Wayne Williams

The Raspberry Pi Zero is incredibly hard to get hold off. Hardly surprising, when you consider its $5 asking price.

Retailers such as The Pi Hut do replenish their stocks on a semi-regular basis, but even so you’ll have to act fast as even with a one-per-customer restriction in place, they sell out again almost immediately. Fortunately, there is a clever way to find out where the Pi Zero is in stock.

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There have been a few serious iPhone issues discovered recently. Some phones got bricked by the iOS 9 Slide to Upgrade bug, there was a website that instantly crashed browsers and rebooted iPhones, and -- most recently -- Error 53 bricked devices repaired by non-Apple technicians.

Now a new iPhone-bricking bug has reportedly been discovered. And I say reportedly, because I’m certainly not about to try it.

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Modern IT architectures have opened commercial off-the-shelf software categories to new forms of innovation. But still, most B2B eCommerce solutions have yet to evolve. The result is that many firms are left with outdated, in-house infrastructures or bulky SaaS tools that hamper operations, leave customers unsatisfied and can’t keep up at the speed businesses demand. Developers today who work with B2B eCommerce tools gravitate toward cloud-based platforms that are more comprehensive, agile and customizable. This allows for the creation of services and workflows that meet their unique needs.

I spoke with Steve Davis, chief technology officer at Four51, which powers B2B eCommerce for over 10,000 businesses and nearly 20 million users, about what B2B eCommerce solutions should entail and what developers’ priorities are -- or should be -- when building a modern day eCommerce site.

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Windows 3.1 was the first version of Windows I ever used. The Internet Archive, which has over the past couple of years made it possible to play classic DOS games and console games in your browser, has just added over 1,000 Windows 3.1 programs to its catalog.

These include games, utilities and business software, and each can be run in your browser just by clicking on them.

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If you’re a Windows 10 Insider you currently have the choice of being in either the Fast or Slow rings. The Fast ring is used for cutting edge -- and potentially more buggy -- builds, while Slow ring releases tend to be pushed out less frequently, but are proven to be more stable.

Which ring you choose depends on how desperately you want to try out new builds -- it’s safe to say Fast ring releases aren’t really suited for use on your main PC. However, from today there’s now a third choice available to Insiders, and that’s the Release Preview ring.

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The reason Microsoft has given for pushing Windows 10 so aggressively is it wants to get users to a "safe place". Very altruistic. Although there’s no excuse for forcing users to upgrade in the manner that it has.

Still, there’s no questioning that Windows 10 is Microsoft’s safest operating system to date and to help sell the security benefits, the software giant has put together a web page detailing how the OS can protect you from modern security threats.

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The Raspberry Pi Zero might be tiny, but it’s been a huge hit for the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The $5 asking price has resulted in tremendous demand for the barebones microcomputer, resulting in near continuous sell-outs.

If you have yet to get your hands on one, there’s some good news. A fresh batch of Pi Zeros is set to be made available today, but you’ll need to act very quickly if you want to get your hands on one.

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Although there are lots of apps and services you can use for chatting to friends, Facebook Messenger is one of the better options because you can pretty much guarantee most people you know will have a Facebook account.

In addition to chatting with your friends you can now challenge them to play a game of chess, but only if you know the secret phrase to launch it, and the hotkeys used to pay the game.

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Last year Fast ring preview builds of Windows 10 arrived at a pretty sedate pace. This year they are coming thick and fast with a new build announced on a weekly basis.

The speed that new builds arrive does mean the differences between versions aren’t huge, but it’s all about preparing the ground work for future additions, like extensions.

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The kindest thing that can be said about Microsoft Edge is Windows 10's new browser has potential. It’s far from awful, it’s just rather unfinished. There’s little there to tempt users of Firefox or Chrome into switching.

Microsoft is working to change that though, and make the browser more appealing. Today it reveals a little more about its future plans, including how it will be handling extensions. It doesn’t announce exactly when the browser will receive this much-requested feature, but it does touch on how add-ons will be made available, and how you’ll be able to try out some early examples for yourself.

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Now that Microsoft is forcibly downloading Windows 10 onto unsuspecting Windows 7 and 8.1 users’ PCs there’s going to be a lot of unhappy customers faced with a new OS they never asked for nor wanted.

You can prevent this from happening by making sure the "Recommended Update" setting is unchecked on your PC, but if you fail to do this and accidentally allow the installation to go ahead (or maybe you tried Windows 10 and didn’t like it), the good news is it’s easy to roll things back to your original operating system.

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Microsoft has changed the Windows 10 update from "Optional" to "Recommended". And by "Recommended" it means "You’re getting it whether you want it or not".

If your Windows 7 or 8.1 PC is set to install recommended updates automatically (because -- more fool you -- you just wanted it to be up to date and safe) then Microsoft will cheerfully download the new OS and start the installation process for you. Don’t want that to happen? Here’s how to stop it.

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Microsoft says it wants to get people to a "safer place" and that’s why it’s so aggressively pushing Windows 10. But it’s one thing to advertise the new OS on someone’s computer, and another thing entirely to force them to upgrade to it.

Microsoft Marketing Chief Chris Capossela, says a lot of people are putting off upgrading to Windows 10 ("constantly kick[ing] the can down the street" in his words), and so the software giant is taking steps to give them a "push" into taking action. But not with a gentle reminder, or even full on nagging, but by downloading and then starting the OS installation without permission, and that sucks.

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As you’ll have seen earlier, according to figures from NetMarketShare, Windows 10 overtook Windows 8.1 in January, taking just six months to do so. StatCounter, which also measures operating system usage, shows Windows 10 achieving the same feat in that month, although its figures are slightly different.

To mark this achievement it seems only right to compare Windows 10’s growth with that of past Windows releases to see how the new OS is really doing.

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A month ago, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 was on over 200 million devices. It also claimed that Windows 10 adoption was accelerating, which seemed to be in clear contradiction of NetMarketShare’s monthly usage figures. The pattern there showed adoption of the new OS to be slowing month after month.

That wasn’t the case in January however, as the latest usage figures from NetMarketShare show Windows 10 starting the new year at a fair pace and finally doing something it’s been threatening to do for the past couple of months -- overtaking Windows 8.1.

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