A new and unique ASCII video streaming solution has been released under the MIT license. ASCILINE Engine by YusufB5 is pitched as a “high-performance, real-time ASCII video rendering engine” that can be used to broadcast “an unblockable video stream.” Examples of its capabilities are provided in the linked GitHub repository and social media posts by the dev, like the one embedded below. It's also stoked a bit of controversy due to fears of it potentially enabling unblockable ads.

I built an unblockable video stream. It renders 360p at 30 FPS using pure text instead of tags. from r/SideProject

From our perusal of the examples, ASCILINE does indeed look like it is capable of better fidelity than prior video to ASCII streamers, some of which have a surprisingly long history dating back to the 90s. The software does a pretty decent job of making color text-based videos from a source. The dev notes that this technique uses Mode 3, using a palette of 32K colors, and can output at 30 FPS. Though classic mono ASCII is also a render option.

Most impressive is the so-called real-time pixel streaming. The GitHub explains that this technique uses Mode 5 and “replaces characters with colored blocks, approaching 360p video quality.” Indeed, in the small embedded video on the page, it looks indistinguishable from the source MP4. We think the innate blockiness would become apparent quickly if it were rendered in a larger window, though.

In a mission statement of sorts, YusufB5 says that ASCILINE’s “core objective is to transform the web into a highly dynamic and interactive typographic canvas. By mapping pixels to text-based representations, we unlock new possibilities for web media delivery.” On social media, the dev simplifies this highfalutin vision by heralding ASCILINE Engine as a tool that can build “an unblockable video stream. It renders 360p at 30 FPS using pure text.”

The ‘unblockable’ claim gets plenty of pushback across various social media channels. For example, an adblocker put in element zapper mode can quickly remove the HTML5 Canvas that the ASCII video renders in. That’s just one option.

However, most commenters are fearful of those wanting to serve more ads to the public using this ‘unblockable’ tech. YusufB5 points to their “strict anti-ad clause to the MIT License to ensure this isn't abused to force unskippable ads on people.” That might work with registered companies, but malicious users won’t care about such a rule.

Beyond the unblockability and ad misuse controversies, ASCILINE has some more interesting frills and features to set it apart from the old guard of ASCII video. The ability to apply real-time CSS filters to the video stream sounds like it may be appealing in some instances. Also, the ASCII video generated is thought to “act as a perfect bridge for AI.” Thus, you can use lightweight LLMs to process semantic video summaries. The engine’s “ultra-low bandwidth & IoT compatibility” may also be attractive to some, with its ability to stream at only a few kilobytes per frame. Sending only the characters that change (delta frames) and applying GZIP compression both help in this regard.

Google is reportedly testing a new storage policy that restricts new users to an initial 5GB of free cloud storage rather than its previous 15GB allowance. The change was first spotted by a Reddit user who was notified while setting up a new Google account that they would only get 5GB of free storage. The notice also mentioned that once the user linked and verified a phone number with their account, they would gain access to the full 15GB. Interestingly, Google’s support page does not mention this change and states that new accounts receive up to 15GB of free storage.

Google is yet to make a public announcement regarding the change in free cloud storage, however, it has given an official statement to Android Authority. As per a Google spokesperson, “We’re testing a new storage policy for new accounts created in select regions that will help us continue to provide a high-quality storage service to our users, while encouraging users to improve their account security and data recovery.”

Gmail now gives 5gb free if you sign up without phone number from r/degoogle

A crucial point to consider is that the test is limited to select regions. This may imply that the company is experimenting in certain markets where fake accounts and spam abuse are particularly high before deciding and rolling out the new storage policy globally. In all fairness, the phone number verification requirement does make sense, as it can help Google reduce fake or disposable accounts.

By requiring a verified phone number, users can be restricted from creating multiple free accounts for extra storage or potentially using them for malicious activities. Since verified accounts are tied to a recovery method, it also improves account security and recovery, which Google mentions in its official explanation.

Another possible reason for this change could simply be a tactic by Google to push more users into paying for cloud storage plans under Google One. While 15GB has remained unchanged for years, almost every smartphone user has far more photos, videos, and backups than they did a few years ago. Initially offering new users just 5GB of storage could make limitations much more noticeable, potentially encouraging more people to subscribe to paid plans for additional cloud space.

About two weeks ago, Backblaze sent out an email to its subscribers letting them know about the latest changes to its Terms of Service, and therein lies a paragraph that says that if your usage of the service exceeds "typical usage patterns" or "places an undue burden," the company may throttle or terminate your account, this despite the company's pledge of unlimited backups. There is no definition of what constitutes typical usage, so your guess is as good as ours. The company has also stopped uploading local data synced to other cloud storage suppliers. The changes come as the company has experienced a 40X year-over-year increase in AI data stored on its servers and has increased focus on its accelerating AI business.

Backblaze is perhaps the most popular home computer backup service, offering unlimited storage for a low monthly price and a simplified interface that backs up entire computers and external drives in one fell swoop. That's the sales pitch on the website, except the exact definitions of "unlimited," "computers," and "external drives" are all up for discussion thanks to the company's repeated ToS changes and possibly its market repositioning — and can lead to instances of data loss, as some users found out the worst way.

The new data limit might be lower than most would think. Data posted in 2021 purportedly by Backblaze's then-CTO Brian Wilson shows that storing just 2 TB would put you in the top 1% of users. It's been 5 years on now, and that figure has certainly changed, but even 4 TB isn't that many bytes in the era of affordable 20 TB external drives. Predictably, tech-minded users do not appreciate the change, especially given a price hike to B2, the company's business-oriented cloud storage, which is sometimes recommended as an alternative.

Knowing that you might be kicked off a service is bad enough, but it doesn't impose any losses on you beyond inconvenience. However, roughly six months ago, Backblaze enacted a silent change that made its backup app stop uploading local data synced to "OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, iDrive, and others."

The alteration was only published in the software's release notes, meaning that most everyone was unaware of it. Some users were caught by surprise by tangible data loss — quite the irony for a backup service, especially one that extolls the virtues of an actual backup versus a file sync in its own blog posts.

Developer Robert Reese found out about the changes in the worst way when he needed to recover data from his Git folders that had been silently added to Backblaze's file exclusions list. He then dug further and, along with other users, found that Backblaze never told anyone about its exclusions of file sync services or Git, and that it's hard to trust a backup service that can at any point unilaterally decide to stop backing up important data.

At face value, one might think that not backing up Dropbox, OneDrive, etc., is not a problem since you'll have copies of the files in those services, but then the difference between a sync and a backup rears its ugly head. First, most of those services only keep deleted data for 30 days, so if you only notice something is gone more than a month, you can't fetch it from Backblaze as expected.

Second, changes to files might fall into a similar trap, as most sync services have limits on age, number of versions, or both, particularly in the free tiers. Third, syncing files back to your PC might overwrite recent changes, and you won't be able to fetch the original copy.

Rubbing salt on the wound, although Backblaze is only meant to back up internal and external drives and not network shares, the client can trip you up in unexpected ways, as external encrypted drives are caught in the crossfire and likewise not backed up.

Other than "it's just business," all these changes might have to do with the fact that Backblaze apparently no longer sees home backups as a business priority. The homepage first and foremost touts cloud and AI storage, with the home backup service tucked away under two menu options.

Back in 2025, the company saw its backup revenue flatten as cloud storage grew and subsequently underwent a restructuring. The firm's latest quarterly results show that AI customers are making Backblaze a lot of money, so it's not hard to imagine the home backup service might be dropped altogether at some point.

An artificial intelligence (AI) aficionado has put together a chart featuring all the Copilot things that Microsoft has released since AI became the next big thing. At the latest count, Ty Bannerman notes that there are 80 different, separately marketed Copilot products and tools. Charting these Copilot things wasn’t a trivial task; even Microsoft doesn’t appear to maintain a definitive list. When I first noticed this story, there were 78 Copilots in Bannerman’s charts, but now it has expanded to 80.

The AI strategy, design, and implementation expert says that the idea of charting the expanse of the Copilot universe came to him when someone asked what Microsoft Copilot is. He knew it meant at least 75 different things, in so many contexts, at the time. “Apps, features, platforms, a keyboard key, an entire category of laptops - and a tool for building more Copilots,” tallied Bannerman in his blog. “All named ‘Copilot’.” His chart contends this is "What happens when you name everything Copilot."

Last week, the AI aficionado charted the number of Copilots as 78. However, since yesterday, I note the number has increased to a nice round 80. Thanks to the power of the internet / social media, Bannerman had learned of the existence of Gaming Copilot and Microsoft Dragon Copilot. The latter of those isn’t designed for residents of Westeros, but an AI clinical assistant.

Copilot says there are ~95 to 120+ Copilots

So, we have a chart of 80 Copilots, and who knows what the final figure may be, and how many more Bannerman can uncover?

Since I’m typing on a laptop with a Copilot key, I prodded it and asked the thing itself. Who better to ask? The answer was that “the ecosystem is well north of 100,” if you include things like every app-embedded Copilot, enterprise, and Azure-adjacent tools, etc. I then asked it to add them all up, and it concluded there were “~95 to 120+ Copilots.”

Is that too many? Well, even on this PC, I was surprised to find two Copilot apps in my system tray a few weeks ago. One pops up the usual chatbot box, the other was actually Copilot 365, which, when clicked, asked me to sign in with my (non-existent) Microsoft 365 credentials before I could use it. It has been eliminated.

The corporation's promise of major improvements to Windows 11 performance, reliability, and fewer Copilot interactions can't come soon enough.

Space watchers enthralled by the live stream from NASA’s Artemis II Orion spacecraft have noticed that even astronauts can have trouble with Microsoft software. BlueSkyer Niki Grayson clipped an amusing segment of the live stream, where a puzzled astronaut asks for support from Mission Control because they “have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working.”

right now the astronauts are calling houston because the computer on the spaceship is running two instances of microsoft outlook and they can't figure out why. nasa is about to remote into the computer

— @nikigrayson.com (@nikigrayson.com.bsky.social) 2026-04-02T19:03:37.132Z

Grayson was agog at NASA inflicting Outlook on astronauts. “I'm so sorry we've sent these souls to the moon and they're using Outlook?” they quipped.

The clipped NASA Artemis II stream shared above is currently still live, and you can watch it in full here. As it is live, there is no transcript provided on the video page. So I asked Google's Gemini to find the portion of the livestream where Outlook bugs were discussed.

Google confirmed the quote from Grayson’s clip. It credited Commander Reid Wiseman talking to Mission Control in Houston at this time. “I also see that I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working if you want to remote in,” said Wiseman at around 13 and a quarter hours into the livestream. Houston agreed to remote in to take a look at the issue.

About an hour later, the astronauts received the welcome news that Outlook was back online. However, it would appear offline... Nice piece of software. “For Outlook, we were able to get it open. It will show 'offline,' which is expected,” said the Capsule Communicator at Mission Control, at around 14 hours 20 minutes into the stream.

Microsoft Outlook anomaly in space

To some readers, even choosing Outlook as a part of a spacecraft’s communications portfolio would seem to be an anomaly. However, it is a standard part of the "Commercial Off-The-Shelf" (COTS) software astronauts use for their day-to-day operations.

To be clear, the spacecraft and primary flight systems will run on specialized radiation-hardened hardware and rigorously maintained software. COTS just complements this with a friendly layer, like Windows and Outlook, so astronauts can check schedules, indulge in personal communications, and so on, in a familiar way.

Toilet troubles in space

While skipping through the live stream to locate the Outlook conversations, I also heard a discussion between Artemis II Orion and Mission Control about the spacecraft's toilets.

Reports suggest that a blinking fault light on the toilet signaled that a mechanical failure occurred about two hours into the mission. Specifically, we understand that a urine extraction fan jammed.

The fan’s purpose is to pull the urine away into a collection container, avoiding urine microgravity issues. Thankfully, one of the astronauts managed to clear the jam and get the fan spinning. NASA has confirmed the toilet is back online, although we’d like to know what brand of fans the space agency uses…

For years, Google has enforced a restriction on changing the @gmail addresses it hands out when signing up for a new account. Apart from email, that's the address you use to log into any Google service, like YouTube, so many of us have been stuck with old identities we'd like to move on from. Fortunately, this convenience appears to be within reach, as the Google Pixel Hub Telegram group has spotted an official Google support document outlining the feature.

The support page is only in Hindi, suggesting that the rollout is limited to India for now. Even then, Google clearly states that users will gradually begin to see this option, indicating that global adoption is still some way off. Still, we're looking at official info here, not a leaked excerpt, so Gmail truthers can rejoice.

For context, competing providers, such as Microsoft Outlook, allow you to change your email address and offer "aliases," which are commonplace today. You can add alternate email addresses under a Google Workspace account, but that's a different thing entirely, as it's a managed service.

To clarify further, Google lets you change your Google Account name, but you can't edit the @gmail.com address. In the document, Google states that you'll retain and have access to your old email address after you switch to a new one — essentially, you'll have two @gmail addresses for one account, which in and of itself could be a game changer for many. Previously, you'd have to create a new Google Account to access a secondary email address, which you could then use to set up a faux alias.

With this, you'll receive emails in both inboxes, and none of your existing data, such as Drive or Photos, will be affected. That said, you cannot register another email address for the same Google Account for the next 12 months after switching to a new one. Keep in mind that Google hasn't officially announced this feature yet, so all of this is potentially subject to change with the global rollout.

Still, to check whether you can get a new @gmail address right now, go to my.account.google.com/google-account-email on a phone or computer. There, tap/click on "Personal Information," and under "Email," you should see the option to "Change email address for your Google Account." It will look like the screenshot above if you're not part of the rollout yet.

The 2025 Microsoft Excel World Championships final in Las Vegas has been won by Irishman Diarmuid Early. Bestowed with the nickname ‘the LeBron James of Excel spreadsheets,’ it might not therefore be the most surprising victory. However, Early had to beat 256 other eager and dedicated spreadsheet heads to win the trophy, and secure the prize pot of $60,000.

From quiet home office to cacophonous Las Vegas arena

Early contrasted the initial knockout rounds of the Championships, played from a quiet home office, to the eSports arena with enthusiastic crowds and commentators in America’s live entertainment capital.

It’s a wonder that the stark difference in atmosphere doesn’t put some people off. Perhaps handling the distractions of the HyperX Arena was one of Early’s strengths – or others were more affected by the roaring crowds and hectic atmosphere.

Given his ‘stage name’ you would be correct to assume that this wasn’t Early’s first rodeo. Indeed, the Irishman, originally from Galway and Waterford and now living in New York, has been a finalist three times. However, he admits he has a record of choking as the competition reaches its climax.

Has Early got a secret behind his success? He says that having his own business helped, and it’s a financial business, so spreadsheets are a constant daily work feature.

Timed eliminations build excitement

Chatting with BBC News, Early conveyed the pressure and excitement of spreadsheet-based eSports. Notably, the stress of competing dramatically ramps up with the timed eliminations of the final rounds. Every five minutes, those in last place get knocked out, explained Early, “You're constantly watching your back.”

Triple world champion Andrew Ngai was held to second place this year, with an award of $5,000.

Excel eSports?

