Innehållsförteckning för Apr-14 från PCWorld

Boot to desktop by default By far the most welcome change in the Windows 8.1 update is one that many users may not even notice. If Windows 8.1 does not detect a touchscreen input on your device, it’ll boot directly to the desktop to keep its finger-friendly live tiles away from keyboard-and-mouse users. The operating system then tosses up a new tutorial prompt to tell you how to find the modern Start screen. Modern apps on the desktop taskbar Microsoft’s modern Windows 8 apps now appear in the taskbar, mimicking the functionality of traditional desktop software. The Windows Store app is pinned in the taskbar by default in the Windows 8.1 update, to serve as a guidepost and to drive users to Microsoft’s marketplace. Modern apps still appear full screen…

NORMALLY, AN UNEXPECTED pop-up is a reason to worry: Is your PC infected with a virus? Is this pop-up an ad? With one particular pop-up from Microsoft, you’re supposed to worry—but the message is legit. In its ongoing bid to encourage Windows XP users to move to Windows 7 or Windows 8, Microsoft began pushing a pop-up window to users’ machines in March. The company is also partnering with LapLink to offer a free migration tool to assist with the transition. By now, PCWorld readers and other people who keep up with tech news should know that the expiration date for Windows XP is April 8, 2014. Support for XP is ending, meaning that any vulnerabilities Microsoft hasn’t patched by now will remain open for malware writers to exploit. A…

TWITTER IS REPORTEDLY working on an e-commerce project powered by Stripe (go.pcworld.com/twitterstripe), a company that processes payments for sharing-economy startups such as Lyft, Postmates, and Sidecar. What this social-shopping initiative will look like is still unclear right now, but this isn’t the first time social networks have set their sights on retail. Cashtags and gifts Late last year, for instance, Facebook worked with Stripe to allow Facebook users to store their credit card information with the social network. When users then enter their Facebook login on partnering retailers’ apps, their info fills in the payment fields automatically. In February 2013, Twitter teamed up with American Express to launch an experiment in which AmEx cardholders can sync their credit cards (go.pcworld.com/amexsync) with their Twitter accounts and then take advantage of discounts…

ONCE YOU’VE PURCHASED a new 802.11ac router (see go.pcworld.com/routers2013), you have to decide on a wireless adapter to connect it to your client PC. If the client doesn’t incorporate an 802.11ac adapter—and few machines do—you won’t get the maximum benefit from the router. I benchmarked six of the newest 802.11ac Wi-Fi USB adapters and found striking differences in their performance. I tested each adapter in four spots inside my 2800-square-foot single-story home, using only the 802.11ac protocol. The 802.11ac draft standard delivers a physical link rate of up to 1300 megabits per second (with a router that supports three spatial streams for sending and three for receiving). Products in the current batch of 802.11ac Wi-Fi USB adapters, however, support only two spatial streams and deliver a maximum physical link rate…

MOST PEOPLE DON’ think of video-production software as a business tool. In today’s video-centric advertising, training, and communications environment, however, they should. Muvee Technologies seems to share that opinion, judging from its simple-to-use but effective Reveal 11 Business (go.pcworld.com/reveal11). You provide the pictures, video, and text, after which you arrange their sequence and pick a style template; then you simply let the program process everything into a complete production. The number of style templates—which contain background music, effects, and transitions melded into a consistent look and feel—is what differentiates the regular $80 version of Reveal 11 and the $500 Business edition. The regular version has only a few, while the business version has more than 40, plus 2000 musical renditions that you may use royalty-free. Functionally, the versions are identical.…

Watch the video at go.pcworld.com/miix28. INTEL’S BAY TRAIL.CLASS Atom processors allow PC manufacturers to build powerful tablets with a key feature that competitors like Google’s Nexus 7 and Apple’s iPad mini can’t deliver: the ability to run Windows 8.1 and all the apps available for that operating system. For its Miix 2 8, Lenovo paired Intel’s quad-core Atom Z3740 with 2GB of low-power DDR3/1066 memory and 32GB of storage. In our WorldBench 8.1 test results, the Miix 2 8 outperformed Dell’s Venue Pro 8 (go.pcworld.com/venuepro8) by a margin of 12 percent— earning a mark of 164, versus the Venue Pro 8’s 146—even though Dell’s tablet carries a very similar Atom processor (the Atom Z3740D) and faster memory (low-power DDR3/1333 RAM). The processors in both tablets have the same base clock…

GOOGLE’S GMAIL PACKS a slew of features for staying productive and organized. But one big advantage is the extra stuff you can add through Gmail Labs. To enable Labs features, first click the settings cog in the upper-right corner of the Gmail interface and select Settings from the drop-down menu. Click the Labs tab to see a list of items. (Any Labs features you’ve already enabled will appear first.) Click Enable to the right of any item you desire, and then scroll down and click Save Changes. Note that a small dose of daring is required: Labs’ experimental tools sometimes become full-fledged Gmail features, but they can also break or vanish without warning. That said, some Labs experiments can streamline your email management. Here are three of my favorites.…

