Indholdsfortegnelse for May 2022 i TechLife

Most of us – and especially TechLife readers – are living increasingly more and more digital lives. It’s become even more true since the pandemic hit. Many of us have switched to working from home, while also depending upon the internet for everything from staying in touch with friends through lockdowns, to grocery shopping and more. With all that increased time online, it means there’s more opportunities for our activities to be tracked. So, in this issue we give you the tools to take control of your connected life. In our cover feature this month we show you how to block ads and cookies, force websites to use secure encryption, and how to use a private search engine. And much more! It’s essential reading. But it’s not all doom and…

Google says it has made a major breakthrough on carbon-free energy Google has been working to develop better tools to track energy consumption and production in order to achieve its 24/7 carbon-free energy goal by 2030. As part of these efforts, the search giant announced a new tool called Time-based Energy Attribute Certificates (T-EACs) last year to advance a more granular approach to energy tracking. Universal Control is finally here, making iPads and Macs even more useful As a part of the recently-released macOS 12.3, Universal Control is now enabled. It’s a beta version of the software but is fully functional. In essence, this feature lets you use your iPad with your Mac, seamlessly letting you use your mouse and keyboard on the tablet. It will also allow you to…

From US$399, www.steamdeck.com The Steam Deck is one of the most eagerly anticipated product launches in recent times, with Valve trying its hand at making a handheld console. It’s certainly an ambitious task, but one that Valve mostly pulls off. However, as much as you may think the Steam Deck is a Nintendo Switch rival, it’s actually more of an alternative to gaming laptops. This means if you’re a PC gamer with a large Steam library, and you’re used to the quirks and annoyances that come with playing PC games, then you’ll likely love the Steam Deck and overlook its rougher edges. At the time of writing, if you sign up to reserve one now, you won’t get a unit until ‘after Q2 2022’. This means you could be waiting…

Apex Legends Mobile SLIDE N’ SHOOT. Free with IAP, iOS Fortnite’s continued absence from both the major app stores has created an enormous gap for the still burgeoning and incredibly popular battle royale genre to fill. While mobile-focused versions of big titles like PUBGand CallofDutydo fill that gap to an extent, the lack of a fuller-featured replication of a PC game – that Fortnitewas – is wanting. ApexLegendsis arguably one of the most popular games in the genre on console and PC, and its inevitable entrance into mobile is ahead of other announced projects from other huge FPS stalwarts like Battlefieldand Warzone. Apexis also well suited to capture a younger, Fortnite-hungry audience, as its combat is notably less serious and violent than its competition. What’s impressive about this version is…

$2,199, www.samsung.com With the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, we can see that someone at Samsung has watched Spinal Tap because the company has really taken the popular line ‘turn it up to 11’ to heart. In the constant game of one-upmanship between Samsung and Apple, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro has owned the title of ‘biggest tablet’ for quite some years now, but the Tab S8 Ultra shows Samsung turning its own slate size up to 11 (metaphorically, not literally), with its giant 14.6-inch display. Design This size is great for watching movies, sketching, working – everything, really. This is one huge tablet. Seriously, don’t even consider it unless your backpack has space or there’s room on your desk for this monster. With dimensions of 326 x 208 x 5.5mm,…

$1,199, www.dell.com Dell often gets early access to the latest display tech. So, it is that the new Dell Ultrasharp U3223QE debuts LG’s IPS Black panel technology, which delivers up to 2,000:1 contrast. That’s a big jump over the 1,300:1 maximum contrast achieved by IPS screens to date. Most IPS monitors only manage 1,000:1. The showbiz feature is of course that IPS Black technology with 2,000:1 contrast. The new Dell Ultrasharp U3223QE cuts a contemporary dash thanks to slim, symmetrical bezels on all four sides of its 32-inch IPS panel. It’s a good-looking monitor. It’s also very well engineered and offers excellent adjustability, including tilt, height, swivel and rotation into portrait mode. The showbiz feature is of course that IPS Black technology with 2,000:1 contrast. To that Dell adds an…

$399, www.tp-link.com TP-Link has become a household name thanks to their affordable smart home products. Low-cost usually equates to poor software support but this isn’t the case with TP-Link products. Their device installation usually takes a couple of steps and is fuss-free while the affordability comes partly from being the manufacturer of their own equipment and cutting the middle-man. Low-cost usually equates to poor software support but this isn’t the case with TP-Link products. The EAP660HD is physically bigger than other access points with similar performance. At almost 25cm in diameter, it will take a lot of wall space. This is partly to accommodate eight high-gain antennas. The AP does not generate a lot of heat and will stay cool even under heavy traffic thanks to air vents located around…

