Alexa, stop. ALEXA, STOP. ALEXA, FOR *!%*’s SAKE, STOP! If you constantly find yourself yelling at your Amazon Echo devices because Alexa won’t stop playing music, you’re not alone. Judging by online forums and social media, lots of folk have problems getting Alexa to behave.
The tips below might not cure all problems, but they’ve definitely helped to keep Alexa under control in our house. Here, then, is how to get Alexa to listen and restore peace in your home.
Turn down the volume
The number one cause of Alexa failing to stop playing music in our house is that the volume level is high. If the music is loud, Alexa’s mics may have trouble hearing or interpreting your voice commands. If you’re being ignored, try using the volume buttons/dials on the Echo device to turn the volume down. In our experience, this seems to be a bigger problem with smaller devices such as the Echo Dot, which don’t have the same mic array as the larger Echo speakers.
Tell Alexa to stop playing music
Being more specific can sometimes help. Instead of saying:
“Alexa, stop”
Try:
“Alexa, stop the music”
Or, if you’re listening to an online radio station:
“Alexa, stop the radio”
I’ve no idea why being more specific makes a difference, but it does. Sometimes.
Use the Home button
On Echo Show devices with screens, use the touch controls to get Alexa to go back to the Home screen.
To do this, drag down from the top of the screen and select Home in the top-left corner.
Then try asking Alexa to stop playing the music again. Again, I’ve no real idea why this works, but it does.
Pull the plug
It’s the nuclear option, of course, but if all else fails yanking the plug out of the wall will kill the music. More pertinently, it will also soft reset the Alexa device and seemingly make it behave a little better. For a while, at least.
Pro life: the MacBook should last a good few years
If you’re in the market for a new laptop, you might well be considering a MacBook Pro. And given the hefty price tag on Apple’s laptops, you might also be wondering how long it’s likely to last you. It’s always impossible to say precisely how long a laptop will last, because there are so many variables, but here are a few pointers on how long you can expect a MacBook Pro to last.
MacOS support
If you’re looking to get four, five or more years of use out of a MacBook Pro, you’ll want to know that it’s likely to get the latest version of macOS in those later years. The good news is that Apple tends to be fairly generous with its support.
The current version of macOS (Monterey) supports MacBook Pro devices made in 2015, which is seven years ago.
That doesn’t mean you’ll get all the new features offered by the latest operating system, because some of them require newer hardware. However, it’s encouraging that Apple doesn’t pull up the drawbridge on those older Macs within three or four years.
There is a caveat here. Apple is in the middle of a transition from Intel processors to its own silicon. It’s certainly possible that coming releases of macOS will begin to withdraw support for those older Intel chips, because Apple doesn’t want to keep on supporting two different architectures.
Indeed, there are already signs that Apple is beginning to shorten the lifespan of those Intel Macs. This week Apple announced a new version of macOS, Ventura, and this will only support MacBook Pros going back to 2017, or five years ago.
If you’re buying a MacBook Pro now (whether new or second hand), I’d definitely advise that you go for one using Apple’s own processors rather than Intel’s to maximise its lifespan.
How long will a MacBook Pro battery last?
The battery is obviously a core component of a MacBook Pro. If you need to run the laptop away from the mains, it’s no good to you if the battery keels over in half an hour.
The bad news is that all lithium ion batteries degrade in performance over time. In regular use, you can probably expect a MacBook Pro battery to last three to four years before you start to see serious signs of degradation. The battery simply won’t hold a charge for as long as it used to.
Apple has made recent changes to macOS that might make the batteries last longer. For example, if you’re almost always using the laptop connected to the mains (as I do), the laptop will stop charging when the battery gets to around 80%, which should better preserve the health of the battery.
The downside of using Apple laptops is that they’re sealed units. Although Apple is taking baby steps towards greater repairability, if your MacBook Pro battery does need replacing, you’ll almost certainly need Apple (or an authorised repair centre) to replace the battery, and that won’t be cheap. The latest Apple price list puts the cost of a battery replacement at £199.
