Table of contents for 467 in Computeractive

I know you’re not especially keen to hear about the mould in my bathroom, but its persistence does remind me of the type of malware that never seems to leave your PC. Every couple of weeks I blitz these horrid green stains with different brands of mould-removal spray, only to see them soon reappear. The malware that I suspect is lurking on my system doesn’t actually turn my Desktop green. But every time my PC crashes, or takes several decades to boot, I worry that those infected files are minutes away from killing my computer. That would be bad news at any time, but particularly now because I can’t afford a new PC having just remortgaged the house in order to buy a year’s supply of Mould Exterminator. Will it…

I want to say well done for exposing GuruAid in Issue 466. They have to be the most disreputable PC-help company I’ve ever spoken to. I run a local computer club in our village community centre, and over the years several members have had problems with GuruAid. I want to let Computeractive readers know about some of these, just to reiterate the danger posed by the company. One woman in our club phoned GuruAid after finding the number on Google. She was told that her PC had a “severe malware infection” and needed a “Registry clean up”. This would cost her a whopping £120! Fortunately, she knew enough about computers not to fall for this nonsense, but she still felt intimidated by GuruAid’s hard-sell. She described it as being bullied.…

BT’s ‘Superfast Fibre’ Availability by county www.snipca.com/19173 FAQs www.snipca.com/19174 How to privately fund local broadband www.snipca.com/19175 Twitter @BTfibre Country Land and Business Association (CLA) Campaigns, news and info www.snipca.com/19178 Twitter @CLAtweets Countryside Alliance Campaigns, news and info www.snipca.com/19180 Facebook www.snipca.com/19181 Twitter @CACampaigns Government information Broadband Delivery UK www.snipca.com/19176 Broadband postcode checker http://gosuperfastchecker.culture.gov.uk Ed Vaizey (Minister of State for Culture and the Digital Economy) www.vaizey.com/contact Google map of broadband availability www.snipca.com/19177…

Has BT sent me a SIM card? I received two emails purportedly from BT (bt.comms@bt.com) with the subject line ‘You’ve got a BT delivery soon’. They said that BT had sent me a ‘Standard/Micro SIM’ that would arrive “in the next couple of days”. But they got my address wrong - I don’t live in Dundee! And I hadn’t ordered a new SIM card. I phoned BT to check that this had not been set against my account. It confirmed that I hadn’t ordered a SIM card. Fortunately, I did not click the links in the email. They were very convincing, and even had a warning about phishing scams at the bottom. Warn your fellow readers about scams at letters@computeractive.co.uk…

Apple Smart Battery Case £79 from Apple Store www.snipca.com/19115 For the iPhone 6s only, this new battery case flexes to get on and off. Its bulging back looks odd, but doesn’t affect reception. It lets your iPhone work for about twice as long, which is less than most rivals. The ‘Smart’ aspect means your screen shows battery info, but we’d Mophie Juice Pack Air £65 from Amazon www.snipca.com/19116 Mophie is the leading brand in battery cases. Available for various models (the iPhone 6 version fits the 6s), the Juice Pack Air comes in more colours, looks neater than Apple’s case, and has 50 per cent more capacity. Like Apple’s case, it’s reinforced and has a grippable rubbery finish. White LEDs show how much battery is left. Anker Ultra Slim Extended…

What’s the best phone to test how my website looks? Q I need a smartphone to test my responsive website designs. I know there is software that can test this, but the only real test is to load the site on a phone. I don’t need to make calls or take photos, and I can’t afford a range of devices. I’m thinking of using a secondhand phone on Wi-Fi. What would be the best model? Adrian West A All web designers should use a responsive approach, which adapts the layout to different screen sizes. You’ll need to consider both iPhones and iPads, which use Apple’s iOS operating system and its Safari browser, and Android devices, using Google’s Chrome or other browsers. An iPod touch (£149 from John Lewis www.snipca.com/19245 –…

The eighth version of MAGIX’s Rescue Your Videotapes software includes a new video converter and now supports all analogue video sources and DV tapes. It comes with a full set of accessories, including a SCART cable for connecting to your PC. With one-click controls and easyto-follow tutorials, it remains the simplest way to digitise your videos. To enter, email your address to cacomp@dennis.co.uk with ‘rescue’ in the subject line by midnight 2 February. MAGIX Rescue Your Videotapes 8 is available to buy now priced £59.99. For more information visit www.magix.com/gb, follow @MAGIX_INT on Twitter and ‘like’ www.facebook.com/MAGIX.…