Perhaps one of the most eyebrow-raising eSports tournament hits is the enthusiasm for playing and watching people face spreadsheet challenges. The source report notes that Excel as an eSport is more than 20 years old.

Microsoft’s Excel has grown to be a remarkably capable and complex application over the years. Earlier in 2025 we even highlighted that a dev had managed to get Linux running inside the app, just for fun.

Children in Russia have raised their voices, demanding to be heard, saying the government has gone too far. A state representative admitted that 63,000 complaint letters were received in a single week, with half of the irate youngsters threatening to leave Russia. What’s the fuss? Is it something to do with the ongoing war or sanctions? No, it is a backlash against the banning of the Roblox gaming platform, reports The Moscow Times.

The ban is "for their own protection"

Official Russian media say that the Roblox ban was put in place to prevent the platform from distributing extremist materials and promoting “LGBT propaganda.” The game from the California company is full of “inappropriate content that can negatively impact the spiritual and moral development of children,” asserted Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor, according to a statement viewed by The Moscow Times.

Probably more specific and worrying, for parents everywhere, were the assertions by the Russian watchdog that kids playing Roblox may be sexually harassed, tricked into intimate photos, or even be “coerced into committing depraved acts and violence.”

Indeed, this is a worry for the parents of all open online platforms frequented by youngsters. Thus, the Roblox corporation asserts it implements “moderators and automated systems to proactively identify behaviors that may violate our policies.”

Leaving Russia for the love of Roblox

Two figures pretty high up in the Russian administration have admitted that the children of the country have been vociferous in their complaints about the Roblox ban. Putin’s well known press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, confirmed that the Kremlin received “many” letters from children about the ban imposed on December 3.

Pro-Kremlin censorship advocate Yekaterina Mizulina also told her Telegram followers that she had received 63,000 letters from kids aged between eight and 16 on this ban. Half of them said they wished to leave Russia due to the Roblox blockade, according to Mizulina.

Roblox was the most downloaded game in Russia as recently as 2023. It is extremely popular with kids, with 111.8 million daily users, according to the latest monthly metrics we have seen. Around 40% of Roblox gamers are 13 or under.

The blocked in Russia club

Perhaps it is no surprise that Roblox, the latest Western-owned platform with social media elements, is being blocked in Russia. You also can’t use Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X, or LinkedIn there, for example.

Meanwhile, YouTube is throttled and disrupted in favor of the state-backed RuTube. (Is there going to be a RuBlox soon?) Russia’s domestic VK social network is most widely used there, and is heavily moderated, and features automatic content filtering according to Roskomnadzor’s blacklist.

If you would like to rehome thousands of old VHS videotapes, there’s an incredible hoard of these nostalgic artifacts from the days of analog TV, stored carefully in McDonald's boxes, being given away for free. However, you’ll need a convincing story, as it already looks like a representative from the Internet Archive is a hot favorite to claim this truckload of tapes and digitize them. Redditor whatdoyouthinkisreal shared images of this gargantuan collection of tapes a few days ago.

Free: Thousands of tapes preserved. 2004~2009 CNN/MSNBC/FOX News recorded at home in Ann Arbor area from r/DataHoarder

The OP notes that the collection of tapes has already shrunk by around 18 boxes.

The general goal of whatdoyouthinkisreal’s giveaway is to “give them to someone who is going to save and digitize the tapes.” Bonus – the donor will get a lot of garage space back.

So, what TV and cinematic gems should the new owner expect to find in this massive collection, recorded at an Ann Arbor area home between 2004 and 2009? Apparently, it is wall-to-wall news coverage from that era, featuring channels like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News.

That content might be of some interest to someone, we guess. The Redditor suggests that “I think the commercials might be even more valuable than the news, but there is Hurricane Katrina Coverage here too.”

Other notable round-the-clock news coverage events during that time may have included:

• Janet Jackson had a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ at the Super Bowl in 2004
• Two presidential elections, 2004 (Dubya won) and 2008 (Obama won)
• The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
• The 2005 London bombings (7/7)
• Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston divorced in 2005
• The Execution of Saddam Hussein in 2006
• Release of the first iPhone in 2007
• 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians' premiered in 2007
• 2007 U.S. troop 'surge' in Iraq
• The 2008 Beijing Olympics
• The 2008 Financial crisis
• Russia–Georgia war in 2008 (they're still at it)
• Michael Jackson died, and Lady Gaga rose to fame in 2009
• The 2009 Colorado Balloon Boy hoax earned 24/7 coverage

In case anyone finds the McDonald's franchise cardboard carton packaging questionable, the OP explains, “They're in McDonald's food boxes because the woman who recorded these worked at McDonald's at one time.”

As we mentioned in the intro, any potential suitor for this titanic collection better have a good story. One of the first Redditors to throw their hat in the ring and claim this incredible prize was Jason Scott of the Internet Archive. Many other Redditors upvoted this suggestion, understandably. However, there were a few grumbles about the IA currently sitting on tons and tons of content without getting around to digitizing it and sharing it online.

Microsoft has announced that it will automatically install the Microsoft 365 Copilot AI app for users who have a desktop version of Microsoft 365 suite apps installed on their system, such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. According to BleepingComputer, the rollout will begin next month and is expected to be completed halfway through November, affecting all Windows PCs worldwide, except those in the European Economic Area (EEA).

“Starting in October 2025, Microsoft will begin automatically installing the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on Windows devices that have Microsoft 365 desktop client apps,” the company said on the Microsoft 365 message center. “This app provides a centralized entry point for accessing Copilot experiences and AI-powered capabilities across Microsoft 365. This change simplifies access to Copilot and ensures users can easily discover and engage with productivity-enhancing features.”

Unfortunately, it seems that most personal users will have no way of opting out of this feature. But if you’re a system administrator, you can opt your organization out of this by disabling the automatic installation of Microsoft 365 Copilot in the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center.

This update is part of Redmond’s push for the wider adoption of its Copilot AI app. Just this July, the Microsoft Edge browser introduced a Copilot Mode that can interact with your open tabs and find information you’re looking for. Furthermore, Microsoft bundled Copilot with the Microsoft 365 subscription, resulting in a 43% price hike.

And while this might be a welcome development for those who use AI tools, it will most likely be seen as an annoyance by those who don’t use Copilot or AI in general. After all, if you use AI apps and even subscribe to one, you likely already have it installed on your computer. But for those who aren’t interested, they will likely just see this as another piece of bloatware that Microsoft is forcing down their throats.

The software giant is spending billions of dollars on AI investments, and it likely wants users to start paying for services to recoup some of the cash it spent. However, statistics say that the AI adoption rate isn’t going as planned, with large companies reducing their reliance on these tools. It has even gotten to the point that an economist warned of an AI bubble that will be worse than the dot-com crash of 2000 when it bursts.

Unless you have an administrator who manages your Microsoft 365 subscription (which isn’t true for most personal users), it seems that the only way to avoid getting Microsoft 365 Copilot automatically installed on your computer is to not use Microsoft 365. Otherwise, you’ll just have to ignore it and add the app to the list of disabled apps in Windows’ Startup.

Software giant Microsoft has offered a free one-year Microsoft 365 subscription to college students in the U.S., provided they sign up using their college email address. According to the company, eligible users will get a further 50% discount on the monthly subscription for Microsoft 365 Personal, saving them $5 a month. The subscription will provide students with access to desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, as well as a terabyte of cloud storage on OneDrive. More importantly, it will give them free access to Copilot, the company’s AI tool.

“AI is the defining technology of our time, and how we empower people to use it will shape our country’s future,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. He also added, “At Microsoft, we believe that delivering on the real promise of AI depends on how broadly it’s diffused…And that’s why, today, we are making new commitments. For students, we are announcing today that they are making Microsoft 365 Personal, including Copilot, free for 12 months to every college student in the United States. This includes our community colleges.” Nadella also promised that K-12 students, teachers, and staff will get access to Microsoft 365 Copilot later.

This move is part of Redmond’s commitment to the White House’s efforts to increase AI education in the U.S., in support of President Donald Trump’s executive order, Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth. The program is designed to train both teachers and students in artificial intelligence, helping to develop an American workforce that’s ready to address the rising threat of this technology.

An accident report has revealed that a U.S. Air Force pilot spent 50 minutes on a conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers ahead of his plane plummeting to the ground and exploding in a fireball. Thankfully, the unnamed pilot ejected safely with just minor injuries, reports CNN, but the $200 million F-35 fighter jet was destroyed.

This incident took place on January 28, near Eielson Air Force Base, Fairbanks, Alaska. Investigations point towards the presence of water in hydraulic lines as the root cause of this military jet crash. But the investigator’s report also suggests the pilot and engineering team’s handling of the landing gear issue could have been better.

Incident timeline: problems became apparent with landing gear

Shortly after take-off, the pilot ran into an issue with the F-35. The landing gear wouldn’t retract correctly, so he sought to lower it again, but it then became locked at an angle, neither retracted nor correctly lowered… Running through operational check lists didn’t remedy the situation.

Sensing the need for assistance, the pilot then decided to consult the experts. He managed to get a group of five Lockheed Martin engineers (the F-35’s makers) to participate in a conference call. According to CNN’s viewing of the incident report, five engineers were on the call: “a senior software engineer, a flight safety engineer, and three specialists in landing gear systems.”

We can’t be sure of the advice given, but next in the chain of dramatic events was the pilot attempting two ‘touch and go’ landings. During these procedures, the idea was to try and straighten out the landing gear. However, the nose wheel still couldn’t be straightened.

Things actually got worse after the two dummy landing attempts. CNN notes that the left and right main landing gears also froze along with the nose wheel.

Now, flying the plane with multiple system errors was bad enough, but the plane then became “uncontrollable” as it started to operate in “automated ground-operation mode.”

Without proper flying mode power or controls, the pilot thus made the decision to eject. The pilot suffered a few minor injuries, but the $200m plane ended up in a fireball.

Post-crash analysis

Starbucks has issued a countrywide crackdown in its Korean locations, demanding that customers stop turning its cafés into quasi-WeWork spaces, after a spate of incidents involving people bringing desktop PCs, printers, and even office partitions into its stores in the country.

Seeing people pecking at their laptop keyboard while they cradle a latte will be a common enough sight at your local Starbucks in the U.S. However, some South Korean folk have managed to outstretch the limits of the coffee chain’s hospitality. The Korea Herald reports that “every branch” of Starbucks in the nation has put up signs telling customers that bringing in their desktop PCs, printers, power strips, and even putting up office partitioning, is no longer permitted.

Local news reports suggest that the Starbucks customers with a penchant for bringing their home offices into the café are “a small but persistent group of clients.” The signs urge people to make room for their fellow coffee drinkers, and not to abandon their tech clutter at shared tables for long periods.

Are you a cagongjok?

A software engineer and developer, who previously accused Amazon Web Services (AWS) of a “digital execution,” has shared the good news that his data has now been restored. What made this impossible task possible was “one human being inside AWS [who] decided to give a damn,” according to data deficit disaster victim Abdelkader Boudih. The same insider source shared some interesting but worrisome insights about what went on behind the scenes during the days when robotic AWS reps insisted Boudih’s precious 10 years of data had been “terminated.”

‘Human’ contact made at AWS

In the earlier episode, we heard about an unnamed insider at AWS reaching out to Boudih. That character was never verified, though they apparently knew too much about this particular case to be a common prankster. Around the same time as we reported on the original debacle, an AWS employee had reached out via official channels to give hope that there would be some way to recover the precious data.

Tarus Balog was basically the first ‘human’ level contact from AWS, according to Boudih. Previous AWS-sourced responses were, in comparison, of a very scripted nature. However, Balog showed empathy and seemed to speak as someone with authority, telling the already long-suffering software engineer that leaders at AWS were aware of his data deletion blog, and were looking to make sure such cases were prevented, going forward.

Balog initially refrained from promising to recover the lost data, but cogs were definitely whirring at AWS at this point (August 5). The case was escalated to the top-level severity ticket available to ‘mortals’, and apparently the AWS CEO actually became aware of this particular incident at this time.

Account restored but tainted by 'deception'

The next morning (August 6), Boudih woke to the news – officially from Amazon – that his account had been restored. Though this was extremely welcome news, it was tainted with “AWS support’s incompetence - or deception,” according to the blog update.

What stuck in Boudih’s craw was the prior insistence of AWS staffers that all his data had been terminated. “The instances were stopped. Not terminated. Stopped.” Stressed the engineer, obviously angry about what he called “gaslighting” by previous AWS contacts. Moreover, his RDS instanced had been backed up as recently as July 19 – several days after support had insisted that everything was “terminated.”

Nevertheless, Boudih refrained from insisting AWS reps were outright lying. There was also the possibility that there was an “undocumented ability to restore ‘terminated’ instances - which would make sense as a safeguard against internal sabotage or mistakes.” There is also the excuse of AWS employee incompetence to consider, but Boudih seems to favor the theory that that prior support contacts “gaslit me about infrastructure.”

Story not unique – the shared payer problem

According to Reddit threads that spawned in the wake of Boudih’s dizzying initial post, this alarming case was far from unique. The shared payer model has inherent flaws, other social media users appeared to confirm, especially if one party defaults on payments due. This appears to be what caused the software engineer's AWS account and data to be suspended, then terminated.

Account suspension is "part of AWS’s standard security protocols for accounts that fail the required verification," AWS stated in an email to Tom's Hardware. But it didn't explain the apparent subsequent and rapid termination.

In the previous story, Boudih mused whether an account suspension could be escalated to termination, due to some billing issue with a previous shared payment party. That looks quite likely in retrospect.

'Terraforming, not destruction'

A software engineer has warned against trusting cloud data storage services in a painstakingly detailed blog post detailing their own “complete digital annihilation” at the hands of AWS admins. Developer Abdelkader Boudih, pen name Seuros, says they had been a fee-paying AWS subscriber for a decade, with the cloud service becoming a firm part of their workflow. Suffice to say, the developer’s long-standing relationship with AWS has now ended acrimoniously.

Boudih says lots of important data has been lost, including a complete programming book, electronics tutorials, and years of unpublished code. Boudih admits that “AWS wasn’t just my backup—it was my clean room for open source development.” In other words, it was a tidy repository away from the “chaos” of the desktop. The dev reckons AWS’s multi-region replication and architecture should have been his backup…

Interestingly, Boudih claims they subsequently got a tip from an ‘AWS insider’ indicating that all their data was wiped due to a simple syntax error during a customer account audit, and all the correspondence Boudih had received about account verification was just a smokescreen.

It started with an innocuous verification request

On Thursday, July 10, Boudih received a verification request with a 5-day response deadline (countdown time included the weekend). Then follows a tale as old as time, where there are delays and escalations, verification ID requests, canned responses from the service provider not addressing actual queries, and so on. By July 23, Boudih was rocked as he received an “account terminated” notification.

Over the next few days of template-driven dialog with an AWS service team rep, Boudih was starting to worry that their data had also been rendered into “digital ashes.” Indeed, Boudih found out it had been wiped, and in the interim, reasonable requests for read-only access had been ignored. “Because the account verification wasn’t completed by this date, the resources on the account were terminated,” wrote an AWS rep or bot. Then they asked for a 5-star review…

Boudih highlights that this “20 day support nightmare” doesn’t seem to tally with AWS’s public policy of putting closed accounts on ice for 90 days, during which they “can be reopened and data is retained,” according to service provider documentation. However, Boudih’s account wasn’t voluntarily closed, but suspended by AWS for ‘verification failure,’ a procedure without public documentation.

