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Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 3

 Contents
2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626

6 News Brits can’t use best tool in first big

Windows 11 update

10 Question of the Fortnight Is Microsoft

already working on Windows 12?

11 Protect Your Tech

Malware in PowerPoint attachments

12 Letters I switched from Virgin to Three’s

5G broadband Windows 12
14 Consumeractive Can Dell force me to
buy a more expensive laptop?
p10
16 Grow Your Family Tree
Search and compare geo-referenced maps Eleven Plus

18 Best Free Software

PDF24 10.8 Acer TravelMate P4
21 Named & Shamed p22
Word Office’s Microsoft clone

Reviews
22 Acer TravelMate P4
Acer’s portable laptop travels light

23 Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5

Chromebooks turn a new page

24 Xiaomi Poco M4 Pro 5G

Budget phone makes a few wrong calls

25 Epson EcoTank ET-3850

Inkjet printer goes under tank command Onyx Boox Note Air 2

26 Onyx Boox Note Air 2 p26

Ebook reader/tablet makes it a double

28 Microsoft Modern Webcam

Basic webcam has listening difficulties
Logitech Pop Keys
Retro keyboard offers a bright future

29 Adobe Premiere Elements 2022

Edit videos at a fast clip

30 Buy It/Competition Win a datAshur SD

USB drive & 128GB microSD Card

4 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626

 Subscribe now!
See page 58 for our special subs offer

Workshops & Tips Find and store your important emails

p35
35 How to… Save your emails to a
USB stick

38 Delay start-up tools to boot your

PC faster

40 Readers’ Tips Make bookmarks

visible in Microsoft Word

42 Browser Tips
View videos on Edge’s New Tab page

44 Phone and Tablet Tips Try YouTube’s

new full-screen video player

46 Make Windows Better Stop ‘Feature’

updates installing on your PC

47 Make Office Better Add vertical

dividing lines between columns
Your Complete Guide to
48 In the Club
Set up an online photo competition

49 What’s All the Fuss About?

Surge pricing
SSDS
Switch to a SOLID-STATE
50 COVER FEATURE DRIVE – it’s the most
Your complete guide to SSDs
Everything you need to know about buying,
important PC upgrade FECAOTVER
UR
installing and optimising a new SSD you’ll ever make P50 E

60 Ditch your PC for a big laptop

Why it’s time to swap your space-hogging
tower for a powerful big-screen laptop Safely dispose of USBs,
CDs & SD cards
62 Safely dispose of USBs, CDs &
SD cards
Keep your files safe and your planet green
by recycling your data-storage drives

64 Problems Solved
What’s wrong with my TV’s Text button?

71 Reader Support Why didn’t you provide

fix to overwriting downloads?

72 Jargon Buster

74 Easy When You Know How

Robert Irvine changes his Windows 11’s
start-up sound

Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 5

 News
Brits can’t use best tool in
first big Windows 11 update
M
icrosoft has revamped
Windows 11 with the
first major update for
the operating system, but UK
users will miss out on one of
the best new features – running
Android apps on Windows
– which is available in the US
only.
The KB5010414 update,
released on 15 February, is the
first to bring significant
WHAT WE THINK
As updates go, this is a
pleasing hotchpotch of
features that should have been
present at launch (Amazon
Appstore), apps that could
have been released at any
time (Media Player, Notepad),
and taskbar improvements
that show Microsoft has been
listening to feedback from
users. However, it probably
won’t be enough to win
over those happy to stay
on Windows 10, especially
because the Appstore is
US-only. Hopefully, UK users
won’t have to wait until the
first Feature update, due this
autumn, to use it.
NEW ‘DON’T RUN WINDOWS 11’ WARNING
Microsoft has started to warn
users who have upgraded to
Windows 11 on a computer that
lacks the required hardware to
run it smoothly.
The message, which reads
‘System requirements not met’
You’ll like this… YouTube channel of planes
landing at Heathrow became a hit during
Storm Eunice (www.snipca.com/40980)
6 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
The top stories in the world of technology
improvements to the system,
but stops short of being a full
Feature update.
It gives users in the US
access to over 1,000 apps and
games through the Amazon
Appstore (pictured). Microsoft
didn’t say when this would be
extended worldwide.
All the other changes are
available to UK users,
including a microphone icon
on the taskbar that lets you
mute and unmute your mic
while taking part in a call in
Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft has also tweaked
the Widgets tool to show live
weather information in the
left-hand corner of the
taskbar. Hover your cursor
over the weather icon in the
taskbar and the Widgets panel
will open – and stay open until
you move your cursor away.
Another taskbar
improvement sees the date
and time added to second
monitors, which Microsoft
says brings “glanceability as
you work or play”.
Redesigned Media
Player and Notepad
The other major changes are
(see screenshot and www.
snipca.com/40982), appears
in the Settings section of a
preview build of Windows,
available to users signed up
as Insiders (https://insider.
windows.com).
redesigns to the Notepad and
Media Player apps that are
available through the
Microsoft Store.
Notepad, which hasn’t
changed much since first
appearing in MS-DOS in 1983,
gets rounded corners and
buttons to reflect Windows 11’s
new design.
Panos Panay, Chief Product
Officer for Windows, says the
redesign “feels both fresh,
with new design features from
Windows 11, and familiar,
with the hallmark simplicity
and ease of use Notepad is
known for” (www.snipca.
com/40978).
Notepad also gets its first
dark mode, while ‘multi-level
undo’ lets you reverse more
than one change – the current
Clicking ‘Learn more’ opens a
page where Microsoft explains
why running the operating
system on unsupported PCs
may cause problems that
won’t be covered by any
manufacturer warranty.
but not this… There’s been a rise in ‘Your
Amazon account is locked’ scam emails
(www.snipca.com/40981)
maximum – when you press
Ctrl+Z.
Microsoft has built the new
Media Player app to play both
audio and video, so it can be a
valid replacement for the
Groove Music and old
Windows Media Player apps.
All the content in your PC’s
music and video folders will
appear automatically in the
app when you open it.
Panoy added that Microsoft
will start releasing new tools
for Windows 11 “more
frequently” than it did with
previous versions, in addition
to the Feature updates
launched once a year. “Our
goal is to deliver continuous
innovation, providing you
with the best experiences
year-round,” he said.
Google to let you block advert
tracking on Android devices
G oogle will make it easier
for Android users to
restrict how much personal
data they share online, but not
for at least another two years.
It plans to add tools for the
Android operating system that
will limit how much of your
personal information apps can
pass on to other companies.
The move would also ban apps
tracking your activity as you
switch between apps and
websites.
Currently, each Android
device has a unique
‘advertising ID’ that lets
companies build a profile of
users so they can show them
adverts they’re likely to be
interested in.
But Google wants to replace
this with its “more private”
Privacy Sandbox system
(www.snipca.com/40973),
which it’s also adding to its
Chrome browser in 2023.
Apple made a similar change
last year that forced apps to
ask users permission to track
Norfolk Council sues Apple over
‘misleading’ iPhone sales
N orfolk County Council has
been granted permission
to sue Apple in a class action
case in the US.
It claims that a pension
fund it runs lost money as a
result of Apple giving
misleading information
about the number of iPhone
sales in China.
Apple’s boss, Tim Cook, told
shareholders in November
2018 that although the
company was “seeing
pressure” in some emerging
markets such as Russia and
Turkey, he didn’t put China
“in that category”.
Shareholders were relieved
by this news because China is
one of Apple’s biggest
them. The move was criticised
by Facebook owner Meta,
saying it would cost them
$10bn (around £7.4bn) in lost
advertising revenue this year.
Data in the US suggests
Apple users are choosing not
to be tracked 96 per cent of
the time.
Both companies are keen to
change the rules themselves
rather than being forced by
regulators to impose even
stricter measures.
markets. However, two
months later Apple gave a
profit warning after what
Cook called “lower than
anticipated iPhone revenue,
primarily in Greater China”.
It was the first time Apple
had cut sales forecasts since
2002, and sent shares
tumbling by eight per cent.
The council says it lost $1m
in its Norfolk Pension Fund as
a result of the news. It alleges
that at the time of Cook’s
comments in November 2018
Apple already knew sales in
China were falling.
The class action was granted
by California judge Yvonne
Gonzalez-Rogers, who
described Apple’s argument
But Google’s move is more
cautious than Apple’s, chiefly
because it relies much more
heavily on advertising
revenue. About 80 per cent of
its parent company Alphabet’s
income is generated from
online adverts.
Google says it will work
closely with advertisers over
the next two years to make
sure any changes to protect
user privacy don’t end up
harming online businesses.
Vs
against it as “distortions”.
Other shareholders – fund
holders in particular – will
now be able to join the
lawsuit as claimants.
Apple has always said
that Cook’s comments were
statements of opinion, and
therefore protected under
law.
IN BRIEF
PARAMOUNT PLUS
COMING TO THE UK
TV-streaming service
Paramount
Plus will
launch in the
UK in the
summer at
no extra cost to Sky Cinema
and Sky Q subscribers.
The channel, which owns
the rights to Star Trek
and Mission: Impossible,
confirmed the news on
Twitter (www.snipca.
com/40975). New shows
planned include a revival of
US comedy Frasier and a
mini-series about the making
of The Godfather.
VIRGIN ENDS CANCEL
FEE FOR HOME MOVERS
Virgin Media O2 has
scrapped early-termination
fees for customers who
move to a new home in an
area outside its network.
Until now, you had to pay a
fee based on the remaining
months of your contract –
a policy that was heavily
criticised by consumer
groups. In 2018, Ofcom
fined Virgin £7m for
overcharging customers.
Read more at www.snipca.
com/40972.
TOMORROW’S
WORLD
Visit www.snipca.com/40971
and you’ll hear this woman
giggle, sigh and say she loves
you. Except
it’s not her
voice – nor
anyone’s.
It was
actually
created
by AI software that uses
‘non-speech sounds’ to
give a sense of flirtatious
intimacy. London firm
Sonantic will use it to make
characters in computer
games sound more realistic.
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 7
 News
IN BRIEF
SAMSUNG LAUNCHES
NEW GALAXY TABLETS
Samsung has launched its
Galaxy Tab S8
series of Android
tablets, the
successor to the
Tab S7 – currently
our favourite Android device
(see page 30). There are
three models: the standard
Tab S8 (pictured – prices start
at £649 for 128GB storage),
the Tab S8+ (£849, 128GB),
and the Tab S8 Ultra (£999,
128GB). Screen sizes are 11,
12.4 and 14.6 inches
respectively. Order now at
www.snipca.com/40877.
INSTALL RASPBERRY PI OS
WITHOUT SECOND PC
You can now install an
operating system (OS) on
a Raspberry Pi computer
without using a second PC.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation
has launched a ‘bootloader’
tool that lets you install an OS
over the internet. Previously,
you had to install it on to
an SD card when setting
up a Pi computer. For more
information visit www.snipca.
com/40886.
THE WORLD’S
GONE MAD!
Facebook wants the
metaverse to be a digital
utopia. Instead, it’s turning out
to be just as nasty as real life.
People have accused others of
‘virtual groping’ – moving too
close to their digital avatars.
Facebook has responded
by giving avatars a ‘personal
boundary’
(pictured)
to prevent
unwanted
advances. Or is
she about to be
beamed aboard the Starship
Enterprise?
8 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
Porn sites forced to check
users are aged 18+
T he Government is again
trying to force porn sites
to verify that UK users are
aged 18 or above, as part of
the Online Safety Bill.
The idea was first
proposed by then-Prime
Minister David Cameron
in 2013, before being
delayed until 2019, and
then eventually scrapped
following pressure from
privacy campaigners.
That scheme proposed
people visiting porn sites
would prove their age either
from ID such as driving
licences and passports, or by
buying age-verification cards
in shops.
The new plan doesn’t state
how sites should verify age,
but insists that systems must
be “secure, effective and
preserve privacy”.
It aims to dispel fears about
hackers stealing personal data
5G coming to street lights
and bus shelters
S treet lights, CCTV poles
and bus shelters across
the UK will have 5G
transmitters installed as part
of a Government scheme to
“slash red tape” that it claims
is delaying the roll out of the
technology.
It launched the Digital
Connectivity Infrastructure
Accelerator (DCIA) scheme
last year to explore how
software can be used to
simplify the planning
process when telecom
companies request to install
equipment on publicly owned
buildings and curbside
infrastructure – or ‘street
furniture’.
It has now announced the
first pilot schemes to help
from the systems by saying
that the measures put in place
“should not process or store
data that is irrelevant to the
purpose of checking age”.
Options being tested
include checking a user’s age
against information held by
their mobile provider, or
passport data stored in
government databases.
Sites that don’t check the
age of users face fines of
firms check where their
equipment can be installed.
Digital Infrastructure Minister
Julia Lopez said it will
modernise the way “local
authorities and operators
work together in a way that
ultimately delivers faster,
more reliable mobile coverage
for millions of people” (www.
snipca.com/40878).
Eight companies have
won £500,000 contracts to
run the pilots, in the following
local authorities: Dorset
Council, North of Tyne
Combined Authority, Scottish
Futures Trust, West Berkshire
Council, West London
Alliance, West Midlands
Combined Authority, West
of England Combined
10 per cent of their global
turnover, which for the
biggest sites will run into
billions of pounds. They
would also be blocked
from the UK by telecoms
regulator Ofcom.
Bosses of the sites will be
held criminally liable, and
face jail sentences of two
years if they don’t co-operate
with Ofcom’s investigations.
Chris Philp, minister for
tech and the digital economy,
said it was currently too easy
for children to access
pornography online. He
added: “Parents deserve peace
of mind that their children are
protected online from seeing
things no child should see”.
More than half (51 per cent)
of 11 to 13-year-olds have
come across internet porn,
according to research by the
British Board of Film
Classification (BBFC).
Authority, and West Sussex
County Council.
Towns picked for the pilots
include Bournemouth, Dudley,
Dundee, Fife, Sunderland and
Wolverhampton.
The Government said that
all types of street furniture
will be considered in the
scheme, but street lights are of
most interest due to their
“number and density”.
Russian ‘Windows 11 download’
scam site taken down
FAKE REAL
A Russian-based
website spent over
a week infecting
computers by offering
fake downloads of
Windows 11.
The site (https://
windows-upgraded.
com) which is now
offline, installed the RedLine
Stealer malware on to
thousands of computers
worldwide.
RedLine isn’t the deadliest
of threats, but can steal
passwords stored online, as
well as data that gets
automatically added to online
forms, such as credit-card
numbers.
Criminals launched the site
on 27 January, exploiting
Microsoft’s announcement the
previous day that Windows 11
was “entering its final phase of
Broadband firms must ‘do more’ to
promote low-income deals
O fcom has called on EE,
Plusnet, Shell, Sky,
TalkTalk and Vodafone to offer
cheap broadband deals for
low-income households and
join firms that already do this,
including BT, Hyperoptic and
Virgin Media O2.
It’s part of a push by the
regulator to get more
customers signed up to ‘social
tariffs’, which are aimed at
families on Universal Credit.
These packages are priced
between £10-£20 a month, for
GET BT’S SOCIAL TARIFF ON HIGH STREET
BT has made its Home
Essentials social tariff available
to customers shopping on the
high street. Previously, you
had to apply online or over the
availability” and was being
widely rolled out to “eligible
devices” (www.snipca.
com/40920).
Their site (see screenshot
above) mimicked Microsoft’s
official site (above right) for
downloading Windows 11,
with the correct logo, font and
colours. Clicking the realistic
‘Download Now’ button
downloaded the file
Windows11Installation
Assistant.zip, which installed
the malware.
The attack was discovered
speeds ranging from 10Mbps
to 67Mbps.
Ofcom claims that
4.2 million households are
eligible for these especially
cheap deals, but only 55,000
(1.3 per cent) have actually
signed up for them.
Switching to a social tariff
could halve an average annual
broadband bill to £144, it says,
but 84 per cent of people
receiving benefits are unaware
they exist.
Ofcom says it has seen
phone. BT stores now have a
“real-time eligibility checker”
to verify whether you’re
entitled to the tariff. Read more
at www.snipca.com/40942.
by HP’s Wolf security team,
which said that it again
highlights how hackers “are
quick to take advantage of
important, relevant and
interesting current events to
create effective lures”.
To check whether you
installed the RedLine files
before the site was taken down,
visit HP’s blog (www.snipca.
com/40922), then scroll down to
the ‘Indicators of Compromise’
heading and make a note of the
file names, then search for
them on your PCs.
“limited evidence” of firms
promoting their social tariffs
to eligible customers, adding
that they’re usually not
mentioned in adverts or results
on price-comparison sites.
To raise awareness, it
wants providers to include
details of social tariffs in any
communications with
customers about price rises.
It added that customers
shouldn’t be put off by
making it hard to prove
they’re eligible.
• Visit Ofcom’s site for details
of existing social tariffs: www.
snipca.com/40941.
IN BRIEF
NEW NOKIA PHONES
LAST THREE DAYS
Nokia has released
two Android 11
phones that it claims
have a battery life
of three days. The
Nokia G11 (pictured)
and Nokia G21,
priced £119.99
and £149.99
respectively (www.
snipca.com/40931), also
have a Super Battery Saver
mode to make the charge
last even longer. The main
difference between the
phones is that the G21’s rear
camera is 50 megapixels,
compared with the G11’s
8-megapixel version.
WORDLE SPINOFF HAS
FOUR PUZZLES
An unofficial Wordle spin-off
challenges you to guess four
five-letter words at the same
time. Called Quordle (www.
quordle.com), it has a version
that lets you play an unlimited
number of times – unlike
Wordle which restricts you
to one game a day. Wordle
was bought in January by the
New York Times, but remains
free to play at www.snipca.
com/40782.
THREE SENDS NEW 5G
BROADBAND ROUTER
Phone network
Three is sending
new Wi-Fi 6 routers
to customers on
its 5G Home
Broadband
package. The ZTE
5G Hub (pictured)
has two Gigabit Ethernet
ports and one phone port,
and delivers an average
download speed of 100Mbps.
Prices start at £21 a month –
see www.snipca.com/40940.
• ‘I switched from Virgin to
Three 5G’ – page 13
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 9
 Question
Questionof
ofthe
theFortnight
Fortnight
Is Microsoft already working
on Windows 12?
How a joke on Twitter sparked rumours about Windows 11’s successor
I
f you ever needed proof that
some computer experts
have an obscure sense of
humour, consider a recent
tweet from anonymous
security researcher ‘Swift on
Security’ (346,000 followers).
They cited Microsoft sources
that claimed the company has
already started building
Windows 12, and that for
security reasons it would
require computers to have two
TPM processors (one more
than Windows 11).
Tech websites wasted no
time in excitedly reporting the
tweet, assuming Swift’s
rumour was based on reality.
But it wasn’t. Swift sent
another tweet apologising for
the initial message, saying it
was meant to be a joke (see
www.snipca.com/40984).
When – or if – Windows 12
arrives, it might be compatible with
even fewer PCs than Windows 11
As punchlines go, it didn’t
split any sides, nor tickle any
ribs. But was Swift’s message
entirely false? The reference to
two TPMs certainly seemed to
be an in-joke for bored
cybersecurity researchers.
Yet there may be truth in the
claim that Microsoft has
already started work on
Windows 12, just months after
releasing Windows 11.
That’s what German tech
site Deskmodder thinks,
anyway. It didn’t merely report
Swift’s tweet: it provided the
key extra detail that Windows
12 will see Microsoft return to
10 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
Windows 12
its abandoned Windows 10X
project, claiming that the
company is hiring people now.
Windows 10X, you may
recall, was the operating
system everyone was
expecting last year, instead of
Windows 11. As recently as
March 2021, Microsoft was
touting it as a far simpler
version of Windows, with
fewer tools and a more
streamlined design, including
a new-look Start menu.
Yet within three months
Microsoft had pulled the plug
on 10X and announced
Windows 11, backtracking on
its promise that Windows 10
would be the final version of
the operating system.
So, how much weight
should we give Deskmodder’s
story? On one level, it’s hardly
news that Microsoft is already
working on Windows 12.
Operating systems take years
to plan and build, so it’s
inconceivable to think that
work on Windows 11’s
successor hasn’t started yet.
And if so, it seems plausible
that it will contain elements of
10X, given that Microsoft
came so close to launching it
last year.
The more pertinent
question is how much work
Microsoft has actually done on
Windows 12, and here we’re in
the dark. What we can say is
that Deskmodder’s story
doesn’t appear to be pure
speculation. Its claim that
work has started is “according
to our information”, which is
journalistic code for sources
working within Microsoft.
If work has started - so soon
after the launch of Windows
11 - then it might signal that
Microsoft is returning to a
shorter time gap between
editions. In the past,
THE FACTS
• A cybersecurity researcher
tweeted that Microsoft was
already working on Windows
12, but later said it was a joke
• A German tech site says
Windows 12 is being worked
on, and will be based on
Windows 10X
• Microsoft abandoned
Windows 10X last year,
deciding to launch
Windows 11 instead
successive versions of
Windows were separated by a
gap of just three years. That
six-year gap from 10 to 11
(2015 to 2021) could turn out
to be an anomaly, artificially
lengthened by Microsoft’s
insistence that there would
never be another version.
When - or if - Windows 12
arrives, it might be compatible
with even fewer PCs than
Windows 11. Some analysts
have suggested that Swift’s
‘two TPM’ joke might have
unwittingly pointed to a
situation where PCs need both
a TPM and Microsoft’s own
Pluton security chip (www.
snipca.com/40986) to run
Windows 12.
But it won’t mean the
premature demise of Windows
10 or 11. Microsoft will
support the former until
October 2025 (www.snipca.
com/40985), and while the
company hasn’t set an end
date for the latter, it’s likely to
be supported into the 2030s.
So for now, keep using the
version of Windows you’ve
got, and don’t worry.
Protect your tech
Scams and threats to avoid, plus new security tools
WATCH OUT FOR...
Malware in PowerPoint attachments
What’s the threat?
Hackers are trying to access computers
by tricking people into opening
PowerPoint files sent as email
attachments. The files are in the .ppam
format, which adds extra tools to slides,
such as running macros.
The scam email has a purchase
order as the subject line ( 1 in our
screenshot), and addresses you as
‘Dear Customer’ 2 , before saying:
‘Please find attached copy of purchase
order kindly forward to me your
updated invoice’. Downloading the
attachment changes the registry settings
in Windows, allowing the hacker to
control your computer.
The attack was detected by
researchers at US security firm Avanan,
who called it a “one-two punch”
because it combines the urgency of
paying a purchase order with a
dangerous file that can “devastate an
end-user and a company”.
New tools Firefox Focus 97’s HTTPS mode
www.snipca.com/40736
Mozilla describes its
phone/tablet browser
Firefox Focus as having
“next-level” privacy
features, pitching it
as a more secure
alternative to Chrome
(on Android) and
Safari (on iOS). The
app automatically
wipes your history as
you browse, so it’s a
reasonable boast.
What’s surprising
though is that it’s
taken until version 97
of Firefox Focus for
Mozilla to turn on HTTPS mode by
default. This means you’ll always be
sent to the more secure HTTPS version
of a website, rather than the older,
2
1
3
How can you stay safe? services that have nothing to do with you.
These scammers assume that you’ll Also remember that no matter how
already be wary about unexpected Word they try to trick you, most scammers have
and Excel attachments, so instead they’ve a feeble grasp of the English language.
tried to disorient you with an obscure In the message above the capital ‘C’ in
PowerPoint file, hoping its unfamiliarity ‘Customer’ feels amiss, but it’s nothing
will trigger your curiosity. Make a mental compared with the jumbled nature of
note that you should be suspicious of all what follows. Where’s the full stop after
attachments from unknown senders, not ‘order’? Where’s the capital ‘K’ in
just in formats you use regularly. And be ‘kindly’? 3 It’s the kind of garbled
particularly sceptical about emails that nonsense that should always ring
send you invoices or purchase orders for alarm bells.
ScamWatch
Readers warn readers
unsafe HTTP. Omicron ‘Test Kit’
If a site only uses text-message scam
HTTP, you’ll see I recently received a type of Covid-
a ‘Secure Site Not related scam that I’d not seen before.
Available’ message It came as a text message on my
(as pictured on Android phone, and told me I’d been
Mozilla’s website in “close contact with a person who
at www.snipca. has Omicron”. The reason I was
com/40856). You suspicious is because it said I had
can click ‘Continue to order a ‘Test Kit’ from https://
to HTTP Site’ if you nhs-omicron-pcr.com. I used to
want, but don’t enter work in the NHS, and I knew it
any personal details wouldn’t use a URL like that. Nor in
on the site. fact would it text you a request to
To download Firefox order a kit to test yourself.
Focus, visit the link You can see what that shameless
above on your phone scam looks like at www.snipca.
or tablet, then scroll down to its com/40837.
heading on the right and select Joan Bright
Android or iOS in the dropdown menu Warn your fellow readers about scams
(see screenshot). at letters@computeractive.co.uk
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 11
 Letters
Tell us what’s on your mind
Plusnet haggle saved me
over £20
I had an 18-month contract for
full-fibre broadband with Plusnet,
paying £23.99 per month. I missed an
email telling me my contract was up for
renewal and that if it lapsed my bill
would increase to £43.50 per month. I
did notice it going out of my account
though, and immediately got on the
phone to renegotiate my contract. I was
put through to the customer-retention
team, and told them I was thinking of
leaving because my circumstances were
uncertain and I did not want to sign up
for another 18-month contract. I also told
them about another provider offering a
cheaper deal at £20 per month.
They then offered me a 12-month
contract at £20 per month, rising to
£21.50 when the phone-rental cost goes
up in March. Lesson learned. Always
haggle for a better deal.
Dick Emery
Like Robert Madden (Star Letter,
Issue 625), I had a letter from
Virgin notifying me that my monthly
bill would be increasing to £145 from
£140.84. This was to be effective from
April last year. I contacted Virgin to say
that because I’m a pensioner I could no
longer afford my package, and would
have to cancel. I got an immediate
reduction to £99 per month on an
18-month contract.
David Barrett
Full-fibre broadband
is worth £35 a month
I can’t understand why many
readers recently have felt so
negative about paying for full-fibre
broadband. In my experience it’s
definitely worth the money – and we’re
not talking about a great deal of money. I
pay Hyperoptic £35 a month for around
12 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
850Mbps, which I find is essential when
streaming an Ultra High Definition
(UHD) film from Amazon Prime or
Netflix, while at the same time updating
my devices or my computer. Any delays
are imperceptible. I could never go back
to a slower speed.
Stephen Gascoigne
How long until we can no
longer play videos?
I was interested in Issue 624’s How
To (‘Back up files to an external
disc drive’) – particularly the point that
an M-Disc will store information for a
“thousand years”. Having a collection of
family videos from VHS, Hi8, miniDV
and now digital cards, my main problem
is not the possible corruption of the
media, but the future absence of
equipment to play them on.
How many houses now have VHS
players (so common only a few years
ago)? And DVD players are also
disappearing fast. I have a drawer full of
the video cameras as playback units, but
dread the day that one of them packs up
and makes the content unreadable.
I don’t think in a thousand years any
equipment will be available to play them
on, so for now it’s an endless series of
converting formats to keep up with the
means to play them on.
John de Courcy Rolls
Mouse safety warnings
take the Mickey
I was intrigued by your advice not
to buy the CamKpell Ergonomic
What’s the Issue…?
I seem to recall you
recommending a video editor
that was especially good at eradicating
camera shake. What was it?
Bill Martins
CA SAYS We think you mean
OpenShot (www.openshot.org).
Version 2.61 added a Stabilizer tool –
see Issue 615, page 18.
I’m having trouble working out
what the different volume
controls do in Windows. Didn’t you
Design Mouse, in Issue 625’s feature on
AmazonBasics bargains (page 60). I
wondered how any company could make
a mouse as cheap as £3.17 and still make
a profit. What was it made of, I wondered
– fluff, polystyrene and dirt? Anyway, I
clicked the link (www.snipca.com/40809)
and was as unimpressed as I expected to be.
The highlight of their listing is
undoubtedly their ‘Safety Information’:
don’t put it beside a “high temperature
condition”, don’t throw it into fire, and
don’t throw it into water. You don’t say!
I’m tempted to email them to suggest a
fourth tip: don’t smash with a hammer.
Colin Davison
Tell us when Chromebooks
will expire
I read with interest the review of
the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook
Go (Issue 624, page 23), but was much
keener on the alternative you suggested
– the Asus Chromebook C423, which was
£200 cheaper. I was disappointed to
learn, however, that Google’s Auto
Update Expiration (AUE) date for the
C423 is June 2024, providing support for
a little over two years. By contrast, the
Go’s AUE of June 2029 made it seem a
better buy, despite being more expensive.
I wish that sellers of Chromebooks were
obliged to state the AUE of devices in
their sales information.
G Bolton
CA SAYS We agree that the AUE of
Chromebooks should be clearly stated,
and we’ll start mentioning it when we
?
explain this recently?
AP Staunton
CA SAYS We did, in Issue 620,
page 69.
Ironically, I’ve forgotten when
Robert Irvine wrote about
testing his computer’s memory. Can
you jog mine?
Michael Tushingham
CA SAYS Yes, it was in Issue 618,
page 74.

