Simple clear advice in plain English

The Computeractive blog

Top 5 websites of the week

Browser address bar with mouse cursor

The internet is full of great websites, articles and videos. Here are five we've been enjoying this week.

> Read more

Free music, games and fun to entertain the family this Christmas

christmas lights

The Christmas holidays mean everyone has lots of spare time on their hands to enjoy being around friends and family. Here's three great websites to keep everyone entertained during the festivities.

> Read more

Top 5 websites of the week

Browser address bar with mouse cursor

The internet is full of great websites, articles and videos. Here are five we've been enjoying this week.

> Read more

Piracy in the UK: why do we all want to listen to Ed Sheeran?

Ed Sheeran - image courtesy Flickr user ausnahmezustand

Over 345 million songs were illegally downloaded in the first half of 2012 in the UK alone.

> Read more

Happy Birthday to the Sony Walkman

Sony Walkman Cassette

There was a time when seemingly everyone owned a Sony Walkman. While that time has long-since passed, few pieces of technology have had such a massive social impact.

> Read more

Online music, and confusion

spotifybantif

We're big fans of the online music service Spotify here in the Computeractive office.

Most of us have stumped up for either the Premium or Unlimited subscriptions. Admittedly, for most of us it was a result of a steady increase in the amount of ads being played, but we'd all say it was worth it.

But some people disagree: the responses to blog posts by our communities editor Tim and editor Paul were mixed, to say the least (there aren't many comments on the blog posts themselves, but they elicited a fiery response on our Facebook page and in the office postbag).

For many, online music has been devalued to the point at which it's not worth paying for it. Or maybe, it's just a matter of being utterly confused by the idea of online music altogether, as illustrated by an illuminating comment on Charlie Brooker's recent Guardian column on the same subject:

I once worked for an internet service provider. And believe it or not we used to get calls from people complaining about the sound quality of music they'd downloaded illegally. They'd even turn abusive when we told them it had nothing do with us.

- user JoeMcCann, Guardian website

Information currently unavailable

Best deals on the web

img

Altec Lansing Expressionist UL...

Price: £5.99

> Buy it now

> Compare more prices

img

MSI Wind Top AE2220 Hifi desktop compu...

Price: £5.99

> Buy it now

> Compare more prices

img

Nikon Coolpix S8000

Price: £5.99

> Buy it now

> Compare more prices

Question & Answer

Q.Why is Windows Backup skipping files?

> Read the answer

Q.Why do my scanned documents display gibberish?

> Read the answer

Q.How can I convert MTS files to edit in Windows Movie...

> Read the answer

Free newsletters

Computeractive Weekly

A weekly update on our latest articles, videos, competitions and more

> Subscribe now

Computeractive Direct

A weekly update of software and gadgets deals from Computeractive

> Subscribe now

Updating your subscription status Loading

Most popular articles

No matching document

Poll

Do you have Windows 8?

Jargon Buster

Computing terms explained in plain English

Restore Point

A Windows backup of system files and settings.

Great shopping deals from Computeractive

Information currently unavailable