PC Pro Tuts

Safely clean the Registry with Auslogics Registry Cleaner

2015-01-18T01:47:00.000-08:00

Let’s be honest: I’m not a big fan of Registry cleaning tools. Through the pages of Support Squad I’ve seen first-hand the damage they can do to perfectly functioning Windows systems.
They’re often billed as a magic cure for problems or promise performance improvements, but if you scan blindly and let a Registry cleaning tool simply delete everything it finds you’ll eventually run into trouble – and you won’t notice any speed boost either.
Despite all this, Registry cleaning tools can help fix problems by tracking down rogue entries and deleting them – the trick is knowing how to use them carefully.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to selectively search for, analyse and remove entries. Just as importantly, I’ll also reveal how to put them back again should your clean-out create more problems than it solves.

Install program

First, install Auslogics Registry Cleaner from your free disc. During installation you’ll be prompted to install Auslogics BoostSpeed alongside it; we recommend unticking this box. The next screen will offer you additional programs – verify ‘Custom install (advanced)’ is selected, with no additional boxes ticked, to skip installing them all. Click Next and the program will install.

Take precautions

Before proceeding any further, take a System Restore point: open the Start menu or press [Win] + [Q] to open the Search charm in Windows 8. Type ‘system restore’ and click ‘Create a restore point’ under Settings. Click ‘Create’, give your Restore point a suitable name and click ‘Create’ again to set up a fail-safe backup which you can restore should it prove necessary.

Pre-scan checklist

Switch back to Auslogics Registry Cleaner, then open the Settings menu to verify ‘Back Up Changes’ is ticked. The left-hand pane reveals which areas of the Registry have been selected for scanning – right-click this column and choose ‘Check Safe Only’ to ensure only safe areas are ticked for now. Once done, click the ‘Scan Now’ button and wait while the scan is performed.

Results overview

Don’t be alarmed at the hundreds or even thousands of ‘errors’ it finds – many of these can be left safely in place without any impact on your computer’s stability or performance. The results divide these into their parent categories; again, don’t worry about the levels of severity assigned to each section – remember that most of these errors have no detrimental effect.

Explore in depth

Use the annotation on the previous page to help identify problem entries. Most entries should yield some clue to their origin. Look for references to a specific program, or click the ‘Google it’ button to perform a search using that Registry keyor value, which may throw up people with similar problems and – if you’re really lucky – potential solutions to try.

Select all and repair

By default, all problems are selected – clicking ‘Repair’ removes them all. If you’re unable to identify a specific Registry entry that you believe is causing your problem you could – with some risk – try removing them all. Click ‘Repair’, then reboot and analyse to see if the problem has gone. If it hasn’t, or other problems emerge, jump to step nine to restore the backup.

Be selective

Alternatively, right-click ‘All results’ and choose ‘Uncheck all’ to select nothing by default. Now manually place a tick next to the entries you wish to remove. When you’re done, verify ‘Back Up Changes’ is ticked, then click ‘Repair’ to remove only those entries you’ve selected. After the repair completes, click ‘View detailed report’ to see exactly what was deleted, if necessary.

Search for Registry keys

Select ‘View > Find Registry Keys’ to perform a manual examination of the Registry for keys to examine and potentially delete. Use the ‘Filter’ button before clicking ‘Search’ to restrict your search. Note that Auslogics Registry Cleaner provides no indication of whether a key is a problem or not; it simply returns all results. Manually select entries to delete, then ‘Clean up’.

Restore keys

Should you run into new problems after cleaning the Registry, select ‘File > Rescue Center’ to browse available backups and Restore points. Start by right-clicking your most recent backup and choosing ‘Restore’ – click ‘Yes’ to restore all deleted entries from that backup (you can’t choose single entries). If this fails to work, select ‘Restore Points’ and your System Restore file.

Registry cleaning made easy

Armed with these tips, you should now be able to safely remove Registry entries when the need arises – advanced users can go even further and include more ‘dangerous’ sections of the Registry, including ‘Missing Software’ and ‘Shared DLLs’, when scanning for problems. Note that indiscriminately cleaning these sections could cause major problems, so proceed with caution.

Lenovo N20p Chromebook review

2015-01-17T09:58:00.000-08:00

A versatile Chromebook experience for a reasonable price

£199.99 | $344.99

The Lenovo N20p is the one of the first multi-mode Chromebooks, which is an accomplishment all on its own. With just a flip of the keyboard, this Chromebook transforms from laptop to tablet mode. When you consider that the device weighs only 1.4kg, is sleek and perfect for everyday use, you’ll fall in love with this machine. It’s more expensive than other leading laptop-only Chromebooks, such as the Acer C720 Chromebook and the HP Chromebook 11, but the tablet viewing capability is worth the extra cost.

The N20p is a Chrome laptop with a 10-point multi-touch display. Features and specs are nothing special or out of the ordinary, but they come together to create a pretty seamless machine. There is an 11.6-inch, 1,366 x 768 touchscreen, which doesn’t compare to the Toshiba Chromebook 2’s 1080p screen, but it’s a decent enough display for everyday use.
The N20p also features a quad-core Intel Celeron processor, 16GB of eMMC storage, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 1MP webcam.
This is all standard spec-wise for a Chrome OS notebook, and while it doesn’t impress like the Acer 13 Chromebook – which is powered by Nvidia’s ARM Cortex A15-based Tegra K1 – you won’t find the computer lagging behind at all.

The chiclet-style keyboard is relatively standard, although the smaller size of the computer creates the impression that some standard key functions are being left off.
Despite this, the travel between the keys is more comfortable than on most small laptops. The trackpad is crisp, responsive and gives a very satisfying click when it’s selected.

The non-click touch option with mouse movements and gestures (that is, two-finger scrolling) is just sensitive enough to require minimal tapping, but not overly sensitive to the point where you find yourself making many accidental or phantom swipes.

Fast mover

With its 2.16GHz Intel Celeron N2830 CPU, the N20p feels spritely when completing everyday tasks such as checking email and surfing the web. Even with a large amount of tabs open (which we’re all guilty of), there was minimal slowdown of processes thanks to the integrated graphics processing, which is sufficient for basic web browsing. An especially nice touch is the super-quick start-up time for the machine, which also means that powering down the machine when you’ve finished working involves less waiting around.
Performance is on a par with competing systems, with fast boot times (going from cold start to login screen in under 10 seconds) and quick browsing. With the built-in Camera app, 1,280 x 720 photos came out blurry, even with relatively good lighting, rendering and leisure activities, the battery lasted anywhere from 6-8.5 hours. This smaller internal battery allows for a slimmer design, which makes the slate-grey device sleek and easily portable.

Well-connected

It’s obvious Lenovo has spared no expense in terms of connectivity, too. The N20p features Bluetooth 4.0 as well as 802.11ac Wi-Fi. Since the Chrome OS relies so heavily on an internet connection for nearly everything, state of the art 802.11ac pictures that were darker than expected. Video chats seem to fare better, with users at the other end having no issue with video quality.

Performance is on a par with competing systems, with fast boot times and quick browsing

One disappointment is the sound quality from the laptop’s tiny speakers. Located underneath the chassis, the speakers get some more breathing room in stand mode, where they actually project toward you. But the sound was still tinny and somewhat lacking bass, which seems to be a norm for small laptops. This is particularly a letdown for this system given the N20p lends itself to video viewing, but sadly the audio hardware just doesn’t match up.
The 34.8-watt-hour battery life is good, as promised: after heavy and extended use with both business networking gives the N20p a real edge in this area.
Among the N20p’s best features are the touch control and stand mode; their versatility makes this a great leisure and possibly a work device. You might have some difficulty when using it as a tablet, as Chrome isn’t entirely tailored to touch control, being a largely browser-based operating system, so we’d recommend using this for recreational activities rather than heavy business use.The 300-degree-rotation hinge lets you flip the N20p’s display backward all the way into stand mode, which lends itself nicely to viewing movies or showing presentations, as the image flips automatically to match the display.

Read ebooks using Icecream Reader

2015-01-17T05:58:00.001-08:00

Ebooks are a lot more convenient than printed matter (although obviously paper magazines are still fine, we’re bound to say). They’re a lot lighter for one thing – a bagful of hardback books can seriously weigh you down.

While a fully loaded e-reader isslightly heavier than an empty one, due to the extra weight of trapped electrons in the storage media, it’s only in the region of a billionth of a billionth of a gram: not something that’s going to perturb even the strictest airline baggage allowance.
If you’re carrying a laptop, an ebook app for Windows is even lighter. Amazon’s Kindle app ties you in to the company’s ecosystem, but for non-Kindle owners who want to read ebooks on their PCs, the choice is a little broader. Here, we’ll show you how to discover the world of ebooks using the free Icecream Ebook Reader app.

Get some books

The open EPUB ebook format is supported by many booksellers, including Waterstones and Barnes & Noble, but not Amazon. Many free classic and self-published titles are available in this format. Some ebooks are also available as PDF files, which ebook readers can also open. Out-of-copyright classics are available from Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org).

Install Ebook Reader

Point your web browser to www.icecreamapps.com/Ebook-Reader and download and run the installer. Once done, run the app either by double-clicking its icon or by ticking the ‘Launch Icecream Ebook Reader’ box on the installer’s final page. It’s not a large application, but be aware that a library of ebooks can take up a decent chunk of space.

Add titles to library

Your library is empty to begin with. The app doesn’t have a store from which you can buy books, so they need to be downloaded manually to your hard drive. It’s a good idea to save them in an Ebooks folder within Documents, so that they’re easy to manage, and so you can be sure they’re processed by any backup program you use.

Use this simple, free ebook-reading app to enjoy literature from different periods and countries from the comfort of your PC.

Read it!

Find somewhere comfortable to sit, make a cup of tea, and settle in to read. Navigating an ebook is easy. A click on the right edge of the page or a tap of the spacebar takes you forward a page. Click the left edge to go backwards. Alternatively, use the left and right arrow keys, Page Up and Page Down, or the mouse wheel. The Home and End keys jump to the start or end of a book.

Settings

Access Ebook Reader’s settings page by clicking the cogwheel icon at the bottom-right of the window. There are just two options. The bottom one sets the language in which the app is displayed, while the top enables you to choose a colour scheme: white for daylight, dark blue for night, and a sepia that’s closer to daylight but easier on the eyes over long periods.

Bookmarks

Bookmarking works just like its paper counterpart. When reading a book, click the icon with a star on it (towards the upper-right) to add a bookmark. You can manage bookmarks, or jump straight to a bookmarked page, by clicking the ‘bullet list’ icon at the top-right of the window. To search for text, type it into the box at the top of the window and press Return.

Other controls

There are additional controls alongside those for bookmarking. The top icon switches to full-screen mode. The capital ‘A’s change the text size, while the paragraph icon toggles between one or two columns of text. Narrower columns are easier to read, but a single wide one can help if pictures take up much of the page width. The last icon controls the colour scheme.

Delete a book

Removing a book from your library within the Ebook Reader app doesn’t remove it from your hard drive but does make it unavailable to read until you add it again. Go to your library, switch to Table view and click on the dustbin icon in the book‘s row. A dialogue will ask if you’re sure. If you are, click the OK
button to get rid of the incriminating evidence.

Read great comics for free

2015-01-16T08:35:00.000-08:00

Dynamic and stylish, comics are a fantastic way to enjoy a story, with the dialogue, narration, art style and perspective all playing a part in developing the world and its characters. Finding great comics used to mean trawling through the crowded shelves of a (sometimes gloomy and strangesmelling) shop, but the Comics app by ComiXology puts them all at your fingertips, wherever you are.The app features over 30,000 comics and graphic novels from publishers including Marvel, DC and Image (the people behind X-Men, Superman and Spawn, respectively). You'll also find a wealth of comics by smaller publishers, making it a great way to find new titles and fresh ideas.Best of all, ComiXology’s app works on all your Windows 8 devices, so you can start reading one on your PC, then finish it later on the train using your tablet. Let’s get started!