review these devices – starting with the
Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5 on page 23. You
can check a Chromebook’s AUE yourself
on Google’s website. Visit www.snipca.
com/40888, then scroll down and click a
manufacturer. You’ll see all the
Chromebooks it makes, alongside the
AUE date for each. It includes models
that have already passed their AUE date.
Addressing the problem with
your password puzzles
I’m enjoying your recent
password puzzles, and agree that
sequences are a good way of organising
them. But as has been shown, they can
also be cracked if the sequences are
public knowledge. It’s surely better
therefore to use sequences that are
specific to your personal life. Date of
birth is too obvious, but what about
combining other significant dates like
birth of children and marriage (or
divorce?!).
You could add special characters, like
this: 4/8/55&14/10/79and22/09/83. Or
what about your three most recent
addresses? You could turn 14 School
Lane, 25 Church Road and 44 High Street
into: 14Sln25Crd44Hst. Not sure where
you’d put special characters though.
Maureen Briscoe
CA SAYS Maureen’s right that a personal
sequence will always be more secure
than one which can be worked out by
many people. Our password challenges
have caught your imagination, but
they’re best seen as ideas for inspiring
your own memorable passwords than to
be used unaltered.
They think it’s been cracked…
it has now!
I loved Edward Cook’s password
challenge in Issue 625 (“Ttiao…
iin!”KW30/7/66) because it was both
ingeniously devised and reminded me of
one of the best days of my life. It stands
for: “They think it’s all over… it is now!”
Kenneth Wolstenholme – followed by the
Views expressed don’t necessarily reflect those of Computeractive
Facebook: www.facebook.com/computeractive
STAR LETTER
I switched from Virgin to Three’s 5G
broadband
You recently asked
for success stories
when haggling broadband
prices, so here’s what
happened when Virgin
told me my broadband
would be rising to over
£50. I’ve been a customer
of Virgin (and their many
predecessors) for over 30 years without
problems, and had been paying their
yearly increases for my 200Mbps
service.
I thought the increase was too high,
so I asked them for a discount. They did
cut the price, but it was still going to be
over £40 – or £30 for a 100Mbps
service. So, because I’m also a customer
of Three Mobile for my phone, I
decided to switch to their Home
Broadband service on their 5G network
(www.snipca.com/40889). I ordered on
a Thursday evening and the router
arrived first thing Friday morning with
just three instructions: find a window
sill, plug me in, that’s it.
I checked the speed after connecting
The Star Letter writer wins a Computeractive mug!
date that England won the World Cup. I
loved the way special characters are
naturally part of the password, especially
the ellipsis (...). I’d like to set my own
challenge, but can’t think of anything as
clever.
Paul Truss
CA SAYS Paul may not have been able
to set a new challenge, but he was the
first to decipher the password set by
Edward Cook in Issue 625. There’s a
Computeractive mug on its way to him
now. Will you be the first to crack the
following code?
Password safe for
19 septillion years
I previously used a variation of
this password for a few years:
GO’s1984+JH’sC-22=WCinG. It’s not a
sequence like many of your challenges,
but is more of a cryptic puzzle, in the
Email: letters@computeractive.co.uk
Twitter: @ComputerActive
www.twitter.com/computeractive
our devices (all 15 of them) and to my
amazement found we’re getting
between 39Mbps at peak times and a
staggering 255Mbps in the evenings.
My average speed has been 115Mbps,
and I’m paying just £21 a month. The
signal is excellent in the room with the
router, and very good in others –
except one, where I have a Wi-Fi
extender anyway.
I felt that because I’d been a Virgin
Media customer for so long I might
get a better discount than the one they
offered, so I rang back and tried again.
No further discount was
forthcoming, so Virgin Media
is gone, never to return.
Wayne Wildman
style of Radio 4’s Round Britain Quiz,
which I listen to every week. The key to
decoding it is to work out why the ‘sum’
in the first half of the puzzle equals the
answer in the second half.
I like how it has naturally occurring
numbers and special characters, as well
as both uppercase and lowercase letters.
I’d like to think that a computer would
struggle to guess it, but I don’t know how
long it would take.
Ray Sutcliffe
CA SAYS According to Security.org’s
password checker (www.snipca.
com/40909), it would take a computer 19
septillion years to crack GO’s1984+JH’sC-
22=WCinG. When you consider that just
a single septillion is a 1 followed by 24
zeroes, you get a sense of how secure
Ray’s password is. Hopefully, it won’t
take you as long. The first reader to crack
it will win a mug.
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 13
 Consumeractive
We stand up for your legal rights
Can Dell force me
to buy a more
expensive laptop?
In mid-December, I bought a
Q Dell Latitude 9510 laptop
(pictured right) from Dell’s
website, and received an order
confirmation by email. Delivery
was meant to be in the first week of
January, but when it didn’t arrive I
called Dell only to be told it had
cancelled the order in December
because it had no stock. Dell then
tried to get me to buy a different,
more expensive laptop. Don’t you agree
this is bad service?
Jon Bylo
Yes, it’s poor service, but
A there’s probably not much Jon
can do because no money left
his account, and therefore he never
formed a contract with Dell.
Sending a customer an email
confirming an order is a grey area of law.
It’s never been clearly established
whether it constitutes forming a contract,
or whether the contract is formed only
when money changes hands. Courts have
debated this issue, particularly when
buyers have jumped at the chance of
CASE UPDATE
Amazon replaces air fryer after we step in
You can’t bank on retailers to
tell you if you’re using the
wrong law when asking
for a refund. Reader Colin
Faulkner realised that when using
the Consumer Contract Regulations
(CCRs) to ask Amazon for help with
a faulty air fryer (see Issue 623). As
we explained, he should instead have
used the Consumer Rights Act (CRA).
We pointed this out to Amazon, which has
now sent him a replacement.
14 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
LEAD
CASE
buying items that have been mistakenly
priced too cheaply. But while there’s
some case law in this area, there’s still
no definitive answer.
Even if Dell had taken money from
Jon, he’d probably be entitled only to a
refund, though he could have pushed for
damages if being without a laptop left
him unable to work. He may find this
hard to prove though.
Legally then Dell probably doesn’t
owe Jon anything more than an
apology. However, it would be nice if it
extended this to money off his next
purchase as a goodwill gesture. We’ll
politely suggest this when we talk to to
the company.
CASE ONGOING
Colin had contacted us
because Amazon claimed
he was too late for a refund.
This was true under the
CCRs, which give you 28
days to return an item
bought online, over the
phone or from a catalogue,
but not under the CRA, which
lets you make a claim for faulty
goods for up to six years (five in Scotland).
Nobody at Amazon had the good sense to
Can Currys pass
the buck after
30 days?
I just bought an item from Currys
Q costing £99.99. I was told if the
item is faulty, I could return it to
the shop within 30 days, but after that I’d
have to return it to the manufacturer and
use its one-year guarantee. Isn’t my contract
with Currys, as it’s the retailer, and so it
should be responsible for repairs?
Kenny Wallace
Kenny is correct – his contract is
A with the retailer (Currys) and so
it must sort out a problem, should
one arise. The shop assistant is right that
Kenny can use the manufacturer’s
warranty if a fault occurs, but he should
first approach Currys for a solution.
It’s possible that Currys will ask the
manufacturer to repair the item if it
proves to be faulty, but this has nothing to
do with Kenny. The contract in this case
would be between Currys and the
manufacturer only, and wouldn’t count
as him using his warranty. This is true
even if Currys asks Kenny to send the
item straight to the manufacturer on its
behalf. In such cases, it’s always worth
stating in writing that you’re using the
Consumer Rights Act to get help, not
the warranty.
CASE CLOSED
point this out to Colin. He also failed to
get any help from Tower Housewares
(www.towerhousewares.co.uk),
manufacturer of the fryer.
Colin says he’s pleased with the
outcome, but he was surprised that Amazon
sent him a brand new air fryer rather than
just a new knob to replace the one that had
broken (it was the only fault). He thinks
it was a waste of packaging, and didn’t
appreciate having to pack up and send
back the original air fryer.

Why hasn’t Dell collected broken laptop-tablet?
About three months ago I
Q bought a laptop-tablet from
Dell, but it stopped working
over Christmas. A local technician failed
to fix it, so I contacted Dell. It told me it
would pick up the device in January, but
this hasn’t happened. Can you help?
David Burt
We thought Jon Bylo was treated
A badly by Dell (see lead case, left),
but this is even worse. Hopefully
though it’ll just take one phone call from
us to remind Dell that it needs to collect
David’s laptop. Because more than 30
Why does
Samsung say I
tampered with
phone camera?
In January 2021, I purchased a
Q Samsung A71 phone (pictured)
from Samsung directly. The
phone was fine until November 2021,
when the camera and some apps stopped
working, while the torch also failed. I
have a two-year warranty, so Samsung
collected the phone. However, after
CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE
1pMobile patiently helped my mum get started
I always judge companies by
how patient they are when
talking to someone who isn’t
very technical. So top marks to
1pMobile, who spent 20 minutes explaining
to my 84-year-old mother how their
pay-as-you-go system worked.
She’s never had a smartphone
before, so she was daunted by the
prospect. She had no need to be tied
to an expensive contract, so I knew
1pMobile’s no-contract system
Contact us so we can investigate your case
Email: consumeractive@computeractive.co.uk
Please include your name, phone number and address.
days have passed since purchase,
it’s allowed to attempt one
repair or one replacement
(but not one of each).
If Dell chooses a
replacement, it’s allowed to
pick a refurbished laptop of the
same model, which like a new
laptop must be fit for purpose and free
of minor defects and inherent faults.
David didn’t need to ask anyone to
attempt a repair because within six
months of purchase the onus is on the
retailer to prove that there isn’t a fault. He
should have contacted Dell straight away,
inspection the company claimed
that somebody had opened
the phone and installed an
incompatible Samsung A51
camera, so I’d have to pay £119 to
have it fixed. Can you help?
Amy Slaney
We’ll try, but it will be
A difficult to disprove
Samsung’s claims. It’s a strange
case. Amy denies that anyone has opened
the phone and installed a new camera –
doing so would have invalidated her
warranty – so why is Samsung claiming
otherwise?
would be ideal. I rang the company on my
mother’s landline to explain all this, and
spoke to a very helpful customer assistant
who answered every question my mother
had – even when she asked the same
question a couple of times!
I spoke to the assistant afterwards
to thank him for being so patient, and
he said that he’d actually enjoyed the
experience of explaining how it worked,
and that my mother asked some good
questions. I didn’t catch his name, but
though we understand the
temptation of getting a laptop
fixed without the hassle of
sending it back to the retailer.
There’s a danger that Dell
might argue David has
invalidated his warranty by
asking a technician – somebody
unauthorised by Dell – to fix the laptop.
However, he and the technician did
work with Dell on this repair, and he has
the chat transcripts to prove it. This
evidence should be enough to convince
Dell that it needs to sort out his case
without further delay.
CASE ONGOING
It’s possible that the wrong
camera was installed when the
phone was made, which would
make it inherently faulty, though
proving this would be almost
impossible. It’s also possible that
the technician inspecting the phone
has made a mistake. We’re only
going to get to the bottom of this by
talking to Samsung.
Incidentally, Amy was probably right to
use the warranty to pursue help. If she had
used the Consumer Rights Act, she would
have had to prove the fault was inherent
because more than six months had
passed since purchase.
CASE ONGOING
he was a great ambassador for the company.
Ron Corden
Has a company impressed you with its
customer service? Please let us know:
editor@computeractive.co.uk
Contact
1pMobile
• Live chat www.snipca.com/40853
• Phone 03333 442278
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 15
 Grow Your
Family Tree
If you’d like to locate important places in your ancestors’
lives, follow Chris Paton’s advice to…
Search and compare geo-referenced maps
T
he Ordnance Survey (OS)
has been mapping Britain
since 1801, with several
national exercises producing
1 4
maps at various scales. These
historic documents can be
useful for genealogy research
because they help you identify
churches, schools and workplaces
to which your ancestors may have
been connected. Once you know
that, you can look for related
documents.
The National Library of Scotland
(https://maps.nls.uk) has the largest
online collection of OS maps that cover
the whole of the UK, with a quarter
of a million pages already available, and
the same number to be added over the
next three years.
The maps are geo-referenced, with
geographic coordinates attached to key
points. This means that once you identify
an area of interest on one map, you can
easily locate it across time on others that
are attached to the same co-ordinates.
Search for a location
To start, select ‘Mapfinder with Marker
Pin’ from the home page, then close the
small box that appears. We’ll look for the
ancestral home of a relative who was a
Methodist and worked as a tanner in
Your Genealogy Problems Solved
My great-grandmother worked as a
missionary in China for the Presbyterian
Church of England. How can I find further
info about what she did while there?
Michelle Graham
Records from the Foreign Missions
Committee of the Presbyterian Church of
England (now the United Reform Church)
16 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
6 the ‘Mapfinder with Marker Pin’
2
5
3
Bedminster, a district of Bristol, where he
raised his family in the 1880s-90s. First,
we located Bedminster by typing the
name into ‘Search Places’ at the top left
of screen ( 1 in our screenshot above).
To change the modern map displayed, use
the dropdown menu next to the Search
Places box 2 .
At the bottom left of the page is a
toolbox. Under ‘Filter by map type’, select
‘Ordnance Survey maps’ 3 from the four
historical map categories available. This
brings up a preview of maps 4 to the
right of screen. By selecting one of these,
a detailed map for Bedminster appears
(again, close the box that pops up).
You’re now free to explore the map.
There are two other ways to compare
historical and modern maps. Select
‘Explore georeferenced maps’ at the top
are held in London at the School of
Oriental and African Studies (www.soas.
ac.uk). These include application records,
personal papers of those in service, and
minutes of the meetings involved. Read its
guide at www.snipca.com/40836.
Have a genealogy question for Chris?
Email letters@computeractive.co.uk with
‘Grow Your Family Tree’ in the subject line.
Next issue: Search 4.2 million new RAF Operations
Search for areas on old maps using
feature
of the screen 5 and a historical
map image will appear, which
you can change using the ‘select
a map/map series’ menu in
the bottom-left toolbox. Also
within this is a ‘change the
transparency of overlay’ slider,
which lets you slide between
the historic image and the modern image
below it. You can also compare old and
new maps next to each other - just click
the ‘Side by Side’ link at the top 6 .
Compare changes over time
The 1881 Census tells me my ancestor
lived in Water Street, so I zoomed into the
OS 25in map from 1873-1888 and saw
that he lived next to Clifthouse Tannery
( 1 in our screenshot below), which is
probably where he worked, and close to
the Methodist Ashtongate Chapel 2 ,
which is probably where he worshipped.
I expect he attended the nearby
Ashtongate School, too.
The modern map to the right shows
that Water Street is today called Walter
Street, and that the chapel and school no
longer exist. Seeing what else has
changed is made easy by swiping
between the two images using the
buttons at the top 3 .
3
1
2
You can compare old and new OS maps side
by side to quickly see any changes
 Best Free Software
Robert Irvine recommends new programs that won’t cost you a thing
PDF TOOL

PDF24 10.8
www.snipca.com/40956
What you need: Windows 7, 8.1, 10 or 11

Falling comfortably between the basic PDF functions now
offered by most browsers and the advanced options of
paid-for software such as Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, PDF24 is a
free feature-packed toolkit for all your PDF needs. Its quirky,
sheep-themed interface gives you access to 41 tools for
working with PDF files, and this update expands and refines
its capabilities.
Most notably, PDF24 has changed the way it creates PDFs.
It no longer ‘pre-processes’ files before passing them to its
rendering tool, which improves the quality of the end result,
especially when merging PDFs. Additionally, you can now
merge a large number of files more quickly, using a tool
called QPDF, which better preserves each PDF’s content.
Another welcome change is that when you use the
program’s PDF Printer Assistant to print documents, you’ll
now see the number of pages in each PDF, so you can have
the appropriate amount of paper ready. PDF24 has also made
a change to its preview window, to make
it always reappear in the same position after
you close and reopen the software, so you won’t
need to keep moving it.
If you’ve never used PDF24, you’ll find plenty of useful
options to play around with, beyond its core tools such as
Edit PDF, Split PDF and ‘Convert to PDF’. These include
the ability to ‘flatten’ PDFs so that text fields in forms
can’t be amended; ‘blacken’ documents to redact sensitive
information; and add watermarks to protect your content
against unauthorised use. You can also import files as PDFs
directly from your scanner or digital camera.
PDF24 prompts you to register for a free account when you
install it, but you can click Skip to bypass this requirement. It
saves you having to download a lot of separate tools, and for
free software it’s refreshingly free of ads and nags to upgrade
to a paid-for version (because there isn’t one).

2
1
1

1 You can either browse the
41 options on PDF24’s
main screen or search for a
specific tool. The program
will automatically adjust to
show only results relevant
to your query. Click the All
link to display all available
options again.
2 Because you’re unlikely
to need every PDF24 tool
every day, you can save
those you most frequently
use as ‘favorites’. Just click
the star icons in the top-
right corners of their tiles,
then click the Favorites link
to view only those tools.
3 Click the Open PDF24
Creator button to open a
separate tool that lets you
create and edit PDFs simply
by dragging and dropping
files from your hard drive.
You can save and share the
result at the quality of your
choice.
4 PDF24 lets you create
profiles to apply specific
settings automatically,
including PDF quality, where
to display page numbers
and the insertion of your
signature. Click the ‘Manage
output profiles’ button to
choose your preferences.

18 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626

IMAGING TOOL
WHAT SHOULD
Ventoy 1.0.69 I DOWNLOAD?
www.snipca.com/40952
We tell you what software & apps to use
What you need: Windows 7, 8.1, 10 or 11

This excellent open- How can I delete a file

source program for
creating bootable disc
images has added a
welcome feature that
changes the way it
works. Previously, you
needed to copy any
disc-image files you
downloaded, such as operating systems in ISO format, from
your hard drive to a USB stick, and boot them from there.
The latest version lets you boot disc images from a local
drive, which is useful if you don’t have much space on your
USB stick or it’s running slowly. The program itself still needs
to be installed on a removable drive, but you can now easily
browse locally stored disc images, and create special ‘vInk’
files for them (see screenshot). These vlnk files are then
copied to the USB stick, where you can run them to boot the
disc images. It sounds complicated, but Ventoy is simple to
use once you get the hang of it.
DRIVE-SPACE ANALYSER
WizTree 4.08
www.snipca.com/40954
What you need: Windows 7, 8.1, 10 or 11
WizTree offers a free
and speedy way to
discover which files
and folders take up
the most space on
your hard drive, and
this update makes
the program even
more useful. It adds
a Filter Scan Results option below the main Scan button (see
screenshot), which lets you specify which files should and
shouldn’t appear in your scan results. For example, you can
choose to see only files that contain certain words in their
names, have ‘.exe’ extensions or are stored in particular
folders, by typing the relevant terms in the Include Filter
box, and ignore specific files using the Exclude Filter box.
This helps to speed up searches and saves you having to
sift through irrelevant results to find unwanted space hogs.
Filters can be applied before and after scans, and the feature
can also be accessed by choosing Filter Scan Results in the
Options menu or by pressing Ctrl+Shift+F.
that Windows has
locked?
I have a file on my desktop that is proving
Q impossible to remove. When I try to delete it, or
drag it to my recycle bin, Windows says: ‘The
action can’t be completed because the file is open in
another program’. Is there any software I can use to get rid
of this locked file?
Andrew Grimshaw
You should first try to find out which program has
A the stubborn file open. Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to
launch Task Manager and check the Processes tab
for a likely culprit. Right-click any programs that may be
using the file and
select ‘End task’, then
try deleting the item
again.
If that doesn’t fix
the problem, your
best bet is a tiny
free tool called
ThisIsMyFile. This is
specifically designed
to unlock and/or
delete locked and protected files “with no ifs or buts”, and
has just been updated to work in Windows 11.
Download the program from www.snipca.com/40955
and run it – click the Download button at the top of the
page then choose the ‘ThisIsMyFile.zip’ option. You can
then either drag and drop the undeletable file into the Files/
Folder box or click the Browse button to find and select it.
Click ‘Unlock’ to free the file from the mystery program’s
clutches, then click Delete (see screenshot). For particularly
stubborn items, select ‘Reboot & Delete’ to shut down your
system and remove the file on start-up.
Usefully, ThisIsMyFile lets you create a copy of the file
before deletion, in case it’s something important. You can
also add the option to use the program from your right-
click menu – click the Extras menu then select ‘Add to
Send-To Explorer Menu’ to open locked files directly in
ThisIsMyFile. If you don’t have any luck deleting the file, try
running ThisIsMyFile in admin mode.
Do you need our advice on what software to use? Just email us at
letters@computeractive.co.uk

Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 19

 Best Free Software
HOW I USE...
Excel sumifs
Baffled by what his money goes on, David Ludlow
turned to Excel to track his spending
A 2
1 up the figures:
2 =SUMIFS(Transactions!$D:$D,
Bank statements are useful for checking
what’s coming in and out of my account
(it’s mostly the latter). But they are
fairly blunt snapshots of spending over
a certain month. I prefer to monitor my
outgoings over the course of a year, to
see which months are the most
expensive. The smartest way to do that
is to use Excel’s sumifs formula, which
adds up values only if multiple criteria
are met. In my case, I use it to add up
spending based on categories (mortgage,
utility bills, etc) within a set month.
As I explain how I do this, we’ll be
hopping between two screenshots – A
(above) and B (below right). To start, I
created an Excel spreadsheet with two
Tabs: Table and Transactions. On the
Table tab, I created an outline. Running
vertically from A2 I entered my
categories: Shopping, Petrol, Council
Tax, Utilities, Entertaining, Mortgage
and Misc ( 1 in screenshot A).
Running horizontally from cell B1,
I added the month and year I want
to track using the MMM-YY format:
Sep-21 to Dec-21 2 . I’ll add Jan-22
onwards when the data is available. I
downloaded the data from my bank
(HSBC) as a CSV file. I then opened
WHAT I’D LIKE TO SEE IN EXCEL’S SUMIFS
Excel doesn’t show which numbers
are being added up by sumifs, which is
frustrating – and a little unsettling when
20 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
this and copied and pasted the data (this
includes transaction dates, descriptions
and values) into my spreadsheet’s
Transactions tab after selecting cell B1.
I’ll add (by pasting) future transactions
to the bottom of this list.
To add categories, I clicked A to select
all cells in that column, then clicked
Data, followed by Data Validation. I then
selected List in the Allow dropdown
menu ( 1 in screenshot B), then clicked
the arrow to the right of the Source
box 2 . I clicked the Table tab in my
spreadsheet, then the A column, pressed
Enter and clicked OK. This gave me a
dropdown list so that I could quickly add
a category to every transaction 3 .
Back in the Table tab, I selected cell B2
and entered the following formula to add
3 B
2 from Sep-21), while the ‘1’ means the
1 I finish with "<="&EOMONTH(Table!B$1,
David created a dropdown list to make it easy
to add a category to every transaction
you’ve got a big spreadsheet. That feature
would make it much easier to check that
you’re using the correct formula.
David entered categories for his
outgoings, and the month they
occurred
Transactions!$A:$A, "="&Table!$A2,
Transactions!$B:$B,
">="&DATE(YEAR(B$1),
MONTH(B$1),1), Transactions!$B:$B,
"<="&EOMONTH(Table!B$1, 0)) – copy
and paste this from our Pastebin
account at www.snipca.com/40895.
This formula says: add up all sums,
provided they’re in the category
specified, and the dates fall between
the start and end dates of the specified
month. Let’s break that down.
First, Transactions!$A:$A,
"="&Table!$A2, looks at the A column
on the Transaction sheet (category)
and identifies any that match cell A2
on the main sheet (that’s my Shopping
category). Next, Transactions!$B:$B,
">="&DATE(YEAR(B$1), MONTH(B$1),1)
looks at the date column on the
Transactions tab and finds any that are
equal to or greater than the date in the
next formula. This uses the DATE()
formula, extracting the year and month
from the table header (YEAR(), MONTH()
first day of that month. As I need
transactions until the end of September,
0). This looks for dates less than or
equal to the last day (EOMONTH) of
the header (Sep-21).
The ‘$’ signs tell Excel not to change
parts of cell references when I copy
and paste them. I copied cell B2 into
the blank spaces in the table and they
updated automatically. I also used the
Format Cells option under Format in
the Home tab to change the cell types
to currency.
Next issue: How I use... Robocopy
Named & Shamed
Barry Collins puts the boot into tech villains, jargon-
spouting companies and software trying to trick you

SOFTWARE WARNING!
Word Office’s
Microsoft clone

I
t takes a certain breed of
masochist to write documents or
tweak spreadsheets on a smartphone.
Should you ever feel the need, avoid
the hideous Word Office Android app
like an undercooked chicken burger
you’ve found on the bus.
How Microsoft’s lawyers aren’t all
over this, I’ll never know. When the
app’s heading on the Google Play Store
(www.snipca.com/40829) mentions
‘Word’ and ‘Excel’ (see screenshot)
and uses the accompanying logos, HOW I GOT A REFUND
I’d argue it’s clearly trying to trick
FROM MICROSOFT
people into thinking it’s Microsoft You may remember the awful Kindle
Office. Well, it’s not Microsoft Office. Don’t trust the heading and logos - this isn’t rip-off, ‘Reader for Reading Kindle
Instead, it’s made by that well-known Microsoft Office EBooks’, which I discovered lurking in
multinational giant, South Pole the Microsoft Store (see Issue 624).
Mobile. Who? Exactly. It will also demand permission to I said I would ask Microsoft for a
Installing the app will definitely access all your files, followed by a rather refund on the £4.19 fee and – after
drive you up the pole. The first thing it ominous Android warning: ‘If you allow a modicum of hoop jumping – it duly
does is thrust a load of adverts down your this, the app may access files that aren’t returned my money.
throat, before repeatedly begging you to related to the app without notifying you’. Yet, despite my detailed explanation
pay the one-off, VIP price of £22.49 to I’ve no evidence the app is up to no of its failings and many one-star
make all those adverts go away – and to good, but would I trust it to root through reviews, Microsoft still hasn’t seen fit to
unlock anything other than the basic all my files? I’d rather take a bath with kick it out of its store.
reading facilities. my toaster.