'AWS insider' hints at a cover-up

We’ve already established that Boudih is a software engineer, but ironically, some of the open-source code segments Boudih has shared “probably run in AWS’s own infrastructure, making their systems more reliable.” Underlining the implications, the disgruntled dev added, “And they deleted the very environment that created them.”

Due to Boudih's status in the open-source community, Boudih says an AWS insider reached out with a fascinating backstory about what really happened in the AWS offices on or around July 20. According to this source, the initial verification request and suspension of the account were simply a smokescreen, as all Boudih’s data had already been wiped by accident.

Data extinction event

If you haven’t checked out the rewards section of the Nvidia app in a while, you might want to do that, especially if you’ve been wanting to try the whole Adobe tool stack without spending a penny. As part of Nvidia’s collaboration with Adobe, the company is giving specific RTX GPU owners access to Adobe Creative Cloud for free, which includes popular photo and video editing tools like Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects, and more.

The offer is currently live in the Nvidia App Rewards section, and to be eligible, you must have an RTX series GPU from any of the last three generations. However, there’s a difference: with a GeForce RTX 30 or 40 series card, you’ll get one free month of Adobe Creative Cloud. Meanwhile, if you own an RTX 50 GPU, Nvidia will treat you to two free months instead.

On top of that, one benefit exclusive to RTX 50 series GPUs is the Substance 3D reward, which gives you access to five different Adobe apps along with a massive asset library for your games, including tools like 3D Sampler, 3D Designer, and 3D Painter. It’s a fairly solid deal overall, even if you consider Adobe Creative Cloud alone, which normally costs $69 per month.

Don’t forget to cancel on time

A Microsoft OneDrive user has taken to Reddit with a cautionary tale about their precious personal data in the cloud becoming inaccessible. Redditor deus03690 says that they have lost “30 years worth of irreplaceable photos” due to their misplaced trust in Microsoft’s cloud storage service.

In the discussion thread, the Redditor admits they may have made “a bad move” with their eggs-in-one-basket plan. However, to give the decision context they explain that they were moving house, faced space and relocation constraints, and were hemmed in by limited resources.

As a paying user of OneDrive, deus03690 has also been incredibly disappointed in Microsoft’s locking of their account without warning, and subsequent dead-end automated responses to questions regarding what happened. So, what did happen?

Consolidating before a major move

Deus03690 seems to have come face to face with a data preservation problem as a major move loomed. With a modicum of experience in OneDrive, and also having swallowed the Redmond “coolaide” [sic] at work, they thought they could get past a sticky data and life move situation by parking their precious data on some freshly paid for expansive cloud server space.

It is easy to criticize this plan, which resulted in a single point of failure, and is far from adhering to a 3-2-1 backup policy. But, life sometimes makes the rational difficult. Deus03690 later explains that they would be basically living from a suitcase for a time, had limited funds for physical backups, and they planned to restore the data to new physical data later. That would be, we assume, after settling down again.

“Kafkaesque black hole of corporate negligence”

With the “30 years worth of irreplaceable photos and work” literally vanished into thin air, deus03690 naturally expected to be able to get in touch with Microsoft to iron out issues and get the suspended account reactivated. So many corporations make real-human contact an impossible task, and taking this Redditor’s experience at face value, you might include Microsoft in that number.

To start with, deus03690 says they never even received a warning about any potential break of T&Cs, which might have resulted in the OneDrive account suspension. No light has been cast upon the situation since, with “No human contact. No actual help. Just canned emails and radio silence” – and 18 compliance form submissions, so far.

The Redditor then goes on to contrast the ownership / access rights to physical property with that of digital property. But they say they faced “a Kafkaesque black hole of corporate negligence,” so seem to hold little hope of retrieving their 30 years of precious data.

Indeed, when you pay for a service and are met with a brick wall the first time you want to iron out anything that isn’t on script, having no recourse to talk to a real human can be extremely frustrating.

Automated ban hammer mis-strike?

Following the announcement in late February, Microsoft is finally closing the chapter on Skype. Existing users have been asked to switch to Microsoft Teams, and a data migration window will remain open until January 2026. Microsoft says this decision aligns with its strategy to streamline its communication services and focus primarily on Microsoft Teams.

Genesis

The first public beta for Skype went live in August 2003 and enabled users to call from one PC to another, which was revolutionary at the time. The service further evolved in the following years, with the launch of SkypeOut for traditional landline calls and the introduction of video chatting. This helped grow the platform to 40 million registered users by late 2005. After it was acquired by eBay, which strategically envisaged integrating Skype and its online marketplace, Skype boasted over 405 million registered users by 2008.

Ultimately, these plans didn't unfold as anticipated, and eBay divested Skype to a group of investors for $1.9 billion in 2009, citing miscalculated consumer demand for the service. During this phase, Skype began breaking into the mobile ecosystem, launching its first client for iOS and Android in 2009. It eventually reached a milestone of 27 million simultaneous online users across mobile and desktop. By 2010, Skype was teeming with 660 million registered users globally.

Microsoft Acquisition and Downfall

In 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion and integrated it into its core Windows, Xbox, and Outlook services. This propelled Skype to acquire 40% of the international call market share by 2014, yet this peak was fleeting. The following years brought in a surge of competition by the likes of WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. After the pandemic-driven boom subsided, Skype's daily active user count hovered around 36 million, while Teams was able to grab almost 300 million, and that difference is quite telling. It only got worse as Microsoft poured most of its resources into Teams, overshadowing the once-eminent Skype, which had already been losing ground in the market, leading to its eventual retirement today, on May 5th, 2025.

How does this impact existing users?

Microsoft has confirmed a bug in Outlook Classic, where users are experiencing CPU usage spikes, as high as 50%, when simply typing in the application. Notably, reports of this incident can be traced back to November last year, and even now, users have been asked to switch to the Microsoft 365 Apps update channel as a temporary workaround.

After around six months since the first sighting, Microsoft is finally addressing an issue in Outlook (Classic), which led to increased CPU usage, visible slowdowns, and even freezes whenever you'd sit down to compose an email or type a message. Microsoft quotes a figure ranging from a 30-50% hit to the CPU utilization, and that's sure to be noticeable, especially on aging hardware.

The developer team was able to reproduce this bug on updating to Microsoft 365 Apps Version 2406 Build 17726.20126+, which was released in June 2024, on the Current, Monthly Enterprise, and Insider Channels. As of writing, a concrete solution is not available, so users have been recommended to move to the Semi-Annual Channel release, where this issue has not been observed.

If you're running an organization with several devices, Microsoft offers a detailed guide for migrating your update channel with options like Group Policies, the Office Deployment Tool, Microsoft Configuration Manager, and Intune, just to name a few. For home users, a simpler way to achieve the same result is by just tweaking the registry as follows:

1. Open a Command Prompt (CMD) window with admin privileges.
2. Paste the following command and hit Enter: "reg add HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\common\officeupdate /v updatebranch /t REG_SZ /d SemiAnnual"
3. In Outlook, navigate to File > Office Account > Update Options and select "Update Now" to switch to the Semi Annual Channel.

Affected users went through several troubleshooting hoops, like turning off graphics acceleration, disabling the spell-check utility, along with add-ins, but to no avail. It got so bad that a user with a beefy i9-14900HX reported CPU temperatures breaching 95 degrees Celsius just by having the 'New Message' window open, which is used to compose emails.

As the problem is still under investigation by the Outlook team, this is no more than a stopgap solution. The nature of this bug seems to be tied to how the software handles text fields, but it's quite puzzling how such an obvious issue slipped past the developers in the first place.

A robotics and machine learning engineer has developed a command-line interface tool that monitors power use from a smart plug and then tunes system performance based on electricity pricing. The simple program, called WattWise, came about when Naveen built a dual-socket EPYC workstation with plans to add four GPUs. It's a power-intensive setup, so he wanted a way to monitor its power consumption using a Kasa smart plug. The enthusiast has released the monitoring portion of the project to the public now, but the portion that manages clocks and power will be released later.

Unfortunately, the Kasa Smart app and the Home Assistant dashboard was inconvenient and couldn't do everything he desired. He already had a terminal window running monitoring tools like htop, nvtop, and nload, and decided to take matters into his own hands rather than dealing with yet another app.

Naveen built a terminal-based UI that shows power consumption data through Home Assistant and the TP-Link integration. The app monitors real-time power use, showing wattage and current, as well as providing historical consumption charts. More importantly, it is designed to automatically throttle CPU and GPU performance.

Naveen’s power provider uses Time-of-Use (ToU) pricing, so using a lot of power during peak hours can cost significantly more. The workstation can draw as much as 1400 watts at full load, but by reducing the CPU frequency from 3.7 GHz to 1.5 GHz, he's able to reduce consumption by about 225 watts. (No mention is made of GPU throttling, which could potentially allow for even higher power savings with a quad-GPU setup.)

Results will vary based on the hardware being used, naturally, and servers can pull far more power than a typical desktop — even one designed and used for gaming.

WattWise optimizes the system’s clock speed based on the current system load, power consumption as reported by the smart plug, and the time — with the latter factoring in peak pricing. From there, it uses a Proportional-Integral (PI) controller to manage the power and adapts system parameters based on the three variables.

At the moment, the app only supports one smart plug at a time and only works with the Kasa brand. However, Naveem says there are plans to add support for multiple plugs, more smart plug brands, integration with other power management tools, and other features. The app in its current form is a pretty simple tool, but sometimes simple is all you need to solve a problem.

Naveen made WattWise open source under the MIT license, and you can download it directly from GitHub. If you’re interested, you can leave feedback and contributions, or you can fork it and adapt it for other systems. Note that the current version only contains the dashboard, not the actual power optimizer, which still needs further work.

Adobe Photoshop has been around for many, many years and it has been the de facto standard used in the creative industries. Heck, when I was in college I learnt how to use Adobe Photoshop 1.0 and made my own magazine with Photoshop and Aldus Pagemaker. The problem with Photoshop has always been cost.

I have long spouted the idiom “the right tool for the job” to anyone who would listen to me, but I had to make a concession. Photoshop was just too expensive for me as a college student, and I didn’t need it enough to drop hundreds of dollars on a copy.

So I migrated to other alternatives. JASC Paint Shop Pro (before Corel) and Corel’s products did what I needed, but they didn’t meet all of my needs. I had to wait until GIMP arrived for something close to Photoshop.

Fast forward to today, and we have a myriad of Photoshop alternatives to choose from. Many are now cloud based, and either rely on advertisements or a subscription (just like Adobe Photoshop!)

I’ll admit, Adobe Photoshop is a powerful beast. It has effects, plugins and new AI features that make content creation and photography much easier. The free alternatives cannot compete with those features, but they do provide enough features for most users to get the job done.

Which Photoshop alternative is the best for you? I’ve tested five alternatives, some well known and a couple of curveballs that took me by surprise.

I tested the following alternatives.

1. GIMP
2. Krita
3. Pinta
4. PhotoDemon
5. Paint.NET

The goal was to test my image editing workflow in each editor. Which editors can be used with Photoshop’s native PSD file format, and can any handle RAW images from a DSLR? Can the editors work with layers? What effects are there? Can I crop and reframe images? How does it feel in use? Quick, sluggish? Can I move around the image, zoom in or select areas? Is the UI an approximation of Photoshop or does it have its own style? Let's find out!

1. GIMP

1. GIMP

The standard for free image editors

👍 Reasons to use

• Free
• Compatible with RAW and PSD files, along with many other formats
• Plugins extend the functionality

👎 Reasons to avoid

• User interface is daunting for newcomers
• A little slower than Photoshop

Open source image editing software and GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is at the top of many lists. The cross-platform editor is often seen as one of the posterchilds for open source software and it is typically pre-installed on a plethora of Linux distros.

I’ve used GIMP for well over 15 years and on a diverse range of machines (an original Asus eeePC being one) and it remains one of the most used applications in my workflow. I can do it all with GIMP, crop and reframe an image, add layers to alter the image / add elements. It just works, but it does take a little extra effort.

GIMP looks and feels like a Photoshop alternative. The interface is yours to customize; you can even make it look more like Photoshop. Sure it will take a little while to get used to, and that requires effort but once you do, you’ll be tweaking photos and creating content with ease, and without paying Adobe big bucks for the privilege.

Taking things further, GIMP has a plugin ecosystem that can automate many tasks. Batch processing or image manipulation: all can be achieved using a plugin written in languages like Python or C/C++. You can even call GIMP from the command line / terminal to batch edit images without pressing a button.

GIMP is what I have been using for a long time. It does feel a little “clunky” and slow when compared to Photoshop, but for zero cost, we get an extremely capable image editor that has plenty of power and features for most of us. Professional Photoshop users may find it difficult to transition over to GIMP, but it has all that you need.

2. Krita

2. Krita

For artists and photographers

👍 Reasons to use

• Excellent illustration tools
• Magnetic selection tool is awesome
• Plethora of tools on offer
• PSD and RAW support

👎 Reasons to avoid

• Slow to startup
• User interface is daunting for newcomers

This is more of an artist's tool for illustration than image editing, but don’t let that fool you as Krita has a similar depth of features to GIMP. Krita is geared to digital art, and it has been used in game development and illustration for many years.

The Krita user interface is just as daunting as GIMP. If you are proficient in Photoshop / GIMP then your muscle memory will need retraining for Krita. I got confused when trying to zoom into a section.

In GIMP we would use CTRL+ scrollwheel but this didn’t work in Krita. Instead I had to just use the scroll wheel. Moving around a zoomed area is achieved by pressing the spacebar and then holding left click, move around the image. Again, muscle memory kept tripping me up.

Krita’s overall speed is beautiful. I was able to move around, zoom and select brushes, filters and tweak layers as if I were gliding. The only friction I ever encountered was the aforementioned muscle memory. But, I am sure after using Krita for a while, that will melt away.

Krita has full support for opening and saving Photoshop PSD files. If you are working with RAW files, then you can open them, but you will obviously need to save the output as another filetype.

Krita’s strength is in drawing and illustration, but it can be used to tweak photos. There are filters and layers which can be used to alter images, but there are no exact tools for photo manipulation. There are filters for tweaking your images, much less than GIMP, but the core is there. Also, I loved the magnetic selection tool. It did a pretty decent job of selecting points around an object that I wanted to cut out. It wasn’t perfect, but I was able to tweak the points for a more precise selection.

Just like GIMP, Krita has plugins which can provide additional features such as finer control of brushes and automating processes like batch export of images. This means that we can tweak Krita to suit our workflow.

Artists and illustrators will love Krita’s tablet support. If you’ve got the kit, or have the money, then you can easily use Krita with a graphics tablet and get the best from its illustration and photo manipulation features.

Krita is great, but it leans more on illustration than photo manipulation, which isn’t a fault; that is its intended use case after all. It can do the job of Photoshop, but its strengths lie in illustration.