Get the app

Open the Windows Store and searching for ‘ComiXology’.A few apps will appear, but you want the first in the list – simply called ‘Comics’. Select it and click ‘Install’. The app and many of the comics are free, but there are also paid-for titles available, so you can choose to set up payment options. When the app has installed, a notification appears at the top right. Click to launch it.

Find free comics

The first time you open the app, you’ll see a notification asking if you want it to run in the background and place status notificationson your Lock Screen. Have a think and choose an option. You’re ready to choose somethingxp to read. There are lots of tempting new releases on the home screen, but let's start by selecting ‘Free comics’ and picking from the titles here.

Once you’ve read a comic, remember to rate it to help other app users decide whether to take the plunge .

Get a preview

You’ll only see six free comics listed at first, but there are dozens more – use the arrow button beside ‘Recommended freebies’ to see them. Once you see one that takes your fancy, click it and you’ll be taken to its product page, which shows you its credits, publication date, number of pages and more. There’s also a brief description, followed by a preview.

Make an account

Click the button labelled ‘Free’ to add the comic to your shopping cart, then click the cart icon at the top-right and select ‘Checkout’. You’ll now be prompted to create an account for the app, so enter your details. The email address you enter will be used to send you notifications when you buy and download new comics. When you’ve finished, click ‘Create’ and log in.

Enter card details (but don’t pay!)

Although you’ve chosen a free comic, you’ll still be taken to a billing page and asked to enter credit card information. Don’t worry, your card won’t be charged – this step just makes it easier if you want to splash some cash in the future. Enter your details and click ‘Proceed’. The transaction will be processed and you’ll see a page featuring all the comics you own. Click ‘Read’.

Turn the pages

Now the fun begins. You’ll see the cover of your comic with an arrow to the right, which you can click to turn the page. If you have a Windows 8 tablet, this would be a great time to start using it; holding the display in your hands and tapping the screen is much more like reading an actual comic book than clicking a mouse button.

Get dynamic

Double-click (or double-tap) the page you’re reading to enter Guided View. This is a brilliant feature exclusive to ComiXology’s app, which zooms in on sections of the comic in the same way your eyes would move if you were reading it on paper. It’s not available on every issue, but when it is, it’s a dramatic way to read a story.

Thanks to Comics by ComiXology, it’s never been easier to get a slice of the comic-book action.

Know your options

Right-click the black background and three icons will appear in the bottom right: ‘i’ for information, ‘?’ for help, and a book icon that reveals a storyboard at the top of the screen, enabling you to hop quickly between pages. What did Superman say on page four? Ah yes, the knife was Kryptonite! At the top left you’ll see an arrow that will take you back to the app’s home page.

Browse and discover

One of the best things about ComiXology’s app is how it simulates the experience of browsing through shelves of comics and flicking through the pages of whatever catches your eye. Choose a series and every book will appear on screen at once.If you enjoy one, it’s easy to go back and find the next in the series – and the next, and the next…

Fill your virtual shelves

Congratulations, you now know everything you need to download and enjoy world-class comics from some of the biggest (and smallest) publishers in the business. Many are free and even the paid-for ones rarely cost more than $10, so it’s an easy and affordable way to build up an impressive collection. And all without setting foot in a little shop smelling of musty carpet…

PC Troubleshooting

2014-12-13T05:53:00.000-08:00

There’s an amazing feeling of pride from building your own PC. You’ve chosen the perfect parts, ones that mix the best power you can get with your budget, and aimed at no one else’s idea of what you need. You’ve carefully installed them all, you’ve wired your system together, screwed in the last screw, and hit the power button for a quick test, and...Nothing Nada. Zip.

There’s nothing that’s going to make you feel quite so small. But do not despair! This actually happens to the best of us, and while it may seem daunting fi nding out what’s gone wrong, and how you can fix it, is just a matter of being thorough.

Double check the wire placement with the diagram in your motherboard’s manual.

First things, do check it isn’t something obvious. Check your power cables, and make sure your PSU doesn’t have its own power switch – if it does, make sure it’s switched on. If all of that’s fine, it’s time tostart working down the line. Check the wall socket – you never know – and any powerboard you might be using. Then check the voltage switch on your PSU, and make sure it matches local voltage. If all this works, switch out the power cable you’re using, in case that’s the culprit – if you’re at all like a lot of us in the office, you’ll have a lot of these, and they can fail in time.
At this point, if everything outside the case is working, it’s time to dive back in.This may sound odd, but give the inside of your case a good sni . If you’re smell anything burnt or like ozone, or if you can hear a high-pitched whine from the PSU, guess what – it’s your PSU. It’s much rarer than it used to be, PSUs tend to have two points of failure – and they’re at the end of their life (obviously), and when fi rst turned on in your shiny new PC. If this is the case with your build, test a spare PSU; you’ll likely have the one from your old PC, and it’ll do fi ne for testing.If it works, return your faulty unit and get a new one. You should be fi ne at this point, and get about installing your operating system.If all seems fi ne with your PSU, the next most likely culprit are the headers for the power switch on the front of the case. These simple cables are usually nested in amongst audio and LED cables, as well the reset button, and are quite easy to install in the wrong spot. Double check the wire placement with the diagram in your motherboard’s manual.These are the most common problems with a newly built PC, and every time we’ve had a system fail to power up, it’s been one of these things. That said, if everything is in order, see if your motherboard has its own power button (many overclocking models will), and try that. If that works, it’s likely the case’s power switch that is the fail point. You can either contact the manufacturer for a replacement, or, again, return the unit and get a new one.

If you’re still living in the Land of No PC, well... now things get really tedious. At this stage, it’s likely going to be a component issue.

Change out the CMOS battery, and if that still doesn’t do the trick, then it’s time to get drastic and consider the possibility that your motherboard is hors de combat. Essentially, even testing this theory means basically rebuilding your system.

We’re sorry

Unless, of course, it’s our old nemesis heat, or a faulty PSU that’s slowly failing.

is starting, but still failing to complete the boot process properly. If you’re getting power – fans turn on, drives start to whine, and so on – but the machine then shuts down, it’s likely a fault of some kind that can be found by following the above process of checking cables and internals.

In this instance, though, checking the CPU is properly seated is probably a good idea. Your machine could also get stuck in a cycle of powering up, shutting down, then powering up again, basically looping on and off. Nine times of then this means you’ve either got a faulty motherboard, or your PSU is either faulty, or possible not powerful enough.
There are a lot of possible errors to list, and our space is limited, but in all our experience, we’ve found we’re never alone when it comes to odd startup errors. The internet, however, is your friend.

ALL OPERATING SYSTEMS ARE... NOT GO

So, you’re machine is powering on, you’ve gone through the Windows install process (and had a cup of co ee while waiting), and you think you’re all good to go... And bam.
If your machine powers on, and stays on (woohoo!), but shows an error message before booting into the OS, and stops there, take note of the error.

Common errors include ‘BOOTMGR is missing’ or ‘NTLDR is missing’; in fact, it’s usually a missing fi le or driver of some kind that is the culprit. As we said, take note of the exact message, and try searching for it on Google (on a working device, of course) – you’ll more than likely fi nd exactly how to go about dealing with the problem, from messing about with boot orders in the BIOS to running a Startup Repair of Windows.
It’s also possible that you’re new machine works well for a while, but then either blue-screens or shuts down entirely. Depending on your Windows OS (yes, we’re talking Windows, because talking about multiple OSes could fi ll a LOT of pages), you should access MSconfig or System Configuration. Select the Diagnostic Startup option, reboot, and see how things go. If all is well, start re-enabling applications. It’s a little tedious, but it should fi nd what’s causing the issue.
Unless, of course, it’s our old nemesis heat, or a faulty PSU that’s slowly failing. The latter is unlikely, so see if your motherboard comes with any tools for monitoring CPU and system heat. It’s entirely possible that if your new build is not adequately cooled, that slow heat build-up is causing the issues. If you’re CPU isgetting toasty, think about installing some extra fans, or double check the airfl ow in case cables are getting in the way.Troubleshooting can be tiring, but hopefully, after all this, you’ll have a smoothly running system. And speaking of tiring, I think even I need a nap.

Partition your hard drive

2014-12-03T03:25:00.002-08:00

In many hard drives, your documents, photos and music are saved to the same area where your Windows operating system and software are located. Defragmentation can help organise everything, but having all your personal files crammed alongside Windows can really slow the whole system down. The process of partitioning solves the problem, enabling your Windows operating system on the hard drive and software to be digitally fenced off on a streamlined virtual hard drive.

Windows 7 itself can create a partition, but MiniTool Partition Wizard (www.partitionwizard.com) is a free alternative software that’s more advanced, yet easier to use.Once installed and loaded, notice the bar graph representing the available space on your hard drive. Right-click on the section where OS and your files and software are stored (usually the C: drive) and select the ‘Split’ option. Inside the new window, move the slider to the point where you’d like your partition, but remember to leave at least 20GB of free space with Windows to allow for future software installation. Next, click ‘OK’, followed by the ‘Apply’ button in the top-left of the main window.

PARTITION TIME: Dividing your files from OS and software apps is great, but regular defragmentation is important, too

The partition will now be created and another virtual hard drive will have magically appeared in your Windows Explorer menu for you to transfer your personal files unto.

Free antivirus that still supports Windows XP

2014-11-22T10:47:00.000-08:00

Microsoft no longer protects you in Windows XP, but there’s plenty of free security software that does. outlines the best antivirus tools for XP

Don’t be fooled by Microsoft’s recent U-turn on patching Windows XP. The surprise security fix for Internet Explorer 8 (the last internet explorer version that works with Windows XP) doesn’t mean that XP is now safe after all, or that the end of support for XP on 8 April was a big lie to get us all to upgrade to Windows 8. The internet explorer 8 patch on 1 May was a one-off, and it’s very unlikely there will be any more.
Microsoft will continue to update XP’s built-in security software, including Microsoft Security Essentials (http://bit.ly/1fxEN7D) and Windows Defender, and it still updates its virus definitionsin XP. But that just won’t cut it. Th ese tools score far below many free alternatives in antivirus tests, so it’s dangerous to rely on them. One recent Windows Defender update on the internet even caused thousands of XP computers to crash at startup. As a result, Microsoft’s Technet forums were flooded with angry posts from Windows XP users (read them at http://bit.ly/1p9s6Zm).

To stay safe in Windows XP, you need to build a solid wall of third-party security tools that do the job Microsoft no longer does. Antivirus companies are busy releasing and updating programs to meet demand from the Windows XP users that Microsoft has abandoned, so you have plenty to choose from.

Keep viruses off your XP PC

The best antivirus products that keep you safe in Windows XP come at a price. Premium suites Kaspersky Internet Security 2014 (www.kaspersky.co.uk), Norton Internet Security (uk.norton.com) and ESET Smart Security 7 (www.eset.co.uk) achieved the best results in the latest Home Antivirus Protection test by our security team at Dennis Technology Labs.

But right behind them were two completely free products: Avast Free Antivirus (www.avast.com) and AVG AntiVirus Free 2014 (http://bit.ly/1todjWi). Avast Free Antivirus is easy to use and very powerful security, with various scan levels that range from very fast to very thorough. Its database of virus definitions is updated constantly to give you ongoing protection, even against zero-day vulner abilities like the one Microsoft eventually patched on 1 May. Avast has pledged to support XP for at least another two years, which is great news to the 27 per cent of Avast users who still use XP and don’t plan to change.

AVG AntiVirus Free is less powerful than Avast, but it also uses up much less processing power, so it’s ideal if your computer is a bit old or slow. AVG says it has “no plans to stop supporting XP users” and that XP will receive virus definitions “for the forseeable future”, which our Technology Labs team defines as 2016 or later. Read AVG’s statement at http://bit.ly/1BYABMz.

Try out all these programs to see which suits your needs best, but only keep one on your computer. If you have two security antivirus programs running at the same time they will conflict, eff ectively identifying each other as viruses and stopping either program from working properly. Having two antivirus programs is as bad as having no antivirus at all.