WHAT ARE THEY BARRY’S VILLAIN OF THE FORTNIGHT

TALKING ABOUT?

WHAT THEY SAY

Meta (aka Facebook)
www.snipca.com/40828
“To fully realize the benefits of self-
supervised learning and transformer-
based models, various domains, whether
vision, speech, language, or for critical
use cases like identifying harmful
content, will require training increasingly
large, complex, and adaptable models.”
WHAT THEY MEAN
Talking gibberish like this will hopefully
make people overlook that we’re losing
thousands of users every day.
Osagie Aigbonohan
Osagie Aigbonohan won’t be
swiping right on Tinder for a
while, after he was sentenced to
28 months in prison for conning
several women via dating apps.
In one life Aigbonohan,
originally from Nigeria and staying
illegally in the UK, worked as a school
caretaker. In his other life he posed
as lothario Tony Eden, tricking his
victims into handing over thousands
of pounds.
He told one victim he needed the
money to buy drilling
equipment for his overseas
business, and another that he
needed to pay for colleagues’
funerals. Police think he
contacted over 200 people,
stealing around £20,000.
“We want to encourage all those
who think they’ve been a victim
of romance fraud to not feel
embarrassed or ashamed but rather
report it,” said Dominic Mugan from
the National Crime Agency.

Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 21

 Reviews
LAPTOP [ £743 from Box www.snipca.com/40846
Acer TravelMate P4 P414-51
Work away from home
The Acer TravelMate P4 P414-51 hasn’t
been designed to turn heads, but it’s a
solid, unfussy laptop. Similarly priced
machines can often compromise on the
build quality, but there’s nothing flimsy
about this, thanks in particular to the
robust metal panel on the back of the
screen. It comes with Windows 10 Pro
installed, but our review model was
offered a free upgrade to Windows 11
within the first week of use.
It’s a pleasure
to use, though the
webcam and speakers
are mediocre
Powered by a Core i5-1135G7 processor,
it also runs well. This is the same chip as
in the Asus ExpertBook B1 (reviewed in
Issue 625), but the TravelMate squeezes a
little more performance out of it, with a
PCMark 10 benchmark test result of 4,598
compared with 4,545 on the ExpertBook.
In general Windows use, however, you’d
struggle to split the two.
There are some handy security features
built in, with support for Windows Hello
face recognition via the webcam and a
fingerprint reader embedded into the
power button. The former worked
seamlessly, but with the power button
22 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
New products tested by our experts
awkwardly placed on the right edge of
the chassis, the fingerprint option is a bit
awkward to use.
The TravelMate has a microSD card slot
on the right, but it’s the left-hand side
that holds most of the physical ports: two
USB 3.0, one Gigabit Ethernet, an HDMI
and a USB-C port. It comes with a power
brick, but you can charge via the USB-C
port as well. Its 55Wh battery isn’t the
largest, but you can still expect around
nine hours from a single charge – yet
another solid result. This means you
should get away with working away from
home without having to throw the
charger into your bag, and with a 1.4kg
weight and small size this laptop is
extremely portable.
It’s also a pleasure to use. The fan rarely
had to spring into action and when it did,
it wasn’t loud enough to annoy and, as
long as you don’t bash it, the keyboard is
also quiet. The keys aren’t particularly
tactile, but Acer makes sure the basics are
in place by including a bright backlight
and – for the most part – a sensible
layout. The Enter key is huge, but it’s
annoying to have the Pg Up and Pg Dn
SPECIFICATIONS
Four-core Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor • 8GB
RAM • Intel Iris Xe graphics • 14in 1920x1080-pixel
resolution screen • 256GB SSD • 720p webcam •
Wi-Fi 6 • Bluetooth 5 • 1x USB-C port • 2x USB 3.0
ports • 1x HDMI port • Windows 10 Pro (upgradeable
to Windows 11) • 17.9x325x236mm (HxWxD) • 1.4kg •
One-year warranty www.snipca.com/40846
keys directly above the cursor keys. The
trackpad is a little small for our taste, but
it works fine.
Given the price, we can’t complain
about the 14in screen, either. It covers 56
per cent of the sRGB colour standard, but
whites are clean, it hit a satisfactory peak
brightness of 306cd/m2 in our tests, and
its 1,558:1 contrast ratio is exceptional.
The speakers sound clear if not exactly
rich. They are still good enough for
watching films, listening to speech radio
and making video calls. The 720p
webcam is mediocre, but the biggest
challenge when video calling was the low
volume of the built-in microphone.
It’s these niggles that prevent the
TravelMate P4 from earning five stars.
However, we’d still recommend it for
those looking for a general-purpose
Windows laptop at a reasonable price.
VERDICT A solid, well-built laptop
that’s a good size if you’re looking for
decent Windows performance on the
go
+++++
ALTERNATIVE
Asus ExpertBook B1 B1500 £655
The Asus ExpertBook
offers similar Windows
performance but comes with
a larger screen

LAPTOP-TABLET [ £499 from Currys www.snipca.com/40852
Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5
Chromebook
Doubling up
Back in Issue 606 we reviewed the
Lenovo IdeaPad Duet, a 10in tablet that
ran Google’s Chrome OS instead of the
more common Android operating system
or iPadOS. Lenovo has now taken this a
step further with the Duet 5 – a larger
13.3in laptop-tablet that’s even bigger
than the 12.9in iPad Pro (£999), but costs
half the price (£499). Google will support
Chrome OS on the device until June 2029
(see www.snipca.com/40888).
A lightweight,
two-in-one Chrome OS
alternative
The previous version’s 10.1in IPS screen
was a great choice for the £270 Duet,
but here you get a superior OLED panel.
So, while both Duets promise a peak
brightness of 400cd/m2, the new screen
actually looks significantly more vivid
and brighter. Lenovo has reduced the
resolution to 1920x1080 from 1920x1200,
but the result is still impressively sharp.
The Duet 5 upgrades its processor to a
Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2. This
doesn’t offer the same performance levels
as an Intel Core i3 processor, which some
of the more powerful Chromebooks offer,
but in our benchmark tests it ran faster
than the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook
Go (£399, reviewed in Issue 624) and
twice as fast as the 10in Duet, which is a
reasonable performance for the price. It
also impressed in our battery-life test,
lasting 16 hours 20 minutes when we
played back video.
With a larger screen to press up
against, the Duet 5’s magnetically
detachable keyboard is markedly bigger
than before, making it less cramped to
type on for longer periods. The tablet
remains slim, with a depth of just over
7mm, but its increased length and height
make it heavier (700g, or 1kg with the
keyboard attached).
Consequently, it feels better working
on it as a laptop on a flat surface than
using it as a tablet. Bear in mind,
however, it’s not great when resting on
your lap with the keyboard attached,
because the connection between the
keyboard and screen is less robust than
on a standard laptop.
Chrome OS works better in laptop
mode, particularly if you’re using it for
doing work in Google Docs or for other
office tasks. However, it can run Android
apps as well and comes with access to
the Play Store via its taskbar, so you can
run apps in tablet mode when you’re
looking to do more basic tasks. Both
options work well, especially when
using the included stylus.
Those looking for the conventional
Windows experience would still be
better off opting for a standard laptop,
such as the Acer TravelMate (reviewed
left). However, for a versatile tablet and
laptop in one, with a larger-than-average
screen, this affordable Lenovo IdeaPad
is hard to beat.
SPECIFICATIONS
Eight-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2
processor • 8GB RAM • 13.3in 1920x1080-pixel
resolution OLED screen • 256GB eMMC storage
• 8-megapixel rear camera • 5-megapixel front
camera • Wi-Fi 6 • Bluetooth 5.1 • Chrome OS •
7.2x306x187mm (HxWxD) • 700g (tablet only)
• One-year warranty www.snipca.com/40852
HOW WE TEST
Computeractive is owned by Future PLC,
which employs a team of specialist
technical reviewers. You’ll often read
references to our benchmark testing,
which is a method of assessing products
using the same criteria. For example, we
test the speed of every PC and the battery
life of every phone and tablet in exactly
the same way. This makes our reviews
authoritative, rigorous and accurate.
Future PLC also owns the magazines
Maximum PC, PC Pro and T3, and the
websites Laptop Mag (www.laptopmag.
com), TechRadar (www.techradar.com)
and Windows Central (www.windows
central.com). This means we can test
thousands of products before choosing
the most relevant for Computeractive.
FAIR AND IMPARTIAL
Our writers follow strict guidelines to
ensure the reviews are fair and impartial.
The manufacturer has no involvement in
our tests.
OUR AWARDS
We award every product
that gets five stars our
Buy It! stamp of approval.
It means we were
extremely impressed by the product, and
we think you will be too.
Every product that gets a
four-star review is given the
Recommended award. We
highly recommend these
products, although they just fail to meet the
high standard of our Buy It! winners.
PRICES
Our reviews contain a link to the best price
we found online at the time of press.
VERDICT An impressive 13.3in device
that can be used in tablet or laptop
mode, and is powerful enough to run
both Chrome OS and Android apps
smoothly
+++++
ALTERNATIVE Samsung Galaxy
Chromebook Go
£349 A cheaper
Chromebook
in a laptop-only
configuration and a
better keyboard
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 23
 Reviews
SMARTPHONE [ £250 from Amazon www.snipca.com/40870
Xiaomi Poco M4 Pro 5G
Disappointing sequel
A new affordable Android smartphone
from Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi is
always worth a look, not least because the
Poco F3 has held our Buy It award since
we reviewed it back in Issue 608. This
model is a tad cheaper than the £299
Poco F3, but it’s interesting to find out
whether in the 10 months since, Xiaomi
has been able to produce an even better
phone at a lower cost.
Compared with
its predecessor, it
makes too many
compromises for the
saving you make
One of the big attractions of the F3 is
its 6.67in AMOLED screen. The Poco M4
Pro 5G comes close to matching it for size
and resolution, with its 6.6in 2400x1080-
pixel display, but it’s an IPS panel that
doesn’t have the same superb contrast.
Its refresh rate tops out at 90Hz rather
than the 120Hz of the Poco F3, so isn’t
quite as smooth.
Xiaomi has also compromised on the
processor to keep the price down (in
contrast, the F3 launched at £350 –
we’ve only recently seen prices dropping
to £299). We put the M4 Pro through
our standard benchmark test to see how
its MediaTek Dimensity 810 processor
would compare with the F3’s Qualcomm
24 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
Snapdragon 870.
It achieved a single-core score of
572 and a multi-core score of 1,567,
which is a long way behind the F3’s
respective scores of 973 and 3,303. This is
a large enough gap to be noticeable in
use. Whereas the F3 feels slick and
responsive, the M4 Pro lacks that
ultra-smooth navigating when tapping
and swiping.
You might expect the RAM and
storage to match the previous model,
but even here the M4 Pro falls short –
with specification options comprising
4GB RAM/64GB storage or 6GB/128GB.
The Poco F3 offers the latter on its
most basic model, but also comes in a
8GB/256GB version, which is the one
we’d recommend.
The camera on the M4 Pro (pictured
below left) has undergone something of
an upgrade, with the main camera
moving up to 50 megapixels (from
the F3’s 48). It’s backed up by an
ultrawide lens for landscape shots and a
16-megapixel front camera. The camera
took decent shots in daylight, with good
colour reproduction and contrast.
However, pictures start to look grainy in between £300 and £350, but at the time
lower light. This is a similar story with of writing we spotted a blue version of
the Poco F3. the 8GB F3 for just £299 (www.snipca.
Another slight improvement comes com/40872). At only £50 more, it’s
with the battery – a 5,000mAh unit definitely worth going for the Poco F3 if
compared with 4,520mAh in the F3. We you can find it for such a great price. For
found the power on the M4 Pro had the time being, it maintains a solid grip
dropped to around 50 per cent after a day on our coveted Buy It award.
of general use, so there’s more than
enough charge to get you through a day,
even with fairly heavy use. VERDICT A cheaper alternative to our
Overall then, we’re sticking with our current favourite Android phone, but we
recommendation of the Xiaomi Poco F3 don’t think it’s worth compromising for
5G. It’s a bit more expensive, but you can the modest saving
get a good deal on it, if you shop around.
Most of the models on Amazon still cost
+++++
ALTERNATIVE
SPECIFICATIONS Xiaomi Poco F3 £208 It’s
Eight-core MediaTek Dimensity 810 processor • worth paying the extra
4GB or 6GB RAM • 64GB or 128GB storage • 6.6in money for the superior
90Hz 2400x1080-pixel IPS screen • 50-megapixel screen and smoother
rear camera • 8-megapixel ultrawide camera •
16-megapixel front-facing camera • Bluetooth 5.1 •
performance of Xiaomi’s
Android 11 • 8.8x76x164mm (HxWxD) • 195g older model
• One-year warranty www.snipca.com/40870
PRINTER [ £360 from Amazon www.snipca.com/40918
Epson EcoTank ET-3850
All tanked up
This all-in-one printer, scanner and
copier uses ink that’s supplied in bottles
rather than cartridges. At £360 it looks
expensive, but it comes with enough ink
to print 14,000 pages of black text and
5,200 colour pages. For some users, that
could be enough ink to last several years.
When you do run out, the refill price is
very reasonable, with a new bottle of
black ink costing £13.99 for 7,500 pages.
That’s less than 0.2p per page, which is
significantly cheaper than cartridge
printers.
Low running costs,
ease of use and high-
quality prints justify
the initial cost
Setting up the printer and filling the
tanks is far simpler than you might
expect. Epson’s bottles have special
mouldings that prevent you from putting
the ink in the wrong tank. Also, the ink
won’t start pouring out of the bottles
until they’re securely attached. In other
words, you’d have to try remarkably hard
to get it wrong or create a mess.
In use, the printer is designed to
require minimal intervention. The paper
tray holds a generous 250 sheets of A4, so
you’ll need to re-fill this less often than
many rival printers. It also has an
automatic sheet feeder on the top, so you
can scan multi-page documents without
having to place each page on the scanner
glass. It even prints on both sides of a
sheet automatically – a feature that’s
missing from Canon’s Pixma G650,
(reviewed in Issue 610, see Alternative
below right).
The ET-3850 can be connected to your
network via Wi-Fi if you want to print
SPECIFICATIONS
4800x1200dpi maximum print resolution • 15ppm
quoted print speed • Wi-Fi 4 • USB 2.0 port •
347x375x231 mm (HxWxD) • 6.5kg • Three-year
warranty www.snipca.com/40918
from any device in your home. However,
if you’d prefer to connect it to a single
computer and print via USB, you can do
that instead. Its 6.1cm screen is colour,
but not a touchscreen. Instead there are
buttons to the right that you use to
navigate through its menus.
You can use a touchscreen interface
for the device if you’re willing to connect
it to Wi-Fi and download the free Epson
app, which lets you print from your
phone or tablet and perform most of the
functions you’ll find on the device’s own
screen. It also makes setting up even
easier.
This isn’t the fastest inkjet model
around, with mono print speeds of
around 15 pages per minute (ppm), and
double-sided printing at 6ppm. Black
text looks satisfyingly bold and dark on
plain paper, with no smearing or blotting.
Full colour documents are equally good,
with no banding or blocking, and the
colours are nice and bright. The three
dye-based coloured inks also work well
on glossy photo paper.
VERDICT Expensive to buy but very
affordable to run, this inkjet printer/
copier/scanner is a great addition to any
home office
+++++
ALTERNATIVE Canon Pixma G650
£74 This six-colour ink-tank printer
produces better photos, but it can’t
automatically
print on both
sides of a sheet
CHOOSE THE RIGHT SPECS
Viewing
angles
What are they?
When you sit directly in front of your
computer monitor, laptop screen or TV,
you expect to see the best possible
picture. However, if you move to one
side, you may
find that the
colours start
to change.
The viewing
angle is a way 140° Viewing angle
of specifying
at what point
this distortion
begins to
occur. Think of it in terms of a cone
shape that extends out from the centre
of your screen (as pictured).
How do they work?
Modern screens use a complicated
arrangement of lights, filters and
electronic components, arranged in
many layers, to create each pixel you
see on screen. Depending on how these
layers are arranged, some elements
of a pixel might be obscured by its
neighbouring pixels or some other part
of the screen, if you move too far to one
side. This is when distortion and colour
changes start to appear.
What are the specs?
The viewing angle is measured in
degrees, and may be different for
both horizontal and vertical angles.
On a TV for all the family, you want
several people to enjoy a good view
wherever they’re sitting in the room,
so the latest OLED TVs boast viewing
angles in excess of 178 degrees. It’s
not quite so important with a computer
monitor, which usually only caters for
one person. A reasonable spec here
is around 75 degrees. Some laptops
make a feature of having a more limited
viewing angle, so its users can work
on sensitive information, even when
people are sitting next to them.
Can I change it later?
No, it’s an intrinsic characteristic of a
screen, so can’t be altered.
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 25
 Reviews
EBOOK READER/TABLET [ £450 from Amazon www.snipca.com/40896
Onyx Boox Note Air 2
Read, tap and draw
Made by Chinese firm Onyx Boox, this is
an intriguing device that combines an
ebook reader with aspects of an Android
tablet. It has an E Ink screen, so there
are limitations on what you can do
compared with even the most basic
tablets. However, with Android 11 and the
Google Play Store installed, it provides
many more opportunities than Kindle or
Kobo ebook readers.
A great two-in-one
device if you usually
carry both an e-reader
and tablet
It measures 229x195x5.8mm (HxWxD)
and weighs just 420g. The screen is a
generous 10.3in across the diagonal
(slightly larger than a standard iPad) and
has a resolution of 1404x1872 pixels. It
comes with a Wacom stylus you can use
SPECIFICATIONS
10.3in E Ink Carta touchscreen • 1404x1872-pixel
resolution screen • 4bit greyscale • 4GB RAM • 64GB
storage • Wi-Fi 5 • Bluetooth 5.0 • 229x195x5.8mm
(HxWxD) • 420g • One-year warranty www.snipca.
com/40896
WHAT SHOULD I BUY? We solve your buying dilemmas
Can you suggest a printer without Wi-Fi?
I bought an Epson XP-8600
Q printer about a year ago, but I
don’t get on with it and have
had a few problems with its ink
cartridges. I’d like to replace it with a
simpler model, preferably a Canon,
without wireless or Bluetooth
options, which I struggle to
understand. I’d like it to
scan, copy and print photos
and documents, and print
on both sides of the paper.
David Orchard
26 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
to scribble notes or draw objects
on the screen. The surface has a
slightly rough finish to it, which
does an excellent job of simulating
the feel of writing or drawing on
paper.
If you’re already using a Kindle,
Kobo or other ebook reader, this
could easily replace it. The screen
is as good as you’d expect on this
type of a device and you can
download apps for any service that’s
currently on the Play Store, so you can
access your existing Kobo or Kindle
library of books.
It’s the addition of Android 11 and
the Play Store that makes this really
interesting, though. While the E Ink
screen can’t manage apps with moving
graphics or video, it’s fine for almost
every other kind of app you might use.
From note-taking to office tools, email
software to web browsing, this tablet
can run most things perfectly well. It
won’t replace your tablet if you’re a
gamer or TV watcher, but it’s a great
two-in-one device if you usually carry
(or need to choose between) both an
ebook reader and a tablet.
The Note Air 2 can also play audio. The
tiny speaker won’t produce high-quality
music output, but it’s fine for listening to
There are a few printers around
A that don’t include wireless
connections, such as the Canon
Pixma TS205 (£35.49 from Canon at
www.snipca.com/40903), but they don’t
tend to have many other functions,
either. Once you get into printers that can
also scan and copy, you have
to get a Wi-Fi connection.
However, this doesn’t
mean you have to use it.
The manual will certainly
encourage you to do so,
audiobooks. There’s no headphone jack,
but there is a USB-C port, and it also has
Bluetooth 5.0 for connecting wireless
earphones. There’s also a microphone
you can use to record a meeting or
conduct an interview.
VERDICT An innovative ebook reader
with Android 11 and the Google Play
Store installed, that lets you also carry
out basic tablet tasks
+++++
ALTERNATIVE
Kobo Libra 2 £160
A smaller, cheaper
ebook reader, if all
you want to do is read
books
but there’s usually nothing stopping
you from simply plugging in a USB
cable, and never telling the printer
what your Wi-Fi password is.
In your case we’d recommend an old
favourite – the Canon Pixma TS8350
(£140 from Argos at www.snipca.
com/40901, pictured). It’s a cartridge-
based inkjet printer that produces
stunning photos and good-looking
documents, and prints on both sides.
Do you need advice on what you should buy?
Email us at letters@computeractive.co.uk
 Reviews
WEBCAM [ £60 from Amazon www.snipca.com/40885
Microsoft Modern Webcam
Hard of hearing
This is an affordable webcam that’s easy
to set up and designed to make basic
video calls. It has 1080p Full HD
resolution and comes with a stand you
can use to mount it to the top of your
monitor. It also has a built-in privacy
shield that uses magnets to snap open
and shut – the shut position cuts the
camera feed in addition to actually
covering the lens. When active, a small
ring light lets you know the camera is on.
Being a Microsoft product you’d expect
it to work well with Windows, and it
doesn’t disappoint. You simply plug it
into a USB port and Windows does the
rest. There is a downloadable tool called
the Microsoft Accessory Centre that
SPECIFICATIONS
1080p (1920x1080-pixel) video resolution • 30fps •
Microphone • USB 2.0 • 51x36x75mm • 88g •
One-year warranty www.snipca.com/40885
KEYBOARD [ £65 from Amazon www.snipca.com/40887
Logitech Pop Keys
Not so mellow yellow
There’s no particular reason why
keyboards have to be dull and boring to
look at, but Logitech may have gone too
far the other way with Pop Keys. The
yellow and grey model pictured here is
the least garish of three designs – the
other two are turquoise/purple and
various shades of pink.
If it wasn’t for the bright colours, this
mechanical wireless keyboard would
have a pleasing retro look, not unlike an
old-fashioned mechanical typewriter.
However, the five emoji keys down the
right-hand side undermine any attempt
at sophistication.
SPECIFICATIONS
Logitech Brown mechanical switches • 2x AAA
batteries (last around three years) • Bluetooth 5.1
• 35x138x321mm (HxDxW) • 779g • One-year
warranty www.snipca.com/40887
28 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
provides further options for configuring
the camera, should you want more
control.
The video performance is perfectly
acceptable. It has a 78-degree field of better off with a webcam that comes with
view and the picture looks great in a better built-in mic, such as the Logitech
well-lit environments. It did an effective Brio Stream (see Alternative below).
job of adjusting exposure so our face was
always the most visible element in the
frame, even with a bright light source VERDICT A basic webcam with
behind us. The image was a touch grainy impressive picture quality, but you’ll
in low light, but it didn’t drop frames, so need to use your own microphone
video remained smooth.
The biggest downside is the built-in
+++++
microphone, which picked up a lot of ALTERNATIVE Logitech Brio
buzzing and background noise. Curiously, Stream £173 This
it’s switched off by default, as if even webcam records in
Microsoft isn’t convinced by it. If you 4K resolution and has
already have a decent headset or decent microphones
microphone, it might be well worth using for use in video calls
them instead. If you don’t, you might be
It’s a bit of a shame because the
keyboard feels comfortable to type on. nothing more than a couple of key
The mechanical switches under the keys presses. For PCs without Bluetooth
are made by Logitech, but have a very
similar feel to Cherry’s renowned MX
Brown switches, and make a satisfying
clacking sound as you type. However, we VERDICT A wireless mechanical
found the round keys a bit harder to keyboard that’s pleasant to type on, but
accurately type on than square ones. might be too garish for many
One of the great things about the
keyboard is how it can operate seamlessly
+++++
on three devices, as long as they can all ALTERNATIVE Logitech MX Keys
connect to the keyboard’s Bluetooth Mini £100 This lacks mechanical
signal. You pair the keyboard with each keys, but has a more traditional colour
device you want it to work with, then use scheme
the F1, F2 and F3 keys to switch between
devices. This means you can easily
respond to a text message on your phone
while you’re working on a document on
your laptop, then switch back again with

