a daunting task considering it spans 67 discs. I…

MINI COMPUTER | £699 from Apple www.snipca.com/37282 Closing Windows The Mac mini joins the MacBook Pro (see our review, Issue 596) and the MacBook Air in Apple’s new range of devices that use its powerful new processor, the M1. On the positive side, it’s extremely fast and runs the latest macOS software at a blistering rate. On the other hand, it’s less compatible than ever – with even some existing Mac software unable to run on it. From the outside, the Mac mini looks just like previous minis: a small metal box with an Apple logo and some ports at the back. You don’t get a screen, keyboard or mouse, so you need to factor anything you’re missing into the price. Our review model is the most affordable, with 8GB…

Q I need a new inkjet printer, but they seem to be few and far between. Are they going out of fashion? I’ve scoured Amazon, Argos and PC World, and their inkjet printers are out of stock. I can’t find anyone who’s stocking your recommended printer, the Epson Expression Premium XP-6105. Can you help me find a printer for around £100? Roger Bradshaw A Printers are in high demand thanks to the increase in home working and home schooling, and while stocks were drastically low during the first lockdown, things have improved over time. However, stock levels still ebb and flow, and prices are higher, so if you’re looking for a particular model, it’s worth doing regular searches. For example, we found the Epson Expression Premium XP-6105 from an Amazon…

WIRELESS EARPHONES | £249 from Amazon www.snipca.com/37290 Sounds great Grado has been making headphones since 1993, but the GT220 are its first venture into the world of wireless earbuds. At £250, they’re on the expensive side, and surprisingly they don’t have the long list of features we’d normally expect for this price. There’s no active noise cancellation, ambient sound mode or companion app with which to customise the sound. They’re only IPX2 rated, so although able to withstand a few drops of water, they fall short of the sweat- and water-resistance offered by the majority of their rivals. This leaves you with earbuds that may be unprepared for the rigours of modern life. They lack features, but sound quality is second to none The earbuds do have touch controls, however.…

Winner of a Buy It! award in Issue 595 (page 26), Crucial’s P5 SSD delivers some of the fastest speeds we’ve ever seen in our tests – 3,420 megabytes per second when reading files, and 3,243 megabytes per second when writing them. It’s an NVMe SSD, so it makes full use of the PCIe 3 M.2 socket in most modern PCs and laptops to deliver speeds not just faster than a traditional hard drive, but in a different order of magnitude. This speed means operating systems and apps open quickly, while games load as soon as you’re ready to play. It includes advanced features like dynamic write acceleration, which writes files faster by creating a cache that’s sized according to the demands of the drive, rather than using up capacity…

Fontasy Free Android www.snipca.com/37309 Google Fonts has hundreds of fonts, which are free to use, but it can be difficult to get creative with them on a smartphone. This app overcomes that, letting you browse fonts, type with them directly in the app, or share the font files (for example, via email attachment), which makes it easy to send them to your PC. There are 600 font families to choose from. Flickr Free* iOS www.snipca.com/37307 The new version of Flickr for iPhone introduces support for iOS 14’s home-screen widgets. Long-press your home screen until the icons start to shake, then tap the ‘+’ at the top to open the Widgets menu. Drag the Flickr widget on to the home screen and position it where you want, then press the Home…

Do you ever find yourself being ignored on group video calls? Before assuming the other people on the call are being rude, it’s worth checking your microphone settings in Windows. Open the Settings app (press Windows key+I), select System, Sound, then scroll down on the right and click Sound Control Panel (in Windows 7, open Control Panel, select ‘Large icons’ in the ‘View by’ section, top right, then click Sounds). In the Sound window that opens, select the Recording tab and double-click your microphone. If you see two microphones, double-click the one labelled ‘Default communications device’ (this is the microphone your video-calling software uses). Select the Levels tab, then move the Microphone slider to the far right (or type 100 into the box to the right of it). Depending on…

Create a Google group for your club Google Groups is a free online service that lets you store all your club’s communications in one place. Your members can use it to view messages, as well as post replies and create their own messages from scratch. You can also use your group to attract new members to your club. Create your group Go to https://groups.google.com and sign into your club’s Google account (if you don’t have one, create a free account at www.snipca.com/37331). On your Google Groups page click ‘Create group’ (top left), then enter your club name – this will be used to create the group’s email address, but you can edit it later if necessary (handy if your club has a long name). Enter a brief description of your…