Other points to consider
There are a few other things to note when considering how long a MacBook Pro will last you:
Build quality – Apple hardware is generally very well made. It’s not robust to any military-grade standards, but the cases are all-metal and I’ve never had any concerns shoving one into a laptop bag for a business trip.
High-end components – The MacBook Pro range generally uses high-quality and reasonably cutting-edge components. The M1 processors should deliver enough power for several years to come. The SSDs are very fast and there’s no need to worry about fragile hard disks failing anymore. The screens are super-high resolution and should look good for the lifespan of the laptop.
Apple service – Apple service is a double-edged sword because it is expensive. Apple will offer you Apple Care+ to extend your warranty to three years at the point of purchase, but you can expect this to cost a few hundred quid extra. However, knowing that you can take a MacBook Pro into any Apple Store – or have it couriered to the company – for a high-quality repair is reassuring. Plus, Apple Care+ offers repairs for two incidences of accidental damage every year, which is handy for those coffee spills and dropped laptops.
The lifespan of a MacBook Pro
All things considered, it’s reasonable to expect you will get five years of very good service out of a MacBook Pro. I know of several friends and colleagues who’ve got considerably longer.
There’s no guarantee it won’t fail sooner, of course, and I’m sure I’ll get comments (below) from folk who’ve experienced just that. But longevity is one of the best reasons to buy a MacBook Pro, helping to justify the high ticket price.
The TP-Link TL-MR6400 is a popular mobile 4G router. It’s great for taking with you when you travel, as a backup to your broadband or even as your primary home internet connection.
It has a useful row of lights on the front – rather than one or two that flash different colours, this gives you five lights, but each can only be on, off or flashing. Let’s learn what each one does and what you should do in each case.
We’ll take the LEDs from left to right:
Power
On – This is easy. The power to the router is on. Off – No power! Flashing – The router is either starting up or a firmware update is occurring. Don’t touch that power switch!
Internet
On – The router has successfully connected to the internet Off – There’s currently no internet connection
Wi-Fi
On – Wi-Fi is enabled Off – Wi-Fi has been disabled Flashing – A WPS connection is in progress, which may take up to two minutes
LAN
On – At least one LAN port is connected to a powered-on device Off – No LAN port is connected to a powered-on device
Signal Strength
On – This indicates the signal strength the router is receiving from the mobile internet; more lit bars indicate a better signal strength Off – There is no mobile internet signal. If your Internet LED is on, relocate the router to a better location.
Mic is live! The MuteMe Mini slots into a USB port
Launched, again on Kickstarter, as a follow-up to the MuteMe, the MuteMe Mini is a more compact version of the simple video-call mute button. I reviewed the original MuteMe just under a year ago and concluded that, although useful, it was both expensive and of questionable build quality. Does this version, particularly in its new form factor, work any better? Here’s my MuteMe Mini review.
Unboxing
Well, first of all, there’s no box here. The tiny MuteMe Mini comes in a simple plastic blister with a cardboard backing. It’s small enough that it’s sent in nothing more than a Jiffy bag. Open up the plastic folds, slip the cardboard out and the Mini is in your hand.
In fact, the mould for the device is a little too large, so it tends to rattle around inside a little too much for my liking. This is because there are two versions of the MuteMe Mini, with different USB connectors, but they’ve only created one version of the packaging. Hence, I have the USB-C version sitting inside a plastic blister meant for a larger USB-A connector. A snugger version for the USB-C version would have been nice.
The hardware
Looking a little like a stubby USB memory stick, with either a USB-A or USB-C connector, this will plug directly into your computer. The main body of it is a combination of plastic and metal. The plastic, on the front and rear, is the part that lights up, and the stainless steel is the touch-sensitive button that allows you to toggle mute.
So, once plugged in and the software is running, it will glow red or green depending on the mute status. Hit the metal part of the Mini and it will toggle to the opposite state.
