Wednesday 13th December 2017
W10 Start Menu - Recently Added/Most Used
At the top left of the Windows 10 Start Menu, there is the option to display Most Used apps and Recently Added apps. You can configure this by going to Start, Settings, Personalisation, Start. Arthur had an issue where these options in Settings were greyed out - I do not know why.
Laptop Keyboard Replacement
Tony’s
laptop (HP Pavilion G6) had some keys not working on its keyboard which we had discussed at the last session Tony had purchased a replacement keyboard –
laptop keyboards typically cost about £15.
I replaced this at the session as a demonstration of laptop repair.
Every model of laptop has a different keyboard, so you have to purchase the correct one for your PC. Usually, the keyboard is secured by one or two screws and also clips into place. If you need to open the laptop cover(s), carefully unscrew the securing screws and pry off using plastic "spudgers" so that you do not damage the case. The connector for the ribbon cable is a ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) connector. To remove/insert the ribbon cable, you need to carefully lift the plastic lever.
If you have made a significant hardware change, Windows may not activate automatically. In this case, you should be able to click on Start, Settings, Update & Security, Activation, Troubleshoot.
Mail App
The Mail app is part of Windows 10. If you have signed into your PC using a Microsoft Account, the Mail app will probably have been automatically configured to access your Microsoft email account. You can ignore this if you use an alternative mail app (e.g. Thunderbird) or web mail. However, the Mail app will pop up notifications when it receives mail. To stop this, launch the Mail app and, within the app, click on the Settings cog, Notifications and switch off Show notifications in the Action Centre.
Margaret had an issue where Sent mail was not showing up in the Mail app. I don't know why this would be. We tend to use multiple devices to access email these days, but provided every mail app is configured to use IMAP and/or you sign into web mail using a browser, any changes on any device (e.g. sending new mail or deleting mail) will be seen on all devices.
MailStore
As we were discussing email, I mentioned MailStore which is a free program for your PC which will back up your emails and can be downloaded from https://www.mailstore.com/. Basically, MailStore can fetch all your mail from the server, rather like a mail app. However, it can't be used to send mail and no mail is deleted. It uses POP, so you need to set it up initially to leave a copy of mail on the server. Once set up, each time you run MailStore it will download mail from each folder and add it to what is already there. Obviously, this means that the MailStore data on you hard drive will gradually get bigger and bigger, but this should not be a problem with modern large hard drives. MailStore can backup mail from your mail server (e.g.Gmail or Yahoo) and from local email clients such as Outlook or Thunderbird.
The free version of MailStore does not run automatically, so you just have to launch the program and click Run once or twice a day. I have automated it on my system by using Windows Task Scheduler, but that would be a topic for another day!
MailStore has an excellent search function to help you find that old email when you need to refer back to it. It's free, so you can give it a try if you feel having a backup of all your emails might be useful.
Printing From Google Photos
Tony asked about printing photos from Google Photos. As far as I know, you can't - at least, not directly. Google Photos is a great service for aggregating all your photos. You can install the Google Photos app on your mobile devices (both iOS and Android). This will allow all photos taken on your mobile device to be uploaded to the Google cloud where you can have unlimited storage (if you select High Quality rather than Original in the Google Photo Settings). Normally, photos are only uploaded to the Google cloud over wi-fi rather than using your more expensive mobile data connection.
On a PC, you can view your photos by going to https://photos.google.com/ in any web browser and signing in with your Google credentials. To print a photo, you will first have to download it. Select the required photo(s) by clicking the small circle in the top left of the photo(s). Then click on the 3-dot symbol at the top right and select Download. The photo(s) will be downloaded by the browser in the usual way - probably to your Downloads folder, although this depends on your browser settings.
Once downloaded, you can open the picture with your chosen photo-viewing program. If you double-click on the photo file, it will open with the default viewer on your PC. Click on Print (or press Ctrl+P) in the photo-viewer to print it. Note that if you select multiple photos at once to download, they will download as a single 'zip' file which you will need to double-click to unzip and extract the individual photo files.
HP Keylogger Vulnerability
Tony mentioned the recent news that many HP laptops have been found to have a keylogger installed which could be a major security vulnerability. The software is actually related to the Synaptics touchpad used by HP and should be disabled by default. However, it provides an easy opportunity for a hacker to enable it and steal you data. See this article for more on this:- https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/11/hp_synaptics_keylogger/
HP has updated the relevant Synaptics driver for many models of their laptops which can be found at:- https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05827409
Margaret had an issue where Sent mail was not showing up in the Mail app. I don't know why this would be. We tend to use multiple devices to access email these days, but provided every mail app is configured to use IMAP and/or you sign into web mail using a browser, any changes on any device (e.g. sending new mail or deleting mail) will be seen on all devices.
MailStore
As we were discussing email, I mentioned MailStore which is a free program for your PC which will back up your emails and can be downloaded from https://www.mailstore.com/. Basically, MailStore can fetch all your mail from the server, rather like a mail app. However, it can't be used to send mail and no mail is deleted. It uses POP, so you need to set it up initially to leave a copy of mail on the server. Once set up, each time you run MailStore it will download mail from each folder and add it to what is already there. Obviously, this means that the MailStore data on you hard drive will gradually get bigger and bigger, but this should not be a problem with modern large hard drives. MailStore can backup mail from your mail server (e.g.Gmail or Yahoo) and from local email clients such as Outlook or Thunderbird.
The free version of MailStore does not run automatically, so you just have to launch the program and click Run once or twice a day. I have automated it on my system by using Windows Task Scheduler, but that would be a topic for another day!
MailStore has an excellent search function to help you find that old email when you need to refer back to it. It's free, so you can give it a try if you feel having a backup of all your emails might be useful.
Printing From Google Photos
Tony asked about printing photos from Google Photos. As far as I know, you can't - at least, not directly. Google Photos is a great service for aggregating all your photos. You can install the Google Photos app on your mobile devices (both iOS and Android). This will allow all photos taken on your mobile device to be uploaded to the Google cloud where you can have unlimited storage (if you select High Quality rather than Original in the Google Photo Settings). Normally, photos are only uploaded to the Google cloud over wi-fi rather than using your more expensive mobile data connection.
On a PC, you can view your photos by going to https://photos.google.com/ in any web browser and signing in with your Google credentials. To print a photo, you will first have to download it. Select the required photo(s) by clicking the small circle in the top left of the photo(s). Then click on the 3-dot symbol at the top right and select Download. The photo(s) will be downloaded by the browser in the usual way - probably to your Downloads folder, although this depends on your browser settings.
Once downloaded, you can open the picture with your chosen photo-viewing program. If you double-click on the photo file, it will open with the default viewer on your PC. Click on Print (or press Ctrl+P) in the photo-viewer to print it. Note that if you select multiple photos at once to download, they will download as a single 'zip' file which you will need to double-click to unzip and extract the individual photo files.
HP Keylogger Vulnerability
Tony mentioned the recent news that many HP laptops have been found to have a keylogger installed which could be a major security vulnerability. The software is actually related to the Synaptics touchpad used by HP and should be disabled by default. However, it provides an easy opportunity for a hacker to enable it and steal you data. See this article for more on this:- https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/11/hp_synaptics_keylogger/
HP has updated the relevant Synaptics driver for many models of their laptops which can be found at:- https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05827409
Next Session
Wed
10th January 2018 1:30 to 3:30pm.
