Owner: Simplehelp URL:http://www.simplehelp.net Join Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2007 02:30:24 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Common Questions, Simple Answers. Tutorials for Windows, Mac and Linux users. Site statistics:Click here
Jango Invites 2007-09-20 22:31:23 Update: all 3 invites gone. I’ll update again if/when I have more.
I havehad 3 invites to the beta service Jango
. My initial thoughts on Jango are very positive. It has the social aspect of Last.FM and the streaming and ’suggest similar artists’ features of Pandora. Big plus - it works in Canada (Pandora does not).
Leave a comment below and I’ll send invites to the first 3 people. Cheers!
How to play .flac files in iTunes 2007-09-20 08:00:52
This tutorial will guide you in installing all of the required software (and in which order) to get iTunes
to play .flac files
. This works for iTunes version 7.4.1 (and Quicktime 7.2.0) running on OS X.
Exit out of iTunes and Quicktime if they’re open.
Start by downloading xiph-qt-0.1.8.dmg. Unpack it and drag XiphQT.component to /Library/Components/ if you’d like it to be available to all users on your Mac, or /Users/your-user-name/Library/Components/ if you want it to just be available for you. If you’ve ever installed the Xiph QuickTime Component before, drag it to the trash before copying the new version over.
click to enlarge
Now download flac_import_0.5b1_p0.1.dmg. Open it up and drag FLACImport.component to /Library/QuickTime/ or /Users/your-user-name/Library/QuickTime/
click to enlarge
And finally, download set-OggS-0.1.dmg. Unpack it and drag Clear OggS.app and Set OggS.app to your Applications folder.
click to enlarge
Launch iTunes. You can try l
Cool Facebook app: 360Gadget 2007-09-20 00:20:20 If you’re a fan of the ‘Netvibes style” home page, and find yourself spending more and more time on Facebook
, 360Gadget
might be your new favorite Facebook app. The recently launched 360Gadget allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds, quickly access your POP mail account, search the web, watch YouTube from inside news feeds - all from within one Facebook page.
360Gadget
Add a Feed
With maps and notes
Expanded view
The Ultimate Guide to Google Services using Windows Mobile 2007-09-19 18:55:12
This overview will explain your options when it comes to using Google
services such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Google Search, Google Maps and even YouTube - with your WindowsMobile
device. Though the screenshots are specific to Windows Mobile 5.0 on a Smartphone, they will be similar for Pocket PC and Windows Mobile 6.0 devices as well.
It’s also worth noting that all of the services were downloaded and/or accessed without using ActiveSync once - so Mac/Linux users who own Windows Mobile devices aren’t left out.
Google Calendar
Web based
GCalendarSync
Using SMS
Gmail
Web based
Google for Mobile
Built in POP client - “Messaging”
Other POP mail clients (Flexmail)
Google Reader
Google Search
Web based
Using SMS
Google Maps
Web based
Google Maps for Mobile application
Google SMS
YouTube
Web based
Using Avot mV
Google Calendar
Via web - just visit http://calendar.google.com. Works in Opera Mini 4 beta, I co Read more:Ultimate
, Guide
, Services
How to clear the Internet Explorer Mobile cache and cookies 2007-09-19 07:00:18
If you find yourself unable to view a web page in InternetExplorerMobile
(aka IE Mobile, formerly Pocket Internet Explorer
), and you’re confident it should display properly, try clearing the cache
and cookies. To do so, follow the steps outlined below.
Launch Internet Explorer Mobile and click the Menu button, then scroll down to Options (or click the #6 button)
Scroll down to Memory select it.
Make sure Temporary Files: is highlighted, and click the Clear button.
Confirm the deletion by clicking Yes.
Repeat the above two steps but this time select Cookies: to clear them.
Now try and load the web page that wasn’t displaying properly - it should be fine this time.
BlogRush - An Experiment | Update 1 2007-09-17 01:12:22
Instead of reviewing or introducing you to BlogRush (for that you can check out ProBlogger), I’m going to try something a little different. I’ve signed up, added the code to my sidebar (though admittedly not giving it ‘ideal’ placement) and I’m going to leave it up for one week. Then I’ll report back next Saturday on how much (if any) traffic that it has driven. Like others, I’m a bit skeptical - but we’ll see. First update after the cut -
Update
1: As I’ve mentioned, I’ll be reporting back on my findings with BlogRush - and today my spam mail folder found this little number, basically saying that they’ve expanded too fast and they’re trying to catch up. Also a note to those who have signed up - if you ran the script twice on the same page, stop. See section “7. I Noticed A Blog Was Using Two Widgets On The Same Page, Is This Allowed?” - because the short answer is no.