VIDEO EDITOR [ £87 from Adobe www.snipca.com/40937
Adobe Premiere Elements 2022
Making Sensei of your videos
Adobe’s program simplifies the
complicated process of editing
videos, thanks to its accessible
interface, easy-to-use tools and
creative shortcuts. The three tabs
at the top of the interface –
Quick, Guided and Expert – offer
novices an opportunity to fix
their videos quickly and learn
how to use the program’s more
complex tools, while also
providing experienced users with
plenty of control.
This 2022 update adds a
handful of improved features,
mostly focused on recording
video on mobile phones and
sharing it via social media. Most
social networks have a preferred
aspect ratio for uploaded video,
and Premiere Elements lets you choose
this at the start of the process, assuming
you know where you want to share it.
Alternatively, you can export a finished
video to the specific size you need for
sharing, as well as to more common
presets for TV and tablet screens.
When you choose to create or export a
video in an aspect ratio that’s different to
the original, black borders are added to
avoid cropping the footage. However, you
can choose to use Adobe’s new Sensei AI
reframing tool to fill the frame with the
focus of your action, automatically
cropping any excess footage. We found it
didn’t always work as expected, but it’s
certainly worth a try if you find your
video is the wrong shape.
When you open a vertical video (such
as one recorded on a phone held in
portrait orientation, as pictured above)
the software now automatically sets its
aspect ratio to match the clip. All
additional elements, such as titles and
backgrounds, are resized automatically
when added.
The Guided Edits feature helps you
learn how to use the program’s tools,
with some new tricks included, such as
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Windows 10 or newer • macOS 10.15 or newer • 8GB
RAM • 6.7GB storage space www.snipca.com/40937
Reviews
DO I REALLY NEED...
a Surface Laptop
Studio?
What is it?
The Surface Laptop Studio is the latest
model in Microsoft’s Surface range,
and can be used in both laptop and
tablet mode.
What does it do?
The Studio’s keyboard
is connected to the
back of the screen,
rather than its bottom edge, and uses
a Z-shaped hinge. This lets the device
operate in a standard laptop mode and
as a tablet with the screen flipped over.
However, it can also sit in Stage mode,
which brings the bottom of the screen
over the keyboard. It sits at a slight
angle, hiding the keys but still leaving
the trackpad accessible (as pictured).
adjusting the lighting if video footage is What’s the catch?
too dark. It guides you through opening For the specification, it’s expensive,
and placing a clip into the timeline, using starting at £1,499 for a model with a
the Shadows and Highlights tool, playing 14.4in screen, a Core i5 processor, 16GB
the video to check the effect and of RAM and a 256GB SSD.
exporting it.
At £87, Premiere Elements isn’t cheap, So can I do without it?
but at least this buys you the software to It’s a beautiful laptop, and it’s great to
use forever, rather than having to pay an be able to arrange it in different ways.
annual subscription. You can also buy it However, you can live without it until the
as a bundle with Photoshop Elements price comes down.
2022 for £130. If you only need to do a
little bit of video tweaking, however,
check out the Photos app that comes free NEXT ISSUE
with Windows, as this might be enough
for your needs. On Sale Weds 16 Mar
Asus VivoBook 13
VERDICT Powerful and sophisticated Slate OLED
video-editing program that’s also An affordable 13in
suitable for beginners laptop-tablet with
Windows 11
+++++
ALTERNATIVE Microsoft Photos
Free The free Photos app that comes Hi-Sense A7G
with Windows The best 50in 4K
11 has simple TV you can buy for
video-editing under £500?
tools included,
which is good These and much more...
enough for basic Subscribe to Computeractive at
editing tasks www.getcomputeractive.co.uk
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 29

Buy It
Our pick of products that have won the Buy It award
LAPTOP
Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 (256GB)
£672 from www.snipca.com/39635
Tested Issue 601
Weighing just 1.16kg, this is an
excellent lightweight laptop with a
great screen and an AMD processor
faster than many Intel rivals. It has two
USB-C ports, two USB 3.0 ports and
a microSD card reader. Battery lasts
nearly 16 hours.
ALTERNATIVE Dell XPS 13 New Intel
CPUs and a taller screen make this
a more powerful, all-round slim
laptop. Prices start at £849 from
www.snipca.com/40042
ANDROID TABLET
Samsung Galaxy Tab S7
£541 from www.snipca.com/40822
Tested Issue 623
This performed so well in our most
recent tests that it has ousted the
Lenovo Tab P11 Pro as our favourite.
It has a stunning OLED screen, with
perfect contrast and superb colour
reproduction, and comes with Samsung’s
S Pen stylus for making notes.
ALTERNATIVE Lenovo Tab P11 Pro It’s
slower than the Tab S7 and the screen is
duller, but has a detachable keyboard so
you can use it as a laptop. £499 from
www.snipca.com/40487
30 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
Find out what other products we liked.
Buy our new 2020 Back Issue CD:
£15 from www.snipca.com/38164
DESKTOP PC
Palicomp
Intel Mercury
£600 from www.snipca.com/34223
Tested Issue 576
If you don’t need advanced gaming,
your money’s well spent here on a
six-core Intel i5-9600K processor
overclocked to 5GHz. 16GB of memory
and a full terabyte of fast SSD storage
round off a powerful PC with good
expansion potential.
ALTERNATIVE Chillblast Create Zen
Fast Ryzen 5 CPU plus adequate GPU
makes a superb work PC. £1,700 from
www.snipca.com/35840
APPLE iPHONE
Apple iPhone 12
£679 from www.snipca.com/36582
Tested Issue 595
Released in 2020, this model has a modest
increase in already exceptional processing
power plus even better photos and videos
from the front and twin rear cameras. It
comes in a redesigned case with aluminium
frame and even tougher glass. Consider
paying the £50 extra for 128GB of storage.
ALTERNATIVE iPhone SE With a single
camera and smaller screen but the
same powerful A13 processor and 64GB
storage as the iPhone 11, it’s great value.
£389 from www.snipca.com/34773
202 1 C
COMINGD
SO O N
APPLE iPAD
Apple iPad 10.2in
£319 from www.snipca.com/36178
Tested Issue 566
The basic iPad is great value, especially
now it’s been updated with a powerful
A13 processor and iPadOS 15. It includes
Scribble handwriting recognition with
the £89 Apple Pencil. Storage isn’t
expandable; consider 256GB at £459.
ALTERNATIVE iPad Mini With an even
better, but smaller, screen than the
10.2in iPad, the Mini also supports
the Pencil and has 64GB of storage.
£479 from www.snipca.com/33050
ANDROID PHONE
Xiaomi Poco F3
£315 from www.snipca.com/40078
Tested Issue 608
This Chinese-made phone is
phenomenal for the price. It’s 5G, has a
brilliant screen, and comes with 6GB of
RAM and 128GB storage (256GB costs
£349). Performance is exceptional – in
fact, the only phone under £450 that’s
faster is the iPhone SE.
ALTERNATIVE OnePlus Nord 2 5G
Another Chinese phone, it’s faster than
most rivals at similar prices, has an
excellent screen and a great camera.
£399 from www.snipca.com/39146
 Buy It
Our pick of products that have won the Buy It award
EBOOK READER
Kobo Libra 2
£160 from www.snipca.com/40645
Tested Issue 624
A fantastic 7in screen, 32GB of storage
and Bluetooth connectivity make this a
rival to Amazon’s Oasis ebook reader,
yet it’s £70 cheaper. Battery life is
superb - we managed 54 hours of use
per charge. It supports OverDrive, so
you can borrow ebooks from libraries.
ALTERNATIVE Amazon Kindle This
low-cost option remains a good choice,
especially now it has 8GB of storage.
£50 from www.snipca.com/31621
PC MONITOR
Iiyama ProLite
XU2492HSU-B1
£189 from www.snipca.com/39701
Tested Issue 618
This 23.8in screen is superb value,
with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels.
Colour is good, covering 88 per cent of
the sRGB colour range. Connect your
computer via HDMI, DisplayPort or
VGA, and there’s a USB hub to connect
your mouse and keyboard.
ALTERNATIVE AOC 27P2C
This also has a 1920x1080 resolution but
it’s 27 inches, so pixel density is lower. But
you’ll only notice if you look really closely.
£220 from www.snipca.com/40823
32 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
SECURITY SOFTWARE
Kaspersky Internet
Security 2021
£14.99 from www.snipca.com/21532
Tested Issue 564
Kaspersky Internet Security has won
our past nine antivirus tests and the
2021 version is now available at an
exclusive reader discount on our
Software Store. Go to the link above
for a one-year, one-device licence or
buy a two-year, one-device licence for
just £24.99.
ALTERNATIVE Norton 360 Deluxe
Almost as good as Kaspersky, but
blocks more legitimate software.
£15.99 from www.snipca.com/39570
ROUTER
Netgear Nighthawk RAX80
£300 from www.snipca.com/39013
Tested Issue 603
This is the fastest Wi-Fi 6 router we’ve
ever tested, transferring data at speeds
of 520Mbps in the same and adjacent
rooms of our test house. Also works
with Wi-Fi 5, and comes with four spare
Ethernet ports and two USB ports.
ALTERNATIVE Asus RT-AX82U
Slower than the Nighthawk on Wi-Fi 6,
but faster on Wi-Fi 5, so a better
choice for older devices. Has four
Gigabit Ethernet ports. £180 from
www.snipca.com/37675
WEBCAM
Logitech C925e Business
Webcam
£86 from www.snipca.com/38385
Tested: Issue 608
Despite the name, this webcam is also
great for home users. Its standout
feature is automatically adjusting itself
to keep your picture looking sharp. It
offers a 78-degree field of view, which
is fine for everyday video chats with one
person in front of the camera.
ALTERNATIVE Anker PowerConf C300
Good image quality, crisp audio and
lots of features. £99 from www.snipca.
com/38752
PRINTER
Brother DCP-J1140DW
£135 from www.snipca.com/39967
Tested Issue 620
An excellent and compact 3-in-1
multifunction inkjet printer (print, copy
and scan), with several features rare
at this price: a 6.8cm touchscreen and
double-sided printing. Fast enough for
most home offices.
ALTERNATIVE Brother DCP-J1200W
Great-value printer/scanner/copier that
lacks advanced tools but produces good-
quality prints. £99 from www.snipca.
com/40633

COMPETITION
Win 1 of 3
datAshur SD USB drive
& 128GB microSD Card
The datAshur SD, from UK company
iStorage, is an encrypted USB drive
that works with removable microSD
cards with capacities ranging from
32GB to 1TB. This makes it a unique
and affordable drive that you use with
as many iStorage microSD cards as
required.
MESH ROUTER
DRRIC
BT Whole Home Wi-Fi
£130 from www.snipca.com/26990
Tested Issue 496
BT’s set of three discs, managed
from an Apple or Android app,
connects to your broadband and
spreads high-speed Wi-Fi all around
the house. Reception is far better
than a single router, and the price is
lower than any rival.
ALTERNATIVE Zyxel Multy X
These two pillow-shaped boxes are
powerful enough for most homes and
provide four Ethernet ports apiece.
£265 from www.snipca.com/27309
They’re easy to use. Just insert
your iStorage microSD Card into the
slot and enter your 8-64 digit PIN to
authenticate and use as a normal
flash drive. When the drive is locked,
all data on the iStorage microSD card
is encrypted using AES-XTS 256bit
hardware encryption
In this competition we’re giving
away a datAshur dual pack that
includes iStorage’s KeyWriter
software, which clones other
datAshur SD USB drives with the same
encryption key, allowing you to create a
P SOLID-STATE DRIVE
OP E
Samsung 970 Evo Plus
500GB
£63 from www.snipca.com/31265
Tested Issue 552
Although its price has fluctuated since
we tested it at £99, this remains a
very fast (over 3GB per second) M.2
SSD unfazed by tests that make others
slow to a crawl. Also consider the
Adata XPG SX8200 Pro if you find it a
bit cheaper.
ALTERNATIVE Crucial MX500 500GB
As fast as an SSD can get in the
traditional 2.5in SATA format, this
is a great-value upgrade. £53 from
www.snipca.com/37304
Buy It
secondary drive as a backup.
To enter this competition, answer
the question at www.snipca.
com/40840 and submit your
details. It runs until midnight
Tuesday 15 March. Good luck!
You can buy the datAshur SD dual
pack for £138 from iStorage’s site:
www.snipca.com/40841. For
more information on iStorage
products visit https://istorage-uk.
com and follow @iStorage_ltd on
Twitter.
SMART SPEAKER
Google Nest Audio
£90 from www.snipca.com/36475
Tested Issue 593
Produces a rich, clear sound, and better
understands your questions than
Amazon’s Echo devices. You can use
Google’s app to control audio from
other units around your home (pair two
of them for £160). The clever Ambient
IQ tool increases the volume if it detects
external noise, such as a hairdryer.
ALTERNATIVE Amazon Echo (4th
generation) The latest version of the
Echo changes the shape from a cylinder
to a ball, which improves sound quality
– though the Nest’s is still superior.
£70 from www.snipca.com/36602
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 33
Computeractive 2020
Back Issue CD

LE NOW!
ON SA
CON
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AL AINS
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ISSU26
FROM ES
2
020

Buy it now from Amazon at

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 Pull Out
& Keep

Workshops & Tips Issue 626

14 pages of easy-to-follow workshops and expert tips

35 Save your emails to a 40 Readers’ Tips PLUS
USB stick 44 Phone & Tablet Tips 47 Make Office Better
42 Browser Tips:
38 Delay start-up tools to Watch videos on 46 Make Windows 48 In The Club: Set up a
boot your PC faster Edge's New Tab page Better photo competition

HOW TO...
Save your emails to a
USB stick by Nik Rawlinson

What you need: USB stick Time required: One hour

M
any of us now use our email
inboxes as ad-hoc filing systems,
packed with holiday schedules,
bank statements, and everything in
between. It makes sense to back up that
important information from time to time.
The so-called 3-2-1 rule advises that
an effective backup strategy involves
making three backups on two different
storage types, and keeping at Thunderbird, you have a
least one copy ‘off site’ (ie, not in second copy already, on your
your home). Email meets most computer.
of those requirements. Almost Here, we’ll show you how to
certainly there’s a copy of your make the vital third copy, by
messages online (in the ‘cloud’), saving your most important
or on your internet provider’s messages to a USB stick. We’ll
servers. And, if you’re using an use Gmail, Outlook and
email program like Outlook or Thunderbird as examples.

Delete unwanted emails your inbox, and delete any messages 2

1 Start by using the search box
in your email service to find
messages you no longer need, and
delete them. Naturally, you need to
keep financial documents, receipts for
important purchases, emailed insurance
policies and similar, but this would
be a good opportunity to clear out old
posts from mailing lists, and anything
particularly bulky that you no longer
need.
Emails themselves aren’t particularly
large, even if they’re designed to look like
web pages, with images and formatted
text. What consumes the most space in
your inbox is usually any attachments
they carry. Some services, like Gmail,
support attachments of up to 50GB,
which is bigger than some USB sticks. So,
your first job should be to work through
containing unnecessary attachments,
both to reduce the amount of time
taken to download your archive, and to
maximise the number of messages you 1
can store on your drive.
Filter messages by size in Gmail
Log into your inbox and click in the
search box at the top of the screen
(not the browser’s address bar). Type In Gmail you can search for emails exceeding
has:attachment size:>20mb (see 1 in our a specified size
screenshot above right) and press Enter.
Your inbox will refresh to show just Tick the box beside any message you
those messages with attachments, and want to delete. If you’re not sure about
an overall size (message and attachments one of them, click its subject line to check
combined) of at least 20MB (only 7 in our its contents and, as long as you click the
case 2 ). If you want to be really thorough, left-pointing arrow above the message
you could reduce the 20MB limit by when you’ve finished (as you hover over
amending the value in your search it, ‘Back to Search Results’ appears), you
command, perhaps to size:>10mb. won’t lose your filtered message list.

Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 35

 When you’ve selected all the messages
you want to remove, click the Recycle Bin
icon on the toolbar that appeared above
the list when you ticked the first message.
Filter messages by size in
Outlook
Click the Folder tab on the Outlook
ribbon, then click New Search Folder.
If you have multiple accounts set up,
make sure the one you want to work
with is selected in the dropdown menu
beside ‘Search mail in’ at the bottom of
the panel that appears. Now click ‘Mail
with attachments’ in the Organizing Mail
section then click OK. This creates a new
folder called With Attachments, which
you’ll find in the sidebar, immediately
below ‘Search Folders’.
Click ‘With Attachments’, followed
by View on the ribbon. Next, click Size
in the box at the centre of the ribbon, to
organise the messages by size. You’ll see
four headings at the top of the column
of messages – All, Unread, By Size,
and an arrow. If this arrow is pointing
down, click it so it flips up,
and rearranges the messages so the
largest is on top. Helpfully, Outlook also
splits the messages into groups.
In our case, we have sections for Large
(1-5MB), Small (10-25KB) and Tiny
(<10KB) messages. If we were pushed
for time, we’d clear out unwanted
attachments from messages in the Large
section only.
Filter messages by size in
Thunderbird
Ignore the search box at the top of the
Thunderbird window. Instead, press Alt
to reveal the hidden menu, then click
Edit. Hover over Find and click Search
Tell Thunderbird
to find emails that
have an attachment
above a certain size
4
36 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
How I back up my emails
I’m planning to move my hosted inbox from Google to my own
server. Before I do, I’ll be making a local copy of all my messages
so that, should something go wrong, I’ll still be able to recover
them. I’m debating whether to use the Google Takeout tool to
export everything in an Mbox file, or to set up two inboxes side by
side in an email program and dragging from one to the other. I’ll
probably end up doing both so I have a double back-up.
Nik Rawlinson
How do you back up your emails?
Please let us know: letters@computeractive.co.uk
Messages on the menu that appears. ‘Print’ your emails
If you have multiple accounts set up,
make sure the one you want to work
2 as PDF files
Now that you’ve removed a lot of
with is selected in the dropdown menu unwanted emails, you can start copying
beside ‘Search for messages in’, then the ones you need to keep to your USB
click Subject in the first box of the stick. There are several ways to do this.
search panel, and choose Attachment One of the simplest, if you only want
Status in the menu. Thunderbird will to copy a few emails, is to ‘print’ them
automatically set the other two boxes as PDF files. The benefit of doing this
on that line to ‘is’ ( 1 in our screenshot is that each message will be separated
below) and ‘Has Attachments’ 2 . Click from all the others, making it easy to file.
the ‘+’ at the end of the line 3 . Windows has a built-in PDF printer, so
On the new line that’s appeared below if you want to go down this route, start
the one you’ve just been editing, click by opening the first email you want to
Attachment Status and pick ‘Size (kB)’ export.
from the menu 4 . Click the second In Gmail, click the printer icon above
menu on that line and select ‘is greater the message and, when the printer
than’, then click in the last box and type box appears, click the menu beside
20000 5 . This specifies that you only Destination and select ‘Microsoft Print to
want to find messages that both have an PDF’ (see screenshot below), then click
attachment and are larger than 20MB Print. If you’re using Thunderbird, click
(20,000KB). Click the blue Search button the More button above your message,
at the top right. You can now click the followed by Print. In Outlook, click File,
individual messages in the results panel, followed by Print. For both Thunderbird
and click Delete on any you don’t need to and Outlook, click Print again.
keep. If you’re unsure whether you need Whichever program you’re using
to retain a message or not, double-click it (including Gmail), the File Explorer box
instead to open it in a new tab. will appear. Navigate to your USB stick
then the folder in which you want to save
the email. Type a name in the ‘File name’
box, then click Save. If you want to export
1 2 3
5
If you only need to keep a few emails,
consider ‘printing’ them as PDFs

more than a handful of emails,
though, we’d recommend handling
several at once.
Move your emails
3 in one batch
If you have hundreds or
even thousands of emails to back
up, it makes sense to move them
on to your stick in one batch.
Google has its own service for
exporting emails, as we’ll explain,
but the process for Outlook and
Thunderbird is the same.
Gmail
Open a browser window at www.
snipca.com/40860, which will
redirect you to Google’s Takeout
service. Here, you can export all of
the data and files associated with
your Google Account, including
your photos, documents and
spreadsheets from Drive, and,
crucially, your sent and received messages
in Gmail. Log in using the account whose
messages you want to work with.
Click ‘Deselect all’ at the top of the list
of products, then scroll down to Mail (the
list is alphabetical). Click the box to the
right of the heading, then click ‘All Mail
data included’. This pulls up a list of the
folders associated with your account.
Make sure all of the folders you want to
export are ticked, and any you don’t need
are left unticked, such as Junk and Spam.
Click OK, then scroll to the bottom of the
screen and click ‘Next step’.
The Takeout service can be set to export
your emails to Google Drive, Dropbox,
OneDrive and Box, though because we
want to save our messages to a USB stick
we’ll need to download them locally. So,
leave the option under ‘Delivery method’
set to ‘Send download link via email’( 1
in our screenshot above right).
By default, Takeout will compile
your export just once 2 , but you can
alternatively automate the process by
clicking the button beside ‘Export every
2 months for 1 year’ 3 . Leave the two
options below ‘File type & size’ set to
‘.zip’ and ‘2GB’. The former compresses
your export in a universal format,
which you should be able to load on
any computer. The latter breaks down
the export into 2GB chunks if it’s larger
than that, making it easier to download
over slower or less stable broadband
connections.
Click ‘Create export’ 4 , and Takeout
Next issue: Delete or move files that don’t belong on your C: Drive
Save your emails to a USB stick
1
2 when you click each one, in the
3 Outlook and Thunderbird
4 through the additional step of
will get to work. You’ll eventually receive
an email from Google containing a link to
your archive. Click it and you’ll go back
to the Takeout service, where you can
download the compressed exports. Save
each chunk to your USB stick.
When you unzip your Gmail
downloads, you’ll find two different
kinds of file. One ends .json, and is a
record of your settings, not your emails.
The other ends .mbox. This is a Mailbox
file and contains your messages. To open
this in Windows you’ll need to download
the free program Windows MBox Viewer
– click the green Download button at
www.snipca.com/40864.
Once the Windows MBox Viewer ZIP
file has finished downloading, double-
click it to view its contents, then launch
the ‘mboxviewer.exe’ file it contains.
Windows will warn you that it was
produced by an unknown developer. It is
perfectly safe so click ‘More info’ followed
by ‘Run anyway’.
You now need to tell it where it can
find your downloaded .mbox file. Click
‘File’, followed by Select Folder, then
Use Google Takeout to export your
Gmail messages and it will email you a
download link
navigate to your USB stick and
click OK. The program will detect
your Mbox file and add it to the
sidebar. Click it, and it will index
the messages it contains, then
display them in a classic split
window, with the list of messages
in the top panel and the content,
larger area below.
Because Outlook and Thunderbird
are installed on your computer, your
emails are already saved locally.
You don’t, therefore, need to work
exporting them before saving them
to your USB stick.
Make sure the stick is plugged in,
then open Outlook or Thunderbird, and
select the messages you want to export.
Remember, clicking one message, then
holding Shift while clicking another
selects both of them, and anything in
between in the list. On the other hand,
holding Ctrl while clicking messages adds
each subsequent click to the selection,
but doesn’t select interim entries.
Now, line up your Outlook or
Thunderbird window alongside the
window showing the contents of your
USB drive. The easiest way to do this is to
hold the Windows key while pressing the
left-arrow key, to shift the email program
to the left half of the screen.
Now, switch to the USB stick window,
then hold down the Windows key while
pressing the right arrow key. This shifts
the USB window to the right. Finally,
click one of your selected messages
in the email program, and drag it into
the USB window. Let go, and all the
selected messages will be exported
simultaneously. Their subject lines
will become their new file names – see
‘Security alert.eml’ in our
screenshot left.
If you ever want to read one
of your exported messages
again, simply double-click the
file and it will open.
When you drag messages out
of Outlook or Thunderbird, their
subject lines become their new
file names
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 37
 Workshop
Delay start-up tools to boot
your PC faster
What you need: HiBit Startup Manager
Time required: 10 minutes

P rograms that start automatically with

Windows can make your PC much
slower to boot, but you may not even
realise they’re running. You can use Task
Manager to disable some of these, but it’s
also useful to delay programs so they
don’t all run at once and compete for
system resources. HiBit Startup Manager
makes it easier to manage tools that run
on Windows start-up, letting you remove
those you don’t need and stagger those
you do so they run at different times. It
also lets you disable items temporarily
and scan them for malware using
VirusTotal. HiBit was recently updated to
work with Windows 11, and is free to use,
with several extra features that give you
further control over background processes.

STEP Download HiBit Startup Manager from www.

snipca.com/40875 and run it. In this Workshop
1 we’re using the standard program, but there’s also
a portable version that doesn’t require installation. As is
often the case with tools from independent developers that
make changes to your PC, Microsoft Defender may display a
SmartScreen warning. HiBit Startup Manager is completely
safe to use, so just click the ‘More info’ link 1 then ‘Run
anyway’ 2 . 1

2 1

3
2

STEP When HiBit Startup Manager opens, you’ll see a list of
all programs that are set to run on Windows start-up,
2 for all users of your PC 1 and just the current user
(you) 2 . This includes details of each program’s command line,
publisher and, most importantly, its ‘Startup impact’ 3 .
Programs with a High start-up impact are most likely to slow
your PC, so should be disabled or delayed. Greyed-out entries
have already been disabled.
STEP Double-click a program with High start-up impact to
open a File Information box. This provides more info
3 about that entry, including its size and the date and
time the start-up item was created 1 . To stop the program
running on start-up, close the box, click the Delete button at the
bottom of the HiBit Startup Manager window 2 , then click Yes
to remove it from your start-up list.

38 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626

 1 1

3
2

STEP Alternatively, to ensure the program never runs on
start-up again, right-click it and choose ‘Delete and…’,
4 then ‘Delete & Delete File on Reboot’ 1 . This will
remove the item from both your start-up list and your PC.
Alternatively, to stop it running temporarily, select Disable 2 in
the right-click menu. If you want the program to run on
start-up without slowing your computer, select ‘Add to Delay’ 3 .
STEP You can now decide when that program should run so
it has the least impact on your PC’s speed. Select
5 ‘Manual Delay’ 1 to specify the number of hours,
minutes and/or seconds it should wait after Windows starts.
Alternatively, choose Automatic Delay 2 to set the program to
run when a certain percentage of your CPU or hard drive is idle,
to prevent it from hogging system resources when scarce.

STEP Click ‘OK’ to confirm, then follow the same

steps for other start-up programs you want to
6 delay – choose different times to optimise your
PC’s speed. These items will be added to a Delayed
section at the bottom of the start-up list 1 , where you
can right-click them to edit or remove the delay. To
avoid running anything dangerous, right-click a
program and choose ‘Scan with VirusTotal’ 2 to check
it for malware using that service's multiple antivirus 3
engines 3 .

1
2

3
STEP HiBit Startup Manager offers several other
useful features in its Tools menu 1 . You
7 can view and manage active processes
and services, create system restore points,
schedule Windows tasks and more. The program
can be customised with themes 2 such as Tablet
1 Dark and Metropolis Blue, and you can change its
title-bar colour by clicking the squares in the top-
right corner 3 - we’ve opted for orange.