Subscribe to computer active today and save on the single issue price. Each issue of Computeractive will be delivered directly to your device each fortnight. SEE NEXT PAGE FOR SET-UP INSTRUCTIONS HOW TO SUBSCRIBE … on an iPad or iPhone STEP 1 Return to the Computeractive library STEP 2Choose your subscription term and tap twice on the 'price' box STEP 3Choose whether to create an optional PixelMags account STEP 4Enter your Apple ID password to confirm … on a Kindle Fire Kindle Fire subscriptions come with a FREE one month trial. STEP 1 Tap 'Free Trial Subscription' in the Computeractive library STEP 2 Chose your subscription term from the drop down menu on the popup that appears STEP 3 Tap 'Subscribe' … on an Android device STEP 1 Open the…

Email us your problem and we’ll try to help: noproblem@computeractive.co.uk PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT How do I fix my Excel formula? Q I’m struggling with an Excel formula. I want to return the number of years and months from a given date of birth (DOB), or the message ‘No data’ if the DOB cell is blank. I’m using the formula =DATEDIF(A2,C2,"Y") & "." & DATEDIF(A2,C2,"YM"), which presents the relevant years and months separated by a dot. However, if the DOB cell is blank I get a number over 100. I believe this is because it counts from a default of the first day of the year 1900. Your excellent magazine is famous for its no-jargon approach, so hopefully your reply will be understood by this silver surfer! Daniel Tilcock A…

256bit AES Advanced Encryption Standard. A form of encryption based on a key length of 256 bits. Cracking it would take longer than the age of the universe. 32bit/64bit A measure of how much data a PC can process at once. Most older computers are 32bit, more modern ones are 64bit. 3G/4G/5G Technologies that deliver faster mobile broadband. 720p/1080p/1440p Common types of high-definition video of 1280x720, 1920x1080 and 2560x1440 pixels respectively. 802.11ac A standard for wireless networks that allows for much higher transfer speeds than 802.11n. 802.11ax Wi-Fi standard with speeds up to 10 times faster than 802.11ac. Also called Wi-Fi 6. AAC Advanced Audio Coding. A type of music file. Active noise cancelling Method for reducing unwanted sound by adding a second sound specifically designed to cancel the first.…

You’ll be able to switch from BT to Virgin Media – and vice versa – much quicker under Ofcom’s proposed ‘one touch’ process. At the moment, if you want to switch between providers that use different cable networks, such as BT, Plusnet, Sky and TalkTalk (which use Openreach’s cables), you have to contact both firms. It can be tricky to arrange the switch to happen on the same day, potentially increasing how long you may spend without a connection. This is more hassle than switching providers on the same network – such as from BT to TalkTalk, or Plusnet to Sky – which simply requires you to contact the company you’re moving to. Under the ‘one touch’ method, you’d contact your new provider and give your details. Your current provider…

You may soon be prevented from downloading videos from YouTube following legal action from record companies. Under existing law, broadband providers can be forced to block customers from visiting sites that offer illegal downloads or streaming of copyrighted content. It’s why for example you can no longer access torrent-sharing sites such as The Pirate Bay. Over 100 similar sites have been blocked. Record companies, represented by the British Recorded Music Industry Ltd (BPI) and Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL), now want providers to extend that ban to online tools that make it easy for you to download videos from sites like YouTube. This process, often called ‘stream ripping’, has become increasingly popular as more tools emerge to simplify the process. These include flvto.biz and 2conv.com, which are both under threat from…

I’ve had just two phones in 10 years I was fascinated by Issue 599’s ‘Question of the Fortnight’ (‘Are smartphones the new washing machines?’), because it sounds like the rest of the buying public have caught up with my scepticism about new technology. About 10 years ago, stunned by the pictures of people queuing in sleeping bags to get the latest iPhone, I made a vow not to buy a new phone unless my existing one was completely useless. I bought an HTC Desire in 2010 (I still have the receipt) and used it until a deadly combination of cracked screen and old software made it worthless. That was in 2015. I replaced it with an HTC 10, and that’s the phone I still use. It’s true that not all…