Find and remove malware

The outstanding security anti-malware program Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free (www.malwarebytes.org) is designed to run alongside your antivirus, and won’t conflict with it. The new version of Malwarebytes includes “guaranteed lifetime support” for XP. Malwarebytes told Computeractive: “We will continue to support XP for as long as it’s technically possible. Th at goes for our free version as well as premium. Twenty per cent of our users still run XP, and they shouldn’t have to pay to get protected.” Each time you open Malwarebytes it updates its database, so it won’t overlook any recent malware or PUPs (Potentially
Unwanted Programs), such as adware that slow down your computer and could be used by hackers to break into your PC.Select ‘Perform full scan’ the first time, then use the default ‘quick scan’ every week or two to keep your computer clean. It’s a portable program, so you can run it from the EXEfile on a USB stick to check for unwanted nasties on a friend or family member’s computer.

Block threats in Internet

Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome Web Of Trust (www.mywot.com/download) is a free add-on for internet explorer, Firefox and Chrome that uses a traffi c-lights system to warn you about phishinglinks, malicious sites and other traps. A green icon indicates that a link has excellent safety reports; amber is ‘unsatisfactory’ and red means ‘poor’. Red links are blocked by default, but you can still click them if you really want to. Web Of Trust is internet browser based and constantly updated, so it’ll always work in Windows XP.
A firewallis another essential weapon against threats from the web. Comodo Firewall Free (http://bit.ly/1zMP5KB) works alongside your antivirus and anti-malware programs and acts like a shield to protect you against threats like internet malware and zero-day attacks. Its current version still works in XP.

Note that if you’re using Internet Explorer in XP you should be extra vigilant. Iinternet Explorer’s popularity makes it a prime target for hackers.

Clean your hard disk by removing unnecessary files to speed up Windows

2014-11-22T10:25:00.001-08:00

Improving your computer’s performance can just be a matter of giving it a spring clean. Leave the feather duster in the cupboard though, as this housework only requires some deft mousework.Click ‘Start > Computer’ and right-click on the hard drive where your Windows files reside (in most cases you’ll find them in the C: drive). Next, click the ‘Properties’ option to display a small window featuring a blue and purple pie chart. Notice the button next to this labelled ‘Disk Cleanup’ – clicking this will reveal various file categories you can cleanse.

Generally any item on the list can be ticked for deletion, but give your Recycle Bin a quick once-over to make sure there’s nothing important lurking inside that might be purged accidentally. Leaving the ‘Thumbnails’ box unchecked is also wise, as this saves your computer the trouble of regenerating image thumbnails when you next view your photo albums. Click ‘OK’ and Windows will commence the cleanup, free some computer hard drive space and make your computer run a little faster now it’s shed some of those extra virtual pounds.

To achieve a deeper clean, click the ’Disk Cleanup’ button next the pie chart again, but switch to the More Options tab. The upper ‘Clean up’ button opens the ‘Uninstall or change a program’ window where you can scour your computer for unnecessary software. Abandoned games, disused printer software and unnecessary web browser toolbars are all worth uninstalling. Back on the Disk cleanup window, the lower ‘Clean up’ button will delete Windows System Restore points apart from the most recent, potentially releasing gigabytes of storage space.

Hands on with Windows 10

2014-11-22T03:02:00.000-08:00

As a Windows user, we’re hoping you’ve heard of Windows 10 by now. If not, then it’s the next version of Windows; Microsoft is skipping Windows 9 entirely and going straight to 10. It announced Windows 10 in October and made a Technical Preview version available to download the next day.

The Technical Preview of Windows 10 doesn’t have every feature of the upcoming operating system, but Microsoft has revealed that over a million people are testing it anyway, and we’re among them.

“It’s been awesome to see so many of you joining the Windows Insider Program and letting us know what you think about the Windows 10 Technical Preview software,”

Microsoft’s corporate vice president of operating systems Joe Belfiore wrote in a Windows blog post, celebrating the millionth download.

Here at pcprotuts we’ve been getting stuck into the new operating system for a good few weeks now, and here we present our findings. You’ll find out what Windows 10 is really like to use, what we like and what we don’t.

To summarise, we think Windows 10 is going to be a hit. It’s already won our hearts by combining the best bits of Windows 7 and 8, but perhaps the best news is that there’s more to come.

We expect some new features to be added before its final release around summer 2015, so look out for details of those in the pages of this magazine shortly.In the meantime, let’s take a closer look at what Windows 10 has in store for you…

We expect some new features to be added before its final release in 2015

Microsoft tries to strike a balance for every kind of user

Yes, the Start menu is back. Yes, there are virtual desktops. No, the Charms bar hasn’t gone away. And no, we don’t know precisely when Windows 10 will be released or what it will cost. But we’ve seen the Technical Preview of the new operating system, and the word to bear in mind is ‘productivity’.This isn’t the place to look for changes in Explorer or the Control Panel, let alone desktop tools like Paint and Notepad, or Store apps like Music and Video. The Technical Preview is about the core features that are supposed to prove Microsoft can balance touch, mouse and keyboard input without making any users feel abandoned.

Boot it up

There are profound differences between Windows 8.1 and Windows 10, even in this early technical preview. For starters, the installation process has been streamlined. You can get through the entire process without creating a local account on your machine and instead authenticate via your existing Microsoft account. We also like the ability to setup and configure sync settings for Microsoft’s OneDrive file hosting service from the installation itself.

Unlike Windows 8/8.1, Windows 10 boots straight into a traditional looking desktop. This contains all the elements you’d expect, with icons on the desktop and a taskbar at the bottom and a fully functional Start menu. As expected, the Start menu is the default if you use Windows 10 with a keyboard and mouse, but you can keep the full-screen Start screen if you prefer it. Even on the Start menu, you can pin Live tiles in multiple sizes on the right, but on the left you also get the familiar list of pinned and recent apps, with jumplists for files, the search box (which you can also use to run typed commands), and a power button for shutting down or restarting your PC.The search box has all the Windows 8 features, including results from Bing and the Windows store, and a separate Search menu next to the Start button gives you trending topics directly from Bing, too.You can resize the Start menu, although you can only drag to change the height; changing the width means picking a separate setting. This is more familiar for mouse and keyboard users, but it remains to be seen whether Windows 8 users who like touch will find it a step backwards.

Snaps, apps and desktops

You can still use [Alt]+[Tab] to move between open windows. As in Windows 8.1, these now include any modern apps you have running, and those now open as windows on the desktop like any other software you’re running, ready to be resized or snapped side-by-side. The new Task View button on the Taskbar is there to introduce the idea of moving between windows to the many Windows users who have never tried [Alt]+[Tab].
There are many more ways to snap windows than there were in Windows 8. If you have a narrow window, the second one can take up all the rest of the space, or you can snap four apps, one in each corner. Windows even shows thumbnails of open windows to help you pick one to snap without rearranging everything.
The [Windows]+[Tab] keyboard shortcut now gives you a view that’s the same as [Alt]+[Tab], except for a button at the bottom for adding virtual desktops, and the list of desktops you already have open. You can use your mouse to pick the set of windows you want to put on screen, and the window you want to start using.
Virtual desktops aren’t new, but they never graduated from a utility to a main
Windows feature because they can be confusing to manage. There’s a subtle clue in the Taskbar to help you; if an app is open but not in the current desktop, it is underlined rather than outlined, and if you click on its icon you go straight to it and the rest of that desktop. It remains to be seen whether that’s enough to avoid confusion, but it certainly signals that Microsoft has power users in mind.

Works like a charm

Despite rumours, the Charms bar hasn’t gone away, but you might not see it when you use the [Windows]+[C] shortcut. If you have a mouse and keyboard and the window that’s active is a modern app like the Windows Store, that shortcut brings up a mini Charms menu hanging off the top left corner of the app instead.
This has the three dots that give you any relevant extra commands (labelled as App Commands). These include the Search, Share and Settings charms that are usually on the Charms bar, other useful commands like Play, Print and Project, plus the option of running the app full screen.
If you can’t print from the app, the Print charm on the menu is greyed out. That makes the Charms less touchfriendly, but much more mouse-friendly when you’re controlling an app. That’s exactly what users without touchscreens want; moving all the way over to the side of the screen and all the way back isn’t efficient with a mouse. When you’re controlling Windows – which is what you get when you don’t have a modern app selected – having the Charms and settings bar at the side of the screen is fairly logical. And those Charms are staying around (although probably in a different arrangement with a more logical division of what shows up where) because when the Windows team took tried taking them out, users at Microsoft complained loudly.
That big, friendly sidebar for choosing and changing Wi-Fi options turned out to be really handy and surprisingly popular. This is the Windows 10 experience in microcosm. Microsoft is trying to keep the bits of the modern interface that people like and find useful, but not have them be annoying and intrusive when mouse users are getting things done.

The command prompt

At the other extreme from Charms is the command prompt, where you go to run scripts and batch files. In recent years the emphasis has been on the far more powerful PowerShell automation system, but in the spirit of ‘no feature left behind’, the humble command line is getting the same harmonisation as the rest of Windows 10. You can finally use keyboard shortcuts to select a line or a word at a time, and to copy and paste text.
Only a tiny fraction of Windows users may ever use the command line, but Microsoft wants them to be happy as well, and this is the kind of modernisation that’s a decade overdue.

New tools

Some of the most interesting features for business aren’t visible in the Technical Preview. These include the ability to upgrade PCs using management tools, and manage them through the same Mobile Device Management systems used for smartphones and tablets. There will also be an enterprise app store that lets businesses manage volume licences for modern apps instead of making users sign in to a work PC with a personal Microsoft account, and separation of personal and business data using encrypted containers. These features will appeal to businesses, but they can’t try them out until the previews of Windows Server and the necessary management tools come along.

Integrated Internet Explorer

The preview of Windows 10 only includes a desktop version of Internet Explorer, and it’s not a new one; future updates to the web browser are coming out on their own schedule. That doesn’t necessarily mean the immersive version of Internet Explorer is going away, but it doesn’t make sense to have a separate, full-screen browser when all the modern apps are now just windows on the desktop.
We don’t know what changes there will be to the IE interface, and the Windows team hasn’t yet decided how to handle the different modes of the browser. Having a plugin-free version of the browser is definitely a real security advantage, but unless it’s immediately obvious how to switch between them people will get annoyed and confused. Getting challenges like this right without abandoning the benefits of Windows 8 is where Windows 10 will succeed or fail.

Reinstall Windows

2014-11-22T02:17:00.000-08:00

Wiping your PC and reinstalling Windows can be the most effective way to boost it

If you’ve tried clearing the clutter, vanquishing viruses and making performance tweaks, but your computer is still on a go-slow, it’s time to return it to its former glory by reinstalling Windows. This will delete everything from your hard drive though, so if there are any files, emails or even Internet Explorer Favourites you don’t want to lose, it’s essential to back these up. Take a look at the step-by-step guide below to learn how to do this in a little more detail.

Know your reinstalling methods

There are two main methods for reinstalling Windows, but we’ll start with the most common procedure for computers made by companies such as Dell or Acer. These manufacturers often allocate a small area of your hard drive to store a duplicate of the computer’s original Windows 7 data, which can now be used to overwrite any clogged files.

To access this preserved copy of this operating system, restart your computer and as soon as it begins to fire back up, repeatedly tap [F8] until a menu entitled ‘Advanced boot options’ appears. Select the ‘Repair your computer’ option and press [Enter]. At this point, the computer’s recovery software may start to kick in automatically. If it doesn’t, continue until you reach the stage where you’re required to select your usual account name from a drop-down list and enter the associated password as per normal. You’ll now be met with a list of various options, but the one we’re looking for activates the PC manufacturer’s recovery software and is normally the last link to appear on the list.

START AFRESH It may sound a little drastic, but reinstalling Windows 7 can give your poor old PC a real boost

It’s now a matter of following the specific instructions for your recovery program, but if given the choice between preserving new and changed software or wiping everything back to exact factory specifications, plump for the latter. This way any undesirable digital intruders which may have set up camp on your computer over the years will be evicted. This is the first reinstalling method.