ANDROID & iOS Reduce eye strain when reading ebooks at night By default, your device’s brightness is set to automatically adjust according to the light levels. However, this isn’t ideal when reading on your device at night because it can cause eye strain, keeping you awake longer when you then try to sleep. Google recently introduced to its Play Books app a reading mode called Night Light. This changes your device’s background colour to amber (with black text). To activate this mode, open Google Play Books (Android www.snipca.com/19235; iOS www.snipca.com/19236), then tap one of your downloaded titles to open it. Next, tap any page, tap the A icon at the top right, then tap the Night Light slider to turn it on (see screenshot below). Your screen will take on…

WINDOWS 10 Use Cortana to search for Netflix films and TV shows Netflix recently launched a new Windows 10 app. It works in a similar way to the Netflix site, but you can now use Microsoft’s personal voice-assistant Cortana to search for Netflix content without even launching the app. First install the app from the Windows Store (www.snipca.com/19198), then log into your Netflix account. Now whenever you want to watch a film or TV programme on Netflix (for example, House of Cards), simply click the microphone icon in the search bar at the bottom of your screen, then say “Netflix, find House of Cards” or “Netflix, search House of Cards” and you’ll see the relevant Netflix search result that you can click to start watching. WINDOWS 7, 8, 10 Turn…

IObit Malware Fighter claims to “block” malware as well as find it, but we’d rather you steered clear of its blocking features. Blocking malware is the job of your antivirus (AV), and if you run another blocking tool at the same time as your AV they will conflict – effectively cancelling each other out. You should never allow a malwarescanner – whether it’s the powerful IObit Malware Fighter or the easier-to-use Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free – to run constantly in the background looking for malware to block. After installing any malware scanner, check that it’s not set to run at startup. If it is, it’ll run in the background continually and conflict with your AV. Download the latest version of free portable tool Autoruns (www.snipca.com/19195), launch it and wait for the…

When you install a new browser or launch it for the first time, you’ll be asked whether you want to import your bookmarks and settings from your old browser and set your new one as the default. It’s possible to do this at a later date if you want to test the browser before you commit. In Chrome, click the menu button (three horizontal lines), then Settings, then scroll to People for options to import bookmarks and make it your default browser. In Opera, you’ll find these options by clicking the Opera button, Settings, then scrolling to ‘Default browser’. In Firefox, click the menu (three horizontal lines), Options, then Make Default. Next, click the bookmarks button, ‘Show all bookmarks’, ‘Import and Backup’, then ‘Import data from another browser’.…

Facebook makes it very easy for you to download your photos. Click Options under one of your photos and you’ll see a menu that includes Download and Make Profile Picture (see screenshot). Now open a photo posted by a friend or a complete stranger. If the friend has chosen ‘friends’ as the privacy setting, and the stranger has chosen ‘public’, those photos are free for you to download. Click Options as before, and up pops a smaller menu, which includes the Download button. If you download their photos they won’t have a clue, because they don’t receive a notification, and they’ll still have the photo, apparently untouched. Users have asked (nay, begged) Facebook in its Help Center (www.snipca.com/19112) to add privacy options to the Download button and even to disable…

LENOVO LAUNCHES PHONE-TO-PC USB Lenovo has announced a USB stick that connects your Android phone to your PC, letting you move files between them. Called Lenovo Link, the 32GB device also lets you control phone apps using your PC’s mouse. A UK launch date hasn’t been confirmed, but it will go on sale in the US in March priced $40 (around £27). Visit Lenovo’s website for more details: www.snipca.com/19289. LASTPASS ADDS EMERGENCY CONTACTS Password manager LastPass now lets you nominate trusted people to access your account in case something happens to you. Using the tool Emergency Access you can set up a waiting period during which a contact can request access to your password vault. The new feature, available in the free version of LastPass, is part of a revamp…

MICROSOFT TO MAKE NEW WORD GAMES Microsoft has said it will make new word games for Windows 10 following a public vote. The Microsoft Casual Games team gave users a choice of five games, including a chess game and one featuring poker. Ultimate Word Games received the most votes. For more information on the winning and losing games visit www.snipca.com/19272. ANTI-ISIS GROUP ATTACKS BBC SITES An anti-ISIS hacking group based in the US has claimed responsibility for knocking offline the BBC’s websites on New Year’s Eve. None of the BBC’s websites, including iPlayer, were available for several hours on 31 December after being hit by a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack. The group claiming to be behind the attack, called New World Hacking, said it wanted to test the…