3. Pinta

3. Pinta

A jack of all trades editor

👍 Reasons to use

• Simple to use
• Lightweight
• Quick

👎 Reasons to avoid

• No RAW or PSD support
• Perhaps a little too simple for professional users

Feeling like a “beefed up “ MSPaint, Pinta offers features often found in more “powerful” image editors. The simple and clean interface is very “Microsoft” despite it having nothing to do with it. Pinta can be used to edit images, and has a basic suite of photo tools. It can also be used to illustrate and annotate images.

The user interface is simple, eschewing a myriad of buttons and tools in favor of providing just the essentials. There are no magnetic selection tools, not even a crop. Instead we have the standard rectangle, circle and lasso selectors. They get the job done, but I miss the crop tool.

We’ve got layers on which we can place content and / or manipulate the image. We also have an extensive history, accessible via the right hand side menu. Here we can see the actions taken on an image, and reverse them should an issue occur. This is quite a powerful tool for such a simple application.

There are add-ins, Pinta’s parlance for plugins, and installation is performed externally. There are add-ins for image uploading, night vision effects and dither effects. But there aren’t many add-ins so the choice is quite limited.

Pinta is a jack of all trades application. It does a lot of things well, but this isn’t a specialist application. It can’t open PSD or RAW files, so if you rely on those file formats, look elsewhere. But, if you need a simple editor that has most of the tools in an easy to use package, then Pinta is a great choice.

4. PhotoDemon

4. PhotoDemon

Good all-round Photoshop alternative

👍 Reasons to use

• Small application
• Lots of Photoshop features
• Open Photoshop, RAW and GIMP files
• Plethora of filters

👎 Reasons to avoid

• Muscle memory will be tested

This was the wildcard of the bunch. I’d never heard of PhotoDemon, but it turned out to be a solid performer. The application weighs in at under 10MB! But, in that small package, we get a lot of functionality. PhotoDemon can open and save PSD files, and it can open RAW image files. So photographers can tweak their images with relative ease. A nice feature is that PhotoDemon can also open GIMP XCF files, useful if you want to add PhotoDemon to your processing workflow.

PhotoDemon feels like a mash-up of Photoshop and GIMP and the user interface is clear and easy to use. The “Photo” part of its name indicates that it works more for photography than illustration. One issue I faced was the location of the color wheel.

I’m used to GIMP’s location on the left side, PhotoDemon has it in the top right corner. My muscle memory had a workout while testing PhotoDemon.

PhotoDemon has a plethora of filters under the Effects menu. Seriously there are a lot of effects that can be applied to your work. The usual suspects are there, blur, pixelate, render clouds. Also there are artistic styles and natural effects that make images look like they are underwater.

PhotoDemon has a selection of third-party libraries which offer extra functionality. They are managed in-app using a package manager of sorts. This is a nice touch and makes handling libraries really easy, I just wish there were more libraries!

If you need layers, you’ve got them! Layers work just like GIMP / Photoshop and enable images to be composed of multiple layers, like a portrait photo on a fancy background. Working with layers is easy, and the user interface is clean and easy to understand.

Could I use PhotoDemon on a day to day basis? Yes, but my one tripping point was an often overlooked feature. For annotating tutorials, I use Stroke Selection to put a colored border around an area that I wish to highlight. PhotoDemon has this feature, under Edit >> Stroke, but the dialog box used to configure it is a little clumsy for me. I just want to create a highlight using the selected color.

PhotoDemon is a good editor, once you learn its quirks. The tiny file size means that it loads in seconds, and it runs beautifully on my test system. All for zero cost!

5. Paint.net

5. Paint.net

Simple and great for annotations

👍 Reasons to use

• Simple to use
• Lots of effects
• Annotation tools are great
• Performs slick

👎 Reasons to avoid

• No Photoshop / RAW compatibility
• Layer properties takes an extra step

Don’t judge a book by its cover also applies to websites. The Paint.net site is a cacophony of adverts and “download” buttons that instantly put me off. But I persevered and I was pleasantly surprised.

The general look and feel of Paint.net is that of MS Paint but with Photoshop levels of tools and widgets. I got really “Paint Shop Pro 7” vibes from the UI (and yes, I used that back in the day too). The UI uses floating palettes that can be “clicked” into the perimeter of the screen, and I really like this. I can move the widgets and set up the interface how I like it.

Well, the Stroke Selection issue that I encountered with PhotoDemon is refreshingly solved by Paint.net. In the Tools palette, I found a shapes option and from there I could draw vector shapes on the image. This works beautifully and I can see this becoming part of my workflow for tutorials.

The color of the shape's perimeter uses the foreground color and by default does not have a fill color. This can be changed so that the shape is filled with color, and there are a multitude of shapes to choose from. Very handy for how to writers who want to point out a specific section in a screenshot.

Sadly there is no compatibility with Photoshop or RAW files, so if you need those features, this isn’t the image editor for you. But you do get a plethora of other file formats at your disposal.

Using filers / effects is a joy. I marvelled at the realtime response when previewing an effect, it felt right that I should see exactly how it would apply without a long pause as the PC does the math.

The app does not support installation of plugins directly, but you can install plugins externally.

Layers work just like the other editors tested, but accessing the layer properties (for the blend mode) is a two step process, unlike GIMP which has the layer properties front and center.

I really enjoyed Paint.net and for most of my workflow it is perfect. If I need to work with RAW, PSD or XCF files then I am out of luck, but I mostly work in PNG, JPG, GIF and WebP. If you just need a simple, yet feature packed editor then Paint.net is for you.

Update 2/28 06:51 PT

Its official, Microsoft are shuttering Skype. You've got until May 5 to migrate your chats and contacts over to Microsoft Teams.

Original Article:

Yesterday, a hidden string was discovered in the code for the latest Skype for Windows 11 preview that states "Starting in May, Skype will no longer be available. Continue your calls and chats in Teams.", precluding the imminent retiring of 22 year-old messenger Skype — this information being discovered over at XDA Developers. Since Microsoft Teams is already built over the Skype infrastructure that Microsoft first bought back in 2011, this should be a seamless transition in the long run— but it still marks the death of a classic staple in online messaging platforms.

Skype has its origins back in August of 2003, and in the 22 years since its launch, it has seen a myriad of ports, official and unofficial, to countless devices and operating systems. Skype has appeared on Nokia's Symbian phones, Sony's PlayStation Portable and even HoloLens!

To the say the least, the final death of Skype marks a key turning point in the history of online messengers. The recent pandemic proved that services including Skype were essential during such a dark time. One could argue that the end of Skype is moot, as it continues to exist in a different form through Microsoft Teams.

Once upon a time, Skype was regarded as one of the best messaging apps out there— but its reputation began to sour when it received in-app advertisements in September 2011, after the Microsoft acquisition. While Microsoft would phase out its other communication apps to make Skype a focus, the unwanted addition of advertisements and waves of spam bot slowly but steadily pushed Skype out of the limelight.

As sad as it is to give a post mortem on Skype, we think it's fair to say that this application has long served its purpose in the grand scheme of things. Remote workers have Teams and other messaging applications to make the most of video conferencing and productivity-centered communications. Gamers now have the free-but-intensive Discord, alongside the always-reliable lightweight VoIP clients like Mumble and Teamspeak, to rely on instead of Skype.

Skype and its era of competing messengers including MSN Messenger finally seems to be over. As the industry moves past Skype in the coming months, it will become a footnote in the ongoing history of computing.

Earlier this week, Microsoft broke from a long tradition of only offering paid versions of the native Microsoft Office app (web having been free for some time) and silently introduced a free, ad-supported version of Microsoft Office exclusively for Windows 11 users. This was first spotted by Beebom, which tested it on Windows 11 machines and VMs (My testing on Windows 10 quickly revealed it to be business as usual on older versions of Windows. Go figure.)

Even so, it's nifty and arguably even intelligent of Microsoft to build in a "Skip for now" button leading into a free version of Microsoft Office allowing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to be used for free. The ads that support this use come in the form of the combination of a persistent ad banner onscreen, as well as a muted 15-second video ad playing every few hours.

However, there are still lots of caveats to your use of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint here. The greatest immediate caveat is that you can't save files locally and must instead save them to OneDrive, which means you don't have any support to edit local files. It's 2025, Microsoft — LibreOffice and Google Docs have existed way too long for you to be inconveniencing your free users like this.

A number of other problems also exist, though, greatly limiting the formatting and decorative options available to Microsoft's free users. Beebom painstakingly listed over 30 missing features in its original coverage. So, while I complimented Microsoft's prudence in having a free tier of its local Office applications available...there are some real glaring issues with the omissions here.

Even locking in just on Microsoft Word, the removal of key formatting options like line spacing, text wrapping, headers, footers, bookmarks, and even proper date & time fields is truly egregious. You can't even hyphenate anymore! While Beebom observes that the applications are still able to be used, their phrasing here is "most of the basic and some of the key features are available", but that honestly might be an understatement.

Because let's be very realistic about this. If you are willing to go through the trouble of using a free version of Microsoft Office instead of any number of truly-free alternatives that have been widely available to you for the past decade or more, you're doing it because maintaining compatibility with existing workflows and spaces reliant on Office is your priority. But with so many key formatting options locked behind a paywall, you really might as well not be using Microsoft Office at all at this point, and instead be hedging your bets with exporting files from LibreOffice or Google Drive.

If Microsoft is already insistent on monetizing its free users via advertisements, the least they could do is provide a usable version of Microsoft Office in exchange. The extensive list of cut features doesn't make Microsoft look any less stingy to the users of Windows 11, which already has plenty of ads.

According to a new blog post from Microsoft, Microsoft 365's Personal and Family plans have been bundled with Copilot and priced up to roughly $3 a month. The latest monthly cost is $9.99, up from $6.99, and the new annual fee is $99.99, up from $69.99.

In addition to the basic plans getting Copilot rolled in, there are now additional "Basic," "Personal Classic," and "Family Classic" tiers without Copilot and "other advanced features" added for users who do not use AI in their workflows.

For those who remain on the Personal and Family plans, a monthly allotment of 15 AI credits to use Copilot with Office 365 applications and Designer, Paint, Photos, and Notepad on Windows 11 will be given. Copilot Pro is still a separate upgrade for those who want unlimited use.

Microsoft's original blog post states, "Our plan has always been to make Copilot in the Microsoft 365 apps more accessible to a wider audience at a great price. We planned several steps in our Copilot journey to listen, learn, and improve usability and performance. [...] We’re delighted to empower millions of our customers with an AI assistant that supercharges the productivity apps they already know and love. We’ll continue offering Copilot Pro for consumers with extensive usage needs, along with Microsoft 365 Copilot, our commercial offering, for organizations of all sizes"

Past the details we discussed above, the rest of the original Microsoft blog post showcases existing Copilot features and how they're integrated into different aspects of the Microsoft 365 suite. Microsoft also claims that using these features will not surrender your prompts, responses, or even file content for use while training its Copilot AI model. Of course, Microsoft claims that using your data is a temporary input only when prompted.

Existing Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plan subscribers need only update their apps to receive their new Copilot benefits. For existing customers, the price hike won't be kicking in until plan renewal, and there are options to downgrade the plan. Those who want to avoid using AI can downgrade the plan to the "Classic" or "Basic" Microsoft 365 plans.

While this may have been a more controversial move from Microsoft— basically forcing AI use and a price hike on a large existing customer base— adding tiers without AI below the main Personal and Family plans is welcome. However, some contradictory language does leave some questions in the air. Apparently, the "Classic" plans are available "for a limited time". However, this may just refer to the ability for existing customers to downgrade since the following sentence immediately claims, "These plans (having just listed Basic and the two Classic plans) will continue to be maintained as they exist today."

In the ongoing quest to do strange, and seemingly impossible things with Microsoft Excel, Redditor u/awesomegraczgie21 posted a demonstration of a functioning, playable raycaster in the form of a first-person maze game running entirely through Microsoft Excel using its Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programming language.

Specifically, this maze tech demo is seen utilizing raycasting to support transparency and per-column texture mapping. Transparency is noted as being done from the player's view outward (close-to-far rendering), and a simple collision system is used to keep the game functioning within the constraints of its walled maze. The maze is, of course, explored entirely in first-person, navigated pretty much one frame at a time via the included 4 movement and 2 strafe buttons.

Compared to past attempts at rendering graphics in Microsoft Excel, like the "Fallout for Excel" game, this is far more ambitious, though similarly limited in scope and playability. While there is sped-up video footage (10 FPS!) of navigation through the maze being spread online from the original posting, the actual gameplay is more like a "interactive slideshow" . With its creator stating that the FPS ranges between "2FPS up to 5 SPF (0.2 FPS). Rendering multiple overlapping transparent walls kills the performance, but it's worth it." The entire demo is coded in just 400 lines of VBA.

Excel - the best game engine. A simple raycaster with support for transparency and per column texture mapping. More info in the comments. from r/GraphicsProgramming

Back in January, another Excel hobbyist went and proved that it was possible to build an entire functioning 16-bit CPU complete with 128 KB of RAM, a 128x128 pixel display, and a custom assembly language (dubbed Excel-ASM16) within the constraints of Microsoft Excel. Like with Excel-ASM16 and "Fallout for Excel", it's likely that this playable Excel raycaster demo simply won't work outside of Microsoft Excel, i.e. in alternatives such as OpenOffice or LibreOffice.

Like most of these Excel projects, then, it would seem that this project was done almost purely for fun and/or amusement, though it's also noted by the creator that it was made as a project for a "Programming in VBA" university course, "because why not". The creator had wanted to build a raycaster from scratch since they were 16, but lacked the knowledge to make it happen. Now in their second year of university, AwesomeGraczGie21 has done it, but will they stop there? As far as university assignments go, breaking the assumed boundaries of Microsoft Excel with just "~400 lines of code" is something that one would hope would facilitate a passing grade.

Microsoft issued a warning about a bug affecting Microsoft 365's Office Word app where saving a document using a specific file name would end up deleting it instead of saving it. The combination might be odd as it involves the hashtag character in the file name and capitalization of the file's extension- but it exists and needs to be addressed regardless.

According to Microsoft, this bug gets triggered when the .docx extension is capitalized with the hashtag symbol in its file name. Microsoft further adds a finding that the issue occurs after saving the file when prompted to click X to close the Word app. However, manually saving the file with '.DOCX' and a hashtag character in the file name does not reproduce the automatic deletion.

Thankfully, the deletion is not permanent, as the Recycle Bin can restore the file. Besides restoring it, Microsoft suggested two workarounds- save the file manually before closing Word, and another is to enable the option "Don't show the Backstage when opening or saving files with keyboard shortcuts" in Word.

The bug is specifically present with Microsoft 365 version 2409, as confirmed by Microsoft. It is peculiar that the bug only eats the Word document using .docx in all caps with a hashtag character in the file name. Microsoft didn't explain the cause of this bug specifically with this build, as it is still under investigation. No other combination has been discovered that reproduces auto-deletion yet.

Having a document deleted automatically is a nightmare, mainly when the application is used for many important work. It wouldn't be surprising to see users have a hashtag in the file name by someone whose profession is associated with social media, as the character is used for tagging in leading social media apps like Instagram and X, formerly Twitter. Users are likely unaware of this even if it goes to the Recycle Bin.