Reinstalling with a disc

The second method for reinstalling it requires a genuine Windows 7 installation DVD, which you may have been given if your PC was built by a low-volume manufacturer. To use this disc, first back up your files then restart your computer, but instead of pressing [F8] on start-up, tap [F12] to load the DVD. When prompted, click the large ‘Install now’ button and continue until you’re asked which type of installation you want. Pick the ‘Custom (advanced)’ option and you’ll now have the choice of where to install it. Choose the partition where the operating system is currently installed (usually the C: drive) and click the ‘Drive options’ link beneath. Double-check you’ve highlighted the correct partition, select the ‘Format’ option and when this finishes, click ‘Next’ for the reinstalling process.You’re nearly ready to enjoy your newly-restored, fighting fit PC, but there are a couple more hurdles to clear. During the set-up process you’ll have to enter your very own product key. This is usually found on a sticker attached to your computer, or on the original packaging of your Windows disc. Finally, once you’re back online, be sure to regularly visit the Windows Update web page to apply essential security updates and add any missing hardware drivers. And this is the second reinstalling method.

Save money by running your PC more efficiently

2014-11-17T00:55:00.001-08:00

How mach power do PCs use?

Most desktop computers use between 65 and 250 Watts. Laptops are less demanding and use between 15 and 45 Watts. LCD monitors can use 20 Watts while they're switched on. and even energy-efficient models can still use 2W while on standby. If you're still using an older CRT (cathode ray tube) monltor. It could be using as much as 80 Watts. The more work your PC is doing. the more power it will consume. 50 if you're using lots of peripherals or playing games. your power drain will be greater than if you’re just doing a bit of typing. If you're accessing the intemet. you'll be using more power because more devices and components are being used to send and receive the data.

Monitor your energy use

The figures above are just a rough guide.

To get a more accurate measure of how much electricity your PC uses. attach an energy monitor to your mains supply cable. This is very easy and perfectly safe. and you'll be able to see the power consumption of your computer the moment you turn on your PC. You'll also be able to work out how much electricity individual items use - such as your screen or printer. Some energy suppliers provide free monitors with certain tariffs. but you can buy one yourself. OWL (www.theowl.com) has a range of models, priced from around £28. Once you've measured your electricity consumption. you can work out how much you’re paying. See our Mini Workshop below for instructions on how to do this.

Speed up boot up

The main reason we fail to switch off our computers is that it takes a frustrating amount of time to start them up again. Reducing your PC's boot time will encourage other computer users in your household (usually the ones who don't pay the electricity bill) to switch the PC off when they've finished using it.

Start by uninstalling unwanted programs and removing clutter using a program such as CCleaner (www.piriform.com). Then defrag your hard disk using the built-in Windows disk defragmenter or a program such as Auslogics Disk Defrag Free (www.auslogics.com). Slow boot-ups are most commonly caused by a lot of extra programs launching alongside Windows. You can easily remove unwanted auto-starting items using the Startup manager in CCleaner. or a program such as WinPatrol (www.winpatrol.com). Replacing your current mechanical system drive with a much faster $50 will make a big difference and can cut boot up times from several minutes to a matter of seconds. Decent-sized 5505 are getting cheaper. and you can currently buy a 24068 Kingston Technology V300 drive from Amazon for £73. The other benefit of upgrading to an $50 is that they are far more energy efficient than traditional hard drives. A typical hard drive will consume around SW at peak load while an $50 will use less than 2W.

Turn off your screen

Old fashioned CRT monitors are rare nowadays. but if you still use one, it will be your biggest consumer of electricity by some margin. Modern flat screens are much better. but you should still get into the habit of switching off your monitor when you step away from your computer. Use the off switch rather than just letting it go into standby. Try turning the brightness down. too - you can usually get used to a darker screen fairly quickly. Screensavers were originally designed to protect your monitor from phosphor burn-in. which is a permanent ghostly image on the screen caused by a still image being displayed continuously for a long time. This is no longer an issue with modern monitors. so screensavers serve no real purpose beyond looking nice. Some of the fanciest screensavers can be very processor intensive. keeping your graphics hardware working and your monitor switched on, all of which wastes electricity.

Make use of power-saving plans

Windows comes with a comprehensive selection of fully customisable power plans. A balanced set-up will suit most users. but you can reduce overall energy consumption by switching to a power-saver plan instead. In windows 7, click Start. type Power Options into the box and press Enter. It's the same in Windows 8.x. except you need to type Power Options on the Start screen and press Enter.

Anti aliasing [Antialiasing] explain

2014-11-12T02:50:00.002-08:00

Different GPUs offer different types of anti aliasing [AA], which is the smoothing out of jaggies that appear on edges of surfaces in games. Let's look at the most common types of anti aliasing and it's explanations:

Exemple of two photos, one use anti aliasing and the other don't

Full Scene AA FSAA, or [AA]:

The most basic type of AA, this is sometimes called super-sampling. It involves rendering a scene at higher resolutions and then down-sampling the final image for a smoother transition between pixels, which appears like softer edges on your screen. lf you run 2XAA,thescene will be calculated at double the resolution, and 4X AA renders it at four times the resolution, hence a massive performance hit.

Multi-Sample AA [MSAAI]:

This is a more efficient form of FSAA, even though scenes are still rendered at higher resolutions, then down-sampled. It achieves this efficiency by only super-sampling pixels that are along edges; by sampling fewer pixels, you don't see as much of a hit as with FSAA.

Fast Approximate AA [FXAA]:

This is a shader-based Nvidia cration designed to allow for decent AA with very little to no performance hit. It achieves this by smoothing every pixel onscreen. incluuding those born from pixel shaders, which isn't possible with MSAA.

TXAA:

This is specific type to Kepler GPU sand combines MSAA with post-processing to achieve higher quality AA,pixelsng, but it's not as efficient as FXAA.

Morphological AA [MLAA]:

This is AMD technology that uses GPU-accelerated compute functlonality to apply AA as a post-processing effect as opposed to the super-sampling method.

Help for CryptoLocker victims as file-unlocking website goes live

2014-11-12T02:49:00.000-08:00

Victims of the ransomware cryptolocker can now get their files back for free, thanks to the work of security experts.

The deadly malware, which was discovered last year, was controlled by the same servers that hosted Gameover Zeus.

These were taken down by an international law enforcement effort in May 2014, although the alleged mastermind - Russian Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev - is still at large (see his FBI ‘Wanted’ poster at http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber/evgeniy-mikhailovich-bogachev).

In the past eight months CryptoLocker infected some 500,000 Windows computers, encrypting users’ files and demanding an average of 5300 (£178) to release them. It’s been estimated that the criminals had managed to extort at least 41,928 Bitcoins from victims - equivalent at the time to about $27 million in the first three months of its operation.

Until now, users have had to pay up to recover their ﬁles. But researchers at security companies FireEye and Fox-IT have launched the Decrypt CryptoLocker website (www.decryptcryptolocker.com), where victims can unlock their ﬁles.
They will need to enter their email address and upload one of the affected ﬁles. They will then receive a master decryption key, plus a download link to the recovery program, and be able to decrypt the remaining ﬁles.
The website was created after security researchers obtained a copy of CryptoLocker’s database of victims.

Facebook scams that install malware

2014-11-12T02:46:00.001-08:00

What happened ?

Security company Bitdefender revealedthat the UK’s most c1icked—on Facebook scam attempts to trick you into thinking you can see how many people have viewed your proﬁle.

Bitdefender says this is by far the most effective scam on Facebook, comprising 30 per cent of fake links that have been clicked in users’ News Feed. The company’s list of the 10 most clicked scams shows that criminals’ main tactic is to tempt users with scams relating to Facebook itself — for example, by promising to show you how to change the colour of your Facebook page from blue.

These particular scams can be hard to spot because they are presented as Facebook introducing a new feature. Only one scam in Bitdefender’s top 10 uses the bait of a celebrity sex video, which has previously been a common tactic used by hackers.

In 2013, millions of people fell for a scam claiming to show a sex tape of US pop star Taylor Swift. This year, the promise of a sex video featuring Barbadian singer Rihanna is more popular weapon for hackers,

Clicking any of the seams will take you to a malicious website that tries to infect your PC with a virus.

What should you do?

Be aware that scammers are increasingly trying to con you on Facebook by offering tools for the site that don’t actually exist. One way these may appear in your News Feed is because they’ve been unwittingly ‘liked’ by one of your Facebook friends. To keep yourself safe, install Bitdefender’s Safego, which is a free Facebook app that scans links you receive from your friends. If Safego identiﬁes a link as malicious, you should click the button next to it to warn the friend that sent it.

Why I am receiving these graphics card warnings ?

2014-11-12T02:44:00.001-08:00

The question:

I'm wondering if you can help me with my Windows Vista problems. They don't appear to affect the computer‘s performance or my ability to use it, but do result in annoying messages that appear every time I start my PC.
The ﬁrst message appears just after I switch on, saying “Unsupported Video Conﬁguration Detected”. It also says that my computer “has an add-in graphics card but the monitor cable is plugged into the integrated video connector”. I am offered the option to press F1 to continue or F2 to enter setup. I press F1 and all seems ﬁne. Then, when Windows has launched, I get this warning: “The Catalyst Control Centre is not supported by the driver version of your [obscured words] graphics adapter. Please update your ATI graphics driver, or enable your [obscured words] using the Displays Manager.” The obscured words are off the edge of the screen, so I can’t read them. Do you have any idea what’s causing this and how to silence these annoying messages?

The answer:

The messages contain clues to the cause of your problem. Catalyst Control Centre is software from a company called ATI, which makes graphics cards. So, your PC has a dedicated ATI graphics card installed and also a graphics card that’s integrated onto the motherboard. From the warning messages it sounds
like your monitor’s cable is plugged into the connector for the motherboard’s graphics card. That’s ﬁne if that’s what you or the manufacturer intended, but your PC detects a dedicated graphics card ﬁtted, so you’re seeing these messages.

The solution most likely to work is to look around the rear of your PC and plug the monitor cable into the other connector. If it does, all well and good your problem is solved.

If not, it could be that your drivers are out of date or that you need to install Microsoft’s .NET framework, which is required for ATl’s Catalyst Control Centre to work correctly. You can download the latest version of .NET from http://www.microsoft.com/net/downloads and the latest version of your graphics card’s drivers from http://support.amd.com/en-us/download.

Finally, there's also the outside possibility that the dedicated graphics card has been loose or faulty since you bought it, so you’ve always relied on the motherboard’s graphics connector, consider this normal and have put up with the messages. If this is the case, then switch off the computer and remove the power cable, earth yourself by touching a metal—grounded object (like a radiator) then carefully open up the case and look inside. Remove the graphics card’s retaining screw then remove and reinsert the graphics card, using ﬁrm thumb pressure. Reassemble, attach the monitor cable to the graphics card’s connector then ﬁre up your PC.

If it doesn’t work, open the case again and then remove the card completely. This should ﬁx your ﬁrst message. If the second still appears when Windows loads, use Control Panel to uninstall Catalyst Control Centre.

How to hide your tracks on the internet

2014-11-12T02:41:00.000-08:00

Staying safe when you're online is more important than ever. These handy tips allow you to avoid its dodgy bits.

Thanks to the ubiquity of internet connected devices, we’re online more often and in more places than ever. But there is a dark side to this world: cyber criminals want our money, our identities and our information, and they’re often successful in getting them. We’ll show you how to stay safe and cover your tracks when you're online. Of course, you don’t need to cover your tracks if you don’t make any in the ﬁrst place. Using a PC in an internet cafe is a secure way to browse the internet, providing you don't log in to any sites. Having to go to a speciﬁc place to access the internet kind of defeats the point of mobile, unlimited internet access though. Fortunately, most browsers come with incognito or private browsing modes, which mean anything you enter is wiped when the window is closed down.

