Wayne Williams

I first started writing about computers for a living in 1993, when I joined a UK magazine called PC Home. Back then we used Windows 3.11 and MS-DOS, and much of our online life was spent on CompuServe, although the World Wide Web (and the "information superhighway") was slowly starting to make its presence felt.

After I’d been in the job for a couple of years, Microsoft announced a new version of its OS: Windows 95. The launch event was held on a 12-acre sports field in Redmond. Over 500 press representatives attended, along with 2,000 computer industry heavyweights. Over 70,000 others watched live worldwide via satellite television feeds. The new OS was hugely different to 3.11 -- being 32-bit for starters, integrating DOS and Windows and boasting a smart new look that included a desktop, taskbar and Start button. And I absolutely hated it.

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We’ve covered Spydish on BetaNews before. The tool is great if you want to boost your privacy and security in Windows 10.

Today Belim, the program’s developer, announces that Spydish has undergone a name change, becoming Privatezilla, and that’s not all. The program is also becoming open source. In order to achieve this, some important changes have been made, which includes replacing certain features.

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If you thought you were going to get through the week without a new Windows 10 Dev Channel release from Microsoft you were very much mistaken.

Build 20197 arrives on what used to be the Fast ring with the headline change being the arrival of Disk Management in Settings.

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Microsoft rolled out an updated Windows 10 Start menu to Windows Insiders a month ago, and that menu is now available to all -- if you follow these instructions. The tweaked design removes the solid color backplates behind the logos and adds a translucent background to tiles.

However, it could be that bigger changes are afoot. In a video showcasing Microsoft’s new icon system the search giant also reveals a stunning new-look Start menu.

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Yesterday, Microsoft rolled out a new Windows 10 build to those insiders on the Beta Channel, and today it follows that up with a new release for those in the Dev Channel.

Build 20190 comes with a new post-update experience which can be accessed through the Tips app. This useful addition tells you what has changed each time you install a major update.

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As reports of major data breaches fill the headlines, it has become impossible for any business, large or small, to ignore the importance of cybersecurity. Most books on the subject, however, are either too specialized for the non-technical professional or too general for positions in the IT trenches.

Thanks to author Nadean Tanner’s wide array of experience from teaching at a University to working for the Department of Defense, the Cybersecurity Blue Team Toolkit strikes the perfect balance of substantive and accessible, making it equally useful to those in IT or management positions across a variety of industries. This handy guide takes a simple and strategic look at best practices and tools available to both cybersecurity management and hands-on professionals, whether they be new to the field or looking to expand their expertise.

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10 months ago, at its Surface event, alongside the Surface Laptop 3, the Surface Pro 7, and the Surface Pro X, Microsoft had a surprise for everyone with Surface Duo, a foldable Android-based phone with two screens.

Today, the company makes the device available for pre-order in the US, with in-store and online sales beginning September 10.

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The Windows 10 Insider Beta Channel is what used to be the Slow ring, and updates pushed out here are typically a lot more stable than those on the Dev Channel (previously the Fast ring).

Today, Microsoft rolls out Build 19042.450 to the Beta Channel, and the new flight is mostly about resolving a number of security vulnerabilities.

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Two weeks ago, the Kodi Foundation released what is intended to be the final build in the Kodi 18 'Leia' branch, with the team now switching its focus to the follow up, Kodi 19 'Matrix'.

At the same time, the team also released the first Alpha version for Matrix, and it comes with a lot of changes and improvements.

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Have I Been Pwned is unquestionably the best way to discover if your email address has been leaked in a data breach. The site can also check any passwords you use to see if they appear on the web and it can be fun entering some common choices to reveal how often they’ve been leaked. "Password", for example, has appeared in data breaches 3.7 million times, while "123456" crops up a whopping 23.5 million times.

The service is used in numerous third-party tools too, including Spybot Identity Monitor and 1Password. Have I Been Pwned is the work of Troy Hunt, and after failing to sell it earlier in the year, he has decided to take the step of opening source the code base in a quest for a more sustainable future.

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Windows 10 currently lets you choose from two styles -- Dark Mode and Light Mode -- which you can enable and switch between in the Settings > Personalization section of the OS.

If you’ve ever wished for access to more style modes than that, then you’ll be interested in a new app which lets you customize Windows with additional styles, and can even give Windows 10 a convincing retro makeover.

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Microsoft has been introducing a few new and interesting features to its preview builds lately, including a new Start menu and improved alt-tab experience, which you can now also get on your non-Insider version of Windows 10, if you follow our instructions.

Today the software giant rolls out to Windows 10 Build 20185 to the Dev Channel (what used to be the Fast ring).

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These days it's quite rare for a new phone to arrive without us already knowing everything there is to know about it via numerous leaks.

That’s true about the new Galaxy Note20 and Note20 Ultra which were revealed in all their glory yesterday, leaving very little unknown about the new phones which Samsung officially took the wraps off today.

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Being a Windows Insider obviously carries some risks. You may install a build which doesn’t play at all nicely on your PC, resulting in features breaking, or worse. The plus side is you do get to try out cool new features before anyone else.

Recently Microsoft introduced an updated Start menu with theme-aware tiles, and an improved Alt-Tab experience which shows all open tabs from Microsoft Edge. Although you officially need to be an Insider to enjoy these, there is a sneaky workaround that will allow you to get them without having to join the program.

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It’s Windows 10’s 5th birthday, and to celebrate -- or just by happy coincidence -- Microsoft has released a new Insider build to the Dev Channel (what used to be the Fast ring).

Build 20180 enables all of the new features that were first mentioned in Build 20161, including theme-aware tiles on Start. Some of these features were only available to a sub-set of Insiders previously.

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