Therefore, no matter how odd or seemingly rare, it is always best to kill the bug before it eats your homework.

After a dozen years of court hearings in New Zealand, the country’s justice minister has announced Kim Dotcom will be extradited to the United States. Once brought to the U.S., Dotcom faces numerous criminal charges related to the now-defunct file-sharing website Megaupload. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith signed the extradition order on Aug. 15, according to a statement from the New Zealand Minister of Justice. Goldsmith said he “considered all the information carefully” before agreeing to the extradition. Dotcom will be allowed a short period to prepare for his extradition.

Dotcom is German-born but lives in New Zealand. He and three executives from the Megaupload site were arrested in 2012 after a raid on Dotcom’s mansion in Auckland. These included the company’s chief marketing officer, Finn Batato, and chief technical officer and co-founder, Mathias Ortman, both from Germany. Also arrested was a third executive, Dutch national Bram van Der Kolk.

U.S. authorities say Megaupload cost film studios and record companies more than $500 million by encouraging paying users to store and share copyrighted movies, T.V. shows, and music files. These files reportedly generated over $175 million in revenue for the website.

The website was also apparently used to share files among members of the U.S. military and other government workers. Investigators found 15,634 registered users with email addresses belonging to various branches of the U.S. military services.

After Dotcom’s arrest in January 2012, he lost access to 1,103 servers with around 25PB of data. A year later, he showed off “one of many racks with many servers” about to be launched for the still-struggling website. Each rack, he said, would be able to store 720TB of data.

Dotcom can still appeal the court’s decision. In a thread on X (formerly Twitter), he lambasted that “the obedient U.S. colony in the South Pacific just decided to extradite me for what users uploaded to Megaupload” and confirmed his battle wasn’t yet over. Dotcom expressed hope that he would still avoid extradition. “By the time the appeals are done, if ever, the world will be a very different place,” he wrote.

Ortman and van Der Kolk agreed to plea deals in 2023 that allowed them to serve jail time in New Zealand while avoiding extradition to the U.S. Batato, on the other hand, died in New Zealand in 2022.

Layers are a clever and easy-to-use way to introduce elements to an image without destroying the source or main image. It works similarly to placing sheets of paper on top of each other. Each piece is a separate element of the composition, but when put together, they become the image you want the world to see.

In this how-to we will use GIMP’s layers to take a stock image, remove the subject from the image, and apply effects just to the subject, leaving the background untouched. We’ll learn how to create new layers, manage layers, and apply effects to certain parts of an image using alpha selection.

All you’ll need for this how-to is a copy of the free GIMP image editor, and this stock image of a car. Use this as a basis for experimenting with the image and the tools on hand.

Working with layers

At the bottom right of the GIMP interface, we find the layers tab. By default there is just one layer, our background. Many users will just paint / work directly to this layer, but if we need additional layers we need to do the following.

Creating a new layer

1. Click on the + icon at the bottom of the interface.

2. Give the layer a name, fill the layer with transparency, and click OK to create. Give your layers meaningful names, once you are using multiple layers it can quickly become confusing.

3. Ensure that the new layer is active. By default, GIMP will select the new layer as the active layer and any work will be done on that layer. Clicking on a layer will switch to that layer.

Another way to create a new layer is to import an image as a new layer.

1. Click on File >> Open as Layers.

2. Select your file and click open. This will open the image a new layer, on top of the currently selected layer. The image can be manipulated on the layer, so we can resize / edit the image to match the other layers.

Using layers in a composition

Our goal here is to take a stock image from pexels.com, remove the subject from the background and then create a new layer to superimpose the subject over itself. There we will create a border effect to make the subject stand out.

Removing the subject from the image can be done via a number of online services such as remove.bg, or you can use Python to remove the background.

We’ve chosen a stock car image and run the image through remove.bg to cut the car from the background. Now we have two images. The original image, and just the car.

1. Open GIMP and click on File >> Open as Layers.

2. Open the original image and it will be set as the active layer.

3. Repeat the File >> Open as Layers process and open the cut-out image of the car. The cut-out image will be loaded on top of the original image, and because they are the same subject, we cannot see a big difference.

4. Click on the eye icon next to each layer to set its visibility. Click on the bottom layer to remove the background, leaving just the subject on the top layer. Set both layers as visible before moving on to the next step.

5. Double click on the layer name and edit to reflect what that layer refers to. It is important to name layers so that we can quickly understand the many layers that make the composition.

6. Select the subject layer, and right click on the subject layer (the top layer in this example) and select Alpha to Selection. This will automatically select the subject as it is the only thing on that layer.

7. From the main menu click Select >> Border.

8. Set the border to 10 pixels around the subject, and click OK. The subject now has a 10px border around its perimeter.

9. Create a new layer and call it “border”. Click OK to activate. The active layer will now shift to “border”, and it is on top of all other layers.

10. Move the “border” layer so that it is between the subject and the background.

11. Click on the Bucket icon, and hold the button down. Select the Gradient tool from the drop down.

12. Select the saturation fill from the menu.

13. Ensuring that the border layer is selected, click and drag across the image to create a colorful gradient border around the subject. Press Enter to set the gradient. The start and end points can be tweaked to change the color effect.

14, Select the subject layer and click on the Mode drop down just above the layers. Here we can alter the properties of a layer so that the contents of the layer can be used for artistic effects.

15. Try out a few different modes to see what suits your vision of the composition. For this step there is no right or wrong, it is an artistic choice. Multiply makes the image darker, Screen bright, and exclusion produces a negative image.

16. With the subject layer still selected, click on Filters >> Artistic >> Cartoon (Legacy). Each layer can have its own filters / effects.

17. Set the mask radius to 30.5 and the percent black to 0.8 and click on Ok to apply. This will transform just the subject (car) into a cartoon image against a real background.

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For now we are done. We’ve taken a stock image, added some layers, effects and played with how the composition works. To take it further, explore how the different layer modes and effects work with each other to create different styles. As Bob Ross would say, ““There are no mistakes, just happy accidents.”

More GIMP Tutorials

• How To Remove Image Backgrounds Using GIMP
• How To Resize Images in GIMP
• How To Make GIMP Look and Feel Like Photoshop

Once popular messaging service ICQ (short for I Seek You) will finally shut its operations on June 26, almost 28 years since its launch in 1996. The messaging platform peaked at nine million users and had 2.5 million daily active users. The number of users it was able to have globally was remarkable at the time, given that most users were on dial-up connections and DSL internet was brand new and limited to a handful of countries.

AOL acquired ICQ from Mirabilis in 1998 for $407 million. In 2010, Mail.Ru, later renamed VK, acquired the platform because it was trendy in Russia. The company intended to modernize the app while making it cross-platform-compatible.

ICQ now recommends its existing users migrate towards a Russian-based social media service, VK, which acquired this messaging system from AOL. VK did try to modernize ICQ by developing apps for Android and iOS but eventually gave up. Despite this announcement, ICQ's X account hinted at a return. Apart from feeling nostalgic, many would doubt if ICQ could retain its once-dominant position in a time with many such apps. The migration process differs from when MSN Messenger and its chat rooms were closed, transferring users to Skype.

The silent demise of ICQ, in a way, reflects the current state of communication through the internet as people use WhatsApp and other mobile-based communication while using social media services like Facebook, X, and others. Russia has its social media platform, VK, much like China's platforms. There is a saturation of social media and cross-platform messaging platforms with the ability to integrate voice and camera conversations and make online payments. To its credit, ICQ was able to exist in some form, outlasting services offered by MSN, AOL, Yahoo, and social media sites like MySpace, Orkut, and Google.

Irrespective of ICQ's cryptic post about its comeback, ICQ's legacy since the 90s is respectable, along with its influence on its users during the pre-social media days. ICQ will always live on in users' minds, such as those who have made long-lasting friendships and relationships thanks to the messaging platform. Apps and social media services may shut down eventually, but the memories made on these platforms will always live on.

Earlier this week Spectra Logic announced the Spectra Cube, a modern tape storage library focused on ease of use and maintenance while delivering up to 75PB of data capacity. The Cube is meant to have little or no downtime and allows the installation of new tape cartridge drives without powering off. The Spectra Cube supports Amazon S3 and Amazon S3 Glacier API access, and is stated to be ideal for "storage services by managed service providers and cloud service providers", more generally speaking. 

In terms of maximum tape storage capacity, the Spectra Cube leverages Spectra's own TeraPack tape cartridges with support for LTO-6 through LTO-9 and a maximum storage capacity of up to 30 Petabytes uncompressed. With compression, that's up to 75 Petabytes. The library also supports up to 16 partitions, intended for use in shared or "multi-tenant" environments.

Spectra Logic is set to demonstrate the Cube at the 2024 NAB Show, which begins today at the Las Vegas Convention Center. There will be an additional demonstration at the ISC High Performance 2024, which spans May 13-15 at the Congress Center in Hamburg, Germany.

"Compared to typical public cloud options," claims Matt Ninesling, Spectra's Senior Director of Tape Portfolio Management, "Spectra Cube solutions can cut the costs of cold storage by half or more, while providing better data control and protection from existential threats like ransomware."

This statement is provided alongside information regarding Spectra's lifetime guarantee on its Spectra Certified media (like the aforementioned Spectra TeraPack cartridges). Spectra claims more than 40 metrics are monitored and recorded for each tape in a library to enable data error assessment, to apply prevention measures, and fixes. Integrity verification checks should also protect data from being corrupted or lost, in theory.

Overall, the Spectra Cube seems like a quite modern choice for the old classic tape storage medium— but not without merit, if its pricing and capacity are actually to scale with the needs of you or your business. The official Spectra Cube product page seems to require you to contact them for an exact quote, which we don't advise non-enterprise consumers to do.

Microsoft has a new subscription tier for its Copilot AI companion that will bring it across more devices and into more applications than before. Dubbed Copilot Pro, the $20 per month (and per user) subscription will get you a cohesive AI that follows you across your Windows PCs, the web, apps, and "soon on your phone."

The paid tier will also add Copilot to Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, and OneNote on  Windows PCs, Macs, and iPads, as long as you're also a subscriber to Microsoft 365 Personal or Family.

Those who sign on for Copilot Pro will also be the first to get the latest models from OpenAI. Starting today, that means those who subscribe will get access to GPT-4 Turbo "during peak times for faster performance," Microsoft executive vice president and consumer chief marketing Officer wrote in a blog post. It appears the new model will also get access to the newer model, but that you'll need Copilot Pro to use newer models when usage is high, as well as to switch between models.

Mehdi also wrote that image creation with Image Creator from Designer (formerly known as Bing Image Creator) will be faster "with 100 boosts per day while bringing you more detailed image quality as well as landscape image format." Copilot Pro will also let you create a custom Copilot GPT specialized for certain topics with just a few prompts. That last feature, which sounds similar to custom GPTs that OpenAI just launched, will come "soon" in a Copilot GPT Builder.  For free customers, Copilot GPTs will be broadly available. These will be specialized to certain topics, and Microsoft says they will be tailored to interests like travel, cooking, and fitness. 

Mehdi says that Copilot Pro is designed to provide "more options for power users, creators, and anyone looking to take their Copilot experience to the next level."

Microsoft's subscription isn't terribly surprising. The company has made a huge investment in OpenAI and adding features to Windows, Microsoft 365, Edge and other products, and is among the most valuable companies in the world partially due to its refocusing on AI.  it's unsurprising that a subscription is here; it lets Microsoft monetize Copilot.

And the $20 per month, per user price has a precedent: OpenAI itself. ChatGPT Plus is also $20 per month and promises faster response times, access during peak times, and the ability to get the newest models and features first.

Beyond Copilot Pro, Microsoft is making Copilot for Microsoft 365 available to small businesses (one to 299 seats), for $30 per person per month, and is removing 300-seat purchase minimums for many enterprise customers. Microsoft 365 for education faculty and staff will also see access to Copilot.

That $30 subscription for Microsoft 365 provides even further details.Including Copilot in teams and a "Semantic Index" that works with Copilot and the Microsoft Graph to "create a sophisticated map of all the data and content in your organization," which Microsoft wrote in a different blog will make Copilot more relevant to companies and provide more actionable responses.

Copilot is now available on Android and iOS, and will roll out to the Microsoft 365 app for both platforms in the next month.

At CES, we saw a number of Windows laptops with dedicated Copilot keys — the biggest change to the Windows keyboard layout in decades. Now we'll see if this new subscription program, plus broader access to businesses and schools, gets people tapping those keys.

Google's cloud storage Drive platform is losing serious amounts of customer files without warning, the Register reports Several user reports have come up on the Google support page, complaining about lost files, with one user in particular losing data as far back as May 2023. Google has confirmed that it is tracking the problem but did not provide a schedule for a possible fix.

Complaints started rolling in exactly six days ago when user Yeonjoong posted a complaint on the Google support forums reporting six months of lost data inside his/her Google Drive account. A few days later, numerous user responses came in on the same post detailing similar situations. Many reported the loss of critical work-related files, while the worst reports involved years or thousands of documents going missing from their respective Google Drive accounts.

To make matters worse, users are also reporting lost files with Google Drive's desktop application, which makes a duplicate copy of a user's cloud storage on his/her location machine.

Data loss can be dire, especially for businesses or for files that are important to individuals, like family photos, resumes, or anything else you thought might be safe in a cloud backup. Google is monitoring the situation, but it is looking like data restoration for affected customers might not be possible depending on how things go. 

Problems like this are always a good reminder to back up your important data no matter what, even if it's stored in the cloud. Just because data is stored in the cloud doesn't mean it is completely safe. There have been multiple cases of data loss over the past years from reputable cloud storage providers, leading to thousands of dollars in downtime and lost work.

A poster claiming they heard from Google's support claims the company is monitoring the situation and is investigating the problem with its project engineers. In a best-case scenario, everyone affected will get their files back, but in a worst-case scenario, Google won't be able to recover any lost files at all.

Microsoft has provided an update on its Project Silica storage research. According to a recent blog post and video, the software and devices giant is now positioning Project Silica as a sustainable storage solution to address the cloud storage server market. Using Project Silica technology, it is possible to store approximately 1.75 million songs or around 3,500 movies on a palm-sized slice of glass. Moreover, Microsoft asserts that the 7 TB storage per glass sheet maintains data integrity for 10,000 years.

Several refinements have been made to Project Silica since our last report in June 2022. At that time, the media seemed identical in dimensions, but the writing process has since been refined for speed and durability. Also, we note the focus seems to have changed from music archiving purposes to cloud server data storage.

In the new video, Ant Rowstron, a deputy lab director at Microsoft Research Cambridge, outlines the great appeal of Project Silica in addressing the ever-increasing amount of data being generated by humans and in cloud storage.

Sketching out the limitations of magnetic storage, a traditional cloud server data medium, Rowstron highlights the need to refresh the data every five years when using HDDs and up to ten years “if you are brave” with tape storage. Refreshing media can be arduous, wastes energy, and introduces the potential for data corruption.

In contrast, data stored in glass, with its natural resistance to water, electromagnetic pulses, extreme temperatures, and surface scratching, can be stable for thousands of years.