In Internet Explorer, pressing [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[P] opens an In Private window, while [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[N] opens an Incognito window in Chrome. These modes are particularly useful if you don't want sensitive information such as passwords to be stored by your browser. They’ re also useful for checking out suspicious internet links as they prevent websites accessing personal information.

However, incognito modes won’t stop spyware or malware accessing your keystrokes or passwords. For these you need a robust antivirus package that's kept up to date. It’s a good idea to run scans regularly to stop nasties getting in, and to use any identity protection tools included with the software.

Google’s internet searches tend to deliver the best results, but at a price the company traclm the things you search for so it can deliver relevant adverts to you. If you’re not happy about this, you can use Duck Duck Go’s (http://duckduckgo.com) search to ﬁnd what you’re looking for without being tracked. We’ve found it to be as accurate and useful as Google.

How to make an Internet Explorer super homepage

2014-11-12T02:34:00.004-08:00

Make your Internet Explorer homepage the best place to be by adding all your favourite websites. You’ll find it more useful than ever.

When you open Internet Explorer, the ﬁrst site you see is your homepage.This could be the site that your PC manufacturer put on there, or it could be one you've subsequently chosen yourself. If you visit lots of the same sites regularly as many of us do rather than typing each URL into the address bar every time you want to open them up, or laboriously ﬁnding them from your Favorites list, you can create a homepage which opens your best-loved websites automatically when you start up Internet Explorer. These sites will be displayed as tabs along the top of the window, or they can be viewed as large thumbnails, which you simply click on.

It's easy to create a homepage featuring all your favourite sites in individual tabs, and it will save you lots of time and effort.

Once you've done it you'll wonder how you ever lived without it!

Download the latest version

To create a multi-tab homepage, you’ll first need to make sure you’ve downloaded the latest version of Internet Explorer unless you’re already using it. You can download it free from http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/internet-explorer/download-ie. The installer will guide you through each step of the process. Once it’s done, you’re ready to open Internet Explorer and move on to the next step.

Select homepages that you want to use

Start by selecting all of the websites you’d like to see open on your homepage. The easiest way to do this is to choose your preferred sites from the ones that you’ve saved in your Favorites folder. Click on the ‘Favorites’ folder at the top of the Internet Explorer toolbar, right-click on any website you want to include and click on ‘Open in new tab’.

Create a homepage of tabs

Click on the cog to the right of the little ‘Favorite’ icon in the top toolbar of Internet Explorer and select ‘Internet Options’. When a new window appears, click on ‘Use current’ underneath the Homepage area, and Internet Explorer will automatically add all your current tabs as homepages. Now just click ‘OK’ to set these pages to your homepage.

Add single tabs to your homepage

You can add more tabs at a later date without the hassle of creating a new homepage simply by adding single tabs to your current homepage. Just click on the cog to the right of the Favourite icon once more, and underneath the area where it says Homepage, click ‘Use new tab’, enter the name of your additional
site and click ‘OK’.

Remove website tabs

Likewise, if you get bored of any of the sites on your homepage, you can remove single tabs just as easily without having to start from scratch. Again, underneath the Homepage area, just delete tabs you don’t want to see any more and click ‘OK’. If you want to remove them all, just select all the websites and delete them – easy!

Save your homepage

If you’re planning to create more than one homepage of websites, it’s a good idea to save each of these to your Favorites, so you can swap between them when you like. Click on ‘Favorites’ in the toolbar, click on the arrow to the right of the ‘Add to Favorites’ button, select ‘Add current tabs to Favorites’ and choose a name to easily distinguish between homepages.

Quickly manage tabs

There are lots of handy shortcuts available in Internet Explorer, and if you’re planning to use tabs a lot when browsing, learning them will save you valuable time. Our favourites are [Ctrl]+[T] to open a brand new tab, while [Ctrl]+[W] closes the currently open tab. Alternatively, you can switch between your open tabs by using the [Ctrl]+[Tab] keys.

You’re all done

Congratulations – you’ve created a homepage that displays all your favourite sites as soon as you open Internet Explorer, no typing required. You’ll no longer have to waste precious time opening tabs and browsing to the sites that you use every day. One final word of warning, though: don’t choose too many websites as this can slow down your computer.

Speed up your PC in 5 minutes

2014-11-12T02:30:00.002-08:00

ReadyBoost is a free way to speed up your system using a USB stick, and it’s great for extending the life of your PC. Here’s how to make the most of it!

here’s little more frustrating than realising your once speedy computer, which served you well just a few months ago, is starting to feel slow and unresponsive. Don’t worry though – you don’t need to fork out for an upgrade yet. You can turn to page 72 for our top 10 tips and tricks for recovering lost performance, but Windows also offers a quick and easy solution. ReadyBoost is an extremely useful built-in tool that uses removable flash memory, such as USB sticks and SD cards, as extra RAM to speed up your system. In Windows 7 or 8, the amount of memory that can be used for ReadyBoost has been given a huge increase, and you can now use more than one form of removable memory, giving you extra scope to speed up your machine. It’s particularly useful for systems running with less than 2GB of RAM, such as netbooks.

1/ Insert your USB stick

First, make sure that you have your choice of removable flash memory to hand. To start the ReadyBoost process, you need to insert your USB stick into your computer and wait for the AutoPlay menu to appear. If you’re opting to use an SD card instead, just place it into the slot on your laptop or desktop PC, or use an external card reader.

2/ Choose ReadyBoost

Once the AutoPlay window pops up, you can start using ReadyBoost. The relevant option appears at the bottom of the list, where you’d normally choose to either browse the device or load images from an SD card straight into Windows Live Photo Gallery. When you click on the ‘Readyboost’ option, you’ll be taken straight to a configuration screen.

3/ Create a dedicated device

If you’re planning on using this USB flash drive just for ReadyBoost and don’t intend to store any data on it as well, you should turn it into a dedicated device. To do this, simply check the second option in the list, ‘Dedicate this device to ReadyBoost’. This option makes all of the USB drive’s storage space available to be used by Windows.

4/ Prepare it for use

Now that your USB stick is a dedicated device, it’s ready to give your computer the performance boost it so badly needs. Click ‘OK’ and your device is prepared for use by the system. From now on, whenever you insert that drive into your PC, Windows recognises it and adds its capacity to the system, so your computer has more memory to use.

5/ Partition a USB device

If you still want to be able to use your USB stick’s memory for storing your documents, photographs and other files, but you also need to speed up your computer, a different option is required. This will have a less dramatic effect than making it a dedicated device, but can still be helpful. Insert your USB stick or SD card and click the ‘Speed up your system’ option as before.

6/ Slide to increase

You can use the slider to allocate a portion of the disk’s space to ReadyBoost, while still leaving a certain amount of room for your files. Move the slider left or right until you’re happy with the amount of space. We wouldn’t recommend dedicating less than 256MB to ReadyBoost, otherwise you won’t see much difference in the speed of your system.

7/ Double up

In Windows Vista, ReadyBoost only supported one device with a capacity up to 4GB, but with Windows 7 or 8 you can use multiple fast devices, with nearly unlimited memory. If your laptop or desktop computer has an SD card that’s unused for the majority of the time, why not consider making this a semipermanent ReadyBoost slot?

8/ Enjoy!

You should now have a noticeably more responsive computer, and be able to perform daily tasks faster than before. Although Readyboost won’t help you transform a basic machine into a gaming behemoth, you should feel a real change in your system’s performance, and it might even stave off the need for a new computer for a little while to come.

How to manage your files quickly and easily

2014-11-12T00:39:00.003-08:00

Take the stress out of file management by letting DropIt organise and process selected files and folders speedily, simply and automatically.

DropIt is a tiny free tool that’s designed to speed up common file and folder operations such as copying, moving, renaming and encrypting. You can set it up to monitor selected folders automatically, or manually drag files and folders on to the DropIt icon, which floats above all other windows on the desktop.
DropIt uses a series of ‘associations’ to select files, filtering them by name, type or even properties. It then performs a specific action on the selected files, which you can customise to suit your personal needs. You can set up multiple associations covering a wide range of files and types, and even organise your associations into profiles for specific tasks. If you regularly find yourself performing the same file-based tasks over and over again, you’re going to love DropIt.

1. Set up DropIt

Install DropIt from the cover disc, or download and run the portable version from www.dropitproject.com. If installing, tick ‘Launch DropIt’ at the end of the setup before clicking ‘Finish’. You’ll see an arrow appear on-screen – this is the DropIt tool, which floats on-screen above other windows. Click on it and drag it somewhere less distracting – a right-hand corner, for example.

2. Your first association

DropIt works by creating ‘associations’ that process files based on a set of rules. For our first example we’re going to create a simple association that moves any JPG file dragged on to the DropIt icon to your Pictures folder. First, locate a JPG file and drag it on to the DropIt icon. Click ‘Yes’ when prompted, then give it a suitably descriptive name to help you identify it.

3. Verify rules and action

You will notice that the Rules box is already pre-filled with *.JPG, indicating that the association will only apply to files whose names end in .JPG. Click the ‘Action’ drop-down menu to see a list of all 18 actions you can perform using the program. As this rule is designed to simply move all JPG files that are dragged on to the DropIt icon to your Pictures folder, leave ‘Move’ selected for now.

4. Complete action

Click the folder button next to Destination Folder to select your Pictures folder (if you try to select your Pictures library, DropIt will simply create a Pictures folder on the desktop for your files), then click ‘Save’. You’ll notice that the association isn’t performed immediately – instead, click the ‘Play’ button and the file will be magically moved. Test it with another JPG file.

5. Create second association

Right-click the DropIt icon and select ‘Associations’ to manage existing associations and create new ones from scratch. You’ll also see a Default drop-down menu. Clicking this reveals that DropIt supports profiles, allowing you to organise and switch available associations depending on specific circumstances. We’ll cover those later – for now, click ‘+’ to create another association.

6. Apply more complex rules

Each rule uses a set of filters to determine which files or folders to process. Click the ‘i’ button next to the box to see examples of filters you can create based on the file or folder name. Use the * character as a wildcard for files, and ** characters for folders. Use the / character to exclude items. To apply multiple filters, separate each one with either a semi-colon or | character.

7. More filter options

You can also apply filters based on file properties, attributes and even file content. Click the funnel button next to the ‘i’ button to choose these. Tick a filter to enable it, then click the ‘>’ dropdown menu to make the filter apply when the file is greater than (>), equal to (=) or less than (<) the given attribute. File content lets you match based on words or text strings.

8. Actions: compress

Click the ‘Action’ box to reveal different actions you can perform on a file – one action can be performed per association. Use ‘Compress’ to pack together all the files selected by the filter into a single archive file, for example. Note how the final box changes depending on what option you select – for compressed files, click ‘Configure’ to choose an archive type, for example.

9. Actions: rename

The Rename option is good for quickly renaming digital camera photos that have unhelpful filenames, such as GEDC0500.jpg. After selecting ‘Rename’, click the book icon next to the file name to reveal a list of options that can be inserted into the renamed filename. Select ‘Images’ to see a list of naming options including file dimensions and the date when the photo was taken.

10. More actions

Other handy actions include creating image galleries, music playlists and shortcuts, changing a file’s properties, or even ignoring it altogether. The latter option is best used for creating exclusion filters, so files matching the rule are immune to any other associations you’ve set up. To make this work, click the star button next to its name to prioritise it over other associations.

11. Use profiles

DropIt supports profiles – collections of related associations that can be applied for specific purposes. The program includes a number of profiles with pre-built associations for a variety of uses, including creating music playlists and compiling text lists of files. To switch profiles, right-click the DropIt icon and select your profile from the Profiles drop-down menu.

12. View profile associations

You’ll see the DropIt icon change to the profile icon that’s been selected to help identify which one you’re using. To see what associations this profile performs, right-click the icon and choose ‘Associations’. You can transfer any of these to another profile: right-click one and select ‘Copy to’ to do so. Select another profile from the drop-down menu to view its associations.

