Wayne Williams

Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with friends both past and present. You can post something on another person’s wall, or spark up a chat through Messenger.

For the most part, holding a conversation on the social network is easy. If someone is a friend they’ll be able to send you a private message, and anyone who isn’t currently connected to you will be able to get in touch by sending a message request. But what you probably don’t know is Facebook has a secret inbox which may well contain messages you never even knew you’d been sent.

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Microsoft continues to bring out apps for rival mobile operating systems that aren’t available for Windows Phone.

Its Hub Keyboard, which was first released for Android back in February, is now available for iOS and makes it easy to access content from other apps. It also offers Office 365 integration.

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Flash is not as integral to the web as it once was, but it’s still required for some content, despite being a huge security nightmare.

Microsoft, like Google and Mozilla, wants to hasten the transition away from Flash to a more modern, standards based web, and so plans to make a big change to Edge in the forthcoming Anniversary Update to Windows 10.

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As the parent of a young child I often have to give some serious thought as to what music I play in the car when she’s with me, in order to avoid accidentally exposing her to a song peppered with swear words.

This problem could soon become a thing of the past however, as Apple has patented a method of using software to automatically censor swearing in music and audio books.

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Windows 10 Insider Preview builds -- well those on the Fast ring at least -- tend to fall into two camps. There are the exciting releases, like Build 14291, which delivered extensions to Microsoft Edge as well as various other new features, and the duller ones, like Build 14295, which mostly fix bugs and shore up things.

The latest new build for the Fast ring, Build 14316, falls very much into the former camp, with Microsoft introducing lots of new features for Insiders to try, in addition to plenty of welcome improvements across the whole of the OS. Here’s what new.

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While Twitter is designed to provide an open forum for your thoughts, occasionally you might want to have one-to-one discussions in private, and that’s where the Direct Message option comes in.

Today, as part of its quest to make DM conversations "richer", Twitter introduces a feature to make it much easier to share public tweets privately with friends and followers.

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It might have taken the FBI quite some time to find a way to unlock a shooter's iPhone 5C, but it turns out to be trivially easy to access contacts and photos stored on the company’s newest flagship, the iPhone 6s.

The trick makes use of Siri and Twitter, and as the owner of a 6s I’ve been able to test this method myself, and can confirm not only that it works, but it’s very simple to implement.

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I have to apologize upfront for employing such a well-known clickbait-style headline, but I’m genuinely about to show you how to immediately reclaim a lot of free space on a nearly full Apple iPhone using a weird trick. It’s not an April Fool’s either.

If you have an iPhone that’s close to running out of space, you can use this method to free up a sizable amount of storage. On my iPhone, which was filled to bursting with vacation photos, music and apps I managed to claw back a couple of gigabytes, which is some going.

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NetMarketShare today released its latest desktop OS usage figures, and they reveal a steady increase for Windows 10. According to the web analytics firm, the new OS currently has 14.15 percent usage share. However, Microsoft has updated its own market share figures and they paint a very different picture, showing the OS to be a much, much bigger hit.

According to the recently updated Windows and Store trends page, as of February, Windows 10 is on 24 percent of PC and tablet devices running Windows, growing at a pace of around 2 percent a month. And not only that, the new OS is also a huge hit with gamers, with Microsoft claiming Windows 10 is on 35 percent of their devices. So how come Microsoft’s figures differ so significantly from NetMarketShare’s? There are a couple of reasons.

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A week ago, Microsoft released a new Windows 10 Insider Preview build for PC and Mobile. While Build 14295 isn’t the most exciting of releases, it does include a lot of notable bug fixes and Microsoft deems it stable enough for the Slow ring which is welcome news for any Insiders not on the cutting edge.

There’s also good news for anyone struggling to update their existing Insider Preview build through Windows Update (or for anyone wanting to do a fresh install or try out the new build in a virtualized environment) as Microsoft has just made Build 14295 available for download in ISO format.

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At Build 2016 Microsoft revealed that Windows 10 is now on 270 million devices. By switching the new operating system to a recommended update, the software giant has managed to add 70 million devices to its tally in just under 3 months. An achievement somewhat tainted by the fact that not every upgrade was actually wanted nor knowingly actioned, but that’s still a very respectable number to crow about.

With it being the first of the month, NetMarketShare has released its latest usage figures for the various flavors of Windows and, as you’d expect, Windows 10 shows the most growth.

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Starting in Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14291, Microsoft has introduced a selection of extensions for its Edge browser.

While the software giant promises that popular add-ons like AdBlock, Adblock Plus, Amazon, LastPass, and Evernote are on their way, it’s launched the feature with three rather less-exciting offerings -- Mouse Gestures, Microsoft Translator and an early version of Reddit Enhancement Suite.

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Microsoft is having a very busy Thursday. As well as beginning the long-awaited rollout of Windows 10 Mobile, the software giant has also pushed the button on a new PC build for Insiders on the Fast ring.

Fast ring updates sometimes offer new features, but other times it’s just tweaks to the core and bug fixes. Windows 10 Insider Build 14291 is one the more noteworthy updates, finally delivering the long awaited extensions in Microsoft Edge, as well as pinned tabs and other Edge enhancements. There’s also an updated Maps app, and a wealth of other changes, including the introduction of a new Feedback Hub.

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After what seems like forever, Microsoft has finally started rolling out Windows 10 Mobile to select Windows Phone 8.1 devices. It’s been a long, long wait for Windows Phone users, and if you’re one of them you’ll understandably be keen to begin the upgrade process as soon as possible (provided your device is compatible of course).

But hold on a minute. Sure, the new mobile OS has a lot of welcome features, as well as access to Universal Windows Apps, but don't start that upgrade just yet because you might lose more than you've bargained for if you do.

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Windows 10 for PCs and tablets launched way back in July last year. The mobile version of the new OS was expected to arrive a few months after, but instead what we got were numerous delays. When Microsoft introduced the Lumia 950 and 950 XL in November, both running the new OS, it seemed as if the wait was nearly over, but that turned out not to be the case.

If you have been desperately awaiting the arrival of the mobile OS, the good news is the rumors were true, and today Microsoft officially begins the roll-out to select Windows Phone 8.1 devices.

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