The video also takes us through the four steps to silicon storage heaven. There are four ‘labs’ involved in Project Silica data storage and retrieval, as follows:

1. Write Lab: short laser pulses record data inside the glass as voxels (3D pixels)
2. Read Lab: a computer controlled microscope reads data
3. Decode Lab: here the data read is decoded back into standard computer readable formats using Azure AI
4. Library lab: when data is requested for recall, a robot in the library goes to fetch the appropriate piece, and inserts it into a reader.

It is emphasized that the library is immutable and passive. All the complexity and power in the system is in the robot. We wondered what would happen if a robot fell or dropped a slice of glass, but Microsoft’s blog doesn’t discuss this possibility.

Last but not least, it is interesting to note Microsoft’s change of direction and some quite incredible claims for Project Silica. The firm admits it still isn’t ready for commercial use, though. It envisions glass storage as “a mainstay in Azure data centers across the globe” that needs another three of four developmental stages to secure its place and live up to its durable, sustainable, and cost-effective potential.

Adobe PDF files are one of the leading file types for documents around. These proprietary file types work mainly with Adobe software but can be easily converted to other file types, as well, like Word Docs or JPGs. And sometimes you’ll find yourself needing to edit a PDF. If you’ve already got access to Adobe Acrobat, this is easy to do. However, those without Acrobat may be wondering how they can edit a PDF. Thankfully, Adobe provides a free tool that anyone can use to edit PDFs online for free. The only caveat is that you will need to make an account with Adobe to use it.

 How to Edit a PDF in Acrobat 

If you’ve got a copy of Adobe Acrobat, editing a PDF is fairly easy. But if you’re not sure how to enable editing mode, here’s what you have to do.

1.  Open the PDF you want to edit in Adobe Acrobat.

2. Go to the Tools tab in the upper left-hand corner. 

3. Click `Edit PDF`.

4. Edit the PDF using the tools provided.

Don't forget to save your changes when you are done.

How to Edit a PDF for Free

If you don’t have Adobe Acrobat, it’s still possible to edit PDFs. Adobe provides a free online tool that has plenty of features to enable basic changes to most PDF documents. You can change the order of pages, add or remove elements, and even digitally sign documents.

1. Go to https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/acrobat/add-comment. 

2. Create an Adobe account if you don’t already have one. Even though you’re prompted to create an account, it’s free to use the online editing tool.

3. Drag and drop the PDF into the window.

4. Click ‘Edit’ in the upper left corner.

5. Edit the PDF using the tools provided.

These steps should work for anyone whether they’ve got access to Adobe Acrobat or not. The online tool is free for anyone to use but an account with Adobe is required to gain access to it. 

TIP: Even if you’ve got a copy of Acrobat, it’s handy to keep the free online editing tool on hand in case you’re at a machine that doesn’t have access to the full Acrobat suite.

4. Edit the PDF using the tools provided. Save when done.

Adobe’s PDF file is one of the most commonly used file types for documents but what if you need it converted into an image? Thankfully, you’ve got a few options available when it comes to converting a PDF to a JPG or converting a JPG to a PDF. It helps to have Adobe Acrobat but you don’t need it at all to convert files as there are free tools available that convert these files both ways.

How to Convert a PDF File to a JPG

This method requires a copy of Adobe Acrobat. If you do not have Acrobat, you can use the free steps below for an browser-based solution.

1. Open the PDF you want to convert in Adobe Acrobat. 

2. Click File in the upper left corner and go to ‘Export To’ then ‘Image’ and choose ‘JPEG’. 

3. Click ‘Save’ once you choose a location for your new JPG file. 

4. Open the file in an image viewer to make sure it works. 

 How to Convert a PDF file to a JPG for Free 

If you don’t have Acrobat, you can use Adobe’s free online conversion tool to make a JPG from your PDF for free.

1. Go to https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/online/pdf-to-jpg.html. 

2. Drag and drop the PDF onto the browser window 

3. Choose the JPG quality for your new file using the drop down menu. 

4. Click ‘Convert to JPG’ in the bottom right 

5. Click ‘Download File’. The JPG file will save as a .zip file to your PC. 

6. Extract the JPG from the ZIP file. 

If you’re unfamiliar with using ZIP files, check out our guide on how to add and remove content from ZIP files in Windows.

 How to Convert a JPG to a PDF File 

You can convert JPG images into PDF files easily using Acrobat but if you don’t have a copy, you can always use the free steps below to do so using Adobe’s online converter tool.

1. Open the JPG you want to convert in Adobe Acrobat. By default, it will be converted to a PDF file. 

2. Click ‘Save’ after you choose a location for the new file.

 How to Convert a JPG to a PDF File for Free 

Adobe provides a free browser-based tool that will convert JPGs to PDFs for free. This is a great option for those who don’t have Adobe Acrobat.

1. Go to https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/acrobat/jpg-to-pdf.

2. Drag and drop the JPG file you want to convert into the browser window.

3. Click ‘Download’ in the upper right corner and choose a location to save the file.

Adobe makes the conversion process very easy using the integrated conversion tools in Acrobat as well as the online converters. So whether you own Acrobat or not, you can still convert their PDF as needed to the most common file types.

Adobe PDF files and Word Doc files are two commonly used file types for all sorts of documents and are very common to find in both professional and casual environments. Sometimes, however, you may find that it would be useful to have one over the other. Whether it’s a matter of compatibility or just formatting a document to send to someone else, you can easily convert a PDF to a Word Doc and vice versa.

You don’t need much to pull off this conversion beyond the software used to create these documents. If you want to test the files you convert, it helps to have a copy of both Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Word installed. However, you can technically convert the file without having both applications, as long as you can open the original document in Acrobat or Word.

How to Convert a PDF to a Word Doc

If you want to convert a PDF to a Word Doc file, you’ll need a copy of Adobe Acrobat installed. This will work with either the Standard or Pro version. In this guide, we’re using the Standard DC edition that comes with Creative Cloud but the steps are the same for Pro, as well.

1. Open the PDF you want to convert to a Word Doc in Adobe Acrobat. 

2. Click ‘File’ in the upper left corner and navigate to ‘Export To’ then ‘Microsoft Word’ and choose ‘Word Document’. 

3. Click 'Save'. By default, the file type will be set to Docx but you can change it to other file formats using the ‘Save as type’ drop down menu. Leave it set to Docx to create a Word file. 

You can now open the document in Word and make any changes you need to do or send the document to someone else. 

There are a couple of ways you can convert a PDF to Word:

How to Convert a PDF to a Word Doc for Free

Adobe offers a free version you can use to convert PDFs to Word Docs. It’s browser-based, so you won’t need to install anything to use it. 

1. Go to https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/acrobat/pdf-to-word.

2. Drag and drop the PDF file onto the browser window with the converter web page open.

3. Click ‘Convert to Docx’ in the bottom right-hand corner.

4. Click the three dots in the upper right corner and choose ‘Download this file’ to save it to your computer.

How to Convert A Word Doc to a PDF

Converting a Word Doc to a PDF file will require a copy of Microsoft Word. We’re using the latest edition of Microsoft Word for this tutorial but these steps should work for older versions as well.

1. Open the Word Doc you want to convert to a PDF in Microsoft Word. 

2. Go to ‘File’ and choose ‘Save as Adobe PDF’ from the drop down menu. 

3. Click 'Save' once you’ve chosen a file name and location.

4. Open the document in Acrobat to make sure the formatting looks good and make any necessary changes.

How to Convert A Word Doc to a PDF for Free

Adobe provides a free web-based tool you can use to convert Word Docs to PDFs. Because it runs in the browser, you won’t need to install anything to use it.

1. Go to https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/acrobat/word-to-pdf. 

2. Drag and drop the Word Doc you want to convert onto the browser window with the website open. The file will automatically be converted. 

3. Click the three dots in the upper right-hand corner and choose ‘Download this file’ to save it to your computer. 

It’s always a good idea to test your documents after you convert them to make sure everything looks good or so you can fix any formatting issues. If you don’t have Acrobat or Word, you can use Adobe’s Acrobat Reader for free or download a trial of Office 365 to open Word files.

You don’t need a costly Microsoft 365 subscription to create and edit Word documents. Thanks to Google Docs, you’ve got a free and powerful alternative to Microsoft Word available for you to use in your web browser. Thanks to Google Docs, you can easily convert your Word documents to Google Docs and edit them online instead.

It isn’t as feature filled, but Google Docs has most of the formatting tools you’ll need to convert your documents without issue. We’ll explain how you can easily convert your documents and switch from Word to Google Docs below.

How to Convert from Microsoft Word to Google Docs

You can upload your Word documents to your Google Drive storage. From there, you can edit the documents (typically in a DOC or DOCX format) without losing the Office format. You can also convert the file into a Google Docs-only document.

1. Open the Google Drive website and sign in using your Google account.

2. Click New in the top left.

3. Select File Upload from the dropdown menu.

4. Upload your Word file. You’ll need to locate the Word file on your PC to upload it.

5. Double-click the file to open it in Google Docs in a new tab or window.

6. Click .DOC or .DOCX to view any compatibility issues with the document that you’ll need to correct. This button is visible next to your document’s file name on the menu bar.

7. Make changes to your document as desired. You can edit your Word document directly without changing the file format. The changes will be saved automatically to the original Word file in your Google Drive storage.

8. Click File -> Save as Google Docs if you want to convert the Word file to a new Google Docs-only document file. Google Docs will open the file in a new tab or window.

9. Click Download->Microsoft Word (.docx) to download your file as a local Word doc you can open in Office or send to someone else. This will work whether you are editing the document as a Word doc or as a Google Doc.

Compatibility between Google Docs and Word is extremely high, but you may run into the occasional formatting issue where a tool or font you’ve used in Word is missing in Google Docs. Make sure to double-check your converted document and fix these issues afterward.

Don’t forget that any changes you make to a file you convert from Word to Google Docs (losing the DOC or DOCX format) won’t be saved to the original Word file. However, if you simply edit the original Word file without converting it, the changes will be saved to the original file instead.

Microsoft's Build developer conference is all about AI. The 2023 show, which is taking place both online and in person, is being headlined by AI, Bing Chat, and new tools for developers using Windows, GitHub, and the Windows Terminal. Every change, big or small, is being touched by artificial intelligence.

There's plenty of developments for the cloud, like AI in Azure, as well as a new analytics system that Microsoft is calling Fabric. But here are the AI announcements Microsoft is making at Build that you're most likely to see coming to tools you use soon:

AI Plugins

At Build, Microsoft said that it will use the same plugin standard as its partners at OpenAI use for ChatGPT. This should allow developers to make plugins that are interoperable between ChatGPT, Bing Chat, Dynamics 365 Copilot, and Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Microsoft is also announcing support for new plugins for Bing Chat. Newly announced add-ons include those for Instacart, Kayak, Redfin, Zillow, Klarna, and many others, alongside OpenTable and WolframAlpha. Communications head Frank Shaw told the press that as part of Microsoft 365 Copilot, there will be more than 50 plugins announced at Build, including from Atlassian, Adobe, Thomas Reuters and Mural, with "thousands" of plugins by time Copilot it hits general availability.

Copilot coming to Edge, Windows 11

Microsoft is bringing some of its Copilot features (which are currently in a private preview in MIcrosoft 365) to the Edge browser.

Microsoft 365 Copilot already uses large language models to answer requests from Microsoft 365 apps such as Excel, Word, Teams, Outlook, and PowerPoint. Now, the Copilot will also work with Edge, so people will be able to use the AI in conjunction with their web browser. Perhaps they'll get a PDF that opens in the browser, and users can ask Edge to summarize it.

Windows 11 will use Bing Chat along with third-party plugins and Microsoft's own. Windows Copilot will let people change settings, open apps or perform other actions with AI, while also mixing in Bing Chat to answer questions from the web. It will be able to be parked aside in a panel for easy access.

Media Provenance

At Google I/O, Google discussed features that would secretly mark images and videos made by AI so they could be identified as such. At Build, Microsoft is following suit with "media provenance" abilities being added to Bing Image Creator and Microsoft Designer.

Microsoft's tech will use cryptographic techniques to "mark and sign AI-generated content with metadata about its origin." The company says that this signifier will be in accordance with  standards set by the Coalition for content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), of which Microsoft is a co-founder. Microsoft says it will start by supporting "major images and video formats" when the initiative ramps up in the "coming months."

Microsoft Store Gets an AI Hub

The Microsoft Store will be filled to the brim with AI. The Microsoft Store will get a section specifically for AI apps and experiences. Developers can submit their AI-focused apps to be featured.

 AI is also coming to review summaries. Reviews in the app store will be scanned by AI, which will compile them and recapitulate. Additionally, developers will be able to fill their listings with AI-generated keyword suggestions to improve search engine optimization.

Dev Home

Beyond its AI tools, Microsoft also doubled down on Windows as a tool for developers with a new feature called Dev Home. Available in preview, it lets users set up a machine, connect to GitHub and build dashboards and other extensions, as well as use GitHub widgets and track CPU and GPU performance.

Microsoft is also adding WinGet configuration to the Windows Package Manager, taking care of setup and, according to Microsoft, dropping setup time from days to just hours. WinGet's configuration file will ensure you get the right version of software packages and frameworks.

There's also a new storage volume, Dev Drive, which Mifcrosoft says is based on the Resilient File System (ReFS) and offers a 30% improvement in build times, partially due to a "performance mode" in Windows Defender. Microsoft hasn't said much about this new mode, other than that  this "new performance mode is more secure for developer workloads than folder or process exclusions, providing a solution that balances security with performance.  

But of course, dev tools are also getting the AI treatment. Windows Terminal is gaining support for GitHub Copilot X, and will be able to use an "experimental chat experience" to use language both inline and in chat to learn more about errors, get recommendations and to perform actions throughout Terminal. Microsoft says it also wants to add GitHub Copilot-style AI in other developer tools, such as WinDBG.

We'll likely learn more about all of these features during the Microsoft Build keynotes. CEO Satya Nadella will start the show today at 9:00 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET. 

Microsoft is introducing a new upscaling feature to its Edge browser called Video Super  Resolution - or VSR. This feature is a direct competitor to Nvidia's RTX Super Resolution and relies on similar machine-learning technology to upscale lower-resolution video to a higher resolution. The feature is currently available to Edge users running the Canary channel insider build of the browser.

Microsoft's implementation is designed specifically to reduce the amount of internet bandwidth required to stream videos to your PC, and is limited to just 720P videos or lower. Microsoft is using an AI upscaler to do the work, focusing on removing blocky compression artefacts to improve image quality. 

VSR's limitation to sub-HD resolutions (for now?) targets customers with bad internet connectors and older videos recorded before 1080P and 4K became the norm. This could be the first step in creating an upscaler that works with higher resolution videos.

VSR is a complete contrast to Nvidia's RTX Super Resolution, which does not have any resolution limitations from what we can tell. If you wanted to, you could upscale a 360P YouTube video to 4K. Microsoft's resolution limitation could be a limitation related to testing purposes, or it could be a limitation of the AI upscaler in general. But either way, Nvidia's solution does have a lot more flexibility.

If you have access to VSR, all you need to do is enter the command edge://flags/#edge-video-super-resolution, to enable the feature. All video formats should work, with the exception of movies and videos protected with DRM.

