Wayne Williams

Google's latest update for YouTube on iOS promises 'general fixes and stability improvements', but also includes a welcome hidden extra -- a Dark Mode that looks especially amazing on iPhone X, and might even save you some battery life. However, there is a catch.

To activate this new mode, you need to be running YouTube for iOS version 13.01.4 (or later), and even then it might not be available to you. It seems Google is rolling the feature out slowly to select users. To see if you’re one of the lucky ones, here’s what you need to do.

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Windows 10 Insiders on the Fast ring have got used to weekly new builds from Microsoft, but just lately we’ve been having to go a lot longer between releases. There have been just two new builds in the past seven weeks, although both have been jam packed with new features and improvements, so it's easy to understand the reason for the delay.

Build 17074, the latest release for the Fast ring (and Skip Ahead), has a lot to offer users and shows the direction the OS is taking these days. Here’s what’s new.

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Microsoft rolls out two Windows 10 feature updates a year. The Creators Update arrived last April, followed by the Fall Creators Update in October. In order to limit the number of issues that users experience, Microsoft staggers the rollout.

There is a problem with this approach, however. While it means -- hopefully -- fewer headaches for people updating to the latest incarnation, it also means that the update can take forever to reach all users. In fact, in the case of the Creators Update, a quarter of users still didn’t have it by the time its successor arrived.

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You’ll no doubt be aware of the Spectre and Meltdown processor bugs, as well as the many problems caused by the patches pushed out to address them.

Microsoft last week released a PowerShell script which lets you check if your PC is vulnerable to Meltdown or Spectre, but now Ashampoo has made a free tool available which makes checking for the problem as easy as clicking a button.

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The number of decent apps available in the Microsoft Store pales in comparison to those in the Apple App Store and Google Play. Big names drop out almost as quickly as new ones arrive, which doesn’t help.

In yet another bid to woo developers to the platform, Microsoft is introducing subscription add-ons for Windows 10 Anniversary Edition, and later.

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Say goodbye to unproductive Linux habits and switch to the express lane with Working with Linux -- Quick Hacks for the Command Line from Packt Publishing.

Websites, online services, databases, and pretty much every other computer that offers public services runs on Linux. With such a broad usage, the demand for Linux specialists is ever growing. Through this book, you will improve your terminal productivity by seeing how to use different tools.

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Although Microsoft officially ended the free Windows 10 upgrade offer last year, it is still possible to get the new operating system completely free of charge by using a simple trick.

The software giant provides Windows 10 for free to anyone using assistive technologies, and doesn’t require you to prove you have any kind of disability in order to make use of this upgrade offer. However, all good things must come to an end, and Microsoft is set to close this free upgrade route.

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Windows 10 S is Microsoft’s locked down version of Windows 10 that only allows users to install apps from the Windows Store. It’s much faster than Windows 10 because it isn’t bogged down in the same way the main OS is. It can run on lighter hardware as a result, and deliver significantly better battery life.

Users who buy a laptop running Windows 10 S -- such as the Surface Laptop -- can switch to Windows 10 Pro for free until March 31, if they decide they require a more flexible OS. However, it seems Windows 10 S Insiders are currently getting Pro without asking for it.

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As you’ll have read, two massive security bugs affecting millions of Intel, AMD and ARM processors have been uncovered. Codenamed Meltdown and Spectre, these are serious vulnerabilities, but the good news is the likes of Apple, Google and Microsoft have rushed out patches to address them.

Microsoft pushed out a rare, off-schedule emergency fix for Windows 10 (with fixes for Windows 7 and 8.x expected shortly), but the bad news is it may not be compatible with your system.

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Microsoft officially called time on the free Windows 10 upgrade offer in 2016, but allowed anyone using assistive technologies to continue to upgrade to the new OS without paying a penny.

This offer worked on an honor system -- you weren’t required to provide any proof that you used assistive technologies in order to make use of the deal -- allowing anyone to continue to upgrade to Windows 10 for free. Microsoft finally closed this loophole on December 31, 2017, except (whisper it) the site, and the deal, are still available.

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Depending on which analyst firm you believe, Windows 10 is either a whisker away from overtaking Windows 7 as the most popular desktop operating system, or still quite a distance off.

Steam’s monthly usage survey, which shows usage share from the gamers’ perspective, paints an entirely different picture however. It has consistently reported Windows 10 as the top operating system of choice, until recently, when Windows 7 roared into the top spot.

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While NetMarketShare’s monthly usage share figures show there to still be a fairly significant gap between Windows 7 and Windows 10 (in the older OS’s favor), rival analyst firm StatCounter has long reported the battle for the top spot to be much, much tighter.

So close is the race in fact, that in October it looked as if Windows 10 would easily pass Windows 7 at some point in the following month. Surprisingly, that didn’t happen, although the gap did narrow. It seemed all but guaranteed that Windows 10 would claim pole position in December, but incredibly it didn’t.

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NetMarketShare reports on the state of the desktop operating system market on the first day of each month, and it has long shown Windows 10 to be lagging well behind Windows 7. However, tweaks to how the analyst firm records these numbers means the gap has closed recently.

The latest figures, for the final month of 2017, show Windows 10 growing and Windows 7 declining, but the difference in usage share hasn’t altered by much.

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Six years ago, web developer umOuch launched XBMC HUB, the first add-on community for the XBox Media Center (Kodi's original name).

It provided an easy way to find and install unofficial add-ons, and later evolved into TVAddons, branching out into new areas in the process. In 2016, TVAddons even created its own fork of Kodi, called FreeTelly.

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Kodi started life as XBMC (XBox Media Center) and was designed to run on Microsoft's original Xbox. The software has since then enjoyed a meteoric -- and somewhat controversial -- rise, and is now available for most platforms, including Windows, Mac, Android, and Linux.

One platform it was missing from was the latest generation of Microsoft's console, the Xbox One, but that oversight has finally been corrected. You can, from today, install Kodi on both that console and the Xbox One S. Although there is a catch.

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