pc tips

Channel 4 are streaming series 7 of Seaside Hotel (the Danish Downton), it's 1940 and the Nazis have arrived ... its remarkably like having Trump as president.

We're rather enjoying revisiting Ally McBeal ... forgotten how silly it could be.

Sunday the clocks had gone back so in the middle of Oxford Brookes at UEA Pirates we updated the clock on our camera.  DON'T do it in the middle of something, the pix not in chronological order will be very confusing in the edit.

Despite the cast we don't get Gavin and Stacey so last year's Christmas special was irrelevant to us.  This year we will be noting in red the Amandaland Christmas special with Jennifer Saunders as Joanna Lumley's sister.

Support for Windows 10 ends Today but you can extend it to 2026 for free.

The wonderful Magda from Lead Balloon moonlighting as Dr Marion Boyle in Alan Partridge last night (05:34).

How nice, Windows 11 is going to make all our lives better.

Here at nearthecoast batteries are no longer available for a Toshiba laptop and a HP laser printer probably because of a Win 10 update has started refusing to listen to a desktop ... the hidden cost of tech.

♫ Beeb online station Radio 3 Unwind is now available on digital (DAB) radios.  Reasonably enough it shows on our radio as Radio3U but despite a rescan on a telly it's not yet on Freeview ... perhaps it never will be.

Zooming Sunday night with Big Al who's in Switzerland he pointed out that on his Windows update page there's an Enrol now link to extend security updates for Windows 10.  We looked at ours ... more here

Really wish we'd stumbled across this so much earlier.  Keyboard shortcut Windows key + V pops up the Clipboard with copies going back a good hatful.  Click on a list entry to paste it and there's a perhaps overly discrete scroll bar on the right.

The newly formed page more Internet has content some 10 years old and is now little more than an historical document but the tip about daytime power cuts still works and maybe the tip about ebay above it.

We've created a Windows 10 page to mark it's passing in October.

If annoyed by the distraction of the film strip at start up mostly of interest to Americans you can get rid of it.  Go Settings/Personalisation/Lock screen.  Scroll down to Choose one app to etc click on the icon with a cloud and then click on None ... that could be a bit simpler eh?

Life Skills No. 65: It often surprises people that hot dry weather is the poorest for tv and radio reception.  If your DAB portable is blipping and burping try ... more here

In Microsoft's photo viewer the slideshow option may appear to have gone away but user key f5 will still fire it up.

Michelle Kaye's helpful review of Microsoft ending Windows 10 support this autumn though being Trump's America they will sell you an extension.

WARNING  Trump isn't the only knob in the USA.  Microsoft are ending support for Windows 10 on Tuesday 14 October including security fixes.  To see if your box will run Windows 11 download and install PC Health Check but if your box is more than five years old probably not.  Maybe Trump will make the Windows 12 upgrade easier for us by only allowing Americans to have it ...

Last century it was maybe a year before we realised our first mobile could text.  Similarly we vaguely knew autofocus could be fine tuned but we didn't know two of our camera bodies had these presets.  Tempted to dismiss as useful if all you snap is tennis but maybe we're just fearful of the new ...

Our windmill correspondent Andy Fordyce has pointed out that Apple Maps also functions as a sat nav ... a helpful comparison.

In Stamford and needing to drive to Norwich the sat nav refused to fire up, panic but in the event it's just follow the A47 and well sign posted but it helps to know the towns on the way.  In Darren Smith's volunteer role as retail/tech consultant he pointed out Google maps on a mobile will function as a free sat nav.  We half suspected as much and on an iPhone found it fully functioning though it took a little learning and used locally you can hear the voice ... we'll find out when we leave Suffolk what happens at speed:)