TO: All BlogRush Members
FROM Read more:Experiment
How to specify a webmail service (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail) as your default email program in OS X 2007-09-16 07:00:04
I recently stumbled across a fantastic little program that allows you to specify a webmail
service (like Gmail
, Yahoo
mail, Hotmail
etc) as your default email program. When you click on a mailto: link, instead of Mail opening, your specified webmail service will launch in your default browser, with the email address pre-filled in a “compose” window. This tutorial will guide you through installing and setting up Webmailer for OS X.
It’s also very much worth noting - the author of this software is very helpful. I had some non-default Firefox about:config ‘issues’ that stopped this software from working correctly in Firefox. He worked with me to identify the problem and everything works perfectly now. So - not only is the software free - it’s useful, and the author is helpful. Really - what more can you ask for?
Start by downloading Webmailer. Open the .dmg file and double click the Webmailer.prefPane file.
If Webmailer doesn’t open on it
How to monitor your Internet bandwidth usage in OS X 2007-09-15 19:40:22
Somewhat similar to my How to monitor your Internet
bandwidth usage in Windows tutorial, this one will show you how to do the same, but in OS X. As a number of ISP’s are now disconnecting customers for using “too much” bandwidth (this one in particular), knowing exactly how much you’ve downloaded (or uploaded) in a given month can be very helpful.
The only application that I could find for OS X that monitors your total bandwidth used, was Net Monitor - which is $10.00USD. There is a 30 day ‘limited’ demo available, so you can try it before you buy it.
Note: if you know of a free or open source application that monitors your Internet usage, that doesn’t reset every time you log out or restart your Mac, please by all means let me know. I found dozens of apps that kept track of usage, but in every case they would reset back to 0 after you signed out or rebooted.
Start by downloading and installing Net Monitor. The installation is very straight forward.
Mash Invites 2007-09-15 01:30:18 If you’d like an invite to Yahoo’s new social network “Mash”, just leave a comment (please use a valid email address in the Email Address field). For what it’s worth, I’m not particularly impressed.
Download: Google Analytics AIR widget 2007-09-14 23:04:52
From their site:
“The GoogleAnalyticswidget
is an Adobe AIR application that runs on your desktop and displays basic stats for your Google Analytics
account.”
Enter your Analytics user name and password
sign in
Select the account/profile you wish to view and click Save.
select your account
The default view is visits for the last month.
default view
Hover your mouse over any given date, and the info will appear.
Pageviews - hover
Changing the date range is quite straight forward.
set the date range
A small bug - once you hit the 10k range it displays 0000 instead of 10k, 2000 instead of 12k etc.
month to date
Read more:Download
How to recover lost Windows passwords 2007-09-14 21:24:09
If you’ve lost your Windows
password and you’re locked out of your computer, you can use the Ophcrack LiveCD to recover
your password(s). This tutorial will guide you through doing just that.
Start by downloading the Ophcrack Live CD. This is the longest part of the entire process, as it’s about 455MB.
Burn the .iso file to CD. If you need help creating a boot CD from the .iso file, see this tutorial.
After you’ve burned the .iso, set your computer to boot from your CD/DVD drive (make sure the CD is in the drive).
You’ll be presented with the Ophcrack LiveCD menu. Leave the default selected and hit enter on your keyboard (or just wait 5 seconds for it to automatically boot).
click to enlarge
Slax, the version of Linux that is packaged with Ophcrack, will start up.
click to enlarge
Ophcrack will start on its own, and the passwords
for each of your Windows users will be cracked and displayed on screen.
click to enlarge
Write down the passw
Google Webmaster Tools Adds Subscriber Stats Feature 2007-09-14 02:06:47
At some point yesterday (Nov 12th, 2007) GoogleWebmasterTools
got a bit of a redesign. And at least one new feature was added - Subscriber
stats. Now you can view the number of users who have subscribed to your RSS feed(s) using Google products such as iGoogle, Google Reader, and Orkut.
Are there any other new features I missed?
Screenshots:
Dashboard Overview
What Googlebot Sees
Google Subscriber Stats
Tools Overview
Read more:Google Webmaster Tools
Real Life: Trapping Fruit Flies 2007-09-13 23:39:48 I read about this trick on Lifehacker to catch fruit flies earlier this summer. I’m glad I did, because Vancouver has had a garbage strike for something like 9 weeks now. Well, I have confirmed it works.
Read more:Fruit
, Flies
, Real Life
How to determine where all of your free disk space has gone in Windows 2007-09-13 16:28:36
This tutorial will guide you through using SpaceMonger - a Windows
utility that scans your hard drive(s) and displays a graphical representation of how your disk is being used, or, where all that space has gone. SpaceMonger works with every version of Windows, from Windows 95 all the way up through Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. It works with every filesystem, be it FAT, FAT32, or NTFS, and it can handle network filesystems too. It’s available as a 30 day fully functional demo - after that you’ll have to fork over $19.95 USD for a 1 user license.