Next issue: Organise your files online using automated folders Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 39
 Readers’ Tips
TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT
Make bookmarks visible in Microsoft Word
Your tip in Issue 625 (page 47) on
adding bookmarks to Word was
useful, but you didn’t mention that
you can make Word show where the
bookmarks are located. I find this
helps hugely when navigating
large documents – which, as a
semi-retired solicitor, I have to do
often.
First you need to click the File tab,
then Options at the bottom followed
by Advanced. Next, scroll down to
Linda wins a copy of our 2020 Back Issue CD
SEARCH
Use Google’s two-dot trick
to narrow price range
I’ve just realised that you can use
Google’s two-dot search trick for
narrowing results to products that are in
your price range. For example, type
laptops £550..£700 ( 1 in our screenshot
below) and you’ll see a range of machines
at the top of the results 2 . This method
won’t always find the device you want,
but it’s a great start.
David Hughes
1 like brushes, textures and toolkits from
2 on sale at DesignCuts (www.snipca.
Why I stopped using…
Open Hardware Monitor
You’ve recommended
Open Hardware Monitor
(OHM, www.snipca.com/36719)
several times in the past few
years, and initially I was
impressed. But recently it
started to give strange results.
And what I use instead...
In particular, OHM was giving
40 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
the ‘Show document content’
heading and tick the ‘Show
bookmarks’ box. Now simply click
OK to make the change.
Once you’ve done that, any
bookmarks added to highlighted
text or images will be shown as
square brackets ( 1 in our screenshot),
while those placed elsewhere will 2
appear as a thin vertical cursor 2 ,
like an I-beam shape.
Linda Bullen
Buy it on Amazon www.snipca.com/38164
HARDWARE
Use Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite
for drawing
I was pleased to see your feature on
styluses in Issue 624 (page 62),
because I’ve often thought this is a much
underappreciated area of computing.
Since about 2010 I’ve bought several
tablets specifically to draw and write on,
and the best by far is the Samsung Galaxy
Tab S6 Lite (pictured below, £299 from
www.snipca.com/40834). It comes with
the S Pen, which is fast and smooth to
what I thought were inaccurate readings
of my processor’s
temperature. I switched
to CoreTemp (www.
alcpu.com/CoreTemp),
which appears to give
more realistic data in
real time.
Most of the info you
need is in a small box
(see screenshot), with
1
use, fitting into the hand comfortably.
Samsung’s own Note app works
brilliantly at syncing everything you
write.
Charles Gillies
APPS
Buy brushes and textures
for Procreate
Paul Easton is right to recommend
the drawing app Procreate (www.
snipca.com/40718, see Issue 625, page
40). I’ve been using it to draw landscapes
and portraits on my iPad. What he might
not know is that you can buy extra features
Procreate’s community of artists.
To start, have a look at the options
com/40670). These cost about $20
(£14.80). I can recommend the Realistic
Watercolor Toolkit ($18 from www.
snipca.com/40798, pictured above right),
which has helped me create some pretty
processor temperature at the bottom,
next to each core. If you want to take a
screenshot of it any time, simply select
Tools, then Screenshot. This downloads
to your PC as a PNG file.
Just be careful when you first install
it to untick the box asking you to play
the game Goodgame Empire. Naughty!
Chris Irons
Tell us why you stopped using a website, app
or program: letters@computeractive.co.uk

decent work (even if I do say so myself!).
Simon Hunt
HARDWARE
Make sure Chrome is saving
your passwords
I hate having to remember
passwords, so I’m thankful that the
browsers I use (Chrome mostly, but
occasionally Firefox) remember them for
me. But Chrome seemed to do this
erratically – saving some (for eBay and
BBC, for example), but not others (BT,
Virgin Money, Lloyds and more).
I spent ages in Chrome’s ‘Security &
privacy’ section (go there by clicking the
dots top right, then Settings) trying to
work out why, but gave up. Then I looked
in a section called ‘Auto-fill’ ( 1 in our
screenshot below), not holding out much
hope. However, clicking the Passwords
heading revealed all the passwords I
currently use. These are under the ‘Saved
Passwords’ heading. I scrolled down until
I came to a ‘Never saved’ heading 2 . A-ha!
Here were all the passwords that Chrome
wasn’t remembering. I didn’t know why
Chrome had stopped doing this – or even
whether it ever did. Maybe it was my
fault?
Anyway, I made a note of the unsaved
accounts, then signed into them and told
Chrome to save the password when it
asked me. I then returned to Chrome’s
‘Auto-fill’ section and saw my newly
saved password in the ‘Saved Passwords’
list. Success!
Moral of this story? Seek password
help in Chrome’s Auto-fill section, not
‘Security & privacy’.
Sheila Rowlands
1 laptop with fans that
Handy hints and tips from your fellow readers
Email us your tips: letters@computeractive.co.uk
Reader recommends…
Evoluent Left Handed Vertical Mouse 4
£90 from Amazon www.snipca.com/40789
Prolonged computer
work resulted in my
wrist and forearm aching
quite badly every time I
used a mouse. I
therefore bought a
left-handed Evoluent
Vertical mouse which
admittedly looked strange
at first, but as soon as I
started using it I realised my
wrist and arm were in a stress-free
and very comfortable position.
It prevents your forearm from
twisting, which ultimately led to the
SOFTWARE
Open ‘Save as’ box to change
IrfanView file quality
Like Rob Hindle (‘Why I stopped
using IrfanView’, Issue 624, page
40), I was disappointed when the program
removed the ‘Save for web’ option as this
was a means of reducing storage space
1 HARDWARE
2 used to the noise, but the overheating
2 the only
pain disappearing for good.
Operating the mouse is exactly
the same as any other – you
just hold it differently.
Yes, it’s more
expensive than some
non-ergonomic mice,
but it’s worth it for
the pain relief, and is
well made so should
last a few years.
Stefan Kuc
Want to recommend hardware or software
to fellow readers?
Email letters@computeractive.co.uk
with minimal loss of quality. But I then
realised I could achieve the same result
by clicking File, then ‘Save as’. It makes a
box pop up with options for saving
images as JPEGs and GIFs (I use the
former). In the JPEG section, the top
option is a slider to adjust the quality ( 1
in our screenshot below left). The bottom
option 2 allows you to set the size of the
resulting file, which can improve quality.
Terry Dicker
Buy a ‘cooling pad’ to reduce
laptop temperature
Like David Ludlow (‘How I Use
BIOS’, Issue 625, page 20), I was
plagued by noisy fans. Mine was in a
laptop though, not PC, and no amount of
BIOS fiddling could fix it. I eventually got
was more irritating. It felt like my lap and
palms were on fire! I alleviated the
problem by buying a ‘Chill Mat Cooling
Pad’ from a company called Targus (£28
from Amazon www.snipca.com/40832,
pictured below). It helps to circulate and
disperse the heat, so my laptop no longer
feels like it’s about to
catch fire. Long
term though,
genuine
solution is
buying a new
don’t go crazy all the time.
Ian Woods
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 41
 Browser Tips
CHROME
Display Chrome’s new
permission prompts
Google has redesigned the messages
that Chrome displays when a website
asks for permission to know your location,
use your camera or microphone, or send
you notifications. Its research found that
most users simply dismiss these prompts
by clicking Block, so the browser will
now show less annoying ‘request chips’.
These appear in your address bar when a
website requires your permission to
perform a specific action (see screenshot
below), rather than being triggered
automatically as soon as you open the
site. Most chips only show their full
messages when clicked, so they’re much
easier to ignore than the current pop-up
prompts.
The new design is being rolled out
gradually, but you can enable it now
through Chrome’s Experiments page.
Type chrome://flags into the address bar,
press Enter and search for permission-
chip. Click the dropdown menus next to
all three matching entries, select Enabled
and relaunch Chrome.
WORKSHOP Stop Edge running in the background
2 1
1 You can check if Edge is running in the
background using the Windows Task
Manager. Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open
Task Manager and see if Microsoft Edge
is listed 1 . Right-click it and choose ‘End
task’ 2 to close Edge’s background
process.
42 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
You’ll now find
permission requests much
less frequent and irritating.
You can learn more about
the new chips in the
Chrome Developers blog at
www.snipca.com/40843.
EDGE
Watch videos on
your New Tab page
The most visually appealing aspect
of Edge is the ‘Image of the day’ it
displays on your New Tab page – a feature
Microsoft also uses on the Bing homepage
and the Windows 10 and 11 lock screen
(when you have Spotlight enabled). These
pictures are always interesting to look at,
stunningly photographed and often
contain bits of information about their
subjects that you can click to learn more.
Edge has now added the option to
show videos on your New Tab page,
though – wisely, to stop auto-playing
clips slowing your computer – this needs
to be turned on manually.
To do so, click the Page Layout cog
in the top-right corner of the page and
choose Custom. In the
Background section, select
the option ‘Image or video
of the day’ (see screenshot
above right). To get the full
benefit of the photo or
video, click the dropdown
menu below Content and
choose ‘Content off’ or
‘Headings only’ to hide
other content on the page.
2 2
1
2 To stop Edge running automatically when
you start your PC and after you close the
program, click the browser’s three-dot menu
button and choose Settings, then ‘System
and performance’ 1 . Click the slider next to
‘Startup boost’ 2 to disable the option.
For the videos to play in Edge (you can
click to pause them, by the way), Windows
needs to be set to show animations. In
Windows 10, go to Settings, then ‘Ease of
access’, click Display and switch on the
‘Show animations in Windows’ option. In
Windows 11, go to Settings, Accessibility
and click ‘Visual effects’, then turn on
‘Animation effects’.
Some users have recently found that
Edge runs in the background even when
not in use. See our Workshop below to
learn how to stop this happening.
FIREFOX
Save a whole web page
as a single file
Although browsers let you
download web pages as HTML files
by right-clicking them and choosing
‘Save as’ or Save Page As, the results are
usually pretty poor. Unless a page is
entirely text-based, the images, fonts and
other style elements won’t be properly
preserved, which makes the file look a bit
of a mess and the content difficult to
browse offline.
A new Firefox extension called
3 You can also reduce the amount of
processing power Edge uses to stop
it draining your laptop battery. In the
Optimise Performance section, click the
dropdown menu next to ‘Turn on efficiency
mode when’ 1 and select Always 2 or
Unplugged.

BEST EXTENSION FOR… Scanning downloads for malware
VT4Browsers
Chromium www.snipca.com/40849
Firefox www.snipca.com/40850
Most browsers now warn you about some
dangerous downloads, but for total peace
of mind you should install VT4Browsers.
From the team behind VirusTotal
(https://virustotal.com), this extension
sends files you download to that website,
where they are scanned for malware
using 57 antivirus engines, from
companies including Avast, Kaspersky
and Malwarebytes. You can then click
to view a report and check whether the
file contains anything suspicious before
you open it.
There’s also an option to pause the
SingleFile (www.snipca.com/40847)
improves this option considerably by
letting you save a whole web page to your
hard drive, including all text, images, fonts,
frames and styling. It’s very easy to use:
simply right-click a page and choose ‘Save
page with SingleFile’ (see screenshot above)
from the SingleFile menu. This will
download an HTML file to your Downloads
folder, with all the content intact.
The add-on also offers useful options
for annotating pages before you save
them, such as by highlighting text and
adding sticky notes, and for removing
unwanted elements. You can even
download all your open tabs (or just
selected ones) as HTML files in one go.
CHROMIUM
Listen to music on YouTube
without the videos
More people
listen to music
on YouTube than on Spotify and Apple
Music combined, even though Google
would prefer us to use its dedicated
Secret settings and the best extensions
download until scanning is complete (see
screenshot). Additionally, VT4Browsers
music-streaming service YouTube Music.
But when you want to play songs in the
background, their accompanying videos
can prove a distraction and needlessly
consume bandwidth and system resources
– especially because many clips aren’t
even ‘official’ ones.
A new extension called ‘Music Mode for
YouTube’ (www.snipca.com/40845)
solves this problem by blocking videos on
the site so that only the audio content is
played. It can also hide the thumbnail
helps you avoid visiting malicious web
pages, by right-clicking links and choosing
‘Scan selected link’ or ‘Scan current page’.
VirusTotal is now owned by Google, so as a
privacy precaution you may want to untick
the option to send it ‘anonymous passive
DNS data’.
If you don’t like that, try…
OPSWAT File Security
Chromium www.snipca.com/40851
This extension from cybersecurity
company OPSWAT lets you right-click
download links on web pages to scan them
for malware or set it to scan downloaded
files automatically. It also keeps a history of
all the files it’s scanned.
images for videos and skip ads,
effectively turning the site into the
biggest jukebox in the world.
The add-on also works on
YouTube Music and on YouTube
videos embedded in other websites.
It can be easily switched off and on
by clicking the ‘Show/Hide the
video’ icon it adds to the YouTube
player’s controls, or by clicking its
toolbar button to enable it for all
videos or only the current tab (see
screenshot left).
CHROMIUM
Automatically skip intros and
recaps on Netflix
One drawback to
binge-watching
TV series on Netflix is that you have to
keep selecting ‘Skip intro’ and ‘Skip
recap’ to avoid sitting through content
you’ve only just seen. You can now fix
this inconvenience by installing Netflix
Skipper (www.snipca.com/40848), a new
extension that skips intros and
recaps automatically, as well as
prompts to watch the next
episode. Just open Netflix and
click its toolbar button to select
the options you want to skip
(see screenshot left). Sadly, you
can only use the add-on when
watching Netflix in your
browser, so you’ll still need to
grab your remote control to
skip content on your smart TV
or streaming device.
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 43
 Phone and Tablet Tips
ANDROID & iOS
Try YouTube’s new full-screen
video player
The best way to watch YouTube
videos on your phone or tablet is
to switch from the app’s standard player
to full-screen mode. This lets you make
optimum use of available screen space
and get a closer viewing experience to
that offered by your TV.
The trouble is that going full-screen
means you lose access to YouTube’s
controls, unless you swipe up on the
video. The app has now been updated to
fix this problem, showing buttons
including ‘like’ and ‘dislike’, ‘Add to
playlist’ and ‘Share’, in the bottom-left
corner of full-screen mode (see
screenshot above). These appear when
you press your screen and are transparent
so they don’t obstruct your view.
There’s also an option to read viewer
comments, which opens a Comments
panel on the right-hand side of your
screen, and another for browsing related
videos, labelled ‘More videos’. Switching
to and from full-screen mode still
involves tapping the icon in the bottom-
BEST NEW APPS What you should install this fortnight
DeepL Translate
Free
Android www.snipca.com/40919
iOS www.snipca.com/40932
New to Android, this translation app provides
a faster and simpler
alternative to Google
Translate, and
linguists say it’s also
more accurate. It
uses AI to detect
and translate to and
from 26 languages,
including Bulgarian,
Chinese, Finnish and
Russian, and you
can tap to hear the
spoken result.
44 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
right corner of the player window, but
this redesign makes YouTube easier to
watch on your phone and tablet.
ANDROID
Play Edge’s surf game
on your new tabs
To play Edge’s Surf game on your
phone or tablet, you either have to
wait until you lose your internet
connection or type edge://surf into the
browser’s address bar and tap Enter. An
update to the Edge app for Android lets
you launch the game directly from your
New Tab page, but the option is currently
an ‘experiment’.
To unlock it, type edge://flags into the
address bar, press Enter and search for
Edge NTP surf game entry (see screenshot
1 below). Select ‘Enabled’ in the
dropdown menu below it, restart the
browser and open a new tab. You’ll now
see an animated surfer icon in the
bottom-right corner of the page that you
1 2
Bizarre Travel: Unique Trips
Free
iOS www.snipca.com/40934
Now that holidays are allowed again, why limit
yourself to the same old destinations? Bizarre
Travel recommends
unusual places to
explore, eat and stay
in countries all over
the world, based
on your tastes and
budget, so you can
venture off the
beaten tourist track.
It’s currently free,
but may eventually
become a paid-for
app.
can tap to open the game. Double-tap
your screen to start playing.
At the time of writing, the game was
the winter-themed skiing version (see
Issue 622, page 42), but by the time you
read this it should have reverted to the
surfing one. You can also unlock the
option to share your Surf score with other
people. Go back to the edge://flags page
and enable the entry Edge surf game new
share feature switch to display a Share
button at the end of each game (see
screenshot 2 ). The game has three modes
to choose from – Endless, Time Trial and
Zigzag – which you can switch between
by tapping the cog in the top-right corner.
ANDROID & iOS
Make messages vanish in
Messenger
Facebook (we still can’t get used
to calling it Meta) has updated
its Messenger app with the useful ability
to make your messages disappear after
they’re seen. The Snapchat-style feature,
called Vanish Mode, has been available in
the US since last November and is now
rolling out worldwide.
To use Vanish Mode, open an existing
one-on-one chat in Messenger (it doesn’t
work in group chats), then swipe up from
the bottom of your screen and you’ll see a
message telling you to ‘Swipe for vanish
mode’. Keep dragging your finger until
the circle icon is completely filled. Your
current chat will be replaced by a blank
Vanish Mode screen.
LoWeather
Free*
Android www.snipca.com/40935
Some weather apps cram in too much
information, but LoWeather’s streamlined
design gives you all
the data you need
at a glance. Search
for your location
to view today’s
forecast, including
temperature, wind
speed and humidity,
tap to see conditions
for the next five days
and switch to dark
mode when using
the app at night.
*Contains in-app purchases

1 2
The first time you use the feature, you’ll
see some information about how Vanish
Mode works (see screenshot 1 above).
Type and send a message or share a
photo, sticker, GIF or emoji, and as soon
as the other person has seen it and closes
the chat, the content will automatically
disappear. To switch back to a standard,
non-vanishing chat, tap ‘Turn off vanish
mode’ at the top of the screen (see
screenshot 2 above) or swipe up from the
bottom of your screen again.
ANDROID & iOS
Delete your activity data
from Instagram
Instagram has made it easier to
remove details of your past
activities from the app, including your
posts, comments and ‘likes’. To access
these new controls, tap the three-line
button in the top-right corner of your
profile page and
choose ‘Your
activity’. Here you’ll
see options to view
all the photos and
videos you’ve shared,
your interactions
with other people,
the things you’ve
searched for and
other activity data
(see screenshot left).
Long-press an item
to select it, then tap
Delete to remove it from your account
and public view. There’s also an option to
download your data before you delete it.
ANDROID & iOS
Hide unwanted options
in the Gmail app
Gmail used to be renowned for
its simplicity, but Google is
increasingly using the mobile app to
promote its other communication tools.
If your employer uses Google Workspace,
Gmail’s integration with Chat, Spaces and
Brilliant things to do on your device
Meet can undoubtedly be very useful, as and choose Settings at the bottom of the
a means of starting and joining text, menu. Select your Gmail account, then
audio and video chats. But otherwise swipe down to the General section and
their tabs just take up valuable space at deselect the Chat option to hide both the
the bottom of your screen, Chat and Spaces tabs (see
and are easy to open screenshot left). Swipe
accidentally when all you down further to the Meet
want to do is check your section and untick ‘Show
email. the Meet tab for video
Thankfully, it’s easy to calling’. Gmail will restart
remove these unwanted without the row of tabs
options to reclaim screen along the bottom (the Mail
space and make Gmail tab will also disappear).
focus on your messages. Tap
the three-line button in the
top-left corner of the app
BEST APPS FOR... Alternatives to Wordle
Letterpress
Free*
Android www.snipca.com/40938
iOS www.snipca.com/40939
Letterpress is a simple but addictive word
game that you play against either a bot, a
friend or a random opponent. The aim is to
control as much of the 5x5-tile board as
possible by creating words using letters
close to the other person’s selection. The
longer the word, the more points you score.
Best For Testing your vocabulary skills
SpellTower
Free*
Android www.snipca.com/40944
iOS www.snipca.com/40945
SpellTower is a cross between Wordle
and Tetris. The premise is simple: build
words by tracing your finger around
adjacent letter tiles. When you find a word,
the letters disappear and the tower of tiles
adjusts accordingly until they’re all gone.
There are several modes to choose from
to keep things interesting.
Best For Combining words with strategy
Typeshift
Free*
Android www.snipca.com/40948
iOS www.snipca.com/40947
Typeshift is an anagram-themed game
that challenges you to unscramble and
create as many words as you can. Swipe
the letters in the columns up and down to
form words in the centre row, until all
permutations have been found. A display
quirk on Android cuts off the bottom of
the screen, but the game is still playable.
Best For Anagram-themed challenges
*Contains in-app purchases
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 45
 Make Windows Better
WINDOWS 10 & 11
Use WhatsApp Beta
in dark mode
Many people prefer using
WhatsApp on a computer
than their phone because
they find it easier to type on a physical
keyboard than on a phone’s touchscreen.
The bigger screen also helps. You can
download a desktop version of WhatsApp
from www.whatsapp.com/download,
but it’s better to use the app from the
Microsoft Store (www.snipca.com/40905)
because it uses fewer system resources
than a traditional program.
If you’re a prolific WhatsApp user,
consider installing the beta version of the
app. It’ll give you the chance to try new
features early, such as the dark mode
added in February.
To select it, click General on the main
Settings page, then choose Dark (see
screenshot below). Once set, it will be
applied across the whole of WhatsApp
Beta, not just the chat background.
WINDOWS 10 & 11
Add ‘Safe Mode’ option to
your right-click menu
One of the smartest
things about Windows-
customisation programs
like Winaero Tweaker (https://winaero.
com) is that they let you add new options
to the right-click context menu. But you
don’t need to download any software to
add some options to this menu – you can
run a registry script instead.
Here, we’ll explain how to add an
option to run your computer in Safe
Mode. First, search for and open Notepad,
then visit our Pastebin page (www.
1 There are plenty of
2 colour of your folder icons, but one of the
46 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
Expert tips for every version
WINDOWS 10 & 11
Stop ‘Feature’ updates installing
on your PC
Installing Microsoft’s ‘Take Control’ button at the bottom ( 1
twice-yearly ‘Feature’ in our screenshot) and this will change
updates can be to a green message: ‘YOU are in control…’.
unnerving because you never know Once activated, the tool will block
whether they will cause problems, any feature updates, though monthly
such as disabling settings you’ve (security) updates will still be allowed.
carefully configured. There are ways to You can even tell InControl which
delay updates, but they involve version of Windows you want to
tweaking the registry or upgrading to upgrade to – when it becomes available
Windows 10 or 11 Pro. It’s much – by changing the numbers at the
cheaper and easier to use the new bottom left 2 .
program InControl (created by the
developers that built Never10 in 2016 to
stop Microsoft automatically installing
Windows 10 on your computer). 2
Visit www.grc.com/incontrol.htm,
then click the small, green ‘Download
now’ button in the grey panel. It’s a
portable tool, so should run
1
automatically. You’ll see a message in
red saying ‘OS upgrades are not under
your control on this system’. Click the
snipca.com/40906) and copy the open the app once it’s installed, click the
command from it (we’ve haven’t Add button at the top, then navigate and
published it here because it’s too long). select the folder on your computer.
Paste it into Notepad, then click File at Next, click Colors ( 1 in our screenshot
the top left, followed by Save As. Name below) under Libraries, pick a colour,
the file Safe Mode.reg, then select All then click OK. This will change the colour
Files in the ‘Save as type’ dropdown of the inside of the folder 2 , keeping the
menu. Once saved, double-click the file front cover yellow. To apply the colour to
to open it, and follow the prompts to the whole folder, click Full Colors 3
launch it. When that’s done, right-click under Libraries. You can also add icons,
your desktop and you’ll see the new Safe categorised as Work and Everyday.
Mode option ( 1 in our screenshot below
left). Click that, and you’ll see four
further options 2
Note that in Windows 11 you may have
to click ‘Show more options’ when you
right-click the desktop, in order to see the 1
Safe Mode option you’ve just added.
WINDOWS 10 & 11 2
Change the colour
of your folder icons
programs that let you
change the design and
simplest is FolderIco, now available from
3
the Microsoft Store. To download it, visit
www.snipca.com/40907 and click Get.
To change the colour of existing folders,
Make Office Better
MICROSOFT WORD & LIBREOFFICE WRITER
Add vertical dividing lines between columns
If you use
column
layouts in your
documents, you should consider
inserting vertical lines between
each column to make sure they
are clearly separated.
To do this in Word, place your
cursor within a column then
open the Layout tab, click the
Columns dropdown menu
and select More Columns.
In the box that opens, tick the
‘Line between’ box ( 1 in our
screenshot), followed by OK. You can
change the gap between the line and
MICROSOFT EXCEL
Track your blood pressure
Mastering the finer points of
Excel can be stressful, so it’s apt
that Microsoft offers a template
for tracking your blood pressure.
Download it from www.snipca.
com/40876, then add your name at
the top. Scroll down and you’ll see
columns for time, date, AM/PM, systolic
pressure, diastolic pressure, heart rate
and notes. Enter your data here and it
will be reflected in the chart above (see
screenshot below). You can click the
dropdown menus to search results and to
re-order them (smallest to largest, and
vice versa), which could help you identify
when your health is most at risk.
LIBREOFFICE CALC
Master Calc’s new
autocomplete function
The latest version of LibreOffice
(7.3, released in February) adds a
more advanced autocomplete
function. To explain how it works,
LibreOffice provides the example of
typing the following into a spreadsheet:
ABCD123xyz
ABCD345qwel
Top tips for MS Office & LibreOffice
1 It’s a similar process in
2 to go, then click Layout followed
the columns 2 , and see how this looks in
the Preview box 3 .
2 used and apply it to another part of your
1 How you access this tool depends on
ABCD123pqr
ABCD123xyz
PQR
If you then typed A in the cell below
( 1 in our screenshot above), Calc will
suggest BCD 2 as the autocomplete
option, which you can select by pressing
Enter or the right-arrow key. If you then
type ABCD1, Calc will suggest ABCD123.
Finally, if you type ABCD123x, Calc will
suggest ABCD123xyz.
This new step-by-step approach
recognises differences between what
you might want much earlier in the
sequence. It suggests BCD – and only BCD
– because it knows you then
have two options: 123xyz
and 345qwel. Only once
you’ve opted for 123 does
Calc then suggest pqr or
xyz. Previous versions of
Calc didn’t make such an
early distinction between
similar pieces of text.
LibreOffice Writer. Place your
cursor where you want the line
by Page Columns. Next, click the
dropdown menu and select
More Options at the bottom to
3 bring up the Page Style box.
Now click the Separator Line
dropdown menu and choose the
line style you want. You’ll notice
that these are horizontal in the
menu, but they will be vertical
when added to your document.
You can also change the width, colour
and height.
MICROSOFT POWERPOINT
Match colours in slides using
the Eyedropper tool
PowerPoint has a wide range of
default colours you can use in
your slides, but the Eyedropper
tool lets you pick a colour you’ve already
presentation, making it a more precise
method of getting the right colour.
whether you’re adding colour to a font,
shape or object, so select the element in
the usual way using your cursor. If you’re
selecting a font, click the dropdown
menu next to Font Color and choose
Eyedropper. If it’s a shape, choose Shape
Fill, then Eyedropper. If it’s an object,
choose Picture Border, then Eyedropper.
In all three cases your cursor will turn
into an eyedropper icon. Now move this
icon over the colour you want to match
and you’ll see the small preview box
change to that colour ( 1 in our screenshot
below), giving you an idea of what it
would look like, along with its RGB
value 2 . Finally, simply click to apply that
colour to your selected item (font, shape
or object) and you’ll see it change.
1
2
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 47
 In The Club
Run a club or society? Here's how your tech can make it easier
Set up an online photo competition
W ho doesn’t love a photo competition?
They’re a great way to engage with
members, they bring attention to your
club and – most importantly – they’re
fun. Here, we’ll explain how to run a
photo competition in which members
vote for the winner. We’re using PollUnit
(www.pollunit.com), which makes the
whole process a breeze.
Create a voting 'unit'
The free version of PollUnit lets you
upload 20 images and allows up to 40
people to have a vote. To avoid hitting
your image limit too quickly, it's a good
idea to ask entrants to email you their
photos first, so you can narrow them
down to the final 20 once the deadline
has passed.
The other main restriction is that the
photo files you upload can’t be bigger
than 5MB. You can resize this to fit, but it
may be better to set a maximum file size
in the competition rules.
Alternatively, consider upgrading to
the Premium package (www.snipca.
com/40873), which costs just €7 (around
£5.90) for one month, or €3 a month for
one year. This increases your limits to 50
photos, 200 voters and 50MB per photo.
Once you have gathered all the photos,
you need to create a voting ‘unit’. To do
this, sign up for a PollUnit account by
clicking Register. Enter your name, email
address and password, then click Sign
Up. Check your email inbox for a
confirmation email and click the link
contained within it to confirm your
account, then log into PollUnit.
Next, click Create PollUnit,
then Photo Contest in the
pop-up box. Now you need to
enter a title and (optionally)
your location, as well as a
description.
There are plenty of options
for how members can vote
– the simplest of these is a star
Once you've assembled your
photo competition gallery,
members can provide a rating
48 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
2
Give the photo and photographer a name, and rotate the image if you need to
rating out of five. You can also opt for a
system of Likes, Dot-Voting (similar to a
star rating) and Range-Voting (you choose
a minimum and maximum value). Click
‘Next’ when you’ve finished.
Upload your photos
Now upload your chosen images by
dragging them from your computer into
PollUnit’s website, and clicking Upload.
Make sure you click the ‘Yes, I accept the
conditions for uploads’ box. Once they're
all uploaded, scroll down and enter a
photo name ( 1 in our screenshot above)
and name of the photographer 2 for each
entry. If any images are the wrong way
round, use the Rotate image option 3 to
Next issue: Use Excel to track your membership payments
1
3
correct the orientation. Click ‘Next’ when
you’ve finished.
You can now choose your own photo
background if you have a paid-for
account. If not, choose one of the ‘Public
Themes’. Click ‘Next’ again and you’ll be
taken to the final screen, offering more
options, many of which are available only
in the paid-for packages. In the Premium
version, for example, you can set start
and end dates, lock voting to those with
an invite link, and randomise the layout
of images to prevent voting bias
Click the Finish button and you’ll see a
link to the voting gallery. Email this to
members, and they’ll be able to rate
images by clicking the stars (see
screenshot left). They will then be
prompted to do this as a guest, to enter
their name, or create an account.
When you’re ready to close the
competition, return to PollUnit and log
into your account. Click your name in the
top menu, then select My Poll Units. Click
the three dots next to your competition
and select Close PollUnit. Now click the
three dots again and select the Admin
link. You can now use the Filter
dropdown menu to sort photos by votes,
ranking them from highest to lowest.
What’s All the
Fuss About...
Surge pricing
The ‘smart’ idea to make you use energy more efficiently

What is it?
It’s the business strategy of increasing
the price of goods or services when there
is the greatest demand for them. It’s
associated chiefly with one company:
Uber.

