Wayne Williams

Kodi has really hit it big in the past couple of years. While the home theater software is great for playing local content, its rise in popularity is largely down to Kodi's support for third-party add-ons that make it possible to stream any audio and video, including the latest blockbuster movies and TV shows.

The process for installing third-party add-ons varies depending on the add-on, but assuming you’re running Kodi 17 Krypton (or later), we'll show you the easiest way to install all of the most popular ones.

Continue reading →

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference is traditionally about software, but that certainly isn’t the case this year as the tech giant has refreshed its Mac line, and introduced a new HomePod speaker.

Apple today also introduces all-new 10.5-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pros powered by a new A10X Fusion chip that Apple says "delivers incredible performance that rivals today’s fastest PC laptops" -- a clear dig at Microsoft.

Continue reading →

At WWDC 2017, Apple has lifted the wraps of the next version of its mobile operating system. iOS 11 introduces a lot of new features, including improvements to Siri, Apple Photos, Apple Maps, and Apple Pay, a redesigned Control Center, a new Augmented Reality feature, and more.

With Siri, Apple is introducing improved voices that sound more natural, and the digital assistant will be able to perform language translations. English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Spanish will all be supported. Siri will also be able to make suggestions of things that might be of interest to you -- such a news article -- via a new on-device "Intelligence" feature.

Continue reading →

Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference kicks off today, Monday 5 June, in San Jose, with the big keynote speech scheduled for 10am PDT/1pm EST/6pm BST. As always it will be streamed live so you can tune in at home or (maybe) work.

As WWDC is for software developers, Apple doesn’t usually reveal major new hardware, but we are expecting to see a "Siri" speaker announced, and maybe some new MacBooks. We're also anticipating information on iOS 11, which probably won't run on 32-bit hardware, and updates to macOS, watchOS and tvOS. There are likely to be some interesting surprises too.

Continue reading →

Last week, Microsoft accidentally pushed out a buggy new Windows 10 build that caused problems for users. The software giant later apologized, and offered some tips for overcoming the issues, including suggesting time travel as a solution.

As it happens, the leaked build also revealed something interesting -- Microsoft is planning three new versions of Windows 10.

Continue reading →

Yesterday, Microsoft accidentally pushed out a new, buggy, internal Windows 10 build to PC and Mobile that caused big problems for users. The Windows-maker pulled the problematic Build 16212 quickly, but it was too late for some.

In response, Microsoft issued an apology and offered some tips to help users who had installed the build to recover. However, despite this action, some users are still seeing Build 16212 waiting to be installed and for those people, Microsoft has an interesting solution -- time travel.

Continue reading →

Yesterday, Microsoft pushed out Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 16212 for PC and Mobile to users on the Fast, Slow, and Release Preview rings and the Retail version. Unfortunately the buggy build wasn’t intended to go out, causing problems for anyone who installed it.

Apologizing for the "inconvenience", Windows Insider chief Dona Sarkar explains it "happened because an inadvertent deployment to the engineering system that controls which builds/which rings to push out to insiders." While Microsoft was quick to pull the update, it was too late for some.

Continue reading →

It’s been a while since Microsoft pushed out a new build to Windows 10 Insiders, so it was expected that we’d see one today. However, Windows Insider chief Dona Sarkar put the kibosh on that earlier, stating "newer builds have WAY too many bugs to pass our selfhost bar."

That should have been the end of things, but Build 16212 managed to escape into the wild -- hitting the Fast, Slow, Release Preview and Production rings -- and eager Insiders quickly discovered the downside of installing it.

Continue reading →

Practical Linux Security Cookbook, from Packt Publishing, will teach you how to secure your Linux machines and keep them secured with the help of exciting recipes.

Whether you are new to Linux administration or an experienced user, this ebook will provide you with all the skills you need to make systems more secure.

Continue reading →

When Microsoft started the roll out of Windows 10 Creators Update on April 11, it seemed likely the new OS would see a boost in its market share as a result. Indeed, April’s usage figures from NetMarketShare suggested that was the case, with Windows 10’s share growing by a decent amount for the first time in months.

But the Creators Update roll out has been more of a dribble out so far, with only 15.2 percent of US Windows 10 users running it, and the boost that the operating system enjoyed in April hasn’t continued in May.

Continue reading →

This story isn’t actually "Fake News", but rather news about fakes. We all know Donald Trump loves Twitter (more than covfefe itself!), and with over 31 million followers it appears the 45th President of the United States of America is hugely popular on the social site.

Except, well, his 31 million followers aren’t quite what they seem.

Continue reading →

At Build earlier this month, Microsoft announced Windows Mixed Reality dev kits from Acer and HP, and said that new products from other partners would be coming later in the year.

At Computex today, Microsoft revealed future headsets from ASUS, Lenovo, and Dell that are set to go into production soon and bring Mixed Reality to the masses. Each has something different to offer.

Continue reading →

Lean Websites is a practical book on website performance for web developers, concentrating mainly on front-end performance improvement.

It covers plenty of solid theory, but is also packed with useful, real world hints and tips that you can use on your sites today. The ebook, from SitePoint, examines the causes behind bloated and slow websites, dissects which assets of your page are necessary, which are nice to have, and which are not necessary at all and can be removed to shed some weight.

Continue reading →

Users of older versions of Windows aren’t having the best time of it lately. Last week it was discovered that over 98 percent of those affected by the WannaCry ransomware were running Windows 7, and now a new bug has been found which can slow down and crash systems running that OS and Windows 8.1.

The new bug is trivially easy to exploit, making just browsing the web potentially hazardous, and there’s currently no fix available.

Continue reading →

The Raspberry Pi was designed to provide an ultra-cheap way to encourage schoolchildren to learn to code just as they had back in the 1980s and 90s. Although the uncased credit card sized computer has since found a highly appreciative audience outside of education, kids -- the computer scientists of the future -- remain a priority.

CoderDojo is a global network of coding clubs for children aged from seven to 17 with the aim being to provide a safe and social place for kids to learn to program. It’s clear the two foundations have similar aims, which is why it’s no surprise that they are set to join forces.

Continue reading →