Table of contents for Aug-14 in PCWorld

ON JULY 10, with the release of a Microsoft strategy memo (go.pcworld.com/nadellamemo), CEO Satya Nadella charted a new course focused on interconnectivity and productivity—one in which the standard-setting Office applications and other products and services could slowly blur together, becoming different modes of working with the same data. Right now, of course, you can still buy Windows, Office, Windows Phone, and other Microsoft products and services. But within the next decade, your interaction with Microsoft products could be radically different. Nadella’s strategy memo marks an evolution: Following Steve Ballmer’s “devices and services” strategy and Nadella’s own “mobile first, cloud first” concept, the plan now is to make Microsoft “the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world.” “Microsoft has a unique ability to harmonize the world’s devices, apps,…

CYBERCRIMINALS TRICKED FRED into giving away some sensitive information. Now he wants to know how to mitigate this situation. Don’t feel bad. We all make mistakes. But with these sorts of mistakes, you have to act fast to avoid disaster. What you need to do depends on how you were tricked. Did you give them your email password? Your bank and/or credit card numbers? Your passwords for Facebook, Twitter, or other social media sites? Did they remotely access your PC, or trick you into installing software? If you can’t change a password—or even log on to a site—that means the crook got there first. If you have reason to believe that criminals can access your financial accounts, call your banks and credit card companies immediately. Explain the situation and follow…

Despite the larger screen dimensions, the Surface Pro 3 is slimmer than its predecessor. THROUGH EVERY ITERATION, Microsoft’s Surface Pro tablet has edged closer to becoming a laptop replacement. The newest model, the Surface Pro 3 (go.pcworld.com/surfacep3), takes several more small steps in that direction—along with one giant leap. You’ll immediately notice the larger display, which is 12 inches in diagonal width and 38 percent bigger than the screen of the Surface Pro 2. Its 2160-by-1440-pixel resolution, an improvement over the Surface Pro 2’s 1920-by-1080 resolution, is breathtakingly crisp. Just as important, Microsoft’s shift to a 3:2 aspect ratio adds 1.12 inches of vertical real estate to what already is a wider tablet. The result is a more luxurious, useful work space—and that’s critical when you’re multitasking in a desktop…

ONE OF EXCEL’ greatest tricks is the dimensional or 3D reference. This feature, which allows you to create formulas that refer to the same cell or range on multiple worksheets, simplifies the creation of complicated documents such as monthly inventories and sales reports. In Excel 2013, Microsoft beefed it up with enhanced options and formulas. To illustrate the power and flexibility of 3D worksheets, we’ll create a year-to-date (YTD) project that calculates the utility bills for a small business for each month, with the YTD totals on the first sheet. This workbook, which contains of all the worksheets in this project, calculates the columns, rows, and multiple spreadsheets three-dimensionally. Because retyping the same data is counterproductive, we’ll create the month of January first, add the formulas for the columns and…

IF YOU’RE LOOKING for a quick-and-dirty way to take notes on your PC, you can’t beat using your browser. No, I’m not talking about online tools like Google Keep, Word Online, or any other textediting Web app. An easier way to turn your browser into a note-taking machine is to use a little snippet of HTML code that creates an offline notepad in your browser. Coding, you might ask with a shiver? Don’t worry: It’s beyond simple to use. This notepad trick works because of HTML’s “contenteditable” attribute, which can turn any part of a webpage into an interactive area for editing text. You can use this attribute in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera. Sorry, Internet Explorer fans, your browser of choice won’t play nice with this aspect…

IN EARLY JULY, Microsoft reminded the world that it will stop providing “mainstream support” for Windows 7 (and a slew of other products; see go.pcworld.com/msftending for the full list) in January 2015. Immediately, a flood of fearmongering headlines and articles implied that Windows 7 is following Windows XP into the grave. It isn’t. The confusion stems from Microsoft’s maddeningly obtuse naming conventions. The end of Windows 7’s mainstream support means only that the operating system will no longer get new features or product tweaks, such as the forthcoming DirectX 12. Once a Windows desktop OS leaves mainstream support, it enters the extended support phase— the same phase that Windows XP resided in from early 2009 until its demise earlier this year. You’ll still receive critical security patches during extended support,…