Your browser is your window to the web, but it’s a window that thousands of strangers are secretly watching you through. Hidden trackers are embedded in virtually every site you visit, monitoring your activities, collecting and sharing your personal data, and targeting you with adverts. All browsers now offer some form of protection against these spies, but their privacy settings are often disabled by default, difficult to find, and usually ineffective against the trackers they’re supposed to block. This is particularly true of the two most popular PC browsers, Chrome and Edge, which are owned by companies – Google and Microsoft – that earn billions every year from gathering and monetising their users’ data. The good news is that there are now plenty of truly private browsers to choose from,…

It’s tempting to wade in here and make some grandiose statement about the era of hi-fi being over. But that wouldn’t be quite right. Audiophile hardware is only getting better, vinyl is back on the rise, and there’s nothing quite like building your own system. That said, the smart speaker market has evolved to such an extent that it has all but unseated the concept of complex hi-fi separates for many of us. For a start, a smart speaker is a quick way to get your hands on serious quality. Even at the lower end, they exhibit a remarkable amount of poise; premium wireless speakers, tuned and engineered for fantastic sound, stand almost statuesque above them. Seriously: if you’ve never wrapped your ears around a high-end speaker, you don’t know…

Smaller isn’t always better when it comes to laptops. We know from your recent emails that many of you don’t need a computer that slips into your bag, but want a machine you can use at home that has a good-sized screen and doesn’t take up much space. Here, we outline the benefits of switching from a desktop PC to a large laptop and reveal what you need to make it work more like a traditional computer. We also round up the best laptops that offer a screen that’s at least 17in, and have 8GB of RAM and a 512GB hard drive – preferably an SSD – (see box below), which we believe are the minimum requirements to make sure your laptop can comfortably do everything you’d want your home…

Installing Microsoft’s twice-yearly ‘Feature’ updates can be unnerving because you never know whether they will cause problems, such as disabling settings you’ve carefully configured. There are ways to delay updates, but they involve tweaking the registry or upgrading to Windows 10 or 11 Pro. It’s much cheaper and easier to use the new program InControl (created by the developers that built Never10 in 2016 to stop Microsoft automatically installing Windows 10 on your computer). Visit www.grc.com/incontrol.htm, then click the small, green ‘Download now’ button in the grey panel. It’s a portable tool, so should run automatically. You’ll see a message in red saying ‘OS upgrades are not under your control on this system’. Click the ‘Take Control’ button at the bottom ( 1 in our screenshot) and this will change…

REQUIRES Photos app YOU WILL LEARN How to help Photos recognise and organise friends and family IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes Apple’s Photo app scans your Library and gathers any shots of people that it finds into collections in its dedicated People album. However, it may not recognise every shot of a particular person in the Library (especially if they’re being viewed side-on or wearing a mask). We’ll demonstrate how to help Photos recognise extra shots of specific people so that you don’t miss any of your best memories. You can then favorite particular people so that they show up more frequently in automatically curated Sharing Suggestions and Memories (and feature other people who you don’t want to see so much less frequently). We’ll also look at some useful troubleshooting…

We’re going to take a basic ebook and make it shine with the help of images such as photographs and charts. We’ll also add some features that are appropriate for non-fiction books, such as tip boxes, an index and citations within the text. Finally, we’ll get a bit further into what it takes to upload your files to services that can print books or make them available as ebooks. This month’s tutorial picks up from where part one left off in TechLife 127, with a basic formatted ebook, so you don’t need to read part one but we’re assuming that you have some formatted text to work with in LibreOffice. Illustrations and other Images You may want to add images to your book. These could be photographs that relate to…

We’ve used LibreOffice for the text editing and page layout of our book. However, as ever when it comes to Linux, there are many other publishing options available. LaTeX is a document preparation system that actually predates Linux. It’s a markup language coupled with various support tools that output documents in various end-formats. The beauty of LaTeX is that it takes care of all of the typography and page layout for you. So, for example, you can insert an image in the text and LaTeX will decide where to place it. If this sort of thing sounds appealing, but you don’t fancy learning LaTeX, take a look at LyX (www.lyx.org). LyX is halfway between a word processor and a text editor, and sits on top of the LaTeX system. It’s…

