Remembering... DOS Shell

Before we could afford a copy of Windows, there was another file manager available

If anyone can remember as far back as DOS 4.01, then you'll no doubt have some fond memories of one of the best Microsoft file manager programs ever: MS-DOS Shell. It was a graphical user interface that afforded controi of many of the commands inherent to DOS itself; so you could move, copy, delete, change attributes, rename files and directories as well as create directories - all from a clear and surprisingly friendly menu system.

Top 5 Password Mistakes

A selection of great ways to make sure your data gets stolen

1 Common Words

Oddly enough, protecting your email account with the password 'password' isn't considered to be the epitome of secure computing. And neither should you use '12345678', 'qwerty' or 'football'. And, sci-fi fans, 'ncc1701d' and 'starwars' are also considered to be common and easily guessed passwords. Of course, that doesn't stop thousands, if not millions, of people using these words and phrases anyway. And, no doubt, they wonder why their email address is sending out spam to their contacts and why someone's ordered 15 PlayStation 4s from their Amazon account.

Audio Pro Addon T3

A tiny speaker that has a lot to say

Bluetooth speakers tend to get a bit of a rough ride in the media, with various reviews stating a lack of bass, distortion, or too little sound. It's fair enough, to some degree; most of the Bluetooth speakers we've come across could easily fill one or more of those descriptions. However, that perception may well change with this Swedish speaker, though it does come at something of a price.

The Audio Pro Addon T3 is a classic looking portable speaker, housed in a tough plastic chassis of varying colours with elements of faux leather and plenty of brass fittings. It's a bookshelf sized device, measuring 115 x 215 x 135mm and weighing a moderate 2.12kg. The front features a large centre grill covering the 3.5" woofer, with two satellite grills either side to the top corners covering the pair of 0.75" textile dome tweeters.

Ashampoo Uninstaller 6

The latest version of this uninstaller packs a useful collection of extra tools as Roland Waddilove discovers

Let's get this straight from the Start: Uninstaller 6 is not just an uninstaller and it does not cost £40. It is actually a collection of nearly 20 clean-up and tune-up tools, one of which is an uninstaller and its creator, Ashampoo, is one of those companies that, if you do not immediately buy a product, will make increasingly tempting discount offers. Immediately on installing the fully working 40-day trial, I was offered Uninstaller 6 at £16, which is a saving of £25 on the full price.

Lexar M20c 64GB Jumpdrive

The USB Type-С bandwagon begins to roll at last

We covered the original Lexar M20 in December 2014, and now the company has followed that with the M20c and M20i that build on that switchblade dual connector model.

The M20 had a USB 3.0 blade at one end and a Micro-В at the other, so you could load it up on the PC and then plug it into an Android phone or tablet with OTG (On The Go) USB. The snag with that arrangement was that Micro-В is exclusively USB 2.0, so if you intended to transfer the files using one, then that's the bottleneck.

MSI B150M Mortar Motherboard

Dominate the other players with this value piece of ordnance

The range of Skylake Z170 motherboards the are made by the folks at MSI are pretty spectacular. They generally contain the highest level of technology and features. However, with all the emphasis on the Z-based chipsets, it's difficult to see what else is available. As it happens, there's something quite special from the MSI camp, which is definitely worth looking at.

HP Envy 4520

HP brings its 'Instant Ink' service along with a new printer

We've all known for some considerable time that the price of inkjet printers is often subsidised, because most owners will ultimately spend much more money on ink than they did on the printer in the first place. That's had the dual impact: people are very mindful of what they print, and they also seriously consider opting for taking a punt on third party supplies, even though the makers hate them doing that.

Speedlink Parthica

How does this budget gaming keyboard compare to some of the more expensive examples?

What makes a gaming keyboard? The answer to that depends on a number of things, including who's doing the gaming. For a serious gamer, mechanical keys are probably a necessity, but the prevalence of membrane-based models suggests there's also a significant market for budget gaming keyboards too.

At just £40, the Speedlink Parthica is one such product. And like other keyboards based on membrane technology, it justifies its gaming tag with an array of features. You get 93 keys, five macro buttons, ten multimedia keys, five configuration profiles, six-key rollover, 128KB of internal memory, a polling rate of up to 1000MHz, and four selectable key-response times (from 16ms to just 2ms).