Wayne Williams

Can’t find your Windows 7 disc but need it to do a fresh install or run a copy of Windows in a virtualized environment? The obvious solution is to download a copy of the operating system in ISO format.

Oddly though, Microsoft has avoided offering Windows 7 ISOs for download -- the only solution previously was to grab a copy from Digital River, Microsoft’s official content delivery partner for Windows 7. That’s all changed now though, as a new Microsoft Software Recovery center lets you download Windows 7 directly from the software giant itself.

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Unless you and your family are into just the one tech manufacturer -- Apple say -- the chances are you will have various devices running different operating systems. In my home, for example, there are three Windows PCs, two Android phones, two Android tablets, an iPad and an iPhone. All of which have media -- photos, videos, music -- stored on them.

There are various ways to make all of this content accessible across the different devices, but Seagate Wireless from Ebuyer is a simple, yet powerful solution. It’s a portable, battery powered 500GB drive with a built-in wireless network that can stream content to up to three smartphones, tablets and laptops simultaneously.

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Earlier today my colleague Mihaita Bamburic explained how to get 100 GB of free OneDrive storage courtesy of Bing Rewards. It’s a great offer, available worldwide, and all you have to do is click a single link to claim your bonus storage.

Of course you can never have too much cloud storage, and the great news is Microsoft is giving away another 100 GB free, this time to Dropbox users (sign up for a free account if you don’t already have one). Make use of both free offers and boom, that’s 200 GB of free additional storage claimed in under five minutes.

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These days there are a lot of image editors to choose from, and they run on computers, the web, smartphones and tablets. Whatever your price range you’ll find one to suit. For me, however, there’s really only one photo editor, and that’s Photoshop. I’ve been relying on it for work and home image editing for a good 15 years (probably longer) and while I’ve used other rival packages, I always end up returning to Adobe’s powerful suite.

As an example, for the past few weeks I’ve been scanning in hundreds of old photos, slides and negatives. Removing dust, scratches and other flaws and rebuilding missing areas in all those has only been manageable thanks to brilliant time-saving Photoshop innovations like layers, the healing brush and content aware fill. Photoshop is, without question, my favorite program -- bar none.

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Yesterday I reported how Jamie Oliver’s website was serving up malware to unsuspecting visitors. It was a problem that was quickly fixed, but a worrying one seeing as the website has over 10 million visitors a month.

Now today, Malwarebytes -- which first discovered the Jamie Oliver exploit -- reports another compromised site that’s even more popular. Adult website RedTube.com sees over 300 million visits a month (some shorter than others), and currently has a malicious iframe in its source code.

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Over the holiday buying season, Microsoft managed to sell more Xbox One consoles in the US and UK than Sony sold PlayStation 4s, but globally Sony's console retains a healthy lead. Both companies like to lump together the current and previous generations of console, which makes comparing the Xbox One and PS4's sales tricky, but provides us with a general overview. During the holiday season, Microsoft sold 6.6 million Xbox consoles (360 and One) worldwide, while Sony sold 7.5 million PlayStations (PS4 and PS3). In 2014, Sony was the clear leader, having sold 18.8 million PlayStations, while Microsoft managed just 12.1 million Xboxes.

Obviously there’s still a long way to go, and a lot to play for in the latest round of the console wars and anything could happen in the next four or five years. Windows 10 could give the Xbox One a huge boost, and a run of great Xbox exclusive games could make a big difference too. However, the latest forecast from Strategy Analytics doesn’t see things improving for Microsoft in the coming years -- quite the opposite in fact.

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Most web-based threats come from malicious adverts placed on websites (aka malvertising), but Malwarebytes has discovered a well hidden malicious injection on the official website of Jamie Oliver which redirects unsuspecting visitors to an exploit kit.

The compromised site -- www.jamieoliver.com -- is currently ranked 519 in the UK (5,280 in the world), according to Alexa, with around 10 million visitors a month, which makes it a valuable target for hackers.

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It’s fair to say Raspberry Pi, the super-affordable ARM GNU/Linux computer, has been a massive success. Originally envisaged as a way to get kids coding again as they did in the 1980s and 1990s, the device has found a massive fan base outside of the education system, and has been selling in impressive quantities since its launch in 2012.

The British success story sold more than a million units in its first year, but since then the pace has picked up, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation has just tweeted some staggering news -- it has now sold more than 5 million Raspberry Pis worldwide.

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Things were seriously rocky for file sharing sites after MegaUpload was raided and shutdown three years ago. Several other sharing sites voluntarily closed their doors shortly after to avoid suffering the same fate, but since then it’s been relatively calm and business as usual among file sharing services.

So it’s a bit of a surprise (albeit not a massive one) to hear that Switzerland-based RapidShare, one of the first file hosting and sharing services on the Internet, is to shut down next month.

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A month ago hacker collective Anonymous vowed to go after terrorists, and shortly afterwards took down its first target, ansar-alhaqq.net.

That was just the first shot in Anonymous’ war on terror and the hacktivists have been actively targeting Islamic State-related Twitter and Facebook accounts to reduce the terrorist group’s ability to spread its message online.

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If CES is any indication, wearable technology is going to be huge this year, so it’s no surprise that the Wearable Technology Show has doubled in size for its second outing.

Boasting twice as many exhibitors and product launches as last year, the UK show moves to a new home at ExCeL in London, and will be co-located with the Augmented Reality Show, an event dedicated to AR, VR and smart glasses.

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The first mobile phones were released back in 1984 and were capable of making and receiving phone calls, but nothing else. Analog "brick" phones were large, heavy, and very dumb. You couldn’t send or receive data on them.

In 1991 that changed with the arrival of 2G technology which introduced the wonders of text messaging, and even email. Ten years later 3G changed the game entirely, and of course in 2009 4G/LTE arrived, making it possible to stream movies on your mobile.

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The original Raspberry Pi Model B launched back in 2012, and got a big update in the form of the B+ last year. However, the core of the device -- the Broadcom BCM2835 application processor -- has stayed the same in all that time.

Given how much technology changes and improves in just the space of a single year, the Raspberry Pi was long overdue for a processor refresh, and today the Foundation launches the new and improved Raspberry Pi 2.

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Last month, web analytics firm NetMarketShare released its usual batch of monthly desktop operating system usage share figures, and it showed Windows 8.x tumbling dramatically. The figure made little sense, and a day later the firm released revised data which showed the tiled OS still shedding a large chunk of share, but not quite as badly.

In December’s revised figures NetMarketShare had the OS falling 5.13 percentage points for a total share of 13.52 percent, placing it back way below Windows XP. This meant January’s figures were always going to be interesting. Surely the tiled OS would rally wouldn’t it? But of course this is Windows 8.x, Microsoft’s least successful operating system in recent memory, so no. Its usage share remains utterly rubbish.

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One of the biggest trends of this year's CES was the "Health of Things", with wearable technology increasingly being connected to healthcare in order to enhance users' lives.

I spoke to health tech specialist Nudge about what exactly the "Health of Things" means to the general consumer and the impact it's having -- and will have -- on the tech and healthcare industries.

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