WINDOWS 10 ANNIVERSARY UPDATE What’s new • What’s good • What’s bad • And what you must change

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explorer window that lets you browse earlier versions of your files by date.

Windows 8 has a version of File History, too (under ‘System and Security’ in the Control Panel). Windows 7’s equivalent tool (also under ‘System and Security’ in the Control Panel) isn’t as good, but does let you schedule a basic daily local backup.

A system image

The final piece of the puzzle is a system image – a snapshot of your PC’S entire hard drive that you can use to restore your computer and all its files in situations where something has gone catastrophically wrong. Windows has a built-in tool, but we recommend using a third-party imaging program that isn’t tied to a specific OS. We’ve covered using Easeus Todo Free in our workshop on page 38, which works with all recent Windows versions, so follow that for more details.

You don’t have to make a system image backup every day – once a month should suffice. But, for absolute safety, we recommend using a different external drive to the one you’re using for your local file backup and unplugging the drive every time the system image backup is completed. That way it’s safe from ransomware attacks and will still give you a way to restore files, should your other backups fail. If you want to create a backup of the odd file in-between system-image backups you could also save them to a USB stick, being sure to remove it from your PC afterwards so it can be stored in a safe place along with your main backup.

s I write this we’re knee-deep in the Wimbledon tournament, and – workload allowing – I feel compelled to keep up with every strawberry eaten, every racket re-strung and every set of new balls un-canned. To a large extent I’m relying on BBC iplayer to catch up on the action I’ve missed. The trouble is, due to the BBC’S territorial licensing restrictions, I won’t be able to use iplayer while I’m on holiday abroad for the second week of the tournament… or will I?

Step forward Spotflux Premium, a VPN (Virtual Private Network) that uses some clever programming sleights of hand to make the world wide web believe my computer is anywhere on the planet but where it really is. Its principal objective is to add a layer of security – if my PC appears to be in the US, and I’m actually in the UK, I’m that much more difficult to hack. But the rather more interesting side effect of this kind of increased security is that by obscuring my PC’S IP address, the BBC iplayer doesn’t know where I am either.

Increase your viewing options

This means it’s possible to stream Andy Murray’s match wherever I am, without bringing up the dreaded ‘BBC iplayer only works in the UK’ warning. This is a simple matter of launching Spotflux and selecting ‘London, UK’ from the dropdown menu in the top left (see screenshot above). To all intents and purposes, websites will now think my PC is in London, whether I’m in Torremolinos or Timbuktu.

The same trick can be carried out when you’re actually in the UK. So, if you happen to be a Netflix subscriber (as I am) or an Amazon Prime member, it’s possible to access the films and TV shows available in other countries. Netflix is especially notorious for having a far larger selection of shows in the US, than the UK. In the location dropdown menu choose anywhere in the US, then log into Netflix on your PC. You’ll see a whole range of TV shows and films you won’t be able to access in the UK (such as Jurassic Park – see screenshot left). The only fly in the ointment is that, because your internet traffic is masked by Spotflux’s servers first, your connection may be slower than usual, so videos may not look as crisp.

Spotflux isn’t the only VPN to offer this sort of country-cloaking tech. The latest Opera beta ( www.snipca.com/21051) offers similar features for free. However, Spotflux throws in the option to create a proxy server that can be used to connect,

Safe and secure

Besides relocating my IP address, Spotflux also encrypts internet traffic, adding an extra layer of protection to my my PC against hackers because any data I share is scrambled. This feature comes into its own when using a public Wi-fi network at your local coffee shop or library, for example. That said, I won’t be uninstalling my antivirus software anytime soon.