Start by downloading and installing SpaceMonger. The installation is very straight forward - mostly you’ll just click “Next” a bunch of times. Once it’s installed, open it from the programs menu.
click to enlarge
To scan your hard drive, select the Scan button and choose your hard drive from the pull-down menu.
click to enlarge
You’ll be greeted with a friendly reminder that you’r
How to enable spell check in Firefox text forms 2007-09-13 08:00:33
This brief tutorial will show you how to enable spell
check in web page forms (text input fields) in Firefox
.
Start by entering about:config in the Firefox address bar (without the http://)
In the Filter: field, enter layout.spellcheck to bring up the layout.spellcheckDefault preference.
Double-click that entry and change the integer value from 1 to 2 and click OK.
Open a new browser window or tab (or refresh an existing one) and test it out.
SmallScreenX - simulate screen resolutions in OS X 2007-09-28 12:57:03
SmallScreenX is a Cocoa version of the “Small Screen” utility for the old Mac OS. It simulates smaller screen
resolutions, which can be particularly helpful for web designers. This overview gives you a run down on its main features.
First things first, download SmallScreenX. The installation is very straight forward, and once it’s installed, launch it from your Applications folder.
click to enlarge
Use the ‘Untitled’ area of SmallScreenX to to move it around (I’ve found it easiest that way). Click and hold in that section, then drag your mouse around to move the box.
The Options button will bring up the Size and Appearance settings.
From here you can set the width and height of the window. You can also change the border color, width and add a shadow.
Clicking the Lock button will toggle SmallScreenX to prevent unwanted moving or resizing.
Right-click (control-click) the Control-mode button and a list of running applications will
How to recover previously deleted files in Windows 2007-09-28 07:00:11
This tutorial will guide you in using Restoration 2.5.14, a free program that can help you recoverfiles
that you may have accidentally deleted (and removed from/emptied the Recycle Bin).
Get started by downloading Restoration 2.5.14. Restoration works in Windows
95/98/ME/NT/2K/XP on FAT 12, 16, 32 and NTFS file systems. When you run the file it will ask you to extract its contents to C:Restoration, which is as good a place as any. With that said, you can extract the contents anywhere you want, just remember where.
Navigate to that folder and double-click Restoration.exe.
Select the drive you want to scan (the default is C:) from the Drives drop down list. Then, click the Search Deleted Files button.
click to enlarge
Sit back and watch as Restoration searches for files that have been previously deleted. Depending on the size and speed of your drive, how many files you’ve stored and deleted, it can take up to a minute to complete the scan.
click to enlarge
And then
How to set up Thunderbird to send and receive your Gmail 2007-09-27 15:35:24
This is a requested tutorial for Marcelo. It will take you through the steps to set up Gmail
using the Mozilla Thunderbird
email client.
The first thing you have to do is enable POP email for your Gmail account. Sign in to Gmail and click the Settings link at the top of the page. Select the Forwarding and POP tab.
If you want to download all of the email messages you’ve ever received at your gmail address, to Thunderbird, select Enable POP for all mail. Keep in mind, Gmail allows for a lot of storage, so you may be downloading hundreds of megabytes of email and attachments (maybe even gigabytes).
If you want to only download messages received from now on, select Enable POP only for mail that arrives from now on. This option won’t download all of your previous Gmail messages, but it makes getting started using Thunderbird much faster.
Now decide if want to keep an unread copy of each message on the Gmail server, if you want to mark each message downloaded to Thunderbird
Cool Dashboard Widget: Conference Call Omni (sports widget) 2007-09-27 09:30:44
With the hockey season fast approaching, like many Canadians, I’m starting to get psyched. It’s not enough that I have the Leafs schedule added to my Google Calendar, I have to have them on my dashboard too. Enter Conference Call Omni. Oh and yeah, it works with pro football (and lots of other sports/leagues).
After you’ve downloaded and installed it (the same as any other widget), launch your dashboard. Click the small i icon to set it up.
Select the Sport, Division and Team of your choice, place a check in the Remember these settings when closing this window box, and click Done.
Ta-da! You’re done! ps. GO LEAFS!
Read more:Dashboard
How to monitor your Internet bandwidth usage in OS X, redux 2007-09-27 08:00:25
Thanks to Michael, who contacted me to let me know there was in fact a better solution to the one I first provided regarding bandwidth monitoring in OS X. And that solution is SurplusMeter. This brief tutorial will get you started using SurplusMeter.
To get started, download and install SurplusMeter.
Launch it from your Applications folder. The main interface will appear, and you’ll need to make a few adjustments before you’re done. First, select the Connection type: - as the default