Who are they again?

The world’s biggest ride-hailing service.
By tapping the Uber app on your phone
(see screenshot below), you can request a
lift from a registered driver. Most of the
time they charge a fixed price, but
during busy periods – “bad weather, rush
hour and special events” (www.snipca.
com/40908) – the company applies surge
pricing, raising prices until things go
back to normal.

So it’s simply supply and

demand?
Yes, from paragraph one, page one of any
economics textbook. Airlines use a
similar method to raise ticket prices
when demand is high (during holidays
mostly), but Uber has taken it to a new
level by using secret algorithms that
analyse demand in real time. Nobody
outside the company knows by how
much prices rise, and what level of
demand triggers it.
Is it legal?
Yes, though some court cases have tried
to ban it, or at least restrict when it can
be used and limit by how much prices
can rise. It remains a controversial
system, and is seen as exploitative by
some consumer groups. However, surge
The prices
quoted in
Uber’s app
shoot up
when the
company
applies surge
pricing
pricing will soon extend beyond Uber
and into millions of households across
the UK.
Why? What’s happening?
Scottish Power, EDF and Octopus Energy
– who combined have 11 million
customers – are backing a scheme
proposed by energy regulator Ofgem that
will monitor electricity usage to increase
prices during peak times, and reduce
them when there’s less demand.
How will it work?
Smart meters will send readings every
30 minutes to show how much electricity
is being used. These devices are now
installed in around 25 million homes and
businesses, so energy firms will have
plenty of data to analyse as they adjust
prices during the day. Currently, you have
to ‘opt in’ to tell your meter to send this
data, though by 2025 all new devices will
do so automatically. Customers who
already have a smart meter won’t be
affected unless they enter a new contract.
Will it mean more expensive bills?
Lower actually, Ofgem claims. It hopes
that once people get used to the concept,
they’ll start to change their habits to use
less electricity during peak periods,
saving UK customers “billions of pounds”
every year.
But does that mean running the
washing machine at 2am?
Well, maybe not that late, but the
principle is correct: you’ll pay less for
your electricity when demand is low.
Demand peaks in the morning and
early evening, so you’d probably save
money by doing a wash at 10pm, say,
rather than 7pm.
It’s also good for the planet, Ofgem
says, because it spreads the burden on the
national grid over the course of a day,
rather than squeezing it into a couple of
hours. Experts say this will help the UK
cope with the mass switch to electric
vehicles. But there’s one thing Ofgem
doesn’t mention.
What’s that?
The phrase ‘surge pricing’ itself, which
thanks to Uber has negative connotations.
Ofgem prefers the more neutral term
‘time of use tariffs’, and hopes the public
will too. Prices are surging enough
already as it is.

Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 49

 COVER FEATURE
Your Complete Guide to
SSDS
Installing a solid-state drive is
the most effective way to give
your computer a speed boost,
but it’s easy to go wrong.
Nik Rawlinson explains what
type of SSD you need and
how to install it safely
WHAT YOU CAN DO
• Open and save files up to 20
times faster than on a hard drive
• Make your laptop battery last
longer than ever before
• Discover which SSD type is the
right fit for your computer
• Create a Windows installation
drive using a 8GB-plus USB stick
• Run Windows from an SSD by
cloning your hard drive
• Re-use your old hard drives for
backing up or storage
• Get O&O DiskImage 17 for just
£10 with an exclusive reader
discount
50 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
H
ard drives are fragile, mechanical
devices, which are spinning up
and slowing down the whole
time you’re using your
computer. The heads that read and write
your data can neither be too close, nor too
far from the disk surface as they reposition
themselves. Should you jog or jolt your
computer when the drive is in motion, it
will try to secure the heads so they don’t
crash into the disk surface and scratch your
data out of existence.
When damage does occur, or sectors
wear out, your drive can usually work
around the problem by copying any data
that’s in danger to a safer part of the disk.
However, it can only do this so many times.
As more and more of a disk is marked as
unusable, its working capacity shrinks, and
as the rescued chunks are separated from
their neighbours, your computer slows
down because the drive needs to hunt
around for each piece of a file and
reconstruct it in memory before you can
use it.
Eventually, something will get missed, or
a piece of data will be damaged beyond
repair. The result could be the loss of a file,
the disappearance of a precious photo, or a
computer that simply won’t boot.
So, if your computer is starting to show
its age, it may be time to consider replacing
your drive. And, if you are replacing it, why
not upgrade to a solid-state drive (SSD)?
We’ll start this feature by giving five
reasons you should upgrade to an SSD
today, before providing plain-English
instructions on how to install one.

FIVE TOP REASONS WHY SSDs ARE BETTER
1 SSDs are much faster
Several factors determine the speed of
your hard drive. The rate at which data
transfers from the motherboard to the
drive is one, but that rarely has the
greatest impact. More important is the
fact that traditional hard drives are
physical objects with moving parts,
comprising their own internal
motherboards, platters (like vinyl
records) for storing data, and heads for
reading and writing it (see box right).
To better understand how all these
components can affect a drive’s speed,
consider the difference between thinking
about moving something across the
room, and actually shifting it. Physically
relocating an object requires that you go
to the object, pick it up, move it, find a
place to put it down, put it down, then sit
back again. Now, how much time would
it take you to just think about doing the
same thing? No time at all.
It’s much the same story with a hard
drive, which must get its platters
spinning up to operational speeds, find
somewhere to write (or read) your data,
move its heads to that location, and either
pick up (read) or put down (write) the
data in question. Doing the same with an
SSD doesn’t require all that moving
about: the drive can, effectively, ‘think’
about the data, which it writes to
memory or recalls it. It’s then ready for
use.
Platters that spin more slowly and
heads that can’t get into position quickly
will slow down a hard drive. Because the
SSD doesn’t have these moving parts (as
pictured below), they can on average read
(open) data up to 10 times faster, and
write (save) up to 20 times faster. Indeed,
SSDs work so much faster than hard
Dissect an SSD and you’ll find processors and
memory, but no moving parts
ANATOMY OF A HARD DRIVE
3
2 4
1
1Platter An aluminium or glass disc – the
hard-drive equivalent of a vinyl record –
that contains all your data.
2Spindle This runs the platter and
determines how fast it spins (measured in
revolutions per minute, or rpm).
3 Head Like the needle on a vinyl record,
this reads the data from the platter. When
it’s knocked off balance, your drive stops
working.
drives that a whole new interface – the
connection between the drive and your
motherboard — had to be invented to
unleash their full potential. We’ll explore
these in the next section.
2 SSDs are more robust
Hard drives are a lot more durable
than they used to be, but with so many
moving parts they’re still more prone to
damage than an SSD. The platters need
to keep spinning when reading or
writing, and can’t be serviced like
the wheels on a bike or car.
Perhaps more worryingly, they
are also magnetic, like old cassette
tapes, with the ones and zeros that
comprise your data written as variations
in the magnetic field. Rogue magnetic
interference could be enough to corrupt
that data or – in a worst-case scenario
– wipe it altogether.
Your Complete Guide to
SSDS
6
5
7
4 Arm This holds the head in place,
and moves it around the platter when
seeking data.
5 Actuator Axis This holds the arm in place.
6 Ports The side of the hard drive has
ports for power and to connect the drive
to the motherboard.
7 Actuator Moves the arm to different
positions to read from the disk.
Solid-state drives aren’t magnetic.
Instead, they use a series of ‘gates’ to
regulate electrical charges to signify ones
and zeros at specific locations within the
SSD’s memory chips. These ones and
zeros are the binary digits that relate to
the characters and numbers that make up
your documents, spreadsheets and
photos (a capital letter A, for example, is
represented as 01000001, B is 01000010,
C is 01000011, and so on). Magnetic
interference shouldn’t affect the charges
recording those digits.
3 SSDs last longer
Typically, the life of a hard drive is
calculated with reference to their ‘mean
time between failures’, or MTBF. This
states how many hours of use you could
expect before it’s likely to die. Laboratory
analysis shows that a hard drive can last
up to 300,000 hours (34 years), while an
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 51
 SSD keeps going for 1.5 million hours (171
years). In the real world, hard drives can
fail after three to five years, while SSDs
can last up to 10.
Don’t imagine that just because an
SSD has no moving parts, there’s nothing
to wear out. Think back to those ‘gates’
we mentioned. The SSD opens and
closes them by passing an electric charge
through an insulator. This wears down
very slightly every time it’s subjected
to a current, with the inevitable result
that, eventually, an SSD will fail, just
as a hard drive will. It will just take
much longer.
When choosing an SSD, you might see
two other variables included in its
specifications, aside from MTBF. These
are P/E Cycles and TBW. P/E Cycles are
the number of times the data on a drive
HOW TO BUY AND INSTALL AN SSD
Back up your entire PC
Installing an SSD isn’t particularly
difficult, but it will involve opening your
computer’s case, which may invalidate
your warranty. It might also involve
replacing the main drive in your
computer. This is frequently the case if
you’re upgrading a laptop, which is
unlikely to have slots for both a hard
drive and an SSD.
Desktop PCs are usually more flexible,
and can often accommodate multiple
drives simultaneously, allowing you to
add an SSD while leaving your boot drive
in situ. But before you go any further,
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Next, enter your email address
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You’ll now receive an email with
an activation code, containing letters,
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52 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
is written (programmed) and deleted
(erased). TBW, on the other hand, is the
number of Terabytes Written. In both
cases, higher is always better, but watch
out for warranties that specify, for
example, 1000TBW or five years. In this
case, your drive would be covered for five
years, unless you saved more than 1,000
terabytes of data to it before five years
had passed.
4 SSDs use less power
Without any moving parts, SSDs
use less electricity. This isn’t only good for
the environment: it also means you
should be able to run a laptop on its
battery for longer (typically between 30
and 45 minutes), which will be welcome
news for anyone who works in coffee
shops and libraries.
make a complete backup of your PC. For
simplicity, we’d actually recommend
making two backups: one using the
excellent program O&O DiskImage 17
(see box below for an exclusive reader
discount on our Software Store), and
another by dragging and dropping
important documents and photos to a
USB stick (see page 35 for instructions on
saving emails this way).
When you’ve done that, if you’re
replacing your existing hard drive, you’ll
need to find your Windows installation
CD. If your computer didn’t come with a
CD (most don’t these days), it should
Click the link in the email to automatically
download DiskImage following the
instructions, then enter the activation code
to run the program.
Leave the ‘company name’ blank when
entering the code.
The moving parts in a hard drive can
also generate more heat than an SSD.
That makes it more likely your computer
will run its fans, which can be a
significant drain on a laptop’s battery.
5 SSDs are quieter
With no moving parts, SSDs are
silent. This is ideal for anyone who
uses their computer to make music or
voice recordings, which can be marred by
the annoying clicks, grinds and whirrs of
a hard drive. In fact, anyone with an
ageing computer is likely to suffer
from a noisy hard drive, as wear and tear
takes its toll. Although you might by now
have got used to the noise, you’ll be
surprised by how pleasant it can be
when switching to an SSD eliminates
the cacophony.
instead have a recovery partition on the
drive that you’re removing. If you’d had
any problems with Windows, you could
have booted into that recovery partition
and re-installed the operating system
from there.
If your computer has only one drive
then that has to be the one it boots from.
Removing it means you’ll no longer have
access to that recovery partition, so you’ll
need to create a Windows installation
drive using a USB stick with a minimum
8GB capacity. This will be wiped during
the setup process, so don’t use the stick to
which you’ve just dragged and dropped
your documents and photos, or you’ll end
up writing over them.
Create a Windows
installation drive
Now visit Microsoft’s ‘Download
Windows 10’ page (www.snipca.
com/40891 – we’ll come to Windows 11
in a moment). Scroll down to ‘Create
Windows 10 installation media’ and click
the blue ‘Download tool now’ button
(see screenshot top of page 53). When the
media-creation tool has finished
downloading, launch it and, when asked
if you want to allow it to make changes to
your device, click Yes.
Click through the instructions and
when asked ‘What do you want to do
now?’, select ‘Create installation media
(USB flash drive, DVD or ISO file) for
another PC’ (see screenshot above right),
and click Next.
The program will examine your
computer and select a recommended

Select this option to create a Windows
installation drive on your USB stick
configuration, which you can change by
unticking the box beside ‘Use the
recommended options for this PC’ (see
screenshot below). If you want to leave
them as they are (which we’d
recommend unless you know for sure
they’re wrong), just click Next. Leave
‘USB flash drive’ selected on the next
screen, plug in your 8GB (or larger) USB
stick, then click Next again.
Select the stick on the next screen. If
it’s not shown, wait a few seconds in case
Windows is still recognising it, then click
‘Refresh drive list’. Click ‘Next’, and the
program will download the Windows
installation files, write them to your USB
stick, and set the drive to a state from
which it can be used to boot your
computer. When it has completed the
Only untick this box if the configuration details
listed here are wrong
process, click Finish. You can then
remove the USB stick, but keep it
somewhere safe for use when
you’ve installed your SSD.
If your PC is running Windows
11, rather than Windows 10, you’ll
need to download the Windows 11 media
creation tool instead. Click ‘Download
Now’ in the ‘Create Windows 11
Installation Media’ section at www.
snipca.com/40892.
Choose the right SSD
for your computer
If you’re replacing your hard drive, you’ll
almost certainly need an SSD with a SATA
interface. However, if you’re replacing an
existing SSD, you could be looking at
SATA, mSATA, M.2 or PCIe. These
interfaces aren’t interchangeable, so it’s
important you find out what you need.
A good place to start is the details you’ll
have received when you bought your
computer, as these should include a list of
components. If you don’t have this, check
the handbook or Windows’ Device
Manager. For the latter, open the Start
menu and type device, then click Device
Manager. Click the arrow beside ‘Disk
drives’, then look up your drive’s name or
serial number online. Device Manager
tells us that our laptop has an Intel
SSDPEKNW512G8, which several sites
reveal has a PCIe interface.
If that doesn’t work you could also try
opening your computer and checking
your existing drive, and any spare slots
for second and third drives on the
motherboard. Before doing so, make sure
you earth yourself by touching a piece of
metal, such as a radiator, that’s attached
to the floor. Alternatively, wear an
anti-static wrist strap, such as this
£5.79 example from Amazon (www.
snipca.com/40951). Either method
should be enough to prevent built-up
static from transferring from you to your
computer.
As we mentioned earlier, if you’re
Your Complete Guide to
SSDS Click this button
to download
the Windows 10
installation media on
your computer
Crucial’s MX500
is our favourite SATA SSD
replacing a laptop’s hard drive for an SSD,
you’ll almost certainly find a SATA drive
inside. These have a surface area similar
to that of a playing card, and a shell that
sits over one side of the connectors.
Our pick of the best SATA SSDs is the
Crucial MX500 (pictured above), which is
available at capacities ranging from 250GB
(£44) to 4TB (£319), at www.snipca.
com/37304. We think the 500GB unit,
priced £52.79, represents the best value.
Less common are mSATA drives,
roughly the size of a stack of business
cards (such as the Kingston model
pictured below). They use the same
interface as SATA, but have more exposed
connectors that plug directly into a socket
on compatible motherboards. They were
superseded by M.2 models in 2015, so
you’ll find them only in laptops built in
the two or three years before that.
More modern computers use M.2 SSDs,
which look more like sticks of memory
than older SATA units, and connect using
a shorter copper interface at one end.
To confuse matters, M.2 SSDs come in
mSATA drives were superseded in 2015 by
faster M.2 models
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 53
two varieties: either with the older SATA
interface, or the new, faster NVMe
interface. It’s easy to mix them up, so
check any wording on the drive itself. If it
still isn’t clear, carefully remove and
examine the existing drive. As you can
see from the photo right, M.2 SATA SSDs
have two notches in the copper interface,
while NVMe drives have only one.
NVMe SSDs are faster because they use
the more powerful PCIe interface, which
can hit data-transfer speeds of 3,000MB/s
– more than 20 times faster than SATA.
However, they can reach these speeds
only when copying multiple large files, or
when you’re performing intensive tasks
such as editing videos. NVMe isn’t
significantly faster when booting your PC
or running most software.
Why SSDs are about to get more expensive
Industry analysts say the price of SSDs
could rise by 10 per cent this year after
a huge batch of NAND flash storage
was contaminated at a Japanese
manufacturing plant run by Western
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SATA M.2 SSDs have two notches (top), while
NVMe versions have one (bottom)
Our favourite NVMe model remains the
Samsung 970 Evo Plus – we reviewed it
in Issue 552, back in 2019, but it hasn’t
been bettered since. You’ll pay £50 for a
250GB model, up to £184 for 2TB (www.
snipca.com/31265). If you need an M.2
SSD, try the Kingston SUV500M8, which
starts at £40 for 120GB (www.snipca.
Digital and Kioxia. They said around
6.5bn gigabytes of storage was lost in
the incident. It’s not known what caused
the contamination, nor whether any SSDs
already being sold will need to be recalled.
com/40953).
The other thing to consider is which
PCIe standard you need. PCIe 3 was
finalised in 2010, updated as PCIe 3.1 in
2014, then superseded by PCIe 4 in 2019.
As you’d imagine, PCIe 4 is more advanced,
running at roughly twice the speed of
PCIe 3 and 3.1 in like-for-like tasks.
Although PCIe 4 uses the same
interface as its predecessors, and will
work with your existing software, you
will need a processor and motherboard
that support PCIe 4 to feel the benefit. If
you don’t, your new PCIe 4 SSD will be
slowed down by the older interface to
which it’s connected. So, if your PC only
supports an earlier standard and you’re
choosing between PCIe 3, 3.1 or 4 SSDs,
you should pick whichever is the cheaper
option, unless you’re planning on
upgrading your PC in the near future and
want to take your drive with you.
Our recommended PCIe 4 SSD is the
SN850, from Western Digital’s WD_Black
range, which has read and write speeds
up to 7000MB/s and 5300MB/s
respectively. It’s available in 500GB (£85),
1TB (£130) and 2TB (£304) capacities
from www.snipca.com/40958.
ADD A
DISC FOR
£5.95

Hold M.2 drives at a 30-degree angle when inserting them
Install an SSD in a desktop PC
Shut down and disconnect your PC.
Remove the case and identify the drive
interface. There’s a better chance of the
motherboard accommodating two or
more drives on a desktop PC than there is
on a laptop, so you may be able to install
your new drive without removing your
old one, or reinstalling Windows. Your
first job is to locate the connectors on the
motherboard.
If you’re fitting an M.2 or NVMe drive,
hold it at a 30-degree angle to the
motherboard interface (as pictured
above), making sure the notch or notches
on its connectors are correctly aligned
with those on the interface, then press in
and push down. When it’s in position,
use the screw hole on the motherboard
to secure it.
If your PC doesn’t have M.2 slots, you’ll
need to buy a 2.5in SATA drive. And if
you don’t have 2.5in bays in your case,
you’ll also need a cradle that will work
with the 3.5in or 5.25in bays used for
full-sized hard drives and optical drives
– try this £5 model from Valuegist (www.
snipca.com/36966, pictured above right).
First, secure the drive to the cradle
using the screw holes in the underside of
the drive chassis, then use the screw
holes in the side of the cradle to secure it
to the PC. Finally, use a SATA cable to
hook up the connectors on the drive, and
the interface on the motherboard.
Install an SSD in a laptop
Shut down your laptop and, if the battery
can be removed from the outside,
disconnect it. You now need to remove
the case, which is more difficult than
with a desktop PC. Some laptops, which
have been designed with upgrades in
mind, have components beneath the
keyboard, like memory and drives, that
can be lifted out after removing a couple
of screws. Others have an access panel on
If your PC doesn’t have M.2 slots, you’ll need to place your SSD inside
a cradle
the underside, but many require you to
remove the bottom plate entirely.
We tried this with our main laptop
and, even though we’d removed all the
screws, it was still impossible to take off
the plate, as it appeared to be fixed
internally close to the Ethernet port,
possibly with glue. If you have similar
difficulties, don’t force it: call your
manufacturer for advice.
It’s unlikely you’ll have a spare SSD
slot, so you’ll almost certainly need to
replace your existing SATA hard drive.
The drive may be screwed into position,
so check for and carefully remove any
screws, then ease the cable off its
connectors (avoid removing the end
connected to the motherboard if
possible).
Re-use the cable to connect the drive to
the motherboard and use the screws you
removed to fix it in place. When replacing
the back cover, panel or keyboard, make
sure all the external screws are replaced,
and be careful not to over-tighten them
so you don’t damage the heads.
Reinstall Windows
If you’ve replaced the hard drive your
computer boots from, you’ll need to
reinstall Windows using the USB
installation stick you created earlier. Put
1
2
Your Complete Guide to
SSDS
this in a USB port, then plug in and turn
on your computer. As it starts up,
watch out for any on-screen message
about pressing a key to enter the BIOS or
UEFI. Often, this will be F1, F2, F10, F12
or Del. If it’s not shown on the screen,
check your manual.
When you enter the BIOS or UEFI,
navigate through the various screens
until you find a boot order or similar
option (in our screenshot below it’s called
‘Boot Option Priorities’ 1 ). These let you
specify the order in which your PC
searches various devices for an operating
system when booting.
Move your USB stick into the first
position – as shown in our screenshot,
where we have highlighted Boot Option 1
2 , pressed Enter, and are now selecting
the SanDisk USB stick 3 on which we set
up the Windows Installer. This will
demote your new SSD into second place.
If you also have a boot device or startup
option, you might not need to make any
changes. Instead you can simply select
your USB stick before letting the PC
restart again.
Rather than booting into Windows, it
will start the Windows installer. Work
your way through the instructions to
reinstall the operating system, then revert
to your backups to restore your data.
Set your PC to
check your USB
stick first when
searching for
an operating
system
3
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 55
 RUN WINDOWS FROM YOUR SSD
Most laptops and many all-in-one PCs,
where the components are built into the
back of the monitor, only have room for
one drive. So, when you swap their
existing hard drive for an SSD, you’ll have
no way of starting up. That’s why, on
pages 52-53, we showed you how to
create a Windows installer stick, which
you can use to set up Windows on your
new drive.
With a full-size desktop computer, it’s
a different story. You often have room for
two drives, or more, which means you
can leave your existing hard drive where
it is and install an SSD alongside it. If you
do, it makes sense to move Windows
from your hard drive to the SSD by
cloning it, so you can boot from your
new, faster disk. Your computer will start
more quickly and should be more
responsive in general. You can then
re-use the old hard drive for storing
photos, documents, and other data.
Check the sizes of your drives
Start by making a complete backup of
your data. Any time you move files
between drives, there’s a risk they may
be lost or corrupted in the process. Next,
compare the sizes of your new SSD and
the amount of data you currently have on
your hard drive. To do this, open File
Explorer and click This PC in the sidebar,
then click View on the toolbar and select
Tiles. You’ll see both your old hard drive
and your new SSD in the main pane.
In our screenshot above right, the old
drive is called ‘OS (C:)’ 1 , and the new
one is ‘Kingston (D:)’ 2 . As you can see
from the line below the new drive’s
name, it has a total capacity of 447GB
3 . The same line below the C: drive
shows that it has 245GB free out of a
total of 475GB 4 . Subtracting one
from the other reveals that the
existing drive holds only 230GB
of data, which will fit easily on to
our new SSD. So, we can clone
everything.
If the SSD is smaller than the
amount of used space on your
hard drive, you’ll need to shift
some of your data elsewhere
before you can clone Windows to
your new SSD. You have several
options, the simplest of which is
You can move some of your data
to a large USB stick, like SanDisk’s
512GB Ultra
56 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
4
Our existing drive holds 230GB of data, so it will easily fit on to our new SSD
to copy the data to a large external hard
drive, SSD or USB stick. You can pick up a
256GB SanDisk Ultra Fit stick for £26
(www.snipca.com/40960) or a 512GB
SanDisk Ultra for £53 (www.snipca.
com/40961, pictured below) – both of
which you can re-use for backup and
storage when you’ve finished setting up
your SSD.
Alternatively, you could upload your
data to an online service like pCloud
(www.snipca.com/40962), where
500GB plans start at £42.99 a year, and
2TB plans start at £85.99 (both are
introductory prices). If you’re using a
synchronisation service, like Dropbox,
make sure you aren’t simply
duplicating your data on the cloud
while retaining a copy on your
hard drive, because this won’t
save you any space.
Dropbox has a Selective
Sync option (www.snipca.
com/40963) that lets you
specify which folders should
be stored only online and
removed from your PC. While
we have no reason to suspect
Dropbox will lose your data,
we would always advise
maintaining at least one other
copy somewhere else should
you get locked out of your
account, or the transfer not
complete due to a broadband
failure.
When you’ve copied your data
1
2
3
from your drive and verified that the copy
is complete (and preferably backed up a
second time elsewhere), you can delete it
from your hard drive.
Copy Windows to your SSD
For the next step, we’ll be using AOMEI
Backupper Professional, which costs
$49.95 (£36.80 at the time of writing)
from www.snipca.com/40979. As its
name suggests, Backupper does a lot
more than just clone hard drives, also
allowing you to create recovery media,
back up individual files, and write to CDs
and DVDs among other tasks.
Launch the program and, when
Windows asks if you’re happy for it to
make changes to your device, click Yes.
Now click the Register button on the
home screen and enter the serial number
that will have been sent to the email
address you supplied when buying the
software. Although many of the functions
work without a serial number, you’ll
When you select the source disk, make sure
you click the hard drive from which your PC
boots