Tell us what’s on your mind Email: letters@computeractive.co.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/computeractive Twitter: @ComputerActive www.twitter.com/computeractive Windows 10: Microsoft uses ‘classic’ salesman tactic I worked as a salesman for many years, and so was interested that Microsoft’s tactics for forcing people into upgrading to Windows 10 had been compared to those of salesmen (News, Issue 466). It seems to me that Microsoft is using the classic ‘alternative close’, in which a salesman assumes that you want to buy something, then simply offers two choices, such as ‘would you like it in red or blue?’. In Microsoft’s case, red is ‘upgrade now’ and blue is ‘upgrade tonight’. In principle there’s nothing wrong with this. A salesman who didn’t use psychological tricks of persuasion wouldn’t last very long. But at least you can simply turn…

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. Can I force Amazon to return my data? Q Last year, I bought an SSD from Crucial via Amazon Marketplace, which failed after 14 months. I sent it back to Amazon, and got back about 85 per cent of the purchase price. But Amazon won’t return my data on the SSD. Should I be worried about security? Tony Carnes A We don’t think Tony needs to worry because it’s hard to extract files from a broken SSD. However, his contract is with Crucial, which is the retailer in this case, not Amazon. Crucial would therefore…

WEB BROWSER Firefox 43 www.snipca.com/19150 What you need: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8/8.1 or 10 With Internet Explorer being phased out, it might be time to reconsider which web browser you use. Microsoft’s Edge still doesn’t support extensions and currently it can be used only in Windows 10. Chrome is fast, but uses up lots of memory. With version 43 now released, it could be time to give Firefox another try. The latest release packs in some great new features, including many that boost security and privacy. For example, Firefox now requires extensions to be digitally signed – if they’re not, the browser will block them, helping to prevent malware spreading. Tracking protection has also been bolstered (see below) and Firefox now works better on Windows 8 and 10 devices…

A couple of months ago we reviewed the WileyFox Swift (see Issue 460), a budget smartphone that – like most others – is made in China but unusually was designed by a British company. The Storm is a pricier model, but still very affordable at under £200. So is there more here to temp Like its sibling, the Storm has a sandstone-textured black rear panel with orange detailing and a big metallic fox-head logo in the middle. It looks classy, reminding us of something a James Bond villain might use. It’s slender, and seems even slimmer thanks to a bit of curvy-edged design trickery. On the front is a Full HD 1920x1080-pixel 5.5in screen, matching the format of the iPhone 6s Plus at a third of the price. “Handy features…

Since the dawn of photography, taking a picture has meant pointing a camera at something interesting and capturing a rectangular view in that direction. Panorama shooting, which once meant complicated mechanical contraptions but can now be done by waving your mobile phone and letting the software sort out the details, just gives you a wider rectangle. 360-degree photography is something different altogether, and Ricoh’s Theta camera (this is the improved third version) makes it surprisingly easy, both for still pictures and video. About the size of a TV remote control, it has a camera on each side, each with a bulbous ‘fisheye’ lens to capture 180 degrees in all directions. When the two images are stitched together, a little bit of magic jiggling erases the camera’s presence from the view,…

SPRING 2016 Others are calling Samsung’s Galaxy TabPro S the “tablet nobody expected”, which is funny because we told you about it months ago (see Issue 463). The 12in-screen Windows 10 device will compete with Apple’s iPad Pro. SPRING 2016 Not to be confused with the HTC One M8, the Huawei Mate 8 represents another challenge to the big phone brands from an Asian company. The stylish phablet drew lots of attention at January’s CES show in Vegas, but is likely to cost more than £500 when it arrives in the UK. SPRING 2016 When Apple announced the oversized iPad Pro, it didn’t mention an update to the iPad Air 2. March would be a likely time slot for an iPad Air 3. An obvious addition would be support for…

While word-processor software like Microsoft Word have spell-checking tools, few programs have built-in dictionaries. WordWeb Free is a superb dictionary program that runs in the background, ready to look up words whatever software you’re using. Simply hover your mouse over the relevant word and a definition is only a click away. Version 8 of Word Web adds thousands of new definitions and has been updated for Windows 10. STEP 1 Download the free version of the WordWeb software from wordweb.info. During installation, click the ‘Advanced options’ button 1 . The default setting runs the software in the background as soon as you start Windows 2 , which is useful if you always want to keep the dictionary to hand. Choose the alternative ‘not recommended’ option 3 if you’d prefer to…