I had two concerns with the hardware:
When pressing down on the Mini, you can see it flex slightly within the USB port. How much strain will this be putting on the MuteMe and, more importantly, your computer’s USB port? I can see this as a particular issue when some members of the family are less light-fingered with how they press it.
The light is a lot more subtle and uneven with the Mini. I’m guessing there are LEDs hidden inside and the opaque nature of the plastic used means that they shine through, without needing too many. In this case, though, it’s led to something that looks more patchy. The smaller form-factor is also not as bright as its bigger brother – this means that I’ve switched from the “dim” brightness setting to “bright”. I suspect few people have both versions, so it would seem churlish to complain that I can’t have different configurations for different devices.
The software
Not much has changed since my original review, other than the stability, which is very much resolved. Indeed, it’s much quicker and there’s even, for Mac owners, an M1-specific version too, for maximum performance.
The MuteMe Mini uses exactly the same software as the original Mute Me and is downloadable for free from the company’s website. It’s available for Mac, Windows and Linux.
The software allows you to configure the look of the MuteMe (the colours used, whether they flash, flash speed, etc.) as well as how it interacts with each type of video conferencing app that it’s compatible with. There are 3 levels of “App Sync” available:
Level 1: Microphone Sync – this allows the system’s default microphone to stay in sync with MuteMe. At this level, the mute/unmute button in the conferencing app won’t change when your MuteMe status changes. You’d use this setting when you want to mute but don’t want others to know you are muted.
Level 2: Mute/Unmute Button Sync – the system’s default microphone and the mute/unmute button in the conferencing app stays in sync with MuteMe. At this level, MuteMe won’t be able to see when you change your mute status from the conferencing app. You’d use this setting when you only want to use MuteMe to control your mute status but don’t want others to be able to unmute you.
Level 3: Full Sync – The system’s default microphone and the mute/unmute button in the conferencing app are fully in sync with MuteMe. At this level, MuteMe will detect when you change your mute status from the conferencing app. You’d use this setting when you still want to use the mute/unmute button in the conferencing app alongside MuteMe.
One thing that has changed in the past six months is app compatibility, which has improved. The maximum Sync level of each app that it works with is as follows:
Up to level 3 – Zoom, Microsoft Teams*, WebEx, GoToMeeting, Skype and Discord
Up to level 2 – Google Meet
Only level 1 – Amazon Chime, Slack & Facetime
*Level 2 and 3 for Teams is currently in beta and may be unstable.
Cost
It’s worth drilling into this a little as the cost of the original MuteMe was one of my previous concerns. Whereas that version cost $39, the Mini is a more respectable $19. However, shipping to the UK $16.96, whichever version you buy. That translates as a total cost of around £45 for the MuteMe Mini. To say that’s punchy is really an understatement. MuteMe could avoid a lot of this cost by selling it directly in the UK, but they don’t. It’s US delivery or nothing.
This is where getting these things earlier with Kickstarter comes in useful. I paid a total of $30 at the time, which is a much-more respectable £25.
MuteMe Mini review verdict
The MuteMe Mini is great. Plug it in, make sure the software is running and you have flexible control over your microphone. The software is so much better than it was six months ago, particularly with regard to stability on the Mac.
I stopped using the original MuteMe in my office when I started using my Stream Deck for the same purpose. However, it remained floating around my living room for when I have ad-hoc video calls with friends and family and, in particular, our regular Saturday night virtual pub quiz. The Mini is unlikely to surpass that as the large size of the original is ideal for other members of the family who are less dextrous when it comes to hitting flashing objects in a hurry. However, I can see it as something that will travel with me for away-from-home mobile use.
Mouse master: the MX Master 3S lives up to its name
Let’s cut straight to the chase with the Logitech MX Master 3S – it’s the best mouse I’ve ever had my hands on. If you want it, you’re going to have to prise it out of my right hand. Or pay Logitech £120 for one. Yes, that’s one heck of an expensive mouse. Let me explain why it’s brilliant.
