Interesting thread from a former developer at Twitter, especially for anyone who thinks that using Twitter, Facebook etc. is harmless from a privacy point of view. Steve Krenzel says: “ Twitter, like most mobile apps, logs *everything* users do – every swipe, tap, edit, delay, etc… – for debugging, metrics,
Sometimes you need to merge or split a PDF file. Here’s how to do that for free without bothering with Word’s PDF conversion feature. There’s a way to get some pages from a larger PDF that’s not only free but already installed in Windows and Mac computer. Let’s start with
If you’ve ever run out of table space for a laptop, there’s an academic paper just for you. Seven pages of math as a starting point for the ULBT – Ultimate Laptop Balancing Theorem. “Minimizing the footprint of your laptop” starts out with what might seem obvious, that the stable
Peter McDonell 1938-2022 We sadly must report the death of Peter McDonell, a good friend of Peter Deegan and Office-Watch.com. Peter died peacefully on 4 June 2022 aged 84 Peter was one of those people you don’t forget even after a short meeting. Friendly, open and fun with a wonderful
For a clear explanation of Amazon’s intrusive Sidewalk feature for Echo and Ring, go to an unexpected source, Jeff Bezos’ own newspaper. Sidewalk is being enabled on many Amazon Echo (‘smart speakers’) and Ring devices (cameras, doorbells) etc. It creates a hidden network that connects those devices to each other
Claude Almer 1950-2020 We’re devastated to report the passing of Claude Almer who died in Sydney, Australia, on November 19, 2020 after a long illness Claude was technical and personal support for Office Watch since well before the newsletter started in 1996. Whenever in-depth analysis of some virus code was
The famous Bodleian Library in Oxford is a lovely place to work and now you can pipe that ambience into your ‘Work from Home’ area. More than a few Office Watch articles are written in libraries including the old British Library Reading Room (alas been closed for some years), the
Just one example of why people use Google’s tools over Microsoft’s Bing. It’s a little thing but an example of Microsoft’s wider problem with Bing. While exploring Project Moca, we tested the Location object that uses Bing Maps. Stupidly we typed ‘London’ thinking Bing would show one of the world’s
A few quick notes if you’re buying a Chromebook to use with Microsoft Office. 4.5 ways to use Microsoft Office on a Chromebook ChromeOS is essentially the Chrome browser running in a separate device. Any web site or web based application that can run in the browser will work on
How to make a computer setup suitable for the elderly or infirm. Something that’s simple ‘turn on and it’ll work’ and needs little or no action by the recipient or their carers. Bill Chubb wrote to us with his solution for keeping in touch with his wife in a nursing
An opera loving reader has asked about the New York Metropolitan Opera’s nightly streaming and how to get it. The operas are available free and across the globe. The Met’s instructions are a little convoluted with talk about their apps for Apple and Android etc. That’s all well and good
Here’s one simple tip for getting better Wifi speeds from an existing cable or ADSL modem. It’s a tip that had not occurred to us before but definitely works because Peter has just done it! We’re obliged to Jack Randall for pointing it out. ISP supplied modem can be cheap
Peter Deegan used to tell people that a simple digital watch could beat the crap out of the Apollo 11 lunar landing computer. And that was before modern smartwatches. He was wrong … It turns out that a humble USB-C charger has more ‘grunt’ than the rope memory computer on ‘Eagle’. Forest Heller
USB condoms are being promoted as protection against hackers. There are two different types but neither are necessary to protect your smartphone. Our global roaming boss suggests alternatives to protect against dangerous public USB sockets. Security researchers have discovered that it’s possible to hack into a smartphone via hacked USB
The latest update to Windows 10 is out now and so is our companion book Windows 10 November 2019 for Microsoft Office users. Somewhat chastened by past troubles, the November 2019 update is being deployed in a much more cautious way. Microsoft is giving customers a choice about when to
Buying and using a computer keyboard from Microsoft is very annoying, based on what we’ve heard from Office Watch readers. Choosing a Microsoft keyboard is harder than necessary and finding help, even harder. Microsoft’s keyboard range is especially bad for not properly explaining all the features of the products, apparently
It was inevitable that phone scammers should try fooling Office 365 users into giving up their login details. Update: after this scam was publicized, the phishing email turned up in our Office 365 mailbox! Microsoft’s mail filtering let their customers down. Microsoft’s lapse let us show you a real example
A nasty surprise for VMWare Workstation users after a recent Windows 10. Happily there’s an absurdly simple workaround and now a free update too! VMWare Workstation is popular virtual machine software. Among it’s many uses is running different versions or states of Microsoft Office on the one physical computer. Microsoft
iTunes has been replaced with separate programs on the new MacOS ‘Catalina’ release. What does that mean for the future of iTunes for Windows? Most people use iTunes for Windows to sync music and videos with their iPad or iPhone. It has many other uses but Windows has it’s own
The Washington Post has a useful tip for anyone with Apple AirPods that aren’t maintaining a decent battery life. Use the right wording to Apple support and you should be able to get replacement AirPod’s a little cheaper than retail. Now that AirPods are a few years old, customers are
The 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 has unleashed so many books and videos you could easily trip over them walking down the street. Our Editor-in-Chief, Peter Deegan, has been a NASA nut since well before July 1969. Friends have asked him for recommendations of what you see and read …
There’s a security bug in Windows that’s so serious Microsoft has released fixes for version of Windows they don’t officially support anymore. Here are links to the critical updates necessary or workaround if updating isn’t possible. About Bluekeep The Bluekeep security hole is being used by criminals to attack computers
Tucked away in the Windows 10 Explorer options is a choice that should be turned on and is now the default setting for Windows 10 May 2019. Normally Explorer is a single program no matter how many windows are open on the computer. That made sense when memory was limited
Windows Sets would have been an important innovation for Office users but has now been killed by Microsoft. Sets was a proposed and tested Windows feature which would let you group different programs together in a tabbed interface. Think of the familiar tabs in a browser except each tab had