13. Manage profiles

To set up and manage profiles, right-click the DropIt icon choose ‘Profiles > Customize’. Click ‘+’ to create a new one. Give it a suitable name, then click the ‘Search’ button to pick the icon DropIt will use when the profile is selected. Alter its dimensions to change its size and use the Opacity slider to adjust transparency, if required. Click ‘Save’ when you’re done.

14. Monitor folders

To have DropIt monitor folders automatically, right-click the DropIt icon and choose ‘Options > Monitoring’. Tick ‘Enable scan of monitored folders’, then click ‘Add’ to choose a folder using the folder button. Select the profile whose associations you want to process on any files in the selected folder and click ‘Save’. Repeat for any additional folders you wish to monitor.

Manage your disk drive

2014-11-12T00:29:00.000-08:00

A disk, whether it's a traditional mechanical one or a new solid-state drive, is one of the most important parts of the PC. It stores the operating system, software and files like documents, photos, music and so on. It can be expected to work reliably for many years, but while the hardware may be trouble-free fot most people, the filing system certainly isn't. You need to know how to check the disk for errors and repair any that are found, otherwise little problems can grow into bigger ones.
New disks, or even old ones if there's sufficient free space, can be partitioned to enable files to be organised in a more efficient or orderly manner. A well used disk must be optimised for speed, decluttered and space cleared to prevent it from filling up. You need to know what's using all the space on an old disk drive that's nearly full and how to erase disks when they're finished with and headed for the bin or recycling point.
The disk is a key component, and there are lots of tools to help you to manage it. Let's start by seeing how to check them for errors.

Check For Faults

The disk drive contains hundreds of thousands of ﬁles, and it's surprising how many the operating system must manage. If you want to count the number of files on the disk drive, press windows+R and enter cmd. Type 'dir Is’, and sit back and watch as thousands of ﬁles scroll by. When it's finished, the total files listed figure is at the bottom. A clean installation of Windows is around 50,000, and a well used PC could have hundreds of thousands.
Glitches in the mains power supply to the computer can cause corruption in ﬁles that are being written to the disk or are open and in use. Programs that crash can leave partially written files in a damaged state, and bugs in programs or Windows can cause files to be stored wrongly on the disk filing system.
Disk drives often have errors, but some are so minor that windows carries on regardless and doesn't even report them. You could be using a PC that has errors without realising it. Small problems can accumulate, though, and as they build up, they can become more serious, so it's best to frequently check for errors and fix them before they can do any damage.

Open an Explorer window and select Computer on the left. Right-click the disk drive and select Properties. Click Check Now in the Error-checking section on the Tools tab. If you're running Windows 7, Vista or XP, tick the option to ‘Automatically fix file system errors’ and click Start. Select the option to check for errors the next time you start Windows, and then shut down and restart.

Nearly all disk errors are filing system problems, where Windows has lost track of files or corrupted the data. when the disk drive hardware begins to fail, though, some parts of the disk surface can become difficult or impossible to read. The option to ‘Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors‘ checks the disk surface sector by sector and marks bad ones so they won't be used again. If possible, data is copied from bad sectors and stored elsewhere in good sectors. This option is rarely needed, but if you use it, be aware that it can take several hours to complete.

Microsoft has improved this repair tool in Windows 8, and it can scan for and repair faults without needing to restart. when the repair tool is selected, Windows 8 may say that the disk is okay. Ignore the message and click the option to scan the disk for errors anyway. However, it doesn't offer the surface scan option to check for bad sectors. To do this, press windows+R and enter cmd. At the command prompt enter ‘chkdsk c: /r‘.

CheckDisk is a freeware utility that displays more information about the health of the disk drive and errors than Windows. It lists the tests performed, files that have errors, the number of files and disk space used and so on. It's useful if you want to see detailed disk health reports.

S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology is incorporated into all modern disk drives, and it's exactly what the name says: it monitors the drive and stores reports that can be viewed with the right software. Crystaloisklnfo displays the drive temperature, number of hours powered on, number of times it has been powered up and other data. The general drive information is useful, but interpreting the S.M.A.R.T. data isn't easy. Run it occasionally and watch for worsening figures indicating increasing errors.

Acronis Drive Monitor monitors the S.M.A.R.T. information on the disk drive, but it doesn't show it. Instead, it runs in the bad<ground and alerts you only when there's a problem. You can set it and forget it. You can even install it on another PC and configure it to email you when there's a problem with the drive. In a total failure it wouldn't work, of course, because Windows would stop running, but the idea is that it can alert you to worsening problems before they become critical.

Monitor the disk drIw‘s health using Acronis Drive Monitor

Solid-state drives (SSDS) suffer from many of the problems of traditional disks, because most of the time it's the filing system that goes wrong and not the hardware. Fixing filing system faults has been covered, but what about the hardware? If you want to monitor the state of the SSD in your PC, one utility to consider is SSD Life. It displays the data read and written to the drive, the estimated lifetime, the number of times it has been powered up and so on. It's similar to the S.M.A.R.T. tools used with mechanical disk drives.

Measure Performance

The reason why SSDs are becoming so popular is because mechanical disk drives are the limiting factor in terms of performance. A computer would operate a lot quicker if it didn't have to slow down and wait for the disk drive to read or write data. Just how fast or slow is the disk drive in your PC? There are tools to measure this, such as HD Tune. There's a Pro version, but the free one is all you need to measure the performance. The results are meaningless in isolation, so this is best if you have access to several PCs to compare. There are also websites with published test results too.

How fast is the disk drive? Measure the performance with HD Tune

Other disk performance tools include ATTO Disk Benchmark and Crysta|DiskMark. ATTO's tool can be used for SSDs, RAID arrays and other disk configurations. and the company says it's the one disk drive manufacturers like Hitachi use to test drives.

Recover Files

Sometimes files can become corrupted, but it may be possible to recover some of the data with the right tools. One example is Zip Repair, which attempts to fix corrupted zip archives. Whether anything can be recovered depends on the degree of damage, but it is worth trying.

When files are being copied from one place to another - such as one folder to another, a USB drive to an internal drive, a CD to a disk drive and so on - Windows tends to give up at the first error. Unstoppable Copier never gives up, which can enable it to copy ﬁles even when they're corrupt. Corrupt files are not repaired, but Unstoppable Copier continues past the problem and copies any good files that follow it.

If you copy files from one folder or disk drive to another, how do you know whether they're okay? Could files copied from a USB flash memory drive or over a network be corrupt? TeraCopy is designed to copy ﬁles faster than Windows Explorer; and in addition to this, it calculates a checksum for each file copied and compares it to the original to make sure they're the same. If any files are corrupt, it skips them and copies the rest. This is an improvement on Explorer's file copying facilities.

If files have been lost or accidentally deleted, it's sometimes possible to recover them, but only if the right tools are installed on the disk drive. It's important to install file recovery tools before you have a problem and then use them as soon as possible. Going online and downloading software to the disk drive after you've discovered lost or deleted files can prevent them from being recovered. Download and install EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and Piriform Recuva now while your PC is okay. Both utilities can scan or deep scan the disk drive to reveal lost or deleted files. Provided the part of the disk containing the data has not been overwritten, files can be recovered. Don't save them on the drive you're working on, because one recovered file may overwrite the next one you want to recover.

Install Easeus Data Rocowty and use It to ﬁnd accidentally deleted files

There are many more recovery tools, such as Wise Data Recovery, Undelete 360, Pandora Recovery and so on, but they all tend to be very similar. You scan the disk, browse the list of files and select the ones you want to recover.

Defragment The Disk

Windows XP had a disk defragmenter that was a pain to use. You had to know where it was on the Start menu. you had to run it manually, and it took a long time to complete. Some people rarely ran it, so disk performance suffered. Windows 8's disk defragmenter is even harder to find, and Microsoft has all but made it invisible. However, it runs automatically and defragments the disk in the background without user interaction. This doesn't mean that disk defragmenters are redundant. It's possible to improve on the built-in tool and further optimise the disk drive and boost performance.

Defraggler from Piriform, the maker of Ccleaner, is one option. This tool enables you to scan the disk and view a fragmentation report that lists the fragmented files and the number of fragments in each one. A disk map shows fragmentation visually using coloured bloclcs, and the percentage and size of fragmented files is shown. There are defrag and quick defrag options, and the option to defragment before Windows starts so that files that are normally in use can be accessed. A schedule can be set and the disk defragmented daily, weekly, on start-up and so on.
The best free disk defragmenter is IObit Smart Defrag, which is an excellent utility for keeping the disk drive contents optimised. it operates in the background, and when the computer is idle it will automatically defragment the disk if the fragmentation is over 1%. There's also an option to always defragment, so as soon as it spots a fragmented file, it defragments it.

It can detect laptops running on battery power and automatically put off defragmenting until it's back on mains power. It will also pause defragmentation if the computer is busy, such as when you're playing games. It offers several defragmentation options like defrag and either fast or fully optimise, and boot time defragmentation for files in use. It's almost as good as commercial defragmenters.

De-duplicate The Disk

Many disk drives contain duplicate files, and there may be two, three or even more of some files. This can happen when transferring photos to your computer and editing them, syncing with online storage, backing up, transferring files to a new computer and so on.

CloneSpy is a useful tool for tracking down duplicate files of all types. It enables you to select one or more folders to be scanned. These can be on the same disk drive or different ones, so you could choose the Pictures folder on the PC and a Photos folder on a USB disk drive, for example. It can ignore filenames and still find duplicate files when they have different names and dates, and files with the same name, but different contents will not fool it. This is excellent, and the numerous options for handling duplicates, such as sending them to another folder or the Recycle Bin so you can undo the changes, are good.

Keep the disk contents optimised by running Defraggler on a schedule

Auslogics Duplicate File Finder is another useful and free tool for tracking down file duplicates on the disk drive.

Partition And Format

Disks can be divided into two or more partitions that each act as if they're separate disks. This could be used to organise data or reserve areas of the disk for special purposes. For example, Windows creates a hidden partition for system files, and there may be another that's used as a recovery partition for performing a factory reset.

To access Windows partitioning and formatting tool, go to the Start menu or Start screen and enter ‘disk management’, then click ‘Create and format hard disk partitions’. A list of disks and partitions is displayed in the top half of the window, and a graphical layout is drawn below. One partition is marked as Primary in the Status column, and this contains Windows. Some or all of the others may be hidden from Explorer.
The Primary partition containing windows can be resized and made smaller. If drive C 2 is 600GB, for example, it could be shrunk to 40068, and 200GB could be configured as a new partition to store music, videos or photos. Right-click drive C: in the Disk Management window and select Shrink > Volume. The amount it can be shrunk depends on where the last file is located. Disk Management allows you to shrink the partition to just past the last immovable file. You can enter any value up to the maximum displayed and click Shrink.
Afterwards, unallocated space is shown in the disk's partition map. Right-click it and select New Simple Volume. Accept all the defaults to assign a drive letter and to format it as NTFS. The new partition appears as a new disk in Explorer after a few seconds and is ready to use. Occasionally, windows accidentally assigns the same drive letter to a drive as an existing one. Right-click a drive or partition (not C:, though) and select 'Change drive letter and paths’.

Although Windows Disk Management tool can shrink partitions and create new ones, it cannot extend them or move them. Disk Partition Expert and Partition Wizard can. Suppose you have three partitions. C:, D: and E2. If E: became full, but there's still lots of space on C:\, you could shrink C: a bit more to create unallocated space, then move D: and E: so the free space is now after E:. Partition E: could then be extended and the unallocated space added to make it bigger. This is impossible in windows, but it's the sort of trick that can be performed quite easily in Disk Partition Expert and Partition Wizard.

Compress The Disk

If you're running short of disk space, the best solution is to add another drive. A USB 3.0 drive is the best, but USB 2.0 are fine for backups, photo archives and other files you use only occasionally. Another option is to compress the disk contents. This is not the same as adding files to a zip archive, and the disk and contents appear unchanged. However, windows compresses ﬁles that are written to the disk and decompresses them when they're read, all on the fly at super fast speeds. There must be a slight performance hit, because extra work is being done, but you probably won't notice it, and you'll have more disk space for your files.

