The 23H2 update for Windows 11 enables Windows Copilot, which uses AI to assist the user in their tasks. Let’s take a closer look at what that means. Copilot is Microsoft’s new assistant integrated into Windows, Edge, Bing, and Microsoft 365. Copilot has already been available for Bing for several months now. What Copilot does […]
Category: Val’s Answers
Computer Time and Batteries
Ever wondered how a computer knows the time when you first switch it on, even if there’s no internet access? It’s because there’s a battery in the computer that provides enough power to the motherboard for it to keep track of the current date and time, even when the computer is off. This is known […]
Strange Facebook Postings and Messages
Have you or your friends started receiving Facebook messages that don’t sound like the person they’re from? This could mean that person’s account has been hacked. One of the most common symptoms of a compromised Facebook account is a message or post making an offer that sounds too good to be true, such as the […]
Why are Progress Bars so Inconsistent?
Have you ever wondered why progress bars are so wildly inconsistent? They’ll start off speeding along, then stop for a while, then speed up, then slow down… The ‘Estimated time remaining,’ is even more notoriously unreliable, randomly going up and down by minutes or even hours. So why is this? Well, it’s because progress bars […]
Centralised vs Decentralised
With the development of contact tracing apps to counter the spread of COVID-19, there has been discussion of centralised and decentralised methods. So what do these terms actually mean? The short version is that the centralised method is designed to collect more data and compare it on central servers, while the decentralised method collects as […]
Google Maps Hacks
http://www.simonweckert.com/googlemapshacks.html As an experiment and prank, an artist put 99 smartphones in a trolley, and walked around roads in Berlin to trick Google Maps into thinking there was a traffic jam, in a piece of performance art titled Google Maps Hacks. Google Maps uses the locations of it’s users to map out areas of high […]
WhatsApp ends support for older smartphones
Whatsapp is a widely used messaging app for iPhones, Android phones, and PCs. Today, Whatsapp launches a new update that means the app will cease to run on phones that use Android 2.3.7 (Released 2010) or iPhone iOS 8 (Released 2014). They are taking this step because out of date operating systems become vulnerable to […]
Help With Access to Online Services
The past few decades have seen the internet go from its beginning as a specialised tool unavailable and irrelevant to the lives of most people to becoming a ubiquitous necessity. Many companies,organisations and government services have switched to requiring forms to be completed online and many more are in the process of doing so. This […]
Windows 7 Update
Despite Windows 7 having reached End of Life, a recent update has been released to fix the issue with wallpapers not always showing. Microsoft doesn’t usually release patches for operating systems after End of Life, but have done so in the past during major incidents. Fixing the wallpaper display options is however, a comparatively trivial […]
Windows 7 End of Life
A summary sheet covering the issues surrounding the Windows 7 End of Life on January 14th 2020