Last month we talked about some of the blockchain scams and ongoing security issues with many decentralised finance (DeFi) apps, so this month we thought it might be worth taking a bit of a deeper dive into the fundamentals of blockchain and cryptocurrency security. The more you understand about how it works, the safer you will be when using it. What is a blockchain? At its simplest, a blockchain is just a way of storing data, typically a ledger of transactions – “Joe sent three Bitcoins to Mary”. Thus it works for cryptocurrency, keeping a track of who ‘owns’ how many of the particular token or coin. What makes blockchain special, however, is that it is immutable. When a transaction is added to the ledger, it is there forever. Nobody…

The annual Australian PC Awards gives us a wonderful opportunity to consider the year just passed, and spotlight the things that were very much better than the others. It’s always fun for us to do this here at APC, and we hope you’re inspired to do an upgrade or two as we run through the finalists, highly commended, and winners. These awards cover products released in Australia through 2021, and were judged by the editorial team here at TechLife, along with our friends at sister Future publications APC, TechRadar, PC Gamer, and PC PowerPlay. Narrowing down the finalists took a long time, and the many pros and cons were carefully considered. In this year in particular, value played a larger than usual role in determining the winners. Where we feel…

I’m tired of x86. Is Windows-on-ARM worth trying? Barry Not yet. Oh, dear reader, not yet. Guru has recently tested a Samsung Galaxy Book Go, which pushes Windows 11 onto the most unwilling frame of the Snapdragon 888 processor, and there just isn’t enough power there. While there’s a translation layer that will do its darndest to get every app running, it’s dog slow. Also, and this has nothing to do with Windows-on-ARM, but the screen on the Galaxy Book Go is just about the worst panel GaGu has ever used – and he’s old enough to have worked with the original colour LCD displays on laptops. This is part of the problem Windows, and the PC market in general, will always face. There’s literally no opportunity for an all-hands-on-deck…

Hogwarts Legacy release window set for Holiday 2022 The Hogwarts Legacy release window has been set for ‘Holiday 2022’ as part of a special PlayStation State of Play live stream. Initially due to launch in 2021, the game was then delayed into 2022 with the caveat that it would arrive after Fantastic Beasts 3. However, we now know that it’s set to launch around the end of this year. Enormous Assassin’s Creed board game is coming to retail in 2022 A massive Assassin’s Creed board game is on its way to retail in Q4 2022. Titled Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice, it brings us back to the time of Ezio Auditore in the Italian Renaissance – only this time, you’re a new character leading your own band of assassins. This…

$8,799, www.msi.com MSI has made some outstanding gaming laptops, and the latest WS66 is an ongoing exploration of the related mobile workstation market. There is a demand for high power laptops to avoid the inconvenience of lugging entire desktop systems around and the inevitable impact on reliability that doing that creates. Typically these systems tend to forego an extended battery life for better processor and video performance, confident that the user will have mains power available. Where it obviously shines is in any test that involves graphics or heavy compute loads, like the 3DMark benchmarks and the Cinebench scores. Design On the outside, there is nothing revolutionary about the WS66, as it looks practically identical to the 10th Gen platform version of this laptop. The upper lid surface is metal-skinned,…

$399, www.mi.com With its Redmi and Poco sub-brands, Xiaomi wants to remind us that it’s not all about the top-tier flagship smartphones – and the company consistently puts out low-price handsets that give you more than you might expect for your money. We’ve seen it plenty of times in the past and the Redmi Note 11 is another example. Despite costing very little the phone comes with decent battery life, an excellent screen, and a build quality that’s impressive. Despite costing very little the phone comes with decent battery life, an excellent screen, and a build quality that’s impressive. Picking up and using the Redmi Note 11, you wouldn’t necessarily think that you’d paid so little for it, and it might make your flagship-owning friends wonder why exactly they’ve paid…

$219, www.razer.com The Razer Kraken V3 HyperSense gaming headset offers excellent sound quality and clear mic pickup, a comfortable fit, and the characteristic Razer style that will make a great addition to any gamer’s setup. But you will need to ask yourself if the haptic response is worth an additional 30 percent price jump. First and foremost, this is a gaming headset, so the sound quality is its most important selling point. On that front, the Kraken V3 HyperSense delivers and then some, though falling short of a professional-quality headset. The 50mm TriForce Titanium drivers provide a satisfying soundscape no matter whether you’re listening to Billy Strings deep cuts on Spotify, watching Netflix, or playing the best PC games. The 50mm TriForce Titanium drivers provide a satisfying soundscape no matter…