Logitech MX Master 3S: what’s so good about it?
It’s deathly quiet. One of the few modifications that Logitech has made from the MX Master 3 is the buttons have been dampened. If you click the main left or right buttons, you can barely hear them. They’re not silent, but they don’t have that distinct click either. If you’re using a mouse while recording a podcast, for example, your audience won’t be distracted by the clicks.
Comfort. The mouse is beautifully contoured. The soft rubber shell is pleasant to touch and there’s a shelf for your thumb to rest on. That shelf includes an extra button, which on my Mac can be used to open Mission Control or Launchpad (more on this later). It feels great from the moment you start using it.
The scroll wheels. The MX Master 3S has both vertical and horizontal scroll wheels. They are awesome. The main scroll wheel can be used in either free-scrolling mode at a ridiculous 1,000 lines per second speed, or you can click the button beneath it and put it into the more granular notched mode, where it scrolls line by line. The horizontal scroll wheel, used by your thumb, may sound faintly pointless – who scrolls from side to side? – but it has other functions. In the browser, for example, it flicks between open tabs. In Slack, it moves you between different workspaces. I’ve never understood why I needed a horizontal scroll wheel until now.
The software. I’m not a huge fan of Logitech’s Logi Options software. It can be buggy and erratic. However, the new Logi Options+ is an improvement. The power of this software is that it lets you customise the buttons for different apps. In Photoshop, for example, that horizontal scroll wheel is set by default to change brush sizes, but it can be easily remapped to zoom or undo/redo changes. There’s a wide range of compatible apps.
Battery life. The mouse has a rechargeable battery, so no need to head to the petrol station for a pack of AAs. Logitech says the battery should last 70 days between charges with the supplied USB-C cable. I’ve only been testing it for a few days, but have no reason to doubt those figures, if the battery gauges in the Logitech software are reliable.
It’s versatile. As with the Logitech MX Mechanical keyboard it launched alongside, the MX Master 3 can be paired with up to three devices. It’s simple to switch between them using a button on the base of the mouse. You can even cut and paste text (and files) between different systems, a long-term Logitech feature.
It’s sensitive. DPI is a bit of a nonsense metric when it comes to mice, but for those who like such stats the MX Master 3 is rated at 8,000dpi. Logitech claims you only have to move the mouse 2.5cm to move right across two 4K screens that are positioned alongside one another. You can adjust the tracking speed in your operating system settings if that’s too sensitive for you.
Are there any downsides?
Only one major one: the price. Paying £120 for a mouse is some commitment. Yes, it’s a critical device that you’re going to be using every day, but it’s still a heck of a lot of money when you can get decent mice for much less than half that price.
Still, if you want the very best there is, you’re going to have to meet Logitech’s inflation-inducing price.
One other thing: I’m not a fan of the grey variant shown here. The black is much more stylish. (Yes, Esquire are constantly begging me to do their style pages.)
Timely snap: take a screenie from your Apple Watch
When you want to share something that’s on your Apple Watch, particularly if you’re writing articles for high-quality technology website, the ability to take a screenshot is incredibly useful. But how do you do this? Follow our guide to learn how to take a screenshot on an Apple Watch and then find it afterwards!
Turn on the Apple Watch screenshot option
For some reason, you need to actually turn on the feature first (in preference to it just being switched on by default). You can do this on your Watch or your iPhone. We’ll tackle each in turn:
Switching on screenshots with your Apple Watch
Open the Settings app on your Apple Watch
Tap General and then Screenshots
Switch on Enable Screenshots
Switching on screenshots with your iPhone
Open the Watch app on your iPhone
Click on the My Watch tab and then select General
Scroll down, then turn on Enable Screenshots
Taking a screenshot
Now that’s enabled, taking a screenshot is dead easy:
Press the Digital Crown and the side button at the same time
The screen will flash and you’ll hear the traditional shutter noise when the screenshot is taken
Where are Apple Watch screenshots stored?