Pocket Casts £2.99 Android, iOS & Windows Phone: www.snipca.com/19206 New to Windows Phone, Pocket Casts features more than 200,000 podcasts. You can set it to download new episodes overnight, back up your podcasts to the cloud and receive notifications about your favourites. You can also organise your podcasts by name or release date. Shelfie Free Android: www.snipca.com/19207 iOS: www.snipca.com/19208 Open this handy app, take a photo of any book that you come across, and if the title is available as an ebook or audiobook, you’ll see options to download for free or buy it on your device. The app offers a huge selection of free and discounted ebooks and audiobooks. Storehouse Free Android: www.snipca.com/19210 iOS: www.snipca.com/19211 New to Android, Storehouse lets you create collages on your device using your photos…

OFFICE Create and access Office Online files in Chrome Microsoft recently released a new Chrome extension called Office Online, which lets you access your Office Online files and create new ones directly from your browser. To add it, open Chrome, go to www.snipca.com/19184, click the blue ‘Add to Chrome’ button, then click ‘Add extension’. Next, click the Office icon on your browser’s toolbar. The first time you do this, you’ll be prompted to log into OneDrive because your Office files are saved there by default. Click ‘Sign in’, log into OneDrive using your Microsoft account, then click Yes. Now, whenever you click the extension, you’ll see a list of the Office files you recently saved to OneDrive. Clicking ‘View more’ at the bottom opens the OneDrive website, from where you…

Email us your problem and we’ll try to help: noproblem@computeractive.co.uk PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT How do I get Windows Mail to request my password? Q I have a new desktop PC running Windows 10 and I would be grateful if you could offer guidance on the following. Currently I’m not asked to enter a password when booting, and I’m happy to stick with this for the time being. However, when I go online to log into my Outlook.com (previously Hotmail) account I do have to enter a password – and I’m happy with this for security reasons. I prefer to use Outlook.com online rather than in Windows 10’s Mail app, but I have set up Mail to synchronise my Outlook.com emails. But I’ve noticed that if I launch Mail, my…

Microsoft has finally revealed the kind of information it gathers from people using Windows 10. The new operating system comes with a ‘telemetry’ tracking system that enables Microsoft to record what people do on their PCs. Privacy campaigners had criticised the company for not explaining what data it collects. In a blog post (www.snipca.com/19285) the company said that in December Windows 10 users spent 44.5 billion minutes browsing the web using Edge, and since July have asked Cortana 2.4 billion questions. They have also viewed 82 billion photos in the Photos app. Microsoft tried to alleviate privacy concerns by saying that the data is anonymous, but security experts remain sceptical. Professor Alan Woodward from the University of Surrey told the BBC that this information “might be collected for one purpose,…

The company that makes brain-training app Lumosity (www.lumosity.com) has been fined in the US for claiming it can alleviate the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Lumos Labs has agreed to pay $2m (£1.4m) after the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said that its claims weren’t supported by scientific evidence. Lumosity contains more than 25 “cognitive” games for phones and tablets. Lumos claimed in TV and radio adverts that playing them regularly could help allay the symptoms of dementia, strokes and brain injuries. The FTC’s Jessica Rich said: “Lumosity preyed on consumer fears about age-related cognitive decline, suggesting their games could stave off memory loss, dementia, and even Alzheimer’s disease”. Lumos defended itself in a letter to its members, published online at www.lumosity.com/press/news. It said that it had decided to accept the…

Scammers are once again targeting the millions of people who complete their self-assessment tax return online. Every year in the weeks before the 31 January deadline fraudsters bombard people with phishing emails claiming to be from Her Majesty’s Revenues and Customs (HMRC). It’s a favourite tactic of cybercriminals because so many people in the UK – an estimated 10 million – complete self-assessment forms. Last year, research from consumer group Which? found that 40 per cent of people had received a scam email purporting to be from HMRC. The emails typically contain the HMRC logo, and ask you to confirm your personal details by clicking a link. The presence of a link in an email is usually a tell-tale sign that it is fake. HMRC says that its emails never…

To answer Eric Milne’s question (Letters, Issue 466): no, we don’t “need” Amazon’s drones. But then nor did we need computers, the internet, online shopping or many other innovations of the past 50 years. All we need are clothes, a roof over our heads, and food and drink. What makes life worth living are the things we want, not need. That’s what separates us from our prehistoric ancestors eating seeds and berries. And I do want to see drones in our skies. As long as they are properly licensed and used responsibly, I can see them being extremely beneficial. Given time, they could even help ease road congestion, as companies start to make more deliveries by air. I remember people saying how online shopping would never take off. They were…