Over the Christmas period I started getting my IP camera Wi-Fi bird box (pictured, bought from Green Feathers) cleaned, ready for the next breeding season. I attempted to log into the camera but had problems doing so as it required a password, which I’d forgotten. I went on to Green Feathers’ website (www.green-feathers.co.uk) and found instructions on how to reset the password, but it didn’t work on any of my computers. I then emailed their help address and received a fairly quick reply (considering it was the holiday period). However, despite more instructions and a long email exchange I still couldn’t access the camera. To resolve the issue they sent me a replacement camera that arrived the next day, on the promise from me that I’d return my camera, which…

OFFICE SUITE LibreOffice 7.1 www.snipca.com/37340 What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 Our favourite free office suite just got even better, with improvements to existing tools and some handy new features. Version 7.1 is officially called LibreOffice Community, indicating that it’s intended for home users rather than business. LibreOffice recommends that business users should download version 7.0.4 (also via the link above), which doesn’t have the latest features but has been tested for longer (not that we’ve encountered any problems with version 7.1). The ‘Find & Replace’ tool in Writer (press Ctrl+H) now works much faster than before – it’s particularly noticeable when you’re working on large documents. In the previous version, adjusting every incorrect use of a capital letter in a 20,000-word document took 15 seconds. When we…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: FileHippo When it launched in 2004, FileHippo (https://filehippo.com) quickly became one of the best download sites. I can remember using it a lot to grab useful tools and free software. But I haven’t visited FileHippo for a good few years and was genuinely shocked by the way the entire website now seems geared towards tricking people into installing junk. For a start, FileHippo seems to be flooded with adverts, many of which masquerade as download buttons for the tools you’re trying to install. It’s a minefield to navigate. Even if you’re savvy enough to make sure you click only genuine download links, you stand a chance of being tricked by a cheeky message pop-up that attempts to con you into downloading something you never wanted…

What does it do? Just like in a PC, a smartphone’s RAM is the short-term memory that stores temporary information. It’s like a shopping list on a scrap of paper, which is essential while you’re in the shop but can be thrown away when you’ve finished. How does it work? In phones, RAM is a microchip (like Samsung’s LPDDR5 chip, pictured) that’s permanently attached to the phone’s motherboard. While the RAM has power it can remember anything, up to its capacity. Information can be stored for as long as it’s needed or until the phone is switched off. What are the specs? Capacity is measured in gigabytes (GB) and the big question is how much RAM do you need? This depends on what you want to do on your phone.…

PORTABLE HARD DRIVE | From £155 from Amazon www.snipca.com/37325 Locked and loaded Portable hard drives are fast and convenient, but most are also a security risk. If you can plug it into a PC and read the files, so can anyone else. The iStorage DiskAshur M2 is far more secure: if you don’t know the code required to unlock it, there’s no way to access the data on it. There are various levels of protection at play here. The obvious one (as you can see in our photo) is the physical combination lock. Everything on the drive is encrypted, and can’t be opened without first tapping in the code you’ve set. This encryption is built into the hardware, is tamper-proof and provides AES 256bit encryption, which is essentially uncrackable. To…

What is it? Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has shown off a prototype for a new type of phone display (pictured), which wraps around all four edges of the screen. What does it do? The screen bends 88 degrees to wrap around the edge of the phone. This lets Xiaomi replace the physical buttons typically found on a phone’s edges with software buttons. To see it for yourself, watch Xiaomi’s promotional YouTube video at www.snipca.com/37291. What’s the catch? Without physical buttons, it’s going to be more difficult to perform functions like a hard reset if your phone crashes. There are also no ports on the prototype, so families will be fighting over wireless charging pads rather than cables. So can I do without it? Yes. It would be handy to maximise…

What you need: Amazon Fire TV Stick Time required: One hour If you use an Amazon Fire TV Stick to stream films or TV from online sources, you’ll already know that it has internal storage that can accommodate installed video and audio apps, as well as games. But did you know that you can also access that storage yourself, and use it to host your own videos, photos and music? All you need do is install a couple of apps (ES File Explorer and VLC Media Player) from the Amazon App Store, which is built into the Fire TV Stick itself. Once you’ve done so, you can transfer files wirelessly from your computer to your stick, so you can access them on your TV whenever you want Space is limited,…

TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Install SSD to cut power and stop crashing Some time back I upgraded one of my old computers – an Acer Veriton X270 – to Windows 10. Because there were no drivers available for the Nvidia-integrated graphics in the PC, I installed Nvidia’s 309.08 driver for Windows XP, 7 and 8. This worked perfectly until some recent Windows 10 updates. Reading Issue 596’s feature (page 60) on upgrading graphics cards I was prompted to look for a suitable card for the PC. It doesn’t have much space and needs a low-profile card, so I bought the Nvidia GeForce GT 710 PCI-e with 2GB memory (pictured). I got it from CPC for £46 (www.snipca.com/37274). It just about squeezed into my machine. The results were amazing, but it…