need it to create your bootable clone.
To start, click Clone in the sidebar,
followed by Disk Clone. Backupper needs
to know what you want to clone, and
where it should be saved. So, on the
Source Disk screen, click your existing
hard drive. This will usually be called
Disk0, as you can see in our screenshot
below left. Click ‘Next’, then click your
SSD on the Destination Disk screen.
Backupper will warn you that all the
data on your destination disk will be
erased as part of the clone process.
Assuming it’s blank, or you have a copy of
any contents you want to keep, click OK.
Backupper will now show a summary of
your clone options. Double-check that it
shows your hard drive on the left ( 1 in
our screenshot right), and your SSD on
the right 2 , with the arrow between them
pointing to the SSD to indicate the
direction in which the data will travel.
Tick the box beside SSD Alignment 3 ,
then click the orange Start Clone button 4 .
A circular counter will track the clone
operation’s progress. When it reaches 100
per cent, click Finish. You now need to set
your PC to boot from the SSD, rather than
the hard drive. The process for doing so is
similar to the one we used when booting
from the USB stick on which we set up
the Windows installer on pages 52-53.
Reboot your PC and press the button
that takes you into the UEFI/BIOS (usually
F1, F2, F10, F12 or Del). Now work your
way through the configuration screens
until you find the option to specify the
boot order. This should be set to check
your hard drive first. The exact process for
changing the boot order differs between
manufacturers, so check any on-screen
instructions, but there are two common
methods.
The first, where all possible options are
displayed in a list, is to highlight the SSD,
then use the keys specified on-screen to
move it up the list until it’s in the top
position. The second way, where the
options sit beside headings, is to highlight
the first boot device and press Enter to
open a list of alternative options, and to
select the SSD from this sub-menu.
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Your Complete Guide to
SSDS
1 2
3
4
Make sure the arrow is pointing from your hard drive to the SSD so you don’t risk overwriting
your operating system and data
1 Once you’ve
Save your changes, exit the BIOS and
transferred
allow your PC to reboot. Because you Windows to
cloned your drive rather than installing a the SSD, and
fresh copy of Windows, it should look the backed up your
same as it did when you booted from the data, you can
re-use your old
hard drive. The key benefit, though, is the hard drive as a
shorter boot time. storage device
Re-use your hard drive 2
Use your new system for a couple of days
to make sure it’s working as you expect.
If you have no problems, you can wipe 3
your hard drive and use it as an internal
storage device for documents, photos and
other data, while keeping Windows and
programs on the SSD, from which they’ll that the icon of the drive you’re working
launch more quickly. with is a hard drive, and not an optical
Make a copy of your data on a separate disc, as these commonly occupy E:.
drive, then open File Explorer and click Right-click the hard-drive icon and
This PC in the sidebar. Now look at the select Format from the context menu.
drives displayed in the main pane. The C: When the format box appears, make sure
drive, which was previously your hard NTFS is selected in the ‘File system’
drive, will now be the SSD. If the hard dropdown menu ( 1 in our screenshot
drive previously had only one partition, it above), and the box beside Quick Format
should now be called D:, although if it is ticked in the ‘Format options’ panel 2 ,
was particularly large, the manufacturer then click Start 3 . This will delete the
may have partitioned it into two smaller contents of the selected partition. When
drives, in which case you may see D: and it’s finished, copy your data back on to
E:. If you have a CD or DVD drive, check the clean partition.
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Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 57
 Ditch your PC
for a BIG laptop
A large laptop can give
you all the benefits of a
desktop PC but take up
17”
a lot less space. Robert
Irvine explains why and
how you should switch
your setup and picks the
best big models

Why you should use a

S
maller isn’t always better when it
comes to laptops. We know from
your recent emails that many of
you don’t need a computer that
slips into your bag, but want a machine
you can use at home that has a
good-sized screen and doesn’t take up
much space.
Here, we outline the benefits of switching
from a desktop PC to a large laptop and
reveal what you need to make it work
more like a traditional computer. We also
round up the best laptops that offer a
screen that’s at least 17in, and have 8GB
of RAM and a 512GB hard drive –
preferably an SSD – (see box below),
which we believe are the minimum
requirements to make sure your laptop
can comfortably do everything you’d
want your home PC to do.
big laptop
When technology websites and magazines
(yes, us included) review laptops, they
often praise models for being compact,
slim and lightweight. These are useful
attributes if you need to carry your laptop
around with you, but if you don’t plan to
take it on the train, to coffee shops or on
holiday, then size really doesn’t matter –
in fact, the bigger the better. Your
home-based laptop can be as large,
chunky and heavy as you want, with
superior specifications and features than
you’ll find on smaller portable machines.
Even the biggest laptops take up less
space on your desk than a traditional PC
tower, monitor and keyboard setup, and
there’ll be fewer cables strewn about your
workspace – especially if it’s running on
battery power and connected to Wi-Fi.
Working on a single machine rather
than multiple devices allows more desk
space for other items – including food
and drink, with less risk of spillages –
and a laptop can be closed and stowed
away when not in use.
Unless you’re planning to play
resource-intensive games, a large-screen
laptop is all you need to perform most
everyday tasks and will make it easier for
you to multi-task. While a desktop PC
will typically provide greater scope for
upgrading its RAM, graphics card, hard
drive and other internal components,
today’s laptops offer plenty of memory,
storage and processing power, so you
don’t need to worry about fiddling
around inside the case.
Another bonus is that laptops are

Best big laptops you can buy now

HP Envy 17-ch0001na the outside. You can currently control it with your voice, a 1TB SSD
www.snipca.com/40862 save 10 per cent when buying and a 2.8GHz Intel Core i7 processor,
Price £1,150 it from the HP Store using the while its big screen has a similarly
Along with a 17.3in touchscreen and full- discount code CLEARANCE10. big resolution of 2,560x1,600 pixels.
size keyboard, this
HP laptop (pictured LG Gram Asus VivoBook X705MA
left) has a four- www.snipca.com/40866 www.snipca.com/40869
core Intel Core i7 Price £1,120 Price £399
processor, 16GB of This 17in laptop (above right) isn’t cheap, but This Asus model (above right) was the
RAM and a 1TB SSD, with a 19-hour battery life, you won’t need cheapest we could find with a 17.3in screen
so it’s as big on the to keep it plugged in all the time. It comes and 8GB RAM. It has a generous 1TB hard
inside as it is on with Windows 11, built-in Alexa so you can drive, though its processor is a disappointing

60 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626

unaffected by power cuts. Should your
electricity cut out, your PC and monitor
will too, but a laptop will automatically
switch to battery so you can keep on
working or playing until you run out of
charge. Your router will be out of action,
of course, but you can still use an
Ethernet cable to connect your laptop
directly to your broadband socket.
Use a traditional mouse
and full-size keyboard
A trackpad saves you having to take a
mouse with you wherever you go, but it
can also be fiddly to use. If you plan to
permanently switch to a large laptop, a
traditional mouse will give you full
control over your cursor.
Because you’ll be working at home,
don’t bother with a ‘travel’ laptop
mouse, as they tend to be small and
flimsy. But if you want to replace your
current mouse, AmazonBasics has a
wireless model for just £9 (www.snipca.
com/40787) and a wired version for £5.24
(www.snipca.com/40788).
To make typing for long periods as
comfortable as possible and enjoy the
benefits of a full set of keys – including a
numeric keypad – you should consider
buying and connecting a full-sized
keyboard. AmazonBasics offers a model
for under £10 (www.snipca.com/40784).
Connect your laptop to a monitor
While it might defeat the object of
saving desk space, connecting your
laptop to a monitor using an HDMI
cable will give you twice the screen
space to work with. Windows lets you
duplicate your desktop or extend it across
both screens by right-clicking an empty
space on it and clicking ‘Display settings’,
then choosing an option from the
‘Multiple displays’ dropdown menu (see
screenshot above right).
1.1GHz unit and the screen
resolution is only 1600x900
pixels. It runs Windows
10 Home, but can
be upgraded to
Windows 11 for free.
Aspire 5 A517-52G
www.snipca.com/40868
Price £899
Acer’s latest 17.3in Windows 11 laptop (above
right) costs less than a grand, but it still
Share your desktop across your laptop screen
and a connected monitor
If you want your laptop screen to be
at the same height as your monitor,
consider buying an adjustable stand for it,
such as this Monadikos model for £9:
www.snipca.com/40857.
You can also keep using your laptop
when its lid is closed by displaying
content on your monitor instead (useful if
you’re watching a film and don’t want
your laptop screen or keyboard to distract
you). Click the battery icon in your
system tray, choose ‘More power options’
and click ‘Choose what closing the lid
does’. Select ‘Do nothing’ in both ‘When I
close the lid’ dropdown menus.
Use a disc drive with your laptop
Many people prefer desktop PCs because
they are more likely to accommodate a
disc drive. If you create audio CDs and
back up files to DVD, this may be
important. Unless you can find a
refurbished or second-hand laptop with
an optical drive, your best bet is to
connect an external USB drive for reading
and writing discs. In our How To section
in Issue 624 (page 35), we recommended
the Hitachi-LG GP95 DVD burner for £39
(www.snipca.com/40600).
Add more ports to your laptop
One downside to laptops – no matter how
big they are – is that they typically have
fewer USB ports than their desktop
packs in 16GB of memory, a 1TB SSD and
a 2.4GHz Intel Core i5 processor, making it
ideal for use as your main home computer. It
connects to the internet via Ethernet or
Wi-Fi and has a fingerprint reader for
speedy logins.
Connect more devices to your laptop using a
USB hub such as this 9-in-1 device
counterparts. This means you’ll struggle
to plug in your mouse, external keyboard,
standalone webcam, USB stick and other
devices at the same time. The easiest
solution is to buy a USB hub, which
converts a single USB port into several
inputs.
Some hubs – such as the 9-in-1
Mavinex model (pictured above, £34 from
www.snipca.com/40855)– offer extra
ports for HDMI, SD cards and Ethernet,
which is handy if your laptop doesn’t
provide these options. You can also use a
USB hub to charge multiple devices
directly from your laptop.
Boost sound quality with a pair
of external speakers
Built-in laptop speakers are notoriously
tinny and larger models won’t necessarily
offer better sound. You can boost audio
quality by connecting external speakers
such as this 6-Watt pair by NJSJ (£17 from
www.snipca.com/40858). Alternatively, if
you prefer a more streamlined option to
sit alongside your laptop, consider this
soundbar for £23 from www.snipca.
com/40859.
Lenovo IdeaPad
www.snipca.com/40871
Price £830
Lenovo’s IdeaPad range
includes plenty of 17in
models, but you
should check the
specs carefully as some
only include limited RAM and storage. This
Windows 11 Home option has a 512GB SSD
and a speedy processor – and you can add
extra memory before you order.
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 61
 Safely dispose
of USBs, CDs
& SD cards
Don’t just bin your old USB
sticks, SD cards and discs.
Robert Irvine explains how
to completely wipe your old
storage media and recycle it
responsibly
W
hen you no longer need a
USB stick, SD card or
home-made CD, the easiest
– and laziest – way to get
rid of it is to throw it in the bin. As well as
being bad for the environment, wasting
materials that can be reused, it’s also
risks compromising your privacy. Old
storage media may contain all kinds of
personal data you’ve forgotten was there,
including documents, photos and videos,
which could fall into the hands of
criminals or anyone who happens to root
through your rubbish. Here, we explain
the safest and most responsible ways to
dispose of USB sticks, memory cards and
discs, as well as your devices’ batteries.
Securely erase
your old USB sticks
Although individual USB sticks don’t
take up much space, if you’re anything
like us you’ll have loads of old storage
devices you never use, cluttering your
drawers and workspace. Merely deleting
sensitive files from them won’t stop the
data being recovered, so you should
thoroughly erase any USB stick before
you throw or give it away.
You can wipe a drive in File Explorer
by right-clicking its icon and choosing
Format. However, for total peace of mind
you should use a dedicated tool such as
Disk Wipe (www.diskwipe.org), which
overwrites data several times to make it
unrecoverable.
Download Disk Wipe from www.
62 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
1 USB sticks contain electrical parts that
2 sticks can be taken to electrical recycling
Disk Wipe overwrites data on USB sticks
several times to make it unrecoverable
snipca.com/40882 and run it – the system
requirements only mention Windows XP
and Vista, but it works perfectly well in
Windows 10 and 11 and, unlike rival tools,
it’s free to use. Select your USB stick in
the list of System Local Disks and click
the Wipe Disk button in the top-left
corner (see 1 in our screenshot above).
Click ‘Next’ on the File System screen,
then choose how many times you want to
overwrite the data on your stick, from
one ‘pass’ to 35 passes – we’ve chosen
British HMG IS5, which performs three
passes 2 . Click ‘Next’ then type ERASE
ALL in the box and click Finish to wipe
your drive.
This feature is also available in the free
version of CCleaner, though make sure
you decline the program’s bundled junk.
Click the Tools menu, select Drive Wiper
and choose Entire Drive in the Wipe
dropdown menu. Choose an overwrite
method in the Security menu, select your
USB stick, then click Wipe.
Recycle your unwanted
USB sticks
can be recycled – most are now marked
with the crossed-out wheelie bin icon to
indicate they shouldn’t be binned. As
part of the Government’s Waste Electrical
and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)
directive (www.snipca.com/40883), USB
centres or collected from your home if
your council offers that service. Visit the
Recycle Your Electricals website (www.
snipca.com/40884) and enter your
postcode in the Recycling Locator tool to
find your nearest WEEE banks for
recycling electrical items.
The results may include hardware
stores, phone shops, supermarkets and
council facilities, and will provide details
of the items they accept (see screenshot
below). With larger recycling centres, it’s
advisable to contact them first to check if
you need to book a slot or provide proof
of address. You may also see information
Find your nearest recycling points for old USB
sticks at Recycle Your Electricals
about your council’s local collection
service, though in some boroughs this is
only for large electrical items.
Provided you’ve securely erased your
USB stick, you could skip the recycling
and sell it instead. Bear in mind that,
because new devices are so cheap these
days (64GB sticks can cost less than a
tenner), you’re unlikely to make much
money. However, we have seen used
sticks selling on Amazon and eBay for a
decent price, particularly those with large
capacities and quirky designs, such as
Star Wars characters, such as this R2-D2
stick, which sold for £13 (www.snipca.
com/40950).
Wipe your SD cards
When you upgrade to a larger-capacity
SD card for your phone or camera, you’re
left with the dilemma of what to do with
the old one. You can delete personal
content such as photos and videos from
the card but, as with a USB stick, this
won’t actually remove it and your files
can be recovered using specialist
software. Formatting it is a much better
option and will wipe any hidden files, as
well as visible ones.
If your PC or laptop has a memory
card slot, you can format the card using
File Explorer. To do so, insert the card,
right-click its drive icon and choose
Format, then Start followed by OK –
untick ‘Quick format’ for a more
thorough wiping. You can also format the
card by using a USB cable to connect the
device containing the card to your PC.
Alternatively, use the formatting option
on the device itself. On digital cameras,
this can usually be accessed by selecting
Setup (or similar) in the main menu. On
an Android phone or tablet (iPhones and
iPads don’t use memory cards), go to
Recycle your old batteries
All shops that sell more than 32kg
of batteries a year are legally
required to provide in-store
recycling collection – usually in
the form of a bin for your old AAs,
AAAs, watch batteries and more
(see picture). Disposing of the
lithium-ion batteries from phones
and laptops isn’t always as
straightforward, but the Recycling
Locator at Recycle More (www.
snipca.com/40914) will help you find the
nearest facilities that accept them. You
can also check your council’s website
Secure Eraser iShredder wipes the data from
the SD card in your Android phone
Settings, Storage, ‘SD card’ then tap the
three-dot menu in the top-right corner
and choose ‘Storage settings’. Select
‘Format’ then tap ‘Erase & Format’ or
‘Format SD card’.
If you’re still worried about your
data being recovered, the Android app
Secure Eraser iShredder (www.snipca.
com/40893) can overwrite the ‘free space’
on the card that contains traces of deleted
files, using ‘military grade security’. Tap
‘Selective erasing’ on its main screen, tick
the box next to your SD card (see
screenshot above) under Freespace then
opt for an overwrite method – the free
version of the app limits you to four
passes, but that will be enough. Finally,
tap Shred.
On your PC, Disk Wipe, which we
recommended earlier, will overwrite the
data on your SD card in the same way it
works for USB sticks. Memory cards are
covered by the government’s WEEE
regulations, so you can dispose of them at
most electrical recycling centres.
to see if a battery-collection scheme is
available in your area.
Many laptop manufacturers offer
battery-collection programmes in
conjunction with Valpak (www.snipca.
com/40916) or the European Recycling
Platform (www.snipca.com/40915).
However, these are generally aimed
at businesses to let them recycle
batteries in bulk. A better option is to
visit a high-street electrical store - Currys
accepts batteries even if you bought the
original device elsewhere (www.snipca.
com/40917).
Physically destroy your old CDs and DVDs
using this AmazonBasics shredder
Dispose of your
old CDs and DVDs
Old music CDs and TV/movie DVDs can
be donated to a charity shop or sold to a
trade-in service such as Music Magpie
(www.musicmagpie.co.uk) or Zapper
(www.zapper.co.uk), but what about
discs you’ve burned yourself? As with
USB sticks, these may contain personal
files, or videos and music that you’ve
downloaded from the web.
With rewritable CD-RW and DVD-RW
discs, you can either erase files manually
or format the entire disc – provided, of
course, your computer has a CD/DVD
drive. Just right-click the disc icon in
File Explorer and choose ‘Erase this disc’
or Format.
If you don’t have access to a disc drive
or you’ve used CD-Rs and DVD-Rs,
consider physically destroying your
old CDs and DVDs so the data can’t be
read. You can do this by scratching
them using a key, scissors or knife;
scraping off their metallic surface with
sandpaper; or by shredding them. You
can buy an AmazonBasics shredder with
a CD/DVD slot for £26 (www.snipca.
com/40910, pictured above), which will
slice your discs into four pieces – and is
much safer than breaking them with
your hands.
Alternatively, if your old CDs and DVDs
don’t contain confidential files, you can
recycle them, though because they consist
of both plastic (polycarbonate) and metal
(aluminium), this isn’t as simple as
sticking them in the appropriate recycling
bin. Use the Recycling Locator at Recycle
Now (www.snipca.com/40911) to find
local facilities that accept both materials.
A company called TerraCycle specialises
in recycling storage media, including
CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, VHS tapes and
cassettes, but you need to buy a box for
£154.57 (see www.snipca.com/40912) to
put them in for collection.
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 63
 Problems Solved
Our experts solve all your tech problems
PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT
What’s wrong with
my TV’s Text button?
I have four Samsung smart
Q TVs. On the most recent
model, which I bought a
couple of years ago, pressing the text
button on the remote (just above the
volume – pictured right) fails to display
the menu. My other TVs are all older,
and if I press this button while
watching BBC One, Two and News
channels, the menu appears. As I’m
hard of hearing, I use the menu all the
time. I know it’s available on this
newer TV because it has appeared on
two separate occasions over the past
two years. Otherwise, the red button
always takes me to the catchup area.
Pressing the text button on my other
TVs generally gives me subtitles on ITV,
Channel 4 and 5.
Brian Dingle
There’s quite a lot to unpick
A in your question, so we’ll work
through it piece by piece.
The photo you sent us wasn’t clear
enough to print in the magazine, but
we could see that the menu you’re
talking about belongs to the BBC Red
Button service.
The BBC has made rather a mess of
this service. In the beginning, the Red
Button was a simple way of adding
some interactivity to early ‘smart’ TVs,
and it worked a bit like Teletext.
However, the service eventually split
into two different technologies. Later
still, in 2019, the BBC announced plans
to axe all its Red Button tools. Viewers
were not happy, and after protests the
corporation had a last-minute change
of heart and kept them going – albeit in
basic form.
This background is important
because we think you’re conflating a
couple of things, and your use of
different TV sets is only adding to the
64 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
confusion. Trust us when we say many
‘smart’ TVs are anything but smart, and
can behave quite differently, even when
they’re from the same manufacturer.
With many older TVs, the remote
control’s red button summons the
original menu-based Red Button service,
which you captured in your photo.
However, on newer TVs, the red button
launches what the BBC calls Connected
Red Button. This is really just a gateway to
the BBC’s iPlayer service. You can read
the BBC’s own explanation of Red Button
at www.snipca.com/40742.
Neither version of the Red Button
service has anything to do with
subtitles. The ‘Text’ button on many
TV remotes actually refers to traditional
teletext services, most of which are now
defunct. However, on BBC channels,
pressing the Text button usually
summons whichever of the two Red
Button services the TV supports. Your
new TV supports Connected Red Button,
so that’s what appears.
You say you’re trying to activate
subtitles. The solution to this problem
– at least when viewing Freeview
channels, rather than programmes
through other set-top boxes – is to press
the dedicated subtitles button. On many
Samsung TV remotes, this is marked AD/
SUBT (short for ‘Audio Description/
Subtitles’ – see picture right). We suspect
you’ve done this in the past but have
convinced yourself the subtitles appear
as a result of the Red Button service.
That just leaves the mystery of why
pressing the Text button on your new
TV’s remote occasionally opens the Red
Button menu. The answer is almost
certainly that at those moments your TV
was unable to access the internet. This
means the Connected Red Button service
was unavailable, so your TV displayed the
old Red Button menu instead. For subtitles, press the AD/SUBT button
 Email us your problem and we’ll try to help:
noproblem@computeractive.co.uk

Why must I sign in to Gmail every time?

Is there some way I can avoid Check that your

Q having to sign in with my

username and password each
browser isn’t
deleting cookies
when you exit the
time I visit Gmail? Any help in this program
matter would be most appreciated.
Robert Stalker

If you sign in to Gmail and don’t

A actively sign out, you won’t
usually have to sign back in
when you next visit. A common reason
why you might have to sign in every time
is that something is deleting your
cookies. Perhaps you’re doing this
yourself, or you may have installed a
PC-cleaning tool such as CCleaner, which screenshot above). Ensure that the ‘Clear
can delete your cookies as part of its cookies and site data when you close all
maintenance routine. windows’ switch is set to the Off position
Another possibility is that you have (see screenshot right).
enabled an option in your browser to If you use Edge, you’ll find a similar
clear all cookies on exit. In Chrome, for option in Settings – click ‘Privacy, search,
example, click the menu button (three and services’ followed by ‘Choose what to
dots, top right) followed by Settings, then clear every time you close the browser’,
‘Security and privacy’ followed by then set the ‘Cookies and other site data’
‘Cookies and other site data’ (see switch to Off.

Is Antimalware Service Executable slowing my laptop?

My Lenovo B5400 laptop is Switching
Q very slow. When I go to Task
Manager, something called
off parts of
Windows
Security may
Antimalware Service Executable is give a slow PC
always running, and it’s usually at the a temporary
top of the list for disk usage. What is performance
boost
Antimalware Service Executable and
can I do anything about its usage?
Andrew Rawlinson

It’s part of what’s now

A officially named Windows
Security, but is still commonly
known as Windows Defender –
including within areas of Windows
itself. Elements of Defender run more
or less constantly.
You can manage Windows Security
by clicking Start followed by the
Settings cog, then ‘Update & Security’
followed by Windows Security and
finally Open Windows Security. If you
select ‘Virus & threat protection’, for
example, then click the ‘Manage
settings’ link under the ‘Virus & threat
protection’ heading, you’ll see lots of
switches. Disabling some or all of these
might result in a small performance
boost, but it may only be temporary: the
‘Real-time protection’ feature, for
example, turns itself back on
automatically after a short while.
The problem is really that your
computer is getting on a bit, and it wasn’t
exactly a high-end model when it was
new. If it still has only the 4GB of
memory it came with, adding extra
RAM or replacing the original hard
drive with an SSD will speed things up
a bit. However, there’s only so much
money you can spend upgrading an
ageing laptop before it becomes more
economical to buy a new one.