Garmin doesn’t know what caused sat-nav update problem We hope that our investigation into one reader’s problem may help other readers. In Issue 457 Paul Atkinson told us that a firmware update had broken his Garmin NUVI 1490 sat-nav. Paul said that the update disabled some vital directional functions, and the sat-nav’s traffic alerts became inaccurate. Garmin admitted that the update was causing some people problems. Garmin replaced Paul’s sat-nav, leaving him satisfied. But recently another Computeractive reader, John Horsley, read about Paul’s problem and asked us to find out if Garmin had released a fix, because the update had also broken his sat-nav. The company told us that it doesn’t know what the problem is, and therefore hasn’t released an update to fix it. It wants to speak to…

If reading the article above makes you want to uninstall AVG’s antivirus from your PC, we would recommend moving to Kaspersky (paid-for, see page 68) or Avast (free). The latter has, over the past 12 months, been the best performing free antivirus in the tests run by Dennis Technology Labs (which is owned by the same company that publishes Computeractive). For instructions on how to replace AVG with Avast on your PC, follow our Workshop in Issue 462. Avast’s latest product is a free Android app that helps you find a safe Wi-Fi hotspot when you’re out and about. It will only recommend hotspots that have been “crowdsourced”, which means they’ve been verified as safe by real people using the app. Avast will flag up dodgy hotspots as “risky” (see…

Q I use USB sticks to transfer files – mainly presentations and slideshows, but also documents and pictures – between my own and other PCs. I recently heard that doing this may not be safe because the USB drive can become infected with a virus. Is there any software that can prevent this happening? C Bennett A The most common way for malware to spread via USB sticks is for a malicious program on one PC to infect the stick’s ‘autorun.inf’ file, which then passes the infection on to the next PC it is plugged into. Some antivirus (AV) programs scan any USB sticks as soon as they’re plugged in. Most paid-for AV programs do this, while free ones like Avast Free Antivirus (www.avast.com) may also do this. In Avast…

Before mobile phones, the most valuable item you carried in your pocket was your wallet. You had to take care not to lose it or have it pinched, but at least it wasn’t breakable. Enter the smartphone, and most of us now have an ongoing relationship with the entrepreneur in the kiosk at the local shopping centre who replaces screens for £50 while you wait. It’s like having your pocket picked every few months. What if your phone was as durable as your wallet? This one claims to get close – and not by bolting on a chunky case, but by building in what Motorola calls ‘ShatterShield’. This, the company’s rep told us, makes the display so hard to smash, it’s guaranteed against accidental damage for four years. Given that…

Find out what other products we liked. Buy our 2014 Back Issue CD (now only £12.51*): www.snipca.com/14981 *At time of press LAPTOP Asus X555LA-XX290H £367 from www.snipca.com/18151 Tested: Issue 446 Asus has made all the right choices with this budget Windows 8.1 laptop (which can be upgraded to Windows 10). Its comfortable keyboard, fast performance and bright screen are all the more impressive given its low price. ALTERNATIVE Asus Chromebook C200 A cheap Chrome OS ultra-portable laptop with a bright screen, lengthy battery life and a great keyboard. £216 from www.snipca.com/17296 PHONE Apple iPhone 6s £539 from www.snipca.com/18240 Tested: Issue 461 It may look like the 2014 model, but this update is stronger and faster, with a higher-resolution camera, time-saving 3D Touch features and an excellent screen. The bigger 6s…

Installing Windows can take a while because it’s a huge operating system with lots of components. However, most people don’t need everything that’s installed by default. If you plan to install a new (or reinstall your current) version of Windows, the free tool NTLite lets you cut out all those unwanted extras and speed up the installation process. The latest version of the software lets you create installation discs for Windows 7, 8 and 10. We’ll show you how to make one for Windows 10, but it works exactly the same for other versions. STEP 1 To download NTLite go to www.ntlite.com/download and choose the appropriate version for your PC (32bit or 64bit). You will also need the Windows 10 media creation tool (www.snipca.com/19114). Note: if you’re already running Windows…