$149, au.nothing.tech When the Nothing Ear (1) first launched last year, there was a lot of excitement and hype for the first true wireless earbuds from OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei’s new company. Previously only available via a limited drop on the Nothing website, it’s now possible to buy them at third-party retailers such as Amazon. Both Black and White varieties are available to choose from but if you’re buying from a third-party retailer, you may wish to steer towards the Black version, to guarantee these are the latest model. Simply put, they didn’t live up to the hype. They looked cool but they provided overly quiet sound, numerous connectivity issues, and poor noise cancellation. Things have changed since then with the release of the Nothing Ear (1) Black Edition and…

HP Envy 17-ch0001na  www.hp.com Price $1,599 Along with a 17.3-inch touchscreen and full-size keyboard, this HP laptop (pictured left) has a four-core Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, so it’s as big on the inside as it is on the outside. LG Gram  www.lg.com Price $1,699 This 17-inch laptop isn’t cheap, but with a 19-hour battery life, you won’t need to keep it plugged in all the time. It comes with Windows 11, built-in Alexa so you can control it with your voice, a 1TB SSD and a 2.8GHz Intel Core i7 processor, while its big screen has a similarly big resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 pixels. Asus VivoBook X705MA  www.asus.com Price $699 This Asus model (above right) was the cheapest we could find with…

Microsoft Excel Track your blood pressure Mastering the finer points of Excel can be stressful, so it’s apt that Microsoft offers a template for tracking your blood pressure. Download it from www.snipca. com/40876, then add your name at the top. Scroll down and you’ll see columns for time, date, AM/PM, systolic pressure, diastolic pressure, heart rate and notes. Enter your data here and it will be reflected in the chart above. You can click the dropdown menus to search results and to re-order them (smallest to largest, and vice versa), which could help you identify when your health is most at risk. LibreOffice Calc Master Calc’s new autocomplete function The latest version of LibreOffice (7.3, released in February) adds a more advanced autocomplete function. To explain how it works, LibreOffice…

To ensure fewer appearances of less important people in things such as Sharing Suggestions, scroll down to the bottom of a person’s page and click Feature Less To ensure alterations you make to the People album are updated on other devices, make sure that iCloud Photos is turned on (Photos > Preferences > iCloud Photos on macOS). When Photos scans your Library it recognises some objects as well as faces. For example, type “cats” into the Photo’s search field to instantly access feline photos.…

REQUIRES iOS 15 or iPadOS 15 YOU WILL LEARN How to use the Focus feature on your iPhone or iPad IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes There are few things more annoying or distracting when you’re trying to work, sleep, or watch the latest episode of your favorite show, than the repetitive pinging of notifications. Even in silent mode, if your iPhone or Watch is set to vibrate, it can be distracting. Apple has long recognised the value of a good night’s sleep and allowed you to turn off notifications at night. Now it has extended that so you can turn them off for specific purposes during the day. You can create Focuses based on activity such as driving, reading, or fitness. Or you can create custom focuses. Whichever route you…

If you’ve ever attempted to automate some of your home electronics, you’ll probably know just how messy the whole scene is. Between all the different protocols, the dozens of different interfaces and apps, and the often shaky integration between software and hardware it can be an exercise in frustration. Professional installers tend to use very expensive bespoke solutions, built from the ground up in an integrated package. For DIYers, however, there’s a maze of different tools, products and protocols to manage. We’ve talked before in the column about IFTTT (If This Then That), a software tool for scripting automation, as well as using home assistants like Amazon Alexa for basic controls. But for many home improvers the best way to bring it all together is a cheap Raspberry Pi board…

Cooler conditions aren’t for everyone and many of us find ourselves stuck indoors when the weather outside is more frightful than festive. This can introduce some creativity issues when looking for suitable photographic subjects. Flower portraits and still life shots are a sensible option, but there are several challenges associated with shooting under interior lighting, especially at this time of year. The nights draw in quickly and with precious little natural light to be found later in the day, we might end up forced to use artificial light. Home lighting is far from ideal in many cases, due to its unnatural colour balance and limited power controllability. This can leave flowers looking drab and with unexpected colour shifts. Using flash is essential and, therefore, learning to balance this across the…