Lunar Phase Widget Free* iOS www.snipca.com/37318 Know what the current moon phase is at a glance by adding it to your iOS home screen. This is a great-looking app and – if all you want to know is the current phase – it’ll do all you need for free. Paying £1.99 a year or £4.99 a lifetime gives you access to additional details, notifications, a zodiac calendar and widget customisation. Best For Tracking phases at a glance Moon Phase Calendar Free Android www.snipca.com/37317 This is a flexible app: you can set alerts for different moon phases, choose from three different zodiac systems, and change the way the interface looks. Once you’re up and running, as well as telling you about the moon’s current status, you can use the built-in compass…

MICROSOFT WORD & LIBREOFFICE WRITER Replace spaces with tabs If you like to keep things neat and organised, a document littered with inconsistent spacing can be infuriating. You may have, for example, a list of names all with differently sized spaces between the first and last name. If the author of the document had simply separated them with tabs, you wouldn’t have this problem. Thankfully, you can quickly convert all those spaces into single tabs. In Microsoft Word, press Ctrl+H to open the ‘Find and Replace’ box, then select the ‘Find what’ box, and enter a space followed by {2,} – this tells Word to look for two or more spaces. To replace the spaces with a single tab, type ^t in the ‘Replace with’ box. Now click the More…

Oh come on, surely that’s made up? Well, we admit that it’s a bit of a stretch, but Vodafone claims that its new 100Gbps broadband technology could “pave the way for ‘teleportation over the internet’ applications”. As in ‘Beam me up, Scotty’? We wish it were true: “Can you download me now, darling, I’m ready to come home”. The reality is intriguingly futuristic all the same. Vodafone claims its new “immersive” technology could let you touch or smell objects remotely using sensory devices, or even share meals with family members projected as holograms. So what is this magical technology? It’s called 100G-PON, with the PON standing for Passive Optical Network, an alternative to Active Optical Networks (AON). Both deliver fibre broadband to homes, but there’s a key difference in how…

Q Can you help me understand RAID? Some new PCs seem to come with RAID while others don’t, and those that do appear to offer a choice of RAID 0 or RAID 1 drives. I’m sure all this means something to the clever people who make the computers, but I really don’t know what to make of it. Edward Chambers A RAID stands for a redundant array of independent disks. That sounds complicated, but it merely describes different ways of exploiting the space on two or more drives. For example, if you buy a PC with a couple of hard drives, then traditionally those two drives would operate independently of one another. In Windows 10, they’d typically be labelled as drive C and drive D. However, with RAID it’s possible…

The great US physicist Richard Feynman once said: “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics”. We’re tempted to say the same thing about Windows updates. Millions of people have been happily using version 2004 for months without realising that Microsoft still hadn’t given it the final seal of approval. But many others still running 1909 without problems will wonder why this approval took eight months. Back in 2019 Microsoft hinted that it would abandon the ‘broad deployment’ classification, before changing its mind. It was right the first time. It’s confusing and should be scrapped.…

CHROME TO STOP WORKING ON OLD PCs Chrome will soon stop working on some 32bit PCs, Google has said. From version 89, due in March, it won’t work on 32bit machines with chips that run Intel’s old SSE2 instructions rather than SSE3. Google says the change will affect only a “small number” of PCs. If yours is one, you’ll see this warning message (pictured – also at www.snipca.com/37336). BT & EE HIKE PRICES ABOVE INFLATION BT and EE have confirmed a rise of 4.5 per cent on their broadband prices, from 31 March. The rise reflects their new policy of increasing prices every year by January’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) rate of inflation plus an extra 3.9 per cent. The rate of inflation in January was 0.6 per cent. However,…

O2 FINED £10.5M FOR OVERCHARGING Ofcom has fined O2 £10.5m after it overcharged mobile customers who left the network. Between 2011 and 2019 an error in how the firm calculated former customers’ final bills meant many were charged twice. Over 250,000 customers were sent bills, totalling £40.7m. Of these, around 140,000 customers actually paid the bill, amounting to £2.4m. Ofcom has now refunded all customers it was able to contact. MICROSOFT LAUNCHES TWO-SCREEN PHONE Microsoft has launched its two-screen Surface Duo phone (pictured below) in the UK, priced from £1,349. It’s an Android device with 6GB RAM and either 128GB or 256GB of storage. Its 360-degree hinge lets it be used in a range of positions, while the two screens are meant to make multitasking easier. It’s available at Currys…