All your screenshots are sent to the Photos app on your iPhone. Open this and head to the Albums tab and then choose Screenshots.
When using the Activity app on Apple Watch you may find yourself frustrated with its assumption that you want to know your distance in kilometers (km) instead of miles. Or vice versa. Can you switch the Apple Watch from km to miles? Yes, you can, but it’s not immediately obvious how to do it.
We’re going to show you how with a step-by-step guide.
Time needed: 2 minutes
How to switch Apple Watch Activity distances from km to miles
Open up the Health app on your iPhone
Rather than this being managed by the Activity app, it’s actually done via Health
Head to the Walking & Running Distance screen
Click on the “Browse” tab at the bottom, then select “Activity” and then the “Walking & Running Distance” card
Find the options
Scroll to the bottom of this screen, where there is a section named “Options”.
Change the units
At the bottom is one named “Unit”. Click on this, and change from “km” to “mi”.
Check Activity
Head into the Activity app information and you should now find your distances show as miles.
Not sure how old your iPad is? Trying to check if it will still get the next version of iPad OS? There are a couple of ways of discovering how old your iPad is, which we’ll run through here.
How old is my iPad? Use the model number on the back
On the back of every iPad, Apple prints a model number. We’ll warn you now, reading the very small print the model number is printed in is a challenge, particularly on iPads with dark cases. If you can’t read the model number on the back of your iPad, skip straight to the Settings menu method below.
If you have managed to read the model number on the back of the iPad, you can find out how old it is by checking it against Apple’s list of iPad models.
It’s quite a long list, so if you’re struggling to find your model number, use your web browser’s ‘find’ facility to search the page. You can use the find facility by pressing Ctrl + F on Windows machines or Command + F on a Mac.
So, for example, the model number on the back of my iPad is A1980. If I search for that with my browser’s find facility, I jump straight to:
Note that the date given here is the year that model of iPad was first launched. It doesn’t reveal when you bought your particular device, which may have been a year or two later.
Use the Settings menu
Confusingly, Apple also lists an iPad model number in the Settings menu of your device, and this differs from the one printed on the rear of the device. This model number found in Settings is more precise, betraying the exact specification of the iPad. It can also be used to find out how old it is.
To find the model number, open Settings, then select General on the left-hand side. Now pick About. You should see a screen like this:
Take a note of the Model Number and then Google it. You will more than likely get an Apple webpage at the top of the Google results that reveals when that model was first launched. For example, for my model you get:
As you can see, you don’t even have to click through to the Apple website to get the date it was originally released. Older models might need a bit more digging.
The Withings Steel HR is a great watch (click here for my review) with good accompanying software. However, during my test, I had need to factory reset the watch and found that Withings’ instructions were, shall we say, inconsistent. Here are accurate instructions on how to restart and reset the Withings Steel HR.
Restart a Withings Steel HR
This is a simple one – not even the Withings’ instructions get this wrong.
Hold down the side button and keep it held down for around 20 seconds
Whilst it’s held down it will go through a number of menus, including showing a “Factory Reset” option. Don’t panic, keep your finger down and ignore anything on the screen
The only sign that it’s restarting is that the screen will go blank*. You can now release the button
After a few seconds, it should be working again, and pressing the side button will show the display as usual
(*The issue with this is that there’s actually no way of knowing it’s restarting. The blank screen could just mean it has timed out and turned off the display. Withings could do with adding some kind of confirmation to this.)