Contrary to RTX Super Resolution, VSR does work with both Nvidia and AMD GPUs; with the requirements being an RTX 20 series GPU or newer, or a Radeon RX 5700 series GPU or newer. We suspect more GPUs will be supported down the line, but this will depend on how GPU-intensive Microsoft's AI upscaler will be to run.

Mobile versions of these GPUs are supported as well, but there is a massive caveat; you need to manually force Microsoft Edge to run on the laptop's discrete GPU, and plug-in AC power at the same time.

Microsoft rebranded Office 365 to Microsoft 365 in Oct. 2022, part of its effort to slowly take the long-running "Office" brand out of the limelight. At the time, the company didn't make any significant changes to the subscription tiers or features offered. But that will change later this month with the addition of a new Microsoft 365 Basic tier, which will cost $1.99/month ($19.99/year).

Microsoft 365 Basic slots between Microsoft 365 (free) and Microsoft 365 Personal ($6.99/month). It replaces the previous 100GB OneDrive storage subscription and adds some perks. Microsoft says customers can expect these features with the new tier:

• 100GB cloud storage
• Works on Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android
• Web and mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive, and more
• Ad-free Outlook web and mobile email and calendar with advanced security (data encryption, suspicious link cheer, malware scanning for attachments)
• Microsoft technical support

The extra functionality seems like a nice upgrade for users currently getting by with just the 100GB OneDrive storage tier. In addition, Microsoft says it will add "even better advanced security features" later this year, including shared links that are password-protected, and ransomware recovery.

While the inclusion of Office is welcome, we should note that this tier only includes the basic, web-based versions of Microsoft's popular productivity apps, which are available for free. To access the "premium" desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, you'll have to step up to Microsoft 365 Personal.

Microsoft was quick to point out that Jan. 29, 2023 marks the 10th anniversary of Office 365. The high-end Office 365 Home Premium subscription initially included only 20GB of cloud storage. Today, the Microsoft 365 Personal tier offers 1TB of OneDrive storage. In addition, the flagship Microsoft 365 Family tier for consumers ($9.99/month) supports up to six people, each with their own 1TB allotment of OneDrive storage.

Microsoft 365 Basic will be available starting Jan. 30. Current 100GB OneDrive subscribers will automatically be shifted to the newer, more feature-packed tier.

HandBrake, the popular free and open source video transcoder, has been updated to version 1.6.0. This major point upgrade is notable for facilitating AV1 video encoding for the first time in a general release. Moreover, those with Intel Quick Sync Video (QSV) enabled processors, and those with Intel Arc GPUs will be able to encode AV1 video with hardware acceleration.

HandBrake 1.6.0 can encode AV1 videos on any of its supported systems. In the current release its SVT-AV1 encoder offers the widest support, encoding on your processor through software. However, those with Intel QSV supporting CPUs or discrete Arc graphics can use the QSV-AV1 encoder for hardware accelerated processing. QSV isn't supported if your CPU is an ‘F’ suffixed model (i.e. it doesn't have an iGPU), or it is older than the Skylake generation. If you are lucky enough to have multiple QSV accelerators in your system, support for Intel Deep Link Hyper Encode should accelerate processing further. While AMD and Nvidia have AV1 encoders available for their latest GPUs, they currently aren’t integrated with HandBrake.

AV1 video is set to become the dominant codec across app-based streaming services and the wider internet, offering attractions such as; an open and royalty-free architecture, improved compression enabling efficient 8K video streaming, and support for the newest HDR standards. Developed by the Alliance for Open Media, the AV1 standard is expected to usurp the likes of H.264/AVC and HEVC, and it looks like a sure-fire winner with the support of tech giants like Amazon, Apple, ARM, Facebook, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Netflix, Nvidia, and Samsung.

Alongside the new AV1 transcoding support, the HandBrake developers have put together several 10-bit encoder profiles, and a handful of presets for dealing with typical AV1 encoding tasks. For those still interested in H.264 and H.265 encoding there are new profiles too. Meanwhile, a multitude of the app’s built in filters are updated in v1.6.0, with many of the updates implemented to support >8-bit color depths. The latest release notes on GitHub details all the above changes, as well as the updated libraries, and tweaks such as bug fixes on various platforms.

If you are interested in grabbing the latest HandBrake release to dabble in AV1 encoding, earlier versions of the transcoding utility are currently not seeing the update as available. Instead of waiting, you can head on over to the official downloads page and download and install or upgrade your existing version. HandBrake is available for Windows 10 or later, MacOS, and Linux.

What is Mastodon?

Mastodon is an alternative social media platform which uses individual servers, each independently run by an administrator, to create a larger network (often called the "Fediverse," a combination of "federated" and "universe") where users can post messages. 

Each Mastodon instance is independent of others, in much the same manner as an email server. You may sign up for one instance, but you can send and receive messages with others. The example given on the Mastodon GitHub page is that when we sign up for an email account with Gmail, Yahoo or Outlook, we are not limited to just sending emails to users on the same server.

Unlike Twitter, Mastodon has two timelines, local and federated. The local timeline is every post with a public status from users on the same instance as you. The exceptions are posts (which were called toots) which are replies to others. The federated timeline is every post with a public status from other instances which are known to your instance. Both of these timelines can be busy, with posts flying up the screen. A new term to learn is “boost” which is analogous to Twitter’s retweet. Of course, you can also follow a feed made of accounts that you have subscribed to, much like Twitter.

How can you move from Twitter to Mastodon and which is the right instance for you? In this how-to we will cover exactly that and learn how to cross post from Mastodon to Twitter and search for our Twitter followers on the many Mastodon instances.

Moving from Twitter to Mastodon

The first task when moving from Twitter to Mastodon is choosing the correct instance. With Twitter, there is just one instance and timeline. But with Mastodon you first have to choose an instance (server). There are two things to consider. Firstly, the size of the server. A larger server is more likely to be backed by a group / organization that can financially support it. Smaller servers may be quiet havens in a busy world, but they run the risk of being the folly of a well-intentioned and eager admin. Secondly, try and select an instance for a subject you are interested in. This means that your posts will merge seamlessly with the posts in the local timeline. If you are interested in Raspberry Pi, but others are not, then your posts may not get the attention they deserve.

1. Open a browser to this wizard to select the correct server for you, click Start to begin. If you know which instances you're interested in, you can also go to them directly.

2. Set your preferred language(s) and click Next.

3. Select the number of users that you would like on an instance. Smaller instances are quieter, but you run the risk of the instance disappearing. We chose “It does not matter”.

4. Set your moderation rules for each of the criteria and click Next. The moderation rules are used to filter instances that support your choices.

5. Use the search bar to filter the instances for your chosen subject. We searched for retro computing hardware and found two instances that supported our interest.

6. Click on your preferred instance and follow the sign-up process. The sign up process is generally straightforward, requiring you to provide a username, password and email details. Some instances are invite only. Popular instances, such as mastodon.social have periods where sign-ups are paused. This is to reduce the load on the server. Before signing up it is wise to read the rules / terms for that server.

Your First Post

In Mastodon a message can be sent to your followers, and, in this case, anyone on the local and federated timelines. 

1. In the web interface type, in your message and click "Publish" to send a message to all of your followers, local and federated timelines.

2. Type @ and then the first few letters of a follower name to send a post directly to a follower.

Sending a DM

1.  Search for / select the person who you wish to DM. There is a search box in the top left of the Mastodon page.

2. On the recipient's profile click on the three vertical dots and select Direct Message.

3. In the dialog box on the left side of the screen, type your message and click Publish to send. Note that the message starts with @ and the name of the recipient. Also note that the Publish button has a padlock. Indicating that the message is private.

4. Alternatively, click on the globe icon and select “Mentioned People Only” then type in the handle of the recipient. Direct messages will still appear in your home timeline; this is normal and does not mean that it has been sent to all of your followers. Not that the timestamp (top right) is altered to show @ rather than a globe. This means the message is private.

5. Messages can also be posted as Unlisted, visible to all (but opted-out of discovery) or only for Followers.

Finding Your Followers

You’ve made the move, but have your Twitter followers? That carefully curated group of followers are mostly likely in the same boat as you. So how do we find our followers and the people we follow?

The simplest way is to use a tool that checks your follower list and searches for them on the many Mastodon instances. Debirdify by Manuel Eberl is just such a tool and we will use it to find our followers on Mastodon. Hat tip to Drew Fustini (https://mastodon.social/@pdp7) for pointing us to this tool.

1. Open a browser and go to the Debirdify website.

2. Click on "Authorise With Twitter."

3. Authorize Debirdify to use your Twitter account. This provides read only access to Twitter, enabling the tool to scan your followers and the people you follow, and use the data to search Mastodon’s instances.

4. Click on Search Followed Accounts to search for the accounts that you follow on Twitter.

5. Scroll down the page and download the CSV export. Graphs and a list of followed accounts (grouped by instance) show how they are spread across the many instances of the fediverse.

6. Click on Search Followers to find those that follow you on Twitter.

7. Scroll down the page and download the CSV export. Graphs and a list of followers (grouped by instance) show how your followers are spread across the many instances of the fediverse.

8. Open a browser to your Mastodon account and click on Preferences. Our instance is on mastodon.social, opening this in a browser will open a columned display similar to Tweetdeck.

9. Click on Import and Export.

10. Click on Import and then set the import type to Following list and then select the CSV file containing the accounts that you followed on Twitter. Ensure that Merge is selected before pressing Upload. This will merge the list of CSV contacts with your current Mastodon contacts.The process can take some time, depending on the instance's current load and the number of users in your list.

11. Optionally, import the list of the accounts that follow you on Twitter. 

The import will take some time and will happen in the background, over the next few hours you will see many notifications confirming that you are now following the accounts.

Cross-posting Between Mastodon and Twitter

Cross-posting is where we can post from one service to another. It is normally used when either migrating one service to another, or for growing your presence across multiple services. Setting up cross posting is a simple matter of authorizing an application to act as a bridge between the two services.

1. Open a browser to Mastodon Twitter Crossposter. This project was created by Renato Lond Cerqueira.

2. Click on Twitter and authorize the Crossposter app to access your account.

3. Click on Mastodon and authorize the Crossposter app to access your account.

4. Check that both accounts are now linked. This provides the basic bridge between the two services.

5. Click on Options >> Options overview. Using this menu we can further tweak the settings at a granular level to create a bespoke bridge between the services.

6. Select to send your posts to Twitter, and Tweets to Mastodon then click Update User. Now we have set up the basic bridge between Twitter and Mastodon. In our example we have decided not to post our Tweets to Mastodon, but our posts will go to Twitter. You may want to experiment with this and consider which messages are appropriate for which platform.

7. Click on From Mastodon to Twitter. Here you can optionally configure which messages are sent to Twitter. Tweak your settings accordingly and click Update User to save.

8. Click on From Twitter to Mastodon. Here you can optionally configure which messages are sent to Mastodon. Tweak your settings accordingly and click Update User to save.

Mastodon Clients

Mastodon can be used via the browser, and for the first few days of using Mastodon that is exactly how we used it. 

The basic UI is pleasant and easy to use. Power users can unlock a Tweetdeck inspired UI via Preferences >> Advanced > Appearance > Enable Advanced Web Interface. 

But there are alternative clients for the desktop and mobile devices, including official apps, which provide a better user experience.

For Windows, macOS and Linux users, Whalebird is an excellent application which uses a Slack-inspired layout to enhance your Mastodon experience. The layout is clear, with a series of tabs along the left side of the interface offering quick access to notifications, direct messages and the local / public timeline.

For Android users, Tusky has proven to be a good client in the time that we have been using it.

The interface is clear, with a top row for quick links to our timeline, notifications, local and federated timelines. Posting, boosting etc are all within easy reach and the user interface feels responsive.

Dropbox, the cloud storage provider, has announced it has been the target of a phishing attack that successfully accessed its private GitHub repos. GitHub was able to quickly notify Dropbox of the attack, and no customer data or passwords were affected.

The data breach took place on October 13, with Dropbox becoming aware that things were amiss the next day. The attackers impersonated the CircleCI integration and delivery platform that can be logged into using GitHub credentials, bombarding Dropbox staff with realistic-looking phishing emails. Many of them were blocked by Dropbox’s internal systems, but some got through - enough, it seems, for at least one employee to visit a fake CircleCI login page, enter their GitHub credentials, and use a hardware authentication key to pass a one-time password to the malicious site.

This allowed the attacker into Dropbox’s private Github area, from where they copied 130 code repositories. Data accessed includes, according to Dropbox’s statement: “...some credentials—primarily, API keys—used by Dropbox developers. [It] also included a few thousand names and email addresses belonging to Dropbox employees, current and past customers, sales leads, and vendors.”  Then later: “These repositories included our own copies of third-party libraries slightly modified for use by Dropbox, internal prototypes, and some tools and configuration files used by the security team. Importantly, they did not include code for our core apps or infrastructure. Access to those repositories is even more limited and strictly controlled.” 

Back in September, GitHub warned its users in a blog post about attacks targeted at CircleCI, noting that “If the threat actor successfully steals GitHub user account credentials, they may quickly create GitHub personal access tokens (PATs), authorize OAuth applications, or add SSH keys to the account in order to preserve access in the event that the user changes their password.”

Dropbox was able to cut off the attackers’ access on the same day it found out about the intrusion, and believes the risk to customers is minimal. The company is also upgrading its multi-factor authentication method to WebAuthn—a change already in progress when the attack happened. 

The GNU Image Manipulation Program or “GIMP” is an amazing piece of free and open source software created and maintained by a dedicated group of volunteer developers. It’s an incredibly fully featured image editor with powerful tools to make the best of your graphics and photographs. Don’t be daunted by its complexity; sometimes it’s just a really useful tool for simpler tasks. We’ve published other tutorials on how to resize images in GIMP and how to make GIMP look more like Photoshop, but what if you just want to remove the background from an image in GIMP:

There are numerous reasons you might want to remove a background from an image but it can be a challenging process. There are however numerous excellent tools and approaches to completing this task and in this how-to we shall explore how to use them in GIMP.

Preparing the Image in GIMP

1. Launch GIMP and use “File – Open” to select the image you wish to remove the background from. We’ve used this picture of a wool craft project snowman as it has some trickier aspects, such as a very wooly and fuzzy outline which will allow us to show a variety of approaches.

2. Add an “alpha channel” to the active layer by left clicking on the active layer, then right click and select “Add Alpha Channel”.

We are now ready to start to use various tools to remove the background. It’s worth noting though that the tools we are about to explore are all types of selection tools, although for this task we are always deleting what we select, these selection methods can be used with other tools; moving, scaling, the bucket fill tool and many more.

Using Fuzzy Select in GIMP

1. Select the Fuzzy Select tool, it looks like a wand and left click anywhere in a background area of the picture. The Fuzzy Select tool will now select an area of background that matches the color of the area where you clicked. In our case it selects a continuous area of the wood grain in the background of the image that is all the same color. An image with a consistent background, such as an object against a clear blue sky would select the entire background in one go.

2. Press the delete key to remove that area. Repeatedly selecting areas with the Fuzzy Select tool we can remove a lot of the background area of our image but it would require a lot of repetition to fully complete the task. If you ever need to cancel all the selected areas on an image a good keyboard shortcut is to press “control + shift + A”, this works for any selection area created by any of the selection tools.