Apple has released a browser extension called iCloud Passwords that lets you sync passwords you created using Safari on your Mac, iPhone or iPad (via iCloud Keychain) with Chrome or Edge on your Windows PC. Visit the Chrome Web Store (www.snipca.com/37277) and click ‘Add to Chrome’ (this works in Edge as well as Chrome). Once installed, you’ll see its icon – a white key in a blue cloud – in your browser bar. Click it and you’ll be prompted to download the ‘iCloud for Windows’ app from the Microsoft Store. Click the blue Download button (see screenshot) then, on the following page, the blue ‘Download iCloud for Windows from the Microsoft Store’ link. This will take you to the Microsoft Store page for iCloud for Windows. Click ‘Get’ to install…

Can Virgin charge an early-termination fee? LEAD CASE Q At the beginning of January, Virgin told me it was putting up its prices in March. I don’t want to pay this increase and want to switch to a different provider, but I have nine months left on my contract for TV, broadband and landline phone. Virgin said I would have to pay a termination fee of around £240 if I cancelled, but I thought I could cancel without a charge if there’s a price rise. Am I right? Duncan Hillcroft A It depends whether the price rise is above the retail price index (RPI) rate of inflation. If so, then you have 30 days from being told about the increase to cancel without paying a fee. You can check the…

Track down living relatives Reader Peter Carr got in touch with a question about tracing living relatives from his family tree – in his case a cousin who disappeared off the radar after marrying and moving to Wales. Search the electoral roll If you know roughly where your relative was living at any point after 2002, you may be able to track them down using the open version of the electoral roll (also known as the ‘edited electoral register’). This assumes they’ve remained on the edited register. If not, you’ll probably be able to track them down only to the point where – usually for privacy reasons – they opted out. Find My Past offers access to the edited electoral register to people with a Plus subscription (£12.99 a month)…

How can I add captions to my images? Q Following one of your earlier recommendations, I installed FastStone Image Viewer as an alternative to the now discontinued Picasa. However, I can’t find a way to add captions – something I used to do in Picasa to identify flowers, birds and so on. Is there a suitable alternative? Peter Ashton A Hold off clicking that Uninstall button. It’s not made obvious, but FastStone (www.snipca.com/37342) does let you add captions. Select the relevant photo, then press T to open the JPEG Comment window (see screenshot). You can now enter your caption in the text box below the thumbnail. To save your caption, click Close. The JPEG Comment window will remain open if you select other image thumbnails, allowing you to add captions…

Persistence is an admirable quality, but not where Amir Tofangsazan (pictured) is concerned. He has repeatedly used fake profiles on dating sites to trick women into thinking he’s boyfriend material, passing himself off as a model (seriously), barrister or surgeon before conning his victims out of thousands of pounds. At a recent hearing at Wood Green Crown Court, prosecutors revealed that Amir had two previous convictions for dating fraud, neither of which made much of a dent in his criminal career. Following his first conviction in 2015, Tofangsazan smuggled a mobile phone into prison so he could continue scamming from his cell. Then, in 2019, within days of being handed a 10-year ban from using dating sites, he signed up to Tinder, Bumble and others to target his previous victims…

MICROPHONE | £103 from Amazon www.snipca.com/37326 A sound idea If you’ve spent lockdown struggling to make yourself heard in video calls, either because your laptop’s microphone isn’t up to scratch or the background noise in your household regularly rises above the volume of your own voice, then Shure’s MV5C may come to the rescue. It’s a relatively inconspicuous addition to your desk, standing at only 14cm tall, and cuts quite a dash with its retro styling and black finish. If anything, it’s too light, and is easily knocked over by accident. It also requires a USB cable, which trails out of the back. The supplied cable is only 1m long, so it can’t be used too far away from your laptop. The diminutive dome houses two tiny buttons: one for…