$3,579, www.panasonic.com Last year’s Panasonic Lumix GH5 II was just the appetiser: for would-be filmmakers looking for a small camera with huge creative potential, the Panasonic Lumix GH6 is the true main course. And what a feast it is: the new flagship in Panasonic’s Lumix G range of mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras based on the Micro Four Thirds mount, the 25.2MP GH6 fits a dizzying array of movie skills into its compact body. There’s 5.7K video at 60fps and Apple ProRes 422 HQ recording, 7.5 stops of in-body image stabilisation, 4-channel XLR audio recording and a monitor that can be tilted in almost any direction. Design and handling The GH6’s body shape is immediately familiar: it’s that well-worn, DSLR-inspired design used by most of Panasonic’s Lumix G series. It might…

Samsung Odyssey Ark ($TBC) From samsung.com The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a great time to see some outlandish tech, and Samsung did not disappoint this year with its Odyssey Ark monitor. This display behemoth is a mammoth 55 inches across – more than double Apple’s largest 27-inch iMac – and uses a heavily curved screen to make using it a little more comfortable and immersive. Like the latest MacBook Pro and iPad Pro, the Odyssey Ark uses Mini-LED tech to ramp up the display quality and offer increased contrast and brightness. You can rotate the screen 90 degrees into a portrait orientation, and thanks to its curvature and enormous wingspan, this makes the monitor loom ominously overhead – to the height of three 16:9 monitors stacked on top of…

Elden Ring Suffering has never been so much fun. $89.95, en.bandainamcoent.eu, PC, Xbox, PlayStation I can’t pretend to be entirely unbiased about Elden Ring. FromSoftware is my darling, as it is for so many people, and there’s no game it’s made since Demon Souls that I haven’t played through at least twice (or much more). So bear in mind that these are the thoughts of a Soulsborne veteran, not a fresh-faced adventurer ready to experience his first taste of terror. And I’m a prisoner of that reality, leaving me horrified and fascinated by the idea that Elden Ring really could be the best FromSoftware game to date. The Breath of the Wild element is all in the world design. Gone is FromSoftware’s tangled spaghetti of interlinking paths, and now we…

$1,359, onyxboox.com You want to go paperless. Completely. But can you really ditch that printer when editing and annotating on a tablet is such a squeeze given their sizes? Cue the Max Lumi 2, a large-format E Ink slate that’s perfectly sized for scrawling on A4 and large documents – and simply luxurious for smaller documents and ebooks. Design Perfectly sized for scrawling on A4 and large documents – and simply luxurious for smaller documents and ebooks. Weighing 570g and measuring 310 x 228 x 7.9mm, the Max Lumi 2’s aluminium-magnesium alloy chassis feels super-slim yet slightly less substantial than the more solid-feeling Note Air 2. Though almost identical to its first-gen version, this one lacks an HDMI output so can’t be cabled-up to work as a secondary monitor (though…

$449, www.msi.com With its 27-inch IPS panel with a 2,560 x 1440 resolution, the MSI Modern MD271QP business monitor aims to be your “window to the world.” The monitor has a sleek design with minimal bezels at the top and on either side while its controls and the MSI logo are found at the base of the display along with a pair of built-in, 1W speakers. A 75Hz refresh rate ensures scrolling is smooth while MSI Anti-Flicker and Less Blue Light technologies prevent your eyes from suffering strain or fatigue. While the front of the monitor is flat, its rear curves in towards the centre where the display attaches to the included stand. However, thanks to the inclusion of 75 x 75mm VESA holes at the back of the MSI…

$669, www.masterdynamic.eu Like a number of traditional Hi-Fi specialists, M&D has decided that the fast-growing gaming market is now too big to ignore, and has released the new MG20 Wireless Gaming Headphones in order to get in on the gaming action. But, rather than trying to compete with mass-market brands such as Corsair or Razer, M&D is unashamedly describing the MG20 as “the first true luxury gaming headphones”. It may call itself a gaming headset, but the MG20 can sit right alongside M&D’s existing range of audiophile headphones for musical precision. The large earpieces are padded with memory foam for extra comfort - although the lambskin leather covering is a detail that may not appeal to some people. The earpieces also house large 50mm drivers constructed of beryllium - a…

1 DELL XPS 15 OLED This year, the flagship XPS 15 comes with a shiny new stunner of a screen, alongside the usual XPS offerings – you know, powerful innards, elegant woven chassis, and all the other premium trimmings. The new OLED display is such eye-candy, delivering deep blacks and colours so vibrant, you might not be able to stop staring at your screen. From $3,199, dell.com 2 iPAD PRO We love having our tablet next to our computer for multitasking. But the M1-supercharged iPad Pro isn’t merely for checking your planner, responding to emails and streaming shows while pretending to be productive. This is essentially another laptop capable of handling intensive creative tasks, only more convenient to take to the couch for a bit of respite from your desk.…