The taskbar is everywhere In modern apps, you now can find the taskbar by moving your cursor to the bottom of the screen. The taskbar spans the screen’s length even when multiple modern apps are snapped side by side. As a result, bouncing between standard desktop programs and modern apps is much less of a burden (though still not seamless). Unfortunately, the taskbar sometimes covers interface elements in modern apps since they weren’t designed with it in mind. Mouse-friendly title-bar menus Previously, closing modern apps or snapping them side by side required moving your cursor to the top of the screen, clicking and holding, and dragging the app to one of the edges—a gesture designed for touch displays. In the new update, a title bar appears at the top of…

Watch the video at go.pcworld.com/merri DESKTOP WHO? WINDOWS what? The classic Windows-based PC remains Intel’s bread and butter, but it has needed to diversify its diet for a long time. At an event at the Mobile World Congress in February, the company announced two new Atom chips, code-named Merrifield and Moorefield, that could be its first truly competitive mobile solutions—and they arrive not a product cycle too soon. In case you didn’t know how high the stakes were, Intel President Renée James laid it out in her remarks at the event. “About 50 billion connected-computing somethings”—yes, that’s what she called them—“will be online by the year 2020.” Getting even a small slice of that pie would be pretty sweet. But competitors like Qualcomm and Samsung have enjoyed a long head…

ROUTERS AND OTHER connected devices are leaving home networks open to attack. The worst-case scenario? Strangers can access your files, slip malware into your network, or use your own security cameras to spy on you—all without laying a finger on your hardware. For example, some older Linksys E-Series routers and Wireless-N routers and access points are vulnerable to a malware infection that deposits a self-replicating worm (go.pcworld.com/linksysworm). And recent reports indicate that the default settings of Asus routers leave USB storage devices wide open (go.pcworld.com/routerflaw). If you’re running an Asus router with a USB storage drive attached, download and install the latest firmware from Asus’s website (www.service.asus.com). Don’t depend on the router’s Web interface to get the update, as it might not download the most recent version. As for Linksys…

IF LENOVO’S SPENDY ThinkPad X1 Carbon is the laptop every worker bee craves, Lenovo’s thrifty ThinkPad X240 (go.pcworld.com/thinkpadx240) is the one an employer is more apt to spring for. You might think the ThinkPad X240 is too big to qualify for the Ultrabook designation, but it’s only 0.79 inches thick and weighs just 3 pounds. It has two batteries and a battery bridge that allows hot swapping. The X240’s WorldBench score of 282 leaves it slightly behind Dell’s XPS 12 Ultrabook Convertible (with the same dual-core CPU) and Samsung’s Ativ Book 7 (with a third-generation Core i5-3337U)—surprising given that the ThinkPad has twice as much DDR3/1600 memory: 8GB versus 4GB. The X240 packs a fourth-generation Intel Core processor, so you can expect long battery life. Our test unit came with…

IN THE CURRENT market, paying $750 for a 12-inch Android tablet seems exorbitant. But if now isn’t the time for consumers to start thinking of large Android tablets as legitimate Windows laptop replacements, that day isn’t far off. The massive Samsung Galaxy Note Pro (go.pcworld.com/galaxynotepro), like the Microsoft Surface, functions best on a desk. Offering a 12.2-inch screen and weighing 1.65 pounds, it’s virtually identical to the Galaxy Tab Pro save for the addition of an S Pen stylus. According to Samsung, the Wi-Fi version of the tablet houses a 1.9GHz quad-core ARM Cortex A15 chip and runs Android 4.4 (KitKat). On our performance tests it produced a Sunspider score of 0.97 second (hitting the upper echelons among tablets), and a PeaceKeeper score of 815. For the sake of comparison,…

Watch the video at go.pcworld.com/shred DESTROY IT, ALL of it: Obliterate the old bills and tax documents you don’t want to store. Eliminate your expired credit cards and aging CD backups. Do that, and you’ll keep your data out of the wrong hands. Shredding specialists You need a good shredder to rip everything into bits small enough to confound even the most obsessive-compulsive puzzle master. To find the best models, we tested the pulverizing potential of five professional cross-cut shredders intended for small offices. These machines can feed more sheets and shred for longer periods than the typical, lowvolume home shredder available at your local big-box store. Office Depot’s Ativa V141C (go.pcworld.com/ativav141c) has a traditional, vertical top-feeding system. A flap covers the slot as a sort of safety catch. The…

Q: WAYNE KLAWUHN USED the Darik’s Boot and Nuke utility (www.dban.org) to securely wipe his hard drive. Unfortunately, the erasing procedure also wiped the tools necessary for reinstalling Windows. A: EVERY COMPUTER THAT’ sold with Windows preinstalled must come with a tool for reinstalling the operating system. The most common approach puts the restoration tool on a specially designated partition on the hard drive. Some computers, particularly from small manufacturers, come instead with an OEM Windows DVD. When it comes time to activate Windows, use the activation number on your PC. But what do you do if that partition has been lost—either through a hard-drive crash or user error? Or what if you’ve misplaced that DVD? If you purchased the PC from a major vendor, contact the vendor and…