2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626 65

 Problems Solved
Can I create a
system image
with Windows 11?
For years I’ve used an option
Q in Windows 7 to create a
system image as a backup.
Do you know if this is available in
Windows 11? If not, is there an
equivalent? I’ve been subscribing to
your magazine for years and always
find it very informative, so keep up
the good work.
Ian Brighton
Yes, this is still possible. In
A fact, although Windows 11
looks all shiny and new, it
actually uses precisely the same tool
for this as Windows 7. So nothing
has changed at all.
To find it in Windows 11, click
Start, type control and then click
Control Panel. Next, under ‘System
and Security’, click ‘Back up and
Restore (Windows 7)’. Then, on the
left, just click the ‘Create a system
image’ link (see screenshot 1 ) and
follow the prompts, deciding where
you want to save your image 2 .
1 by dragging it, or to access the
2 top or side of the screen. To
You can save your system image to the
hard drive, DVDs or a network location
66 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
Why is Picasa filling my screen?
I don’t know if you can help me, but pressing M will execute the Move
Q but my entire screen is covered command – allowing you to manoeuvre
by a Picasa window (yes, I still the top of the window back into view (see
use Picasa). I can’t get rid of it. Pressing screenshot 1 ). You can then left-click to
the Windows key lets me use my PC as drop the window where you want it.
normal, but Picasa stays put. I hope you Another possible cause is that you have
can provide an explanation and a remedy
for this, because I haven’t been able to
Microsoft PowerToys installed. If so, this
has a feature called Always On Top that
find anything relevant online. you may have accidentally enabled for
Peter Ashton your Picasa window. The default
keyboard shortcut to turn this on and
Picasa was an excellent tool for off is Windows key+Control (Ctrl)+T –
A organising and editing images,
but Google killed it off six years
so try that. You can also disable this
feature in PowerToys by clicking Always
ago. As such, it’s no longer supported, so On Top, then sliding the Enable Always
using it could be risky. It might even On Top switch to its Off position (see
result in bugs for which there will never screenshot 2 ).
be a fix – and this could be one of them.
Having made that clear, we have a
couple of suggestions that might help. 1
First, it could be that the Picasa program
window has set itself to a size greater
than the resolution of your PC monitor.
Perhaps you’ve plugged in a different
monitor, for example, or a Windows
update has caused the unsupported
Picasa to malfunction in this way.
If that were the case, the program
window would fill the screen as you
describe, pushing the window’s title bar Click this option to move a window that’s
slipped off the edge of the screen into view
off the top of the screen. This makes it
difficult to move the window
2
little menu that lets you
control the position or size of
any program window.
However, there is a keyboard
shortcut that summons this
menu, and it’s invaluable for
situations like this, where a
program window is
inadvertently shunted off the
access this life-saving little
menu, press Alt+Space. You
may not be able to see the Disabling the Always On Top feature may prevent
menu if it opens off-screen, software from filling your entire screen
Q: How do I stop black lines
appearing on photos?
A: Issue 589, page 67 – find it on
our 2020 Back Issue CD
Buy it from
www.snipca.com/38164
 Can I have simultaneous landscape and portrait screens?
Is it possible to attach two
Q monitors to a single PC,
with one display in landscape
mode and the other in portrait? I
currently use a Dell Precision T1500
PC with a Dell P2411H monitor that
can swivel through 90 degrees. This
allows me to work on spreadsheets
in landscape mode and write letters
in portrait mode.
Chris Ryan
Change display orientation in Windows 10’s
Windows certainly supports Settings (left) or Control Panel in Windows 7
A this, although whether your
computer is up to the task is To cover all bases, we should
another matter. mention that your PC is around 12
Dell’s specifications sheet for your or 11 by clicking Start followed by years old and was originally supplied
PC doesn’t say anything about the the Settings cog, then System, Display. with Windows 7. We expect you’ve
graphics card or outputs, so we don’t In the right-hand pane, you’ll see a upgraded to Windows 10 since then,
know whether it can output images number of options for configuring your but if you’re still using Windows 7,
to two monitors at once. Assuming it dual-monitor setup. Use the ‘Display you’ll find the options you need in
can – or that you’re prepared to buy orientation’ dropdown menu to choose Control Panel (see screenshot above). A
a replacement graphics card with which of your monitors is in landscape quick way to get there is to right-click a
two or more video outputs – you’ll mode and which is in portrait (see blank part of your Windows desktop
find the relevant option in Windows 10 screenshot above). and then choose Display.

Can I change Use the

PowerToys
Keyboard
what my keys do? Manager to
change the
function of any
To type curved brackets on a UK key on your
Q keyboard, you have to press
Shift+9 and Shift+0. Square
keyboard

brackets have their own dedicated keys,

which are directly to the right of the P
key. I think most people use curved
brackets more than square ones – I
certainly do. I’d like to swap the output of
these keys. Is there a way to do this?
Stephen Salter

Windows doesn’t offer a built-in

A way to change the function of
keys on your keyboard, but the
latest version of Microsoft’s free
PowerToys toolkit includes a Keyboard
Manager panel that lets you reassign
these keys and any others. It’s a free
download from www.snipca.com/40743.
Once you’ve installed PowerToys,
click its icon in the notification area, at
the far right-hand side of the taskbar,
then select Keyboard Manager. To open
the ‘Remap keys’ box, click the little
square with an arrow next to ‘Remap a
key’ (see screenshot above right).
Use the Physical Key column
on the left to specify which
key you wish to reassign, then
use the Mapped To column on the
right to set the replacement (see
screenshot right). So, for example,
on the left click Type and type
a left square bracket (or choose it
from the dropdown menu), then
click OK. Then, on the right, click the plus (‘+’) button and repeat for
Type and press Shift+9 for a curved the right bracket. Click OK to save
bracket, then click OK. Now click your changes.

2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626 67

 Problems Solved
Is SyncToy unsafe?
When I bought my current
Q computer, I used a tool called
SyncToy to synchronise my
files from Windows 10 to a USB stick.
It was free and very easy to use. However,
I have since read that it’s no longer
safe to use. Can you please suggest
another program that does the same
job? I have been reading your magazine
for a long time now. Keep up the
brilliant work!
Dennis Ryan
The main problem with
A Microsoft’s free SyncToy tool is
that the company discontinued
it last year. Microsoft no longer offers it
for download and doesn’t support it.
So the first problem is that you can’t
download the tool legitimately from
Microsoft, though plenty of legitimate
download sites still host the last version
(2.1). However, while SyncToy still works
– even in Windows 11 – using it will
Why can’t my computer run Windows 11?
I read in Issue 623 that some
Q readers have been able to
download Windows 11 on PCs
that don’t meet Microsoft’s stated
requirements. How did they do it? My
Surface Pro 5 (pictured) meets all the
requirements except for the processor.
Can I still download Windows 11? What
might happen if I did?
Anthony Snowdon
You must have missed the
A news that Microsoft itself has
issued a workaround that lets
users of some unsupported PCs
Use Microsoft’s own registry hack to get round its
specification restrictions
68 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
become increasingly risky, because any
security flaws, known or otherwise, will
remain forever unfixed.
This is why it makes sense to find an
alternative. There’s no shortage of
options, but if you particularly like the
way SyncToy does things, we imagine
upgrade. While it’s still not certain that
any given set of unsupported
specifications will be up to running
Windows 11, the only real stumbling
block for many is the requirement for
TPM. However, with
Microsoft’s workaround,
Windows 11 will now run
on PCs that use TPM 1.2,
where previously it insisted on
TPM 2.0.
Your computer has TPM 2.0,
so there’s no problem there.
All that’s preventing the
upgrade is the processor,
which is a 7th-generation
model rather than the
8th-generation chips
SyncFolder
is a good
replacement
for Microsoft’s
defunct
SyncToy tool
you’d be satisfied with SyncFolder. It’s
not from Microsoft, but it works
in a similar way to SyncToy, albeit
with a more modern interface. You
can download SyncFolder for free
from the Microsoft Store, at www.
snipca.com/40744.
Microsoft prefers.
At this point in Windows 11’s history,
we’re pretty confident in saying that
your Surface Pro 5 will run the latest
version of the operating system – but
you still proceed at your own risk.
With that clear, you can force
Windows 10 to ignore the fact that your
processor is supposedly inadequate by
applying a registry hack. We explained
how to do this in Issue 625 (page 62), in
our feature examining whether you
should upgrade when Micrisoft says
you can’t.
To recap, press Windows key+R, type
regedit and press Enter. Now use the
left-hand pane to navigate to HKEY_
LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\
MoSetup and then, in the right-hand
pane, right-click the AllowUpgrades
WithUnsupported TPMOrCPU value
and choose Modify. Now set the ‘Value
data’ field to 1 and press OK (see
screenshot left). Restart your PC and
you’re all set for the upgrade.
If you want to know why your computer
can’t upgrade to Windows 11, ask us and
we’ll explain in this box every issue
 ?? WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN...
Response time and refresh rate?
I’m looking to buy a new,
Q bigger monitor, mainly
for writing. At the bottom of
your reviews you list the main
specifications, which include the
refresh rate and response time. I think
I understand what a refresh rate is, but
what is the response time? Does it have
any relationship to the refresh rate, or
are they entirely different?
Martin Shore
They’re certainly different, but
A it’s useful to understand the
relationship between the
refresh rate and the response time.
So, let’s start with refresh rate.
This is perhaps the easiest specification
to understand because it simply
expresses how many times your
monitor updates its on-screen image
every second, measured in Hertz (Hz).
The picture on a 75Hz screen, for
example, updates (or refreshes) 75
times every second. The higher the
refresh rate, the steadier the image. This
is because faster refresh rates mean less
visible screen flicker. Some of the
fastest displays offer refresh rates of
up 360Hz, although we question
whether anyone can honestly tell the
What’s Unicode number for ‘…’?
I’m looking for the Unicode
Q number for the symbol that’s
three dots, one after another –
but I don’t know what it’s called. If I
knew the number, I could type it in
as an Alt code by holding down Alt and
typing the digits. I found a table online,
but this symbol wasn’t included. Can
you help please?
Alan Beasley
The symbol you’re looking for is
A called an ellipsis (…), and is
typically used to indicate that
words have been omitted from the
middle or end of a sentence, particularly
a quotation. The associated number is
0133, so you can summon an ellipsis
using the keyboard shortcut Alt+0133.
If your monitor’s
refresh rate is
faster than its
response time,
you’ll get a blur
difference beyond about 75Hz. Plenty of
gamers would no doubt disagree.
Response time is a measure of how
quickly the individual pixels take to
change from one colour to another, and is
measured in milliseconds (ms). It’s
important that a screen’s response time is
lower than the time it takes to complete
each refresh – otherwise pixels won’t
change colour quickly enough and the
resulting image may look blurry - see
picture above. Each refresh of a 75Hz
screen takes 13.33ms (that’s 1,000
divided by 75) to complete. So, for a 75Hz
The Windows Character Map tool is a
good way to look up symbols and their
Use the Windows Character Map to find out
the Alt code for any character
screen you’d want a response time
lower than 13.33ms.
The key, then, is to ensure that
any monitor you buy has a response
time that’s lower – and preferably
quite a lot lower – than the time it
takes for each refresh. This generally
isn’t a problem with 60Hz and 75Hz
monitors, but as the refresh rate cranks
up, so too does the need for an ever-
lower response time.
Want to know the difference between
technical terms? Email noproblem@
computeractive.co.uk
associated Alt codes. Click Start, type
char and then click Character Map. Now
click to select a symbol, or use the ‘Search
for’ bar at the bottom to narrow down the
options. Then look at the bottom right,
next to the Keystroke heading, to see the
relevant shortcut (see screenshot left).
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16 Mar
• Why is Bing overriding
Firefox?
• Can I install apps on an
external drive
• Can I speed up charging?
...And many more
Subscribe to Computeractive at
www.getcomputeractive.co.uk
2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626 69
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Problems Solved
Reader Support
Having a problem with our recommended software or expert tips?
Email editor@computeractive.co.uk and we’ll do our best to help
Why didn’t you provide fix to
overwriting downloads?
In answer to Dan Willink’s
Q question, in Issue 622’s
Problems Solved (page 69),
the solution is simple and I’m amazed
you didn’t provide him with it. All he
needs to do is choose ‘All Files (*.*)’ (see
screenshot below) in the ‘Save as type’
dropdown menu. He can then type any
file name and extension he want!
Chris Ellison
To recap, Dan asked us two
A questions. The first was whether
there was a way to avoid (1), (2),
(3) and so on being added to a file’s name
when saving downloads, where the file
name already exists. The second question
was whether the ‘.htm’ or ‘.html’ file
extensions could be be added to Notepad
‘save as type’ menu, alongside ‘Text
Documents (*.txt)’. These were different
questions to different problems.
To the first, we suggested the free
Downloads Overwrite Already Existing
Files browser extension (www.snipca.
com/40166) as a solution.
To the second, we told him there is no
way in Windows 10 or 11 to modify
Notepad’s ‘Save as type’ menu. It was
possible to do this in Windows 7, with a
registry hack, as Dan himself pointed out
– so we think it was this small but
specific convenience he wanted to restore.
Regardless, what you say is correct.
Perhaps we should have pointed this out
but, as we explained, we think Dan was
Choose this option in the ‘Save as type’ menu
to ensure new downloads overwrite existing
ones
after the return of a particular shortcut
that he’d enjoyed in Windows 7 – and we
think he probably knows that he can use
Notepad to save files as htm or html, by
manually typing the extension. We’re
nonetheless happy to pass on your tip, for
the benefit of Dan or any other reader.
Why does your Windows 11
Workshop throw up this error?
I followed the ‘Run Windows 11
Q in Windows 10’ Workshop in
Issue 623 (page 38) and it all
seemed to go fine until I reached Step 7.
Here, I saw a complex warning message. I
tried to follow what it said, but couldn’t
understand it well enough. Could you
please tell me clearly what to do?
Jonathan Freedman
You sent us a photo of the box on
A your screen, which was just
clear enough for us to see that
VMware Workstation 16 Player is telling
you that, while your physical (host) PC
supports the required hardware-
virtualisation features, they’re currently
disabled in its BIOS or UEFI.
In your case, the relevant technology is
known as Intel VT-x. We don’t know
what PC you’re using, but accessing the
BIOS or UEFI typically involves tapping a
key, such as F2 or Delete (Del), shortly
after switching on the power – and before
Windows starts loading.
When in the BIOS or UEFI, use the cursor
(arrow) keys and Enter key to navigate
the pages. You’re looking for an option
labelled Virtualization, Virtualization
Option, VT-x or similar. Make sure this is
ticked (see screenshot above right) or, if
shown as a dropdown option, set to
Enabled. Now press Escape (Esc) to exit
the BIOS/UEFI, being sure to press Y or
click Yes to save your changes.
Should SSD setting be 1, not 0?
I’m writing to advise that the
Q setting DisableDeleteNotify, as
suggested in Issue 623’s ‘Keep
Tick this box in your BIOS to turn on
virtualisation on your PC
your SSD running fast’ feature (page 60),
should be set to 1 (enabled) not 0
(disabled). So, I think what you
published was wrong.
Nigel Adams
This is a bit of a head-spinner, so
A make sure you’re sitting down.
To understand why the instruction
we gave is actually correct, you have to
enter the wacky world of programming
mindsets – where logic dictates that
disabled can sometimes mean enabled.
It helps to think of DisableDeleteNotify
as ‘question’, and of 1 as answering ‘Yes’
and 0 as ‘No’. So, when asked the
question DisableDeleteNotify, what do
you want to do? If you answer Yes (1) then
you will be disabling delete notify. But
here’s the crux: ‘delete notify’ is another
name for TRIM. And you do not want
TRIM to be disabled: you want it to be
enabled. Setting DisableDeleteNotify to 1
tells the operating system that, yes (1),
you want to disable delete notify. That
would mean TRIM is disabled.
However, here, you expressly do not
want that. You want to tell the operating
system that, no (0), you do not want
delete notifications disabled. So,
extremely counter-intuitively, in this
context 0 means enabled – but only
because the DisableDeleteNotify value
being disabled means TRIM is enabled.
Dizzy yet? We’re not surprised. But,
hopefully, with this explanation, you’ll
now understand why our original
instructions are correct – and that
sometimes disabled really mean enabled.
Issue 626 • 2 – 15 March 2022 71
 Jargon Buster
1080p Of the common types of
high-definition video, this is the
best quality: 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.
5G The latest generation of mobile
networks.
720p A common resolution of
high-definition video: 1280x720
pixels.
AI Artificial Intelligence. A
computer program designed to
mimic the behaviour of humans or
animals.
AMOLED Active-Matrix Organic
Light-Emitting Diode. An
alternative technology to LCD for
creating flat-panel displays. Most
commonly used in smartphones,
tablets and smartwatches.
Aspect ratio A measurement of
the shape of a screen. Traditional
PC screens are 4:3. Widescreen
displays are 16:9 or 16:10.
Bandwidth A measure of how
much data can be transferred
through a connection at one time.
Benchmarking Comparing
software and products with an
accepted standard.
Beta A version of software that’s
being tested. Beta versions are
often released so problems can be
ironed out.
BIOS Basic Input-Output System.
Software built into every PC that
connects the vital components. It’s
visible for a few seconds when the
PC starts.
Bootable Describes a device or
disc with system files on it so it can
be used to start up your computer.
Bot Automated software designed
to perform specific tasks.
cd/m2 Candela per square metre.
Standard unit of brightness.
Clone A feature found in some
backup programs that makes an
exact copy of a drive on to another
drive.
72 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
Command line A way to control
a computer by typing instructions
one at a time. In Windows this is
called the command prompt.
Contrast ratio A measure of the
difference between the darkest
and lightest possible shades
shown by a screen. Screens with
higher contrast ratios are good
for watching movies or playing
games.
Cookie A small text file stored on
your computer by a website. Used
to store browsing preferences,
website log-in details and so on.
Core Units on a processor that
carry out program instructions.
CSV Comma Separated Value.
A standard file format, used for
storing tabulated information,
that can be opened by most
spreadsheet programs.
Dark mode Showing white text
on a black background.
Driver A file that tells Windows how
to work with an external device.
E Ink Electrophoretic ink. A special
type of ink used to display content
in electronic devices.
Emoji A small graphic that can be
inserted into a text message or
email.
EPUB A file format used by many
popular ebook readers.
GHz Gigahertz. A measure of
how many instructions a chip can
process per second. 1GHz is equal
to 1,000MHz.
GIF Graphics Interchange Format.
A type of image file often used
on the web, but now largely
superseded by PNG.
Gigabit Ethernet A very fast
networking standard that can
transfer data at up to 1,000Mbps.
Graphics card A component in a
computer that produces the image
shown on the monitor.
HDMI High-definition media
interface. A type of connection that
transmits high-definition video and
audio signals.
Hotspot A public area covered by
a Wi-Fi network that allows you to
access the internet, either free or
for a fee.
HTML Hypertext Markup
Language. The language used to
write most web pages.
HTTPS Hyper Text Transfer
Protocol Secure. The secure
version of HTTP, the technology
that sends data between your
browser and the web.
IPS A screen technology. Monitors
that use it have wider viewing
angles and better, more accurate-
looking colours compared with
monitors that do not use this
technology.
ISO file A type of image file that
contains all the data from a CD or
DVD.
JPEG Joint Photograph Experts
Group. A common type of image
file created by most digital
cameras. Some image quality is
lost with each save.
M-Disc A disc for storing media
that its creators claim can last for a
thousand years (the M stands for
Millennium).
M.2 A standard specification for PC
expansion cards and connectors.
Macro An automated series of
commands or options that can be
run at any time. Handy if you often
need to perform repetitive actions.
Megapixel A measure of the
amount of detail that can be
recorded by a digital image. A one-
megapixel image is made up of a
million dots (pixels).
Metaverse A virtual-reality space
where users can interact with
other people.
MicroSD card A small type of
memory card. Can be converted to
SD size using an adapter.
MS-DOS Microsoft Disk
Operating System. The standard
PC operating system before
Windows. DOS managed how
files were stored on a PC. It
was controlled through typed
commands.
mSATA A smaller version of the
SATA interface (see right), used
for connecting SSDs in laptops
and some PCs.
NAND Memory that doesn’t need
a power source to retain data.
NVMe Non-Volatile Memory
Express. An interface that lets
solid-state drives work faster.
OLED Organic light-emitting
diode. A thin-film organic light-
emitting diode used in computer
displays and television screens.
Open source Software that can
be modified by anyone, rather
than just by the employees of the
company that created it.
Partition A large hard drive
can be split into two or more
partitions or ‘virtual’ drives. Once
partitioned, each section is treated
by Windows as though it were a
completely separate, smaller hard
drive.
PCIe Peripheral Component
Interconnect Express. A faster
version of PCI - a slot on the
motherboard for expansion cards,
such as for sound and memory.
PNG Portable Network Graphics.
A format for images that shrinks
file sizes using compression but
without discarding any data.
RAM Random-access memory.
The computer’s working area,
used for data storage while the
PC is switched on. Its capacity is
measured in megabytes (MB):
the more memory your PC has,
the more things it can process
simultaneously and the faster it
will seem. Any information in RAM
will be lost when the power is
switched off.
Read speed How long it takes
a hard drive to ‘read’ data, and
respond to it.
Refresh rate Measured in
Hertz (Hz), the number of times
per second that the image on
your monitor is redrawn. Slight
changes in the image each time
it is updated combine to give the
illusion of movement. For a steady
image, the higher the refresh rate,
the less flicker you will see.
RGB image A colour picture
created on a monitor, by combining
a value for red, green and blue
channels to determine the colour
of each individual pixel.
Safe Mode A way of starting
Windows so that various programs
and peripherals are prevented
from working. This is useful to help
diagnose the cause of problems if
a computer is behaving oddly.
SATA Serial ATA. An interface for
connecting hard drives and optical
discs to a computer.
Script A short program that is
stored on a web server to control
part of a website. For example, a
script could check that a date you
have entered is valid, or move
words across the screen.
SD card Secure Digital card. A
popular type of memory card.
Spotlight Windows tool that
downloads pictures and adverts
from Bing and displays them when
the lock screen is being shown.
sRGB A standard RGB colour
space for use on monitors,
printers and the internet.
SSD Solid-state drive. Storage
that, unlike a hard drive, uses no
moving parts. Faster but more
expensive than conventional hard
drives.
Super AMOLED Samsung’s
marketing term for describing a
screen that has the layer which
detects touch built into the screen,
rather on top of it. Samsung claims
it reflects one-fifth as much
sunlight as the first-generation
AMOLED.
Switch Mechanism under a
keyboard that determines whether
a key has been pressed.
System restore point The
collection of system files stored
by System Restore on a given date
and time to which Windows can
revert if a problem occurs.
TF card TransFlash card – very
similar to microSD card.
TPM Trusted Platform Module.
A computer chip that allows your
hardware to perform security-
related tasks.
TRIM A feature built into SSDs
that improves their performance.
Tweeter A speaker designed to
produce high audio frequencies.
Named after the noise made by
birds.
UEFI Unified Extensible Firmware
Interface. A modern replacement
for the BIOS, designed to get a PC
into a state where it can launch an
operating system.
UHD Ultra High Definition.
Ultrawide Offering a field of view
that’s wider than traditional digital
cameras.
USB 2.0/3.0/3.1 Faster successors
to USB.
USB-C A new connector that’s
reversible, letting you plug it in
upside down.
VESA Video Electronics Standards
Association. A standard mount for
attaching monitors on to stands,
walls and PCs.
VGA Video Graphics Array. Older
standard socket for connecting a
monitor to a computer.
Virtualisation Running a second
‘virtual’ operating system on a
PC, leaving the main system
unaffected.
WAV file Also known as a
Wave file and saved with a .wav
extension. An audio file, used
for recording music and other
sounds to disk. Because they are
uncompressed, WAV files can be
very large.
Wi-Fi 6 Wi-Fi standard with
speeds up to 10 times faster than
802.11ac. Also called 802.11ax.
Write speed How long it takes a
hard drive to save data.
ZIP file A file that contains
compressed documents or files.

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 Easy when you
Know How
Underwhelmed by the muted welcome from his
current laptop, Robert Irvine tries to…
Change Windows 11’s start-up sound
T
here’s something delightfully
nostalgic about listening to old
Windows start-up sounds on
YouTube. My favourite is Brian Eno’s
ambient masterpiece for Windows 95,
especially when it’s slowed down by
4,000 per cent to create four minutes of
meditative bliss – hear for yourself at
9001
www.snipca.com/40827. “This is literally
the soundtrack of heaven”, enthuses one
commenter. Windows XP’s tinkly fanfare
is also a classic, though Windows 7’s
cheery jingle now sounds rather hollow
to my ears. This trip down system-
memory lane made me realise that my
Windows 11 laptop doesn’t play a start-up
sound, but boots in stony silence as if it
isn’t pleased to see me at all.
Windows 11’s ‘bing
bong’ sounds like
someone tentatively
testing a steel drum
Determined to bring some audio fun
back to my operating system, I resolved
not only to make Windows 11 pipe up but
also to have it play the noise of my choice.
But first I needed to work out why it was
currently silent.
I right-clicked the volume icon on the
taskbar and chose ‘Sound settings’, then
clicked ‘More sound settings’. On the
Sounds tab, I saw that ‘Play Windows
start-up sound’ was ticked – so why
wasn’t it working? I also discovered that
Windows 11 doesn’t let you change the
sound, unlike previous versions of the
OS, because Windows Logon is no longer
listed as a customisable ‘program event’,
9000
74 2 – 15 March 2022 • Issue 626
even though archaic options like New Fax
Notification still are.
I decided to address the missing sound
problem first, which – according to a
quick web search – was because I had
Fast Boot enabled on my laptop. To check
this, I opened Control Panel, clicked
‘System and Security’ then Power Options
followed by ‘Choose what the power
buttons do’. The ‘Turn on fast start-up’
option was indeed selected, but also
greyed-out, so I clicked ‘Change settings
that are currently unavailable’, unticked
the box and clicked ‘Save changes’.
Now it was time to restart my computer
and hear what lovely audio welcome
Windows 11 had lined up for me. Which
turned out to be a gentle ‘bing bong’, like
someone tentatively testing a steel drum
while trying not to wake the neighbours,
followed by a ghostly synth chord. Nice
enough, but without the spine-tingling
wonder of, say, Windows 98’s start-up
sound. This wouldn’t suffice as a way to
start my working day, but how was I
supposed to change the noise when
You can download thousands of free audio
clips from the BBC Sound Effects library
Next issue: Robert tries to turn an old PC into a Chromebook
Startup Sound Changer
lets you replace Windows’
start-up sound with one of
your own
Windows 11 wouldn’t let me?
The answer was to download a free
program called Startup Sound Changer
(www.snipca.com/40833), which
overrides the default start-up sound with
one of your choice. Though no longer
maintained by its developer, it works in
any version of Windows, from 7 to 11.
Next, I headed to the brilliant BBC
Sound Effects library (www.snipca.
com/40830), which offers more than
33,000 audio clips you can download and
use for free, for “non-commercial, personal
or research purposes”. I searched for
futuristic (as Windows 11 is supposed to
be forward-looking), filtered the results
by duration to keep the sound under 10
seconds and got 39 results, including
‘electronic bubbles’, ‘sliding door’ and
‘descending projectile’ (www.snipca.
com/40865). I downloaded the latter in
WAV format (see screenshot below left)
and extracted the effect from its ZIP file.
I opened Startup Sound Changer, clicked
Replace (see screenshot above) and located
and selected the BBC Sound Effects file. I
clicked Play to preview it, then restarted
my laptop to hear if it had been applied.
Amazingly, it had, and Windows 11 now
starts up to the sound of something
probably created by the Radiophonic
Workshop. I’m sure I’ll quickly grow tired
of this, but the BBC site has thousands of
other options to choose from and Startup
Sound Changer makes them easy to
apply. Or I can just click Restore to go
back to Windows 11’s boring bing-bong.
Need help with your Windows start-up sounds?
Let us know: noproblem@computeractive.co.uk