Disk partition expert can move partitions and extend them

Open an Explorer window and select Computer on the left. Right-click any disk or partition and select Properties. Tick the box at the bottom to compress the contents, and then choose the option to apply the changes to all subfolders. There are two visible changes: ﬁle and folder names are blue to indicate they are compressed, and if you right-click the disk and select Properties, the amount of space used is less than it was before. Zips JPEGS and some other files don't compress very much, so the amount of space gained depends on the disk contents.

Erase Disks Securely

As we saw earlier, it's possible to recover deleted files. This is because deleted files are added to the free space on the disk, and the space they occupy is not immediately overwritten. Deleted files can sometimes remain on the disk for a long time. B|eachBit is a general Windows clean-up tool, but it can also be used to erase the free space on a disk, which overwrites all deleted files so they can never be recovered. It's a slow process that can take a long time, so run this overnight if there's a lot of space to erase.

wiztree shows which folders are consuming the most disk space

Slimcleaner is another general clean-up utility, but in the Disk Tools section is a useful Disk Wiper. There is an option to erase the free space or the whole disk with one, seven or 35 passes. The Windows boot disk cannot be erased when Windows is running, though. To do this you need to boot up another operating system.

Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN) is the best known utility for completely erasing a disk drive. DBAN is a .iso file that you burn to a CD, which can then be used to boot the PC. Although it boots up to a command prompt, it's straightforward to use because it has just one function and that's to erase disks. Any popular Linux distro you can boot the PC with can be used to erase the internal disk drive. Open a Terminal window and enter 'sudo fdisk -I‘ to list all the disks and then 'sudo shred -v /dev/sdb’ (replace sdb with whatever the disk is called).

Encrypt The Disk

Windows 7 and 8 Pro have the ability to encrypt a disk drive using Bittocker. This means that if someone stole your PC or laptop, they would not be able to access the disk contents. Go to the Control Panel and open Bittocker to activate it. wlndovvs 8.1 has a new Device Encryption feature too. Go to the Charms on the right and click Settings, Change PC settings. Go to PCs and Devices, PC Info. Not all windows computers support it, but if they do. there's an option to turn encryption on or off. Microsoft plans to make Device Encryption a standard feature and turned on by default on all new computers, but not all hardware supports it at the moment.
If you don't have either BitLocker or Device Encryption, Diskcryptor is one option. It can encrypt the Windows boot disk, and it has been specially optimised for Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, so there's no loss of speed when reading and writing to the disk. To be safe, you should create a full disk backup before encrypting the disk, just in case something should go wrong. It's very unlikely, but it's better to be safe. Don't forget that backups of files from encrypted disks are themselves unencrypted.

Visualize The Disk Contents

The disk drive fills up over time, and old PCs have smaller disks than they do today. They can easily run out of space, and the question is: where has it all gone? WizTree is a useful tool that can provide the answer. After scanning the disk, there are two tabs. the first of which shows an Explorer-like tree structure. This one, though, has columns that show the size, number of files and number of folders. The folders are sorted by size automatically. The second tab shows the top 1,000 largest files on the disk drive. If you want to free up some disk space fast, you should look to the ﬁles on this list. It's a great utility.

WinDirStat shows a similar table with folders, sizes, number of files and so on. However, it also displays the disk contents visually. Files are shown as coloured rectangles, and their size indicates the amount of disk space used. As the mouse passes over them, the filename is shown in the windows status bar. You might prefer this colourful visual file map to the dull figures.

Access your PC via your phone

2014-11-12T00:27:00.000-08:00

Google’s Remote Desktop software is simple to use and completely free as well

The ability to remotely access your computer from a smartphone or tablet is the Holy Grail of mobile computing, but until now it’s been complicated to set up and meant spending cash on software. Yet Google’s Chrome Remote Desktop feature has made it all a lot easier, and – best of all – it’s completely free. Fire up Chrome and enter chrome://apps/ in the address bar. Click the ‘Web Store’ icon to the lower right, search for remote desktop and click the ‘+’ icon on the first result. Follow the steps to install it and set up a PIN if necessary. Next, install the Google Remote Desktop app on your Android or iOS device, fire it up and log in. You should now have access to your desktop and programs.
It even works if you’re on a mobile network connection, although you’ll need to ensure your PC is turned on.

Protect your PC from malware

2014-11-12T00:24:00.001-08:00

Learn more about the different types of malware that threaten your PC, plus discover how to protect yourself against them.

Once upon a time, protecting your computer from viruses was a relatively simple affair. All you needed was an antivirus program and a firewall, and you could consider yourself fully protected. How
times change – these days there are so many different types and varieties of malicious programs (known as malware) that your PC doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going. But what exactly is
ransomware? How at risk are you from phishing? How do you protect yourself from rootkits, and what steps should you take to remove a spyware infection?

In this feature we’ll run through 10 common types of threat to your PC’s security. We’ll reveal what they are and how they work, and show you how to spot tell-tale signs that one of these pieces of malware might be lurking in the recesses of your PC’s hard drive. We’ll provide advice on removing infections from your PC, and how to protect yourself against them in future.

We’ll also reveal some useful tools – many of which you’ll find on this issue’s free disc – that you can use to both remove stubborn infections and clean up your PC after they’re gone so you’re no longer locked out of Safe mode, unable to browse the internet or refused access to the Registry.

Multi-layered security

What you’ll realise over the course of this guide is that no single program can provide blanket protection for your PC. To stay safe, what you need is a good, strong antivirus and anti-spyware program, together with a third-party firewall. If you’re strapped for cash, consider Comodo Internet Security, which combines both in a single program for no cost, and is included on this month’s free disc. We also recommend installing several scanand- remove tools like Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free. These don’t offer real-time protection, but regular scans should help keep your system secure.

Other layers of security can also help keep your PC and your data safe online, from protecting yourself from dangerous websites using the Web of Trust browser plug-in to blocking attacks on the programs you use every day with Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit Free. Of course, there’s also a critical layer of security that requires no software at all, and that’s modifying how you behave online to reduce your exposure to risk and react appropriately. Armed with these tools and our tips, you’ll sleep a lot more soundly (and securely) at night…

Viruses, worms and trojans

These are particularly insidious, so discover how to keep them at bay

The most common and well-known threat to your PC is the virus. This has become a catch-all term for a wide range of threats, but on its own a virus is a piece of code that attempts to copy itself so it can be distributed widely. It’s become interchangeable with the threat known as a worm, but while
they share many characteristics, there is one critical difference: viruses work by inserting themselves into host programs such as Microsoft Word. The most obvious example here are viruses written in Visual Basic that are hidden away inside macros that are stored in Word documents. The macro is triggered as soon as the document is opened unless your Word security settings are designed to block it. The first thing a macro virus usually does is add itself to the main template (normal. dot) file, which means it’ll run every time you launch Word. These days, Office security settings prevent macros from running by default.

Worms and trojans

Worms are standalone programs that behave in a similar manner to viruses, but in a self-contained fashion. Traditionally they were distributed via the internet – inserted as file attachments into emails, lurking as downloads on dubious websites, or spread via social media and peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent.

Because they’re standalone, worms don’t rely on any other software to run; once the file is opened, they’re able to replicate themselves and cause whatever havoc they have been programmed to perform. Some worms also deliver additional payloads such as backdoors and spyware.

Trojans are programs that appear legitimate, but are anything but – hence their name, which is inspired by the Trojan Horse of legend. Having tricked their way into your system, the trojan can then deliver its malicious payload. Spyware and backdoor infections are common, but standalone trojans include destructive trojans, which delete files. Another variant – time-bomb trojans – wait for a specific date before delivering their payload.

Symptoms

If your PC is affected by a worm or trojan, you’ll notice sluggish performance and will be unable to run Windows Update or access certain websites. You may also find that your security software can’t update itself to protect against the latest threats, or even run at all. If you’ve accidentally installed a trojan, you may find other software you don’t recognise suddenly appearing on your computer too.

Notable example

everyone how devastating even ‘simple’ worms can be, and the fact that it used a vulnerability in Windows that had been patched by Microsoft months before showed the importance of installing the latest Windows security patches.

Removal

Your security software should be able to deal with trojans and worms, even after they get on to your system. Try using a standalone scanner like ClamWin Free Antivirus or Malwarebytes Anti-Malware
Free (both on your free disc) in Safe mode if you’re struggling to remove a threat.

Protection

Aside from keeping your security software up to date and running regular scans, you can minimise the risk of these types of malware from getting on to your PC by making sure you keep Windows and your key programs up to date. Also use caution when opening files, particularly those downloaded from unknown sources.

Spyware

This malware is designed to watch what you’re doing and steal your personal information

Whereas traditional viruses aim to replicate and spread themselves far and wide, spyware tends to focus its efforts on the computer on which it’s installed. Its primary aim is to collect information about the computer user by spying on their activity. It then uses this information to target the user with ads and other material for financial gain. Spyware can also be used to steal financial data and passwords through the use of a keylogger, which monitors what you type.

Like other forms of malware, spyware attempts to change computer settings – particularly those related to the internet. It does this to prevent its removal, and to make use of the information it’s gathered to bombard the infected computer with ads and other unwanted material.

Symptoms

The signs of a spyware infection are similar to those of worms and trojans, and although you may realise that your information has been compromised, it might take weeks to become apparent.

Notable example

CoolWebSearch is the name given to a family of constantly evolving spyware infections that target web browsers changing homepages and default search engines, bombarding users with ads and collecting personal information.

Removal

Try running your usual security software in Safe mode first. If this fails, follow the step-by-step guide below, focusing on using Spybot Search & Destroy and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.

Protection

Keep all your software updated and be suspicious of any program that originates from the internet. Your firewall may help you detect spyware by alerting you to processes that try to send information from your PC without your knowledge.

Ransomware

This kind of malware attempts to extort money from the infected PC’s owner

ou can probably guess how ransomware works – it takes control of your PC and demands that a ransom is paid before it is released. It can be delivered in a number of ways – via an infection, in a file that the user is tricked into downloading and running, or via network vulnerabilities such as backdoors. Once the ransomware is installed, it will restrict access to critical parts of your PC – either by locking down certain parts of the system to prevent you from performing key tasks, or by encrypting files – typically documents and photos that are potentially irreplaceable. The ransomware will then display messages demanding the user pay the malware creator – perhaps via online payment or by sending a premium-rate text message from their phone. In return for this payment, the user is given an unlock code that should (in theory) remove the restrictions and restore control. Some demands may even be time-limited, trying to force the user into responding quickly rather than sitting
on the problem or seeking external help. Of course, like all ransoms, there’s no guarantee that control will be returned even if the end user follows the demands.

Symptoms

Ransomware has no need to hide – its aim is to let the user know it’s been installed and extort payment in return for releasing control of the computer and its key files.

Notable example

CryptoLocker has extorted tens of millions of pounds from affected users by encrypting files and demanding payment for the unlock code.

Removal

The ransomware infection itself should be removed by most security software, but any encrypted files or system locks will remain. Users can avoid paying the ransom for minimum data loss if they have secure offline backups of their files.

Protection

HitmanPro.Alert (on the cover disc) offers a CryptoGuard tool that prevents your personal data from being encrypted should ransomware get on to your PC.

Zero-day attacks

These threats exploit recently-discovered vulnerabilities

Security updates for programs are designed to close recently discovered holes. Left unrepaired,
these could be exploited by malware developers, allowing them to sneak on to people’s systems as part of a ‘zero-day attack’. These can take the form of worms, trojans and other types of malware, but their reliance on a specific vulnerability makes them easier to block.

Symptoms

The same as most other malware attacks.

Notable example

The Conficker worm in 2009 preyed on a security hole in Windows XP that had been closed months before, but because users were so lax about keeping Windows up to date, many fell foul
of an easily preventable attack.