IT SHOULD COME as no surprise in the era of Edward Snowden that the United States military is keeping an eye on your social media habits. But what you might not realize is that the Department of Defense is also funding Facebook-style behavioral experiments. The Guardian reported in early July that DARPA, the Defense Department’s research arm, has given millions of dollars (go.pcworld.com/darpa) to projects that examine activity on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, Pinterest, and other popular social networks as part of its “Social Media in Strategic Communication” program. According to the newspaper, one of the studies involved sending messages to users to gauge their responses. DARPA even looked at the Twitter accounts of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber to determine how messages disseminate across that network. The military also…

THE CREATORS OF TRUECRYPT shocked the computer security world recently when they seemingly ended development of the popular open-source encryption tool. Even more surprising, the creators said TrueCrypt could be insecure and that Windows users should migrate to Microsoft’s BitLocker. Theories immediately began to swirl as to what might have prompted the surprise announcement. But in any case, the TrueCrypt incident gives us a chance to explain BitLocker and how to use it. What is BitLocker? BitLocker is an easy-to-use, proprietary encryption program for Windows that can encrypt your entire drive as well as help protect against unauthorized changes to your system—say, by malware that targets your system’s firmware. Who can use BitLocker The program is available to anyone with a machine running Windows Vista or 7 Ultimate, Windows Vista…

IF YOU HAVEN’ heard yet, sitting will kill you. The posture in which most of us spend the bulk of our day has been linked to every lifethreatening malady from heart disease to diabetes to cancer. Because most of our sitting is done in the workplace, a popular tool to combat this habit has been the sit-stand desk, which allows you to vary your posture. The problem is they’re expensive, frequently complex, and not every workplace offers one as an option. The Varidesk (varidesk.com) is a compelling alternative: a heightadjustable platform that sits on your “fixed” desk. Unfortunately, some significant design flaws limit its usefulness. The Varidesk lifts with little effort thanks to spring assistance. Simple setup The Varidesk comes fully assembled. However, the single-monitor model we reviewed (dual-monitor models…

THE NEC MULTISYNC EA274WMi (go.pcworld.com/necea274) is a 27-inch widescreen monitor with a special talent: It can sense when no one is nearby and then dim the display accordingly. But even aside from that power-saving feature, this monitor is impressive, with high-quality IPS panels, LED backlights, and an antiglare screen. The specs The 2560-by-1440-pixel monitor connects to your Mac or PC via DisplayPort, HDMI, DVD-D, or VGA, and offers a four-port USB hub for peripherals. You can also connect two sources to the display and use NEC’s Picture By Picture feature to view both simultaneously. The monitor has built-in speakers, as well as a port for plugging in headphones—handy features, especially for people using the display with tower computers. One thing the EA274WMi doesn’t offer is a DisplayPort Out connection, which…

MICROSOFT HAS FINALLY released Windows drivers (go.pcworld.com/xboxwin) for its Xbox One controller, allowing the device to pull double duty as a wired controller for PC gaming. Unlike the Xbox 360 wireless controller, which required a separate dongle for PC use, all the Xbox One controller requires on a PC is a standard Micro-USB cable. The wired connection provides the power, so you don’t even need batteries. (Unfortunately, you can’t use the Xbox One controller wirelessly on a PC at this time.) Driver installation To set up the controller, head to Major Nelson’s blog (go.pcworld.com/majornelson) and download the driver for either a 32-bit (x86) or a 64-bit (x64) machine. (If you’re unsure which file to grab, open Control Panel, type About in the search bar, and click System. Look under System…

ACCORDING TO RUSSIAN LEAKER WZOR, Microsoft plans to launch “Windows 9” this fall and back it with a substantial ad campaign. The Russian blogger also claims that accompanying the release will be a new distribution method keyed to the user’s PC and the online Microsoft Store, rather than an activation key that’s sold and/or distributed to an individual user. Wzor, who went silent in March after allegedly receiving leaked information (go.pcworld.com/msftleak) from former Microsoft employee Alex Kibkalo, resurfaced in early July, posting information to Russian bulletin boards (go.pcworld.com/win9leak). Wzor’s latest post as of this writing spends more time describing the new activation system than the Windows 9 campaign itself—but the activation system may very well end up being the more significant announcement. So far, Microsoft hasn’t indicated what its plans…