WHAT YOU NEED HiBit Startup TIME REQUIRED 10 minutes Programs that start automatically with Windows can make your PC much slower to boot, but you may not even realise they’re running. You can use Task Manager to disable some of these, but it’s also useful to delay programs so they don’t all run at once and compete for system resources. HiBit Startup Manager makes it easier to manage tools that run on Windows start-up, letting you remove those you don’t need and stagger those you do so they run at different times. It also lets you disable items temporarily and scan them for malware using VirusTotal. HiBit was recently updated to work with Windows 11, and is free to use, with several extra features that give you further control over…

Windows 10 & 11 Use WhatsApp Beta in dark mode Many people prefer using WhatsApp on a computer than their phone because they find it easier to type on a physical keyboard than on a phone’s touchscreen. The bigger screen also helps. You can download a desktop version of WhatsApp from www.whatsapp.com/download, but it’s better to use the app from the Microsoft Store (www.snipca. com/40905) because it uses fewer system resources than a traditional program. If you’re a prolific WhatsApp user, consider installing the beta version of the app. It’ll give you the chance to try new features early, such as the dark mode added in February. To select it, click General on the main Settings page, then choose Dark (see screenshot below). Once set, it will be applied across…

If you use column layouts in your documents, you should consider inserting vertical lines between each column to make sure they are clearly separated. To do this in Word, place your cursor within a column then open the Layout tab, click the Columns dropdown menu and select More Columns. In the box that opens, tick the ‘Line between’ box ( 1 in our screenshot), followed by OK. You can change the gap between the line and the columns 2 , and see how this looks in the Preview box 3 . It’s a similar process in LibreOffice Writer. Place your cursor where you want the line to go, then click Layout followed by Page Columns. Next, click the dropdown menu and select More Options at the bottom to bring up…

REQUIRES MacFamilyTree 9, FamilySearch.org account (free) YOU WILL LEARN To sync your tree with FamilySearch IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes This issue, we’re going to reveal how to link your tree to the familysearch.org website, giving you access to the largest collection of free family history material. FamilySearch not only provides access to millions of records that can reveal more about your ancestors, but it’s also the home of the world’s largest family tree, inviting everyone to sign up and add their family’s details to the site in an attempt to link the world. Everyone is encouraged to upload their own photos as well as link records in FamilySearch’s extensive collections to the people in the tree. To make the sharing process easier, FamilySearch has developed tools that allow MacFamilyTree…

The ISBN number is the 13-digit number (with barcode) on the back of nearly all professionally published books. Thanks to print-on-demand publishing, you can often get away without having one. However, many traditional book sellers such as bookshops won’t sell a book unless it has one, and it does give the impression that your book is a more professional product. Unfortunately, they are costly, particularly if you’re buying them in small numbers. The agency that sells Australian ISBN numbers is called Thorpe-Bowker, and at time of writing, a single ISBN costs $44 or $88 for a block of 10. Thankfully, Amazon Kindle Publishing and Lulu Publishing will give you a free ISBN if you publish a physical copy of your book with either company. Amazon also has its own numbering…

Internet outages are an unfortunate fact of life, and they can be crippling to your daily life, especially for those relying on their NBN plans in order to work from home. Thankfully, there’s a number of steps you can take to identify and rectify the issue, getting you back online in your time of need. Is it down for everyone? The first thing to do when your internet fails you is to check if this outage is isolated to just your household. There are plenty of methods of checking this, including dedicated status pages on the provider’s own site, but a third-party option may be the best port of call. And of course, if your main internet connection is down, you’ll need to use a device with its own connection,…

The Shadows/Highlights command has long been one of the most useful tonal tools on offer in Photoshop – but to get the most out of it, you need to master a few simple settings. Initially the tool offers two simple sliders: one lets you lift the shadows, while the other darkens the highlights. However, hidden away are a wealth of other options that give you a fine degree of control over shadows and highlights in your scene. landscapes will often be dominated by very bright and very dark tones, as skies tend to be lighter than the land below. This makes it tricky to achieve a balanced exposure, as the contrast between the two is too great. The command can be used on all kinds of photos, but it really…