Removal

If possible, install the latest security patch or update. Use your security software to remove the infection.

Protection

Keep your software and OS fully up to date. If you’re still using Windows XP, consider upgrading.
If you’re stuck using an older browser and your security suite doesn’t offer protection against zero-day attacks, install Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit from this month’s free disc.

Browser hijackers

This term refers to software that modifies your web browser settings – typically the home page, default search engine and even error pages. The aim is to push you towards websites containing advertising.

Symptoms

Your browser’s home page and search engine are changed, and any attempts to change them back fail. Some hijackers block access to security sites and install browser toolbars.

Notable example

CoolWebSearch was one of the first browser hijackers in 2004, and was so pervasive most security products couldn’t remove it properly.

Removal

Try Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free (on your free disc) to remove the infection. You’ll need to reset the search and home pages yourself.

Protect any folder on your PC

2014-11-12T00:21:00.000-08:00

Locking folders from being accessed on your own user account is not part of Windows by default. Folder Password Expert helps keep your data safe.

Folder Password Expert is a program that allows you to protect folders against unwanted access. It can lock folders on an internal hard drive, flash drive, external USB drive and network drive. When folders are password protected and locked, their contents cannot be read, copied, modified or deleted. To access the locked folders, you must supply the correct password.

Folder Password Expert guarantees your privacy by making it impossible for anyone to access your data – even in Windows Safe Mode. If somebody logs on under your Windows account, they will not be able to access your data without that crucial password, which for added security is not stored anywhere in Windows. To download the program, go to www.folder-password-expert.com and click ‘Try It Free’ in the top-left. Once installed, select ‘Run Trial Version’ to use the 30-day trial ($39.95 thereafter).

Lock folders

On the Welcome screen, deselect ‘Show this screen each time Folder Password Expert starts’, otherwise you’ll be constantly reminded to upgrade. Click on ‘Next’. You’ll then need to choose a task (‘Lock folders’ or ‘Unlock folders’). Choose ‘Lock folders’ and click ‘Next’. On the next screen, click on ‘Add’ and browse to the folder or folders that you want to lock and click ‘OK’.

Enter password

Choose ‘Next’ and you will be asked to enter a password. You’ll notice that if you tick the option below the password fields, you can enter a password hint. When choosing a hint, ensure that only you will understand it. Click on ‘Next’ and you will be told that your folders have been locked. Click ‘Next’ again and you’ll see the ‘Select a Task to Perform’ screen again.

Verify locked folder

Let’s test what happens when you lock a folder. Navigate to the folder in Windows Explorer and you will see that it now has a little red stop sign next to it, indicating it’s locked. Double-click the folder to open it. Folder Password Expert will be launched and you’ll need to enter your password for access. The password hint (if you provided one) can be acquired by clicking ‘Get a hint…’

Unlock folders

Open up Folder Password Expert again, but this time choose ‘Unlock folders’ and on the next screen select the folder from the list (if you have more than one locked folder) and click ‘Next’. Tap in your password on the next screen. The next screen will say you can now open the folder normally. Remember to go back and lock it again if you want to keep it secure.

Protect folders in Windows Explorer

You don’t have to open up the program first to use Folder Password Expert’s features. Right-click the folder in the right-hand pane of Windows Explorer and select ‘Lock folder’ from the pop-up menu. To complete the process, enter your chosen password. Unlocking the folder is also easy: double-click it in the right pane of Windows Explorer and enter the password.

Quick access

Folder Password Expert helpfully adds a context menu to the Start menu entry. An arrow points to the right showing your recent protected files. Here you can permanently pin folders to the Recent list, unlock them or remove them entirely. If you manually pin the Folder Password Expert start menu icon to the Taskbar you still get the Recent menu when you right-click.

Secure a USB or network drive

As well as being able to secure folders found on any drive or partition on your PC, you can also secure folders on a networkattached hard drive or one connected by USB. Simply navigate to the folder using Windows Explorer, right-click and choose to lock or unlock folders. Remember that any network-attached drive will need to be discoverable in Windows Explorer.

Trial version notes

To unlock the full version from the trial one, you’ll need to enter the code that you receive after purchase (there’s a ‘Paste from the Clipboard’ option) and then click ‘Next’. If you let the trial period expire without paying for the full version, the program will not be able to lock new folders; however, it will still be able to unlock protected folders on your computer.

Toshiba Kira Ultrabook review

2014-11-12T00:14:00.003-08:00

A revised model arrives with improved battery life and its predecessor’s good looks intact

£1,299 | $2,230

Toshiba Kira

Toshiba’s new Kira is a 2014 update to last year’s model, which marked the company’s first foray into premium Ultrabook territory. With a sleek chassis and improved battery life, it joins a growing list of competing Windows Ultrabooks with high-resolution, high-pixel-density displays.

For the Kira’s entry price of £1,299/$2,230 you could bag yourself a Dell XPS 13, or a laptop/ tablet hybrid such as the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 Pro or Asus UX301. In the business arena, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon and Fujitsu Lifebook U904 also pack sharp screens, slim designs and the latest Intel Core processors. Can Toshiba match such fierce competition?

After years of dependable (if slightly uninspired) mid-range laptops, Toshiba’s original Kira was a statement of intent – a flash Bentley coming off a production line of three-door hatchbacks. A performance boost to an already attractive Ultrabook is welcome, but is it enough to launch the Kira into pole position?

Slick design

The Kira’s chassis measures just 23mm at its thickest point and tapers toward the bottom, making it appear even thinner. There’s an eye-catching black bezel around the screen, and the lid and base are coated in an attractive silver finish. This is complemented by a silver edge around the power button, Wi-Fi indicator and trackpad.

Build quality is decent overall thanks to the Kira’s magnesium alloy construction, which uses a honeycomb structure for strength. You’ll only notice the flex on the underside of the base if you go deliberately prodding it, but the laptop’s lid is worryingly bendable and you’ll want to avoid using it to pick the machine up.

Though it was more of a standout feature on last year’s version, the Kira’s 13.3-inch WQHD (Wide Quad High Definition) PixelPure display still makes for impressive viewing, with high contrast levels that show off its deep blacks and solid colours.

The Kira’s display is far from perfect though; despite its solid colour reproduction, the panel’s image quality is hampered by a dim backlight, which maxes out at
what feels like around 85 per cent brightness. This is exacerbated by the display’s highly reflective finish, which makes viewing its contents awkward in brightly-lit places.

The screen features 10-point multi-touch, which is responsive and accurate. You might wonder whether you would need touch on a non-hybrid model (especially for the added cost), but it allows you to perform some tasks more quickly than a trackpad or mouse.

Despite feeling quite compact for a 13-inch Ultrabook (mainly thanks to the thin bezel), the Kira doesn’t provide a cramped typing experience. However, that’s not helped by the fact that its chicletstyle keyboard keys aren’t completely square; they’re slightly wider than they are tall, which may take some getting used to.

You shouldn’t make the Kira your main sound system for house parties, as its Harman Kardon speakers are no substitute for a dedicated speaker and subwoofer system. However, it’s fine for personal listening and you can tweak the sound settings using the DTS Studio Surround app.

Scale and polish

Like other Ultrabooks with high resolutions, the Kira struggles with Windows 8.1’s poor scaling abilities, making text and UI elements difficult to read in certain apps. Some apps cope with this better than others. The desktop version of Evernote, for example, doesn’t attempt to adjust to the higher resolution. Internet Explorer, on the other hand, sets itself to a 200 per cent zoom level by default, which makes web pages appear comically large compared with everything else (we found that 125 per cent made for comfortable reading).

Aside from playing around with individual apps’ settings, the only option is to use a lower resolution, such as 1,920 x 1,080, which defeats the point of a high-PPI display.

Powered up

Our test model was supplied with Windows 8.1, an Intel Core i7-4500 processor running at 1.80GHz, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. The Kira’s graphics are powered by an integrated Intel HD 4400 chip, which handled 3DMark 8’s least demanding benchmarks with ease, but began to struggle with increasingly complex tasks. It’s fine for playing games running Valve’s Source engine around the 40-50fps mark (if you lower the resolution to 1,920 x 1,080). However, as is expected from an integrated GPU, you won’t experience those frame rates in newer games such as Battlefield 4 or Titanfall, even if you drastically lower the resolution. Any tasks we performed in desktop mode were nippy and responsive – from opening desktop programs to snapping multiple apps side-by-side. Because of its speedy SSD, the Kira only took 10 seconds to boot from cold. The Kira’s CPU has been upgraded from Ivy Bridge to Haswell, resulting in improved battery life. The laptop ran for 11 hours using PCMark 8 Home’s battery life test, which continually opens and closes programs and loops video until the battery is completely depleted. The port selection is good for an Ultrabook, offering a full-size HDMI output and two USB 3.0 ports on the left-hand side. On the right-hand side is an SD card slot, a 3.5mm stereo headset jack and one more USB 3.0 port. Connectivity options here include 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. The updated Kira’s longer battery life, compact styling and attractive looks (with the lid open) are all plus points, but some of the flaws could be deal-breakers. The most glaring one is the display’s dim backlight. It’s a shame that Toshiba couldn’t crank the display brightness up by 10-15 per cent, which would make it easier to use in direct sunlight The amount of flex in the Kira’s lid is also cause for concern for a laptop in this price bracket. Although the Kira only offers an integrated graphics setup, it’s fine for playing casual games. The speedy SSD makes sure you’re never waiting for applications to respond on the desktop, and boot times are fast too. All things considered, this is a highly portable machine with fantastic battery life, competent performance and perhaps a little more in the way of style than substance. If the Kira was a bit less expensive it would be easier to look over its misgivings, but when the competition is this strong, it is something of a hard sell.

The updated Kira’s longer battery life, compact styling and attractive looks are all plus points

The high cost of the Kira puts it at a disadvantage, but it’s a great laptop apart from the dim display

Toshiba Kira
Processor: Intel Core i7-4500 1.8Ghz
Storage: 256GB SSD
RAM: 8GB
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4400
Connectivity: 1 x HDMI, 2 x USB 3.0,
SD card, 3.5mm audio
Weight 1.35kg
Screen size: 13.3 inches
Display resolution: 2,560 x 1,440

...

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Internet explorer security flaws

2014-11-12T00:10:00.003-08:00

What happened?

in its Patch Tuesday for March. Microsoft issued 18 security fixes for lntemet Explorer. some of which were marked as critical. The most urgent fix was for a zero—day-Vulnerability in Internet Explorer 9 and 10. It was spotted on 13 February by security company FireEye (http://bit.ly/1AuxA0u), and left unpatched by Microsoft for a month. although the company did issue a temporary ‘Fix it’ solution and advised users to upgrade to Internet Explorer 11, which wasn‘t at risk.

The ﬂaw had already been exploited by hackers. who targeted the US website Veterans of Foreign Wars (http://bit.ly/1ui6OIN) which is popular with military or ex—military personnel. This type of hack — when criminals target a website only visited by a particular group of people - is known as a waterhole attack.

Microsoft said that hackers could have used the flaw to carry out a remote code execution. a common form of attack that lets them access your PC if you visit an infected website.

This Patch Tuesday was the second successive to contain a batch of IE ﬁxes. In February. Microsoft patched 24 vulnerabilities in the browser, which remains the company’s most attacked product. Microsoft will its final Patch Tuesday for Windows XP on 8 April.

What should I do?

lf you have “automatic updating" turned on in Windows, you don't need to do anything. To check, in Windows Vista, 7 and 8 go to the Start menu, Control Panel, ‘System and Security’, then ‘Turn automatic updating on or off’.

Make sure ‘Install updates automatically (recommended)' is selected. In XP, Click the Start button, All Programs, then Windows Update. Visit the support page to team how to install updates manually(http://bit.ly/1uud27y). For more information on these IE patches. read Microsoft’s Security Bulletin for March(http://bit.ly/ZfIlrY) . You should also read the blog post from the Microsoft Security Response Center(http://bit.ly/1rAz5p4).