Fix the back-up problem before it blows up

Barry Collins can’t believe that there’s still no decent way to back up a PC.

If you want to know what it’s like being a GP for a few seconds, ask someone how often they back up their PC. You'll get the same fictional bluster that a doctor gets every time they ask a patient how many units of alcohol they drink each week.

Nobody does back-up properly. No-one. Not me, not you, and especially not the internet business with £50 million of funding that I visited a few weeks back, which was basically relying on a few scattered hard drives and the London Fire Brigade responding within 10 seconds of an office blaze to safeguard its critical data.

Fix the worst Android problems

Poor battery life isn’t the only frustrating aspect of Android phones and tablets. Robert Irvine highlights six common annoyances and explains how to fix them.

TOO MANY NOTIFICATIONS

Although it’s useful that your Android device alerts you when you get a new email, when a Facebook friend ’checks in’ somewhere or when a calendar appointment is imminent, the cumulative effect of all these text and audio alerts can soon drive you potty.

The easiest way to stop notifications from a specific app on your phone or tablet is to go into Settings, Apps, tap the offending app and untick 'Show notifications’.

Google Nexus 9

Andy Shaw finds out whether Google’s latest Android tablet can challenge the iPad’s supremacy.

Google’s first tablet, the Nexus 7, provided an affordable alternative to those unwilling to spend a small fortune on an Apple iPad. It paved the way for a variety of great-value Android tablets including the recently launced Hudl2. But it seems that with the Nexus 9, Google is using a very different strategy to compete with Apple’s iPads.

Russian website spies on UK homes via webcams

What happened?

Privacy fears were raised over a Russian website that streams webcam footage from thousands of homes and businesses around the world, including the UK.

The site exploits webcams that have been set up to be accessed remotely, for example as a security measure to view footage of your home over the internet while you’re away. Hackers have managed to gain access to these webcams because they are not properly secured and still use the default passwords.

The Russian site, called Insecam, scans the web for connected devices and tries default login credentials for thousands of makes of camera, including CCTV security cameras and baby monitors. If successful, it’s able to access and share video streams of office workers, children playing in nurseries and even people asleep in bed.

The Great Cache Hunt

It started in a Hog’s Breath car park, in the middle of a Friday afternoon. My girlfriend directed me towards a tree, the compass on her phone spinning around and pointing towards it as we explored the surrounding area. It was a clear day, and the GPSguided compass claimed accuracy within one meter. I was searching for my first geocache, becoming part of a global phenomenon I had heard mentioned in hushed conversation for years. We found the cache fast – a small plastic container, containing a log book and a pencil for us to ‘check in’ with. We wrote the date and our usernames, logged the find on the app  with a few comments, and set off for the next one.