Find out what other products we liked. Buy our new 2020 Back Issue CD: £15 from www.snipca.com/37026 LAPTOP Honor MagicBook 14 £600 from www.snipca.com/34688 Tested Issue 580 Using an AMD Ryzen 3500U processor, this lightweight metal laptop beat Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 3 with Intel’s i7-1065G7 in our tests. The 14in Full HD screen lacks colour accuracy but looks decent. For the money, it’s a great buy. ALTERNATIVE Dell XPS 13 New Intel CPUs and a taller screen make this a more powerful, all-round slim notebook, although prices now start at a steep £1,649 from www.snipca.com/36642 ANDROID TABLET Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite £349 from www.snipca.com/35795 Tested Issue 582 Competing with Apple’s cheapest 10.2in iPad, this slim aluminium tablet comes with an S Pen stylus and a generous 64GB of storage…

ANDROID & iOS Export chats from WhatsApp to Telegram As we explained in Issue 599, WhatsApp’s controversial new privacy terms and conditions have led many users to switch to rival messaging apps, such as Telegram and Signal. Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, is so worried that it has even published an explanation of the changes (www.snipca.com/37305). Its very keen to point out that, whatever the changes, your messages remain private and encrypted, and WhatsApp is not keeping logs of who you contact. What has changed is the way it will be handling data that helps you contact businesses. Specifically, it wants to use data that ‘describes’ how you interact with businesses that advertise on its sites, like Instagram and Facebook itself. This descriptive data includes things like where you were in…

WINDOWS 8.1 & 10 Hide Edge’s distracting volume pop-up When you use the volume shortcut keys on your keyboard while listening to audio in Microsoft Edge, you’ll see the usual volume pop-up in the top-left corner of your desktop and a large banner displaying whatever’s playing in Edge along with buttons to control playback. The latter is mostly just an annoyance as it takes up a large section of your screen. The banner disappears after five seconds, but if you hover over it – perhaps when looking for a way to close it – it stays on screen for longer. Although you can’t hide the volume pop-up entirely, you can stop Edge from making it so big. In Edge’s address bar, type edge://flags/#hardware-media-keyhandling (you can copy this command from our…

The latest version (7.1) of LibreOffice (see page 18 for more on this) includes a new tool that lets you quickly hide the text under specific headings within your document. The tool is listed as experimental, which means it’s still in development, but we haven’t experienced any problems using it. To enable it, open Writer then click Options in the Tools menu. In the LibreOffice section in the left-hand sidebar, select Advanced, then make sure ‘Enable experimental features…’ is ticked. Click OK, then re-open the Options window. This time, select the LibreOffice Writer section, then click View. On the right-hand side, tick the ‘Show outline content visibility button’ box (see screenshot), then click OK. When you next hover over a heading in a document, you’ll notice a small down arrow…

What did you last use a USB stick for? We’re guessing it was probably to transfer files between PCs. While these mini storage drives are perfect for this kind of task, they’re capable of so much more. Over the next few pages, we’ll dig deeper into the inner workings of your humble USB stick than ever before. You’ll discover ways to use them that you never considered, as well as learn secret tricks to better organise your sticks, diagnose problems and protect the files stored on them from prying eyes. You’ll need to use some powerful tools to carry out these hacks – from hidden Command Prompt tools built into Windows to programs you can download for free. As with all advanced tools, we recommend you make a full backup…

If your computer is suddenly running more slowly than before and its drop in performance can’t be explained by demanding software you’ve recently installed, it may be that your PC’s memory modules are faulty. First, run a full scan with your antivirus software to rule out malware. If this throws up no problems, open the Start menu, type windows memory diagnostic and press Enter. Your PC will restart and test the health of your memory modules (you can follow its progress – see screenshot below). Once it’s complete, Windows will load as normal and show a pop-up message with the test result. If this is anything other than ‘No memory errors were detected’, your memory almost certainly needs to be replaced. Alternatively, you may simply want to add more memory…

Why can’t I make photo slideshows in Windows? Q I’m a new subscriber, with my first issue being 597. I was interested in the ‘Use Windows’ hidden tool to make photo slideshows’ Workshop. I followed the instructions, but when I select my photos and right-click, I don’t see the ‘Create a new video’ option. Any ideas? Garry East A This is because your computer doesn’t have the Windows 10 Photos app set as the default photo viewer. This could be your choice or a setting that has been changed by an image-related tool that you’ve installed. There are two solutions. The first is to revert to having the Photos app as the default viewer, which will put the ‘Create a new video’ option back on the right-click menu. Alternatively, you…