Email us your tips: letters@computeractive.co.uk TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Improve the sound levels on your PC It was with a heavy heart that I recently said goodbye to my trusty old Windows XP PC and replaced it with a Windows 10 machine. Because it was the first time I’d bought a new PC in almost a decade, I decided I would splash out and opted for an expensive, highspecification desktop computer. However, one thing I forgot to check was the audio output. While watching a downloaded film on my PC, I realised that dialogue between characters was fairly muted while other sounds (gunfire, bombs and car chases) were extremely loud. After searching online, I realised this is a common problem with PCs. Thankfully, it can be easily remedied by normalising…

AGES 0-5 Dr Panda Firefighters £2.29 www.snipca.com/19212 (Android) £2.29 www.snipca.com/19213 (iOS) In this new game your toddler helps Dr Panda and his friends put out fires by completing several simple tasks. For example, they’ll need to steer the fire engine by tapping left or right then put out fires by tapping to direct the hose. AGES 6-10 Piano Tiles 2 Free www.snipca.com/19214 (Android) Free www.snipca.com/19215 (iOS) Piano Tiles 2 starts off simply enough but soon becomes quite challenging. You need to tap only the black tiles as multicoloured tiles fall from the top of your screen. As you improve, the speed of the falling tiles gradually increases. AGES 11-16 Flight Pilot Simulator 3D* Free www.snipca.com/19216 (Android) Free www.snipca.com/19258 (iOS) This simulator game will teach your teenager to take off, fly…

Get rid of dubious toolbars It’s the bane of every PC user – finding unwanted toolbars have been added to your web browser. Thankfully, IObit Uninstaller (www.snipca.com/19234) has dedicated options to remove them. But did you know you can also use it to work out which toolbars are legitimate, and which you really should get shot of? Click ‘Toolbars & Plug-ins’, followed by ‘All Toolbars & Plug-ins’. By default, these are sorted alphabetically (by name), but if you click the User Ratings heading twice you can sort them by community opinion (with the worst-rated at the top). Of course, a poor rating doesn’t automatically mean a toolbar is up to no good – but it probably means you’re better off without it. To delete a toolbar, right-click it and choose…

The internet is a public place. You already know how easy it is to copy and paste text from websites – drag your mouse (or press Ctrl+A to select all), then press Ctrl+V to paste the text into Notepad or wherever you want. Hey presto, the article is yours to read offline. Copying a photo is even easier. All the thief has to do is right-click it, click ‘Save image as…’ and select a destination folder on their PC, or click ‘Copy image’ and paste it into a photo program, where they can inflict all manner of hideous editing. Next thing you know, they’ve stuck it on their blog, full of pride about “their” photo. Here, we’ll look at some clever but easy ways to keep those thieving hands off…

Compressed file is corrupted The first you’ll know you’ve got a corrupted ZIP file is when you try to extract its contents – that’s when Windows (or your compression tool) will display an error message. Windows can’t do anything about these faults, so turn to free program ZIP Repair from DiskInternals (www.snipca.com/19071). It’s really easy to use: simply select the broken file, choose a destination and new name for the recovered version, click Next, review the summary of recoverable files, then click Next again. Now use your usual method to open the recovered file (double-click in Windows) and access the content. Files are the same size or larger after compression This happens because not all files are especially compatible with the compression process, such as the popular JPEG image-file format…

1080p Of the common types of high-definition video, this is the best quality: 1920x1080 pixels. 32bit A measure of how much info a computer can process at once. Most older computers are 32bit. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixel 64bit A technology that processes information in larger chunks. Most modern computers are 64bit. 802.11ac A standard for wireless networks that allows for higher transfer speeds than 802.11n. Add-on See Extension. AMOLED Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode. A technology creating flat-panel displays. Bandwidth A measure of how much data can be transferred through a connection at one time. Beta A version of software that’s being tested. Bloatware Unwanted software that comes pre-installed on a PC, phone or tablet. Breadcrumb trail A visual aid that shows your location in…

This is my final Final Straw. I’m going to miss having the opportunity to rant and rave about the latest high-tech idiocy, but I know that moving on is the right thing to do. When I began writing this column a little over two years ago nearly everything about computers made me angry. Microsoft had released the worst version of Windows ever (8, in the unlikely event you’d forgotten). And so my working day was blighted by malfunctioning apps and needless, intrusive updates. Besides this, I was gobsmacked by the sheer stupidity of people using social media, and unsure whether I was more appalled by the companies who trampled all over our privacy or by the conspiracy nuts who railed against them. “It’s time to pass the torch to someone…