Factory reset a Withings Steel HR
There are numerous reasons why you may need to reset the Withings Steel HR, including sync issues not fixed by a restart, or simply that you need to disassociate your watch with one smartphone and move it to another (if you sell it, for example). Here’s how to do it:
Stage 1: Disconnect it from the app
In the Health Mate app, select the Devices tab at the bottom of the screen
Select the watch from the list of devices
Select the “All settings” option
Scroll down to the bottom of the list and click on “Disassociate this product”
Stage 2: Remove it from Bluetooth
Go into the Bluetooth settings for your smartphone
Find the watch in the device list
Click the icon to the right of the device name and then select “Forget This Device” or “Forget”
Stage 3: Perform a factory reset
Press and hold the side button for around five seconds, until a Factory Reset menu appears
Release and then press and hold the button again for a couple of seconds
When “Reset in 5 clicks appears”, release the button again
You must now click the button 5 times. Each time you click it the number will go down
You need to do this at a steady pace and not do too many or pause for too long, either. If you get it wrong, you’ll have to start the factory reset process again
“Reset” will appear on the screen and the hands will move into the 10 past 10 position
After a short while “Setup” will display on the screen. The factory reset is now complete!
If you thought filling up the car with petrol was costly, filling the printer with ink can be even more so. Why is printer ink so expensive? There are many reasons, which we’ll deal with one by one below, along with tips on how to save money on printer ink.
Because printers are so cheap
It’s a bit of cliche, but it’s certainly true. You genuinely can buy printers that are cheaper than the cost of the ink cartridges that go in them.
That’s because the printer manufacturers are adopting razor blade economics: they sell you the printers at or below cost, because they know they will get the money back on the ink.
As a rule of thumb, the cheaper the printer, the more expensive it is to run. That is starting to change, with printer ink being sold on subscription and with high-capacity ink tank inkjet printers now becoming more popular. But when you’re looking at buying a new printer, it’s crucial to consider the cost per page, not just the cost of the printer itself.
Because printer manufacturers block compatible cartridges
There’s no two ways about it: printer manufacturers crank up the cost of their own cartridges because they make it as hard as possible to use third-party ‘compatible’ cartridges.
Official ink cartridges are often fitted with security chips, which tell the printer they came direct from the manufacturer. If you try and install third-party compatible cartridges into many printers, the device may refuse to print or throw up warnings that slow the entire process down.
It’s a game of cat and mouse, and many printer users (like me) simply don’t bother with the cheaper compatibles because you can never be sure that they will actually work.
This kind of practice is, in my view, anti-competitive and should have been made illegal decades ago.
Because high-quality printer inks are expensive to develop
In the printer manufacturers’ defence, printer inks are A LOT more complex than the stuff that fills a Biro.
Printer inks have to reproduce colours accurately, dry almost instantly (but not dry up in the cartridge), and last for decades when they’re hung on a wall. It is a hugely complex chemical industry and it’s not cheap to run.
Another reason to avoid those compatible cartridges – especially for photos – is because the cheaper inks often don’t deliver the same print quality. They very worst compatibles and refills can even damage printers.
So, even if the printer manufacturers manipulate the market (as I’ve described above), they do have serious production expenses to recoup.
Because you’re not buying the XL cartridges
Most models of printers can take different cartridge sizes. As with most things in life, buying in bulk is usually much cheaper when you consider the price per page. Take, for example, the different sized cartridges available for the Canon TR8550 printer sitting on the desk in front of me:
As you can see, buying the XXL compared to the standard-sized cartridge makes the ink more than four times cheaper, albeit at a much bigger up-front cost.
If you’re thinking about buying bigger cartridges, first check:
Your printer accepts them
That you’re going to use them within months (ink can dry out if left unused)
Because you’re buying direct from the manufacturers
Getting your cartridges direct from the printer firm is usually a more expensive route (unless you’re part of a subscription programme, where it may be your only choice).
This is not an affiliate deal, I get no kickback for the recommendation, but I normally buy my printer cartridges from StinkyInk (UK), who offer the winning combination of good prices and fast delivery. Handy when the kids need homework printed off and I’ve let the printer run down to the last millilitre of available ink…
Amazon and supermarkets are both generally cheaper than buying direct from the manufacturers too.