Using the Rectangle or Ellipse Select Tool in GIMP

There are large parts of our image background that we could select using the rectangle selection tool. This tool is fairly intuitive to use and can save time by simply removing lots of the background in blocks. This tool can also be switched into an ellipse tool to create elliptical or circular selections.

1. Right click the Select Tool icon and select which shape tool you require. You can also select either of these tools under the “Tools – Selection tools” menu.

2. Click and drag in the background area of the image to create a shaped selection.

3. Press the delete key to remove that part of the background.

Using the Free Select Tool in GIMP

For more complex shaped area selection we can use the Free Select tool. The free select tool allows you to draw connected straight lines to create custom shaped selection areas.

1. Click on the icon, it resembles a lasso.

2. Left click to start a line, move to a new spot and left click again to add a new line segment. To complete the selection you must join the final line to the very first node point where you started. Hovering over the starting node it will turn yellow and then you left click to create a selection area within the lines you created.

3. Use the delete key to remove the selection.

Using the Paths Tool in GIMP

The Paths Tool is not just a selection type tool, it is a tool that allows the creation of complex selections (Bézier Curves) that we can edit and paint with. However it can also be used as a selection tool in a similar way to the free select tool but with the added advantage of straight and curved lines. This gives you both control and accuracy when tracing around a complex object.

1. Select the Paths Tool from the tool icon area or you can find it at “Tools – Paths”.

2. Left click to start a path and then add more lines by moving and left clicking.

3. Hover over a line section, left click and drag the line to create a curve and control handles.

4. To close a path, hover over the first path node, hold down the control key and left click.

5. To turn your enclosed path into a selection, click Select >> From Path. You should now see that your path outline becomes a selection and you can delete this section of background with the delete key.

Using the Foreground Select Tool in GIMP

There is another way to remove an object from an image using the Foreground Select tool. Using this tool we can specify what is the foreground and what is the background by setting a boundary and a mask.

1. Click on the Foreground Select tool.

2. Draw a crude outline around the object and press Enter. This specifies what is the foreground (light blue) and what is now set as the background (dark blue).

3. Inside the foreground area, use the already selected brush to loosely define what the foreground image will be. Don’t get too close to the boundary, and change the size of the brush by pressing [ (smaller_, or ] (larger).

4. Click on Preview to review the mask. When happy click on Select.

5. The foreground can now be cut from the image using CTRL + X or Edit >> Cut.

With this collection of tools at your disposal, you now have a varied number of approaches to remove backgrounds, with the added bonus that you have learnt how to use multiple styles of selection tool useful for many other functions in GIMP.

Microsoft is preparing to retire or at least deemphasize its decades old Office brand in favor of Microsoft 365 branded cloud productivity tools. Users should expect to see the changes permeate throughout the Microsoft cloud ecosystem in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, PC stalwarts using offline standalone Office suites and applications will probably not notice any difference.

The news was secreted within Microsoft’s announcement of a new Microsoft 365 app on Wednesday. On that page you will find a FAQ which helpfully spells out what is changing with regards to Microsoft 365 and Office brands, when changes will be pushed through and what it means to users of either branded products / suites. It also explains that “over the last couple years, Microsoft 365 has evolved into our flagship productivity suite,” and this is seemingly behind the decision to transition Office.com, the Office mobile app, and the Office app for Windows into Microsoft 365 branded products.

The key thing for many users of Microsoft's flagship office productivity tools, is that they are not going away. Microsoft says that “as part of Microsoft 365 you will continue to get access to apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.” Also, Office 365 subscribers in business / enterprises will not be moved to Microsoft 365 plans. Importantly to many readers, those seeking the most recent offline / perpetual Office editions will still have the opportunity to buy apps as one-time purchases via Microsoft’s Office 2021 and Office LTSC plans, too.

While the branding change is a pretty big deal, once you read all the small print, it isn’t very impactful. However, the same could be said of any branding or naming change. The most affected will be personal consumers, students, and small home offices which currently use the Microsoft 365 cloud-powered productivity platform via mobile and web-apps. Existing users of these cloud office tools won’t have to do anything; existing accounts, profiles, subscriptions, and files won’t be disrupted, even if you are accessing them from the new app with new branding and icon. In a way, the naming changes help emphasize the difference between the cloud-powered and the perpetual Office releases; with the online version highlighting collaborative tools like Teams and OneDrive being used alongside more traditional office productivity apps in the new hybrid working world.

Expect to see many of the above changes arrive with the rebranding of the unified Office app to Microsoft 365 in November, with the whole rebranding effort expected to be completed by January 2023.

The GNU Image Manipulation Program or “GIMP” is an amazing piece of free and open source software created and maintained by a dedicated group of volunteer developers. It’s an incredibly fully featured image editor with powerful tools to make the best of your graphics and photographs. Don’t be daunted by its complexity; sometimes it’s just a really useful tool for simpler tasks.

There are numerous reasons you might want to resize an image. You may need a very specific size to print, you may need to reduce the size to reduce the filesize or you may be using multiple images in a design and need to size different parts of your composition. In this article we will look at numerous tools GIMP uses to resize images.

How to Resize an Image with Scale Image in GIMP

The easiest way to resize an image in GIMP is to use the Scale Image feature. Using Scale Image we can precisely set the image size in a number of units (percentage, pixels, mm, inches etc) and set the image resolution, essential for images set to be rendered on screen or print.

GIMP’s Scale Image feature resizes everything in the image canvas regardless of layers, so if you have a background image layer and multiple logos on layers above the background all these layers will be scaled accordingly. It’s useful therefore if you have worked on a larger design image and then need to scale it to a specific size for a web application or other size critical use.

1. Click on Image >> Scale Image.

2. Change the size of the image by setting the width and height. The “chain icon” can link the two dimensions together, so changing one will alter the other, based on the image's aspect ratio. These can be unlinked, but the image may become distorted. Image units can be changed using the px dropdown menu.

3. Use X and Y resolution and click Scale to set the image resolution. Typically print resolutions are higher than screen resolutions and are measured in pixels per in (ppi).

How to Resize an Image with the GIMP Scale Tool

The tool palette, located in the top left of the screen is home to many useful tools, some hidden. The scale tool selects the currently active layer, or any area you have selected and scales it in a similar manner to Scale Image.

The scale tool is particularly of use when scaling an image on a separate layer. You can import an image onto a separate layer in GIMP by clicking File >> Open as Layers and selecting the image you want to add. Each layer can be selected using the layers menu (bottom right) and scaled independently of the overall image.

1. Click on the Scale tool, hidden in the top left palette. Hover the mouse over the icons to see all of the tools contained within.

2. Set the desired size and click Scale. Notice that the interface is very similar to the Scale Image. We can scale using the image’s aspect ratio Scaling without stretching or distorting. The measurement units can also be altered using the dropdown menu.

3. Left click and drag on the handles around the image to interactively scale the image. You’ll notice that if you have the lock icon selected in the scale tool dialogue that you maintain the aspect ratio of the image and that the new dimensions of the image are updated in the relevant input boxes.

4. Click Scale in the dialogue box to apply the scale and close the tool.

How to Crop to Content in GIMP

If you have used the scale tool to reduce your image size you’ll notice that the canvas has remained at the original size of the image. This appears as chequered sections of blank canvas visible around your image.

To resize the canvas to the new image size, click on Image and select Crop to Content. This will automatically reduce the canvas to fit your reduced size image.

Fit Canvas to Layers

If you have used the scale tool to increase your image size you’ll notice that the image is partially obscured as it doesn’t fit onto the original canvas. To fix this use File >> Image >> Fit Canvas to Layers. Clicking this option will automatically increase the canvas to fit your larger image.

Resizing the Print Size in GIMP

1. Click on Image >> Print Size to open the dialog.

2. Set the desired print size of the image and click Ok to set. Remember that the units of measurement can be changed using the dropdown menu. Changing print size does not change the number of pixels that make up an image, so if you reduce an image in size for printing you’ll notice that the resolution, the number of pixels per inch or mm will increase. Similarly if you increase the size of the image you’ll see the resolution decrease. As you increase the size of an image the number of pixels in any given area becomes less as they spread out, this means that if you drastically increase the size of an image you will see the quality of the image decline.

With the above techniques you have a great range of tools to control both the size and resolution of the images and designs you are creating. These are just the tip of the iceberg of GIMP capabilities but they are a good set of tools to learn increasing your confidence as you explore this excellent application.

Adobe Photoshop is the de facto standard for image editing, but it doesn’t come cheap. The basic consumer version, Photoshop Elements, costs around $100 and a subscription that runs professional-grade Photoshop starts at $19.99 a month. Unless you really need the features of genuine Photoshop, there’s a powerful, free alternative in GIMP (The GNU Image Manipulation Program), which is available for Windows, Linux and macOS.

The first hurdle when moving from Photoshop to GIMP is the user interface. GIMP is very different from Photoshop and that can slow your workflow to a crawl. Keyboard shortcuts and menu layout changes can infuriate users. If you have the time and the patience, learning the GIMP user interface isn’t too difficult, but for some folks, it just isn’t as user-friendly as Photoshop’s. 

The GIMP community comes to the rescue and Diolinux’s PhotoGIMP is a complete user interface replacement for GIMP which uses Photoshop as a template. Not only does it replace the UI, but it adds Photoshop shortcuts, icons and Python image filters.

In this how to, we will learn how to install PhotoGIMP on top of the latest version of GIMP.

1. Download the source code zip file and extract the contents to a folder.

2. Open the folder and navigate to the \PhotoGIMP-1.1\.var\app\org.gimp.GIMP\config\GIMP folder. You will see a folder, 2.10 that contains the PhotoGIMP configuration files that will turn GIMP into a Photoshop facsimile.

3. Open a new File Manager window and navigate to C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\GIMP\ a hidden folder where GIMP stores its configuration files. Make sure to change YourUserName to your own.

4. Copy the folder and store it safely in another folder on your drive. This folder contains the configuration files for stock GIMP. We can use a backup of this folder to restore GIMP to stock.

5. Copy the folder, 2.10 from the downloaded archive folder, into your GIMP configuration folder. When prompted to replace files select yes.

6. Open GIMP. The new configuration files will be loaded, and you will see a new PhotoGIMP splash screen.

The PhotoGIMP Layout

The GIMP layout is now replaced with a facsimile of Adobe Photoshop. 

The layout is broken down into four main sections.

1. Document tab: Here is where compositions are created.

2. Palettes: These palettes alter as we use tools.

3. Tools: The toolbox contains all of the tools an artist may need. Some icons, with a small triangle in the bottom right corner have extra tools hidden within. Right click on the icon to open the menu.

4. Layers and Channels: Here we can see all of the layers that make up a composition.

If you're a current Amazon Drive customer, you might want to think about offloading your files from the cloud service sooner rather than later. Amazon just sent out an email informing customers that the service will be discontinued on December 31, 2023, giving you just over a year to get your affairs in order.

"Over the last 11 years, Amazon Drive has served as a secure cloud storage service for Amazon customers to back up their files," said Amazon in the email sent to current Amazon Drive customers. "On December 31, 2023, we will no longer support Amazon Drive to more fully focus our efforts on photos and video storage with Amazon Photos."

For those unfamiliar with Amazon Drive, it enables every Amazon customer to upload 5GB of files for free. In the case of Amazon Drive, customers can securely store photos, videos, and documents in the cloud. PC and Mac users can upload and download files to Amazon Drive using a web browser, while Android and iOS users can interface with the service using an app.

While 5GB of storage is provided for free, Amazon offers paid tiers starting at $1.99/month for 100GB on up to $11.99/month for 2TB of Amazon Drive storage. 

"We will continue to provide customers the ability to safely back up, share, and organize photos and videos with Amazon Photos," Amazon continued in its email. Amazon Photos is similar in concept to Amazon Drive, except that it only allows customers to upload photos and video. 

One perk of Amazon Photos is that customers with a Prime membership can access unlimited photo storage. On the other hand, Prime members are limited to just 5GB of free video storage. If you want to increase your Amazon Photos video storage with a Prime membership, additional storage starts at $1.99/month for 100GB.

With the impending demise of Amazon Drive, it's probably a good time to look at alternative cloud storage solutions for your documents like Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, or iCloud Drive (if you're an Apple user).

Microsoft recently announced that Office 2021 will release alongside Windows 11 on October 5th. The latest version of Microsoft's Office series will be the successor to Office 2019, and brings new features to the office suite while retaining price parity with Office 2019.

Office 2021 will be a rather minor upgrade over Office 2019, but, for some people there will be enough features to make the upgrade worthwhile.

Excel is getting the most attention with the latest update, Microsoft has added several new functions including XMatch, LET, Dynamic Arrays, and XLookup. XLookup for instance, allows you to find any data within a table by using a search bar-like function, and LET will allow you to assign names to calculation results.

Outlook has also received a couple of updates. There's a new translator in Outlook that will translate messages on the fly, and there's a new global search that allows you to find emails across all your folders and email accounts with several search parameters.

Other features include new performance improvements for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, as well as a newly refreshed UI with refreshed tabs in the ribbon.

Check out the rest of Office 2021's new features here, including new features for Word (like ODF support) and PowerPoint.

Pricing will remain the same as Office 2019, with Office Home and Student going for $149.99, Home and Business going for $249.99. Office 365 users will get the free upgrade to Office 2021 once it releases on October 5th.

Office 2021 will be fully compatible with Windows 11, Windows 10, and the three most recent versions of MacOS.

With the release of Office 2021, Microsoft will also be discontinuing support for Office 2013 and it will not be supported on Windows 11.

The age of subscription services may be well upon us, but Microsoft isn't liable to leave any revenue sources on the table. The company today started rolling out its Office LTSC (Long Term Servicing Channel) for Windows and macOS, which is a version of Office specifically geared for government and commercial clients who don't find value in the company's cloud elements for Office 365, and whose systems might go without any service update for years at a time. Baked into that announcement, however, was also the commercial release of Office 2021 for general consumers. Mark the date: October 5, 2021. That's the same day as the Windows 11 launch. 

Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365, said that "While it [Office 2021] offers performance improvements and expanded accessibility, it will not offer the cloud-based capabilities of Microsoft 365 Apps like real-time collaboration and AI-driven automation in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as security and compliance capabilities that give added confidence in a hybrid world." 

The standalone, perpetual license version of Office 2021 includes a number of performance and feature improvements, including Dark Mode support as well as support for version 1.3 of the OpenDocument format. Four new Excel functions will be made available (XLOOKUP, LET, XMATCH and dynamic arrays); PowerPoint will introduce support for presenter video recording, ink recording, and laser pointer recording; and of course, all Office 2021 apps will see a visual language update to keep them in line with the new Windows 11 interface and design philosophy.

Microsoft will offer five years of "Mainstream Support" for Office 2021, and there are no plans for extended support programs beyond October 2026 - a year after support ends for both Office 2016 and Office 2019, which have enjoyed longer mainstream support commitments from Microsoft.

The company also announced that pricing will remain the same for Office 2021 as compared to previous versions of Office which means $150 for the Office Home & Student version, and $250 for a single Office Home & Business license.