WINDOWS 8’S MODERN interface didn’t go over well out of the gate. Although the live tiles and touch-friendliness offered a lot to like, usability experts panned many of the design choices, and power users felt abandoned. But beyond bridging the gap between PC and tablet, Windows’ immersion in the interface formerly known as Metro may have had another purpose: separating novice and power users. This move could preserve the best of Windows while making it more palatable to the casual computing public. “Before Windows 8 and Metro came along, power users and casual users—the content creators and the content consumers—had to share the same space,” Windows interface designer Jacob Miller wrote on Reddit in February (go.pcworld.com/millerreddit). (A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed his employment.) Any new feature had to be simple enough…

Watch the video at go.pcworld.com/mwc2014 WE SPENT A WEEK IN BARCELONA at the Mobile World Congress, wading through wearables (go.pcworld.com/wearables), sampling many smartphones (go.pcworld.com/tensp), and trying out a tablet or two. While the Galaxy S5 (go.pcworld.com/galaxys5) was the biggest product to debut—with wearables from Sony (go.pcworld.com/sonywear) and Huawei (go.pcworld.com/talkband) also garnering attention—it’s not a revolutionary release for Samsung, despite some impressive software additions (go.pcworld.com/s5features). We noticed three trends. Low-end phones: Flagship models like the S5 aside, most phone makers were touting low-cost handsets. Mozilla showed off phones running the Firefox OS that could sell for the low, low price of $25. Even when phone makers had a big handset to announce—say, Sony’s Xperia Z2 (go.pcworld.com/xperiaz2)—usually a lower-priced model (like the Xperia M2) came along for the ride. Phone makers are…

THE WINDOWS XPOCALYPSE is upon us: Microsoft is no longer providing security patches for Windows XP as of April 8, 2014. Nearly 30 percent of Internet-connected PCs still run XP. They’ll continue operating normally, but they’ll be rotting inside, suffering from increasingly numerous security holes. If you’re using Windows XP, and you can’t upgrade your machine immediately, you can protect yourself. Make no mistake, however: The following tricks are like sticking your finger into a leaking dam. They’ll help a bit, but the dam is crumbling. Choose your software wisely If you use Internet Explorer, let it go—IE 8, the most recent version available for XP, is no longer receiving patches. In contrast, Google Chrome will continue supporting Windows XP until at least April 2015, while Mozilla Firefox has no…

THE CHROMEBOOK HAS found its sweet spot, and it’s around the $279 range, where the Toshiba CB35-A3120 Chromebook resides (go.pcworld.com/toshibacb35). It sure isn’t down with the $200-or-so cheapies, with their clackety plastics and sorry little screens. Nor is it in the 1-percenter fantasyland of the gorgeous and expensive Chromebook Pixel. The $250 Samsung Chromebook 3 is nice, and for $300 you could get an 11-inch touchscreen in the Acer C270P, or a 14-inch (non-touch) display in the HP Chromebook 14. But the Toshiba CB35-A3120 is nearly as good as those higher-priced competitors, and it’s a notch better than the similarly priced HP Chromebook 11. What the Toshiba CB35-A3120 has over the HP Chromebook 11 is a much larger 13.3-inch LED backlit display; a mobilefriendly Intel Celeron 2955U (Haswell) processor; and…

INTEL’S NEW 730 Series of enthusiast-class SSDs come emblazoned with the image of a skull, but they don’t fully live up to a killer image. The company shipped a pair of 480GB drives to us so we could benchmark them striped as a single volume in RAID 0, which is how a PC enthusiast might deploy them. Theoretically, you should get close to double the performance this way; but because we haven’t tested any other SSDs in tandem, we stuck with one drive for our full benchmarking regimen and ran CrystalDiskMark for the RAID 0 setup. Plenty of room SSDs in the 730 Series use 20nm MLC (multilevel cell) NAND. Since the SSD is just 7mm high, it will fit in most laptops and even in an all-in-one (if the…

TEXTING IS THE NEW CALLING, and with so many texts flying back and forth, it’s a good idea to make sure you’re getting your message across as clearly as possible. Here are some suggestions. Use text shortcuts Save time with text shortcuts—shorthand blurbs that you enter and that expand to a longer word or phrase when you tap the spacebar. For instance, you can have “brb” turn into “be right back.” On iOS, open Settings, tap General, and then tap Keyboard. In the Shortcuts section, tap Add New Shortcut, enter the phrase you want ready access to, and enter the shortcut you want to assign. Tap Save. On Android, go to Settings, select Language & input under the Personal subheading, and tap Personal dictionary. Press the plus (+) button at…