IN EARLY JULY, one month after Sony representatives stood onstage at that company’s E3 press conference (go.pcworld.com/e3sony2014) and announced that Grim Fandango would be available for the first time in almost 15 years, we got confirmation that the beloved adventure game would be on the PC, too. (Oh, thank goodness.) Yes, despite the implication at E3 that the remastered version of the game would be exclusive to Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Vita, Grim Fandango will indeed be coming to its true and rightful PC home (go.pcworld.com/grimpc), as well as to Mac and Linux. This isn’t really a surprise, considering that Grim Fandango creator and Double Fine founder Tim Schafer tweeted about “other platforms” during E3, but still—nostalgic gamers can now heave a sigh of relief. And lest you blame Sony…

FORGOTTEN YOUR WINDOWS password? That’s not the end of the world. You don’t have to trash your computer, or even restore your PC to its factory default settings. There are many ways to remove or reset a Windows password. Password-reset methods for Microsoft accounts differ from the methods used for local Windows accounts. If you aren’t sure which type of Windows account you have, turn on your computer and see if an email address is displayed above where you enter your password to log in. If you see an address, it’s a Microsoft account. If you don’t, it’s a local account. Resetting the password for Microsoft accounts is relatively quick and easy. Resetting local accounts, however, requires a hack or a third-party tool. Because computers preloaded with Windows 8 include…

TOSHIBA’S SATELLITE P50t boasts two important firsts: It’s the first laptop to feature a 4K display, and it’s the first to be Technicolor Color Certified. You likely have at least a passing familiarity with 4K video, but I would argue that the latter claim to fame—which you might never have heard of—deserves more praise. It’s easy to go gaga over the Satellite P50t’s (go.pcworld.com/toshibap50t) display, which boasts a resolution of 3840 by 2160 pixels. The laptop is outfitted with a 15.6-inch screen, which means it offers an eye-popping pixel density of 282 ppi. But don’t buy this in anticipation of watching your favorite movies and TV shows in glorious 4K—there is almost no content available in that format right now. The Blu-ray format, meanwhile, will need to be overhauled before…

UNTIL RECENTLY, SHARP’ $3500 PN-K321 was about as affordable as 4K desktop monitors got. With the $649 PB287Q (go.pcworld.com/pb287q), Asus joins Dell and Samsung in making Ultra HD desktop monitors affordable for consumers. Are today’s applications, hardware, and operating systems ready to make the leap? Our tests of the PB287Q revealed mixed results. The 28-inch PB287Q has an impressive list of features, including 3840-by-2160-pixel resolution, LED backlighting, two HDMI 1.4 ports, a single DisplayPort 1.2 connection, a bright 330 cd/m2 luminance rating, and a 1-millisecond gray-to-gray response time. It offers picture-in-picture as well as picture-by-picture support, MHL support, and decent built-in 2W speakers. The highly flexible stand has height adjustment, pivot, swivel, and tilt capabilities. No USB hub On the downside, the PB287Q lacks a USB hub for connecting peripherals.…

IT’S OFTEN POSSIBLE to recover deleted files from a PC or drive, and that’s a problem when you’re passing your tech along to someone else. You don’t want people getting their hands on your private stuff, whether it’s sensitive financial data, business documents, or scandalous photos. Fortunately, you can take steps to protect your data, whether you’re disposing of a PC, an external hard drive, or a USB stick, or even getting rid of a mobile device (go.pcworld.com/selltech). Mechanical hard drives, internal solid-state drives, external drives You can recover deleted files from some, but not all, types of drives. Mechanical hard drive: If your PC doesn’t have an SSD, it has an old-school mechanical hard drive with a spinning magnetic platter. When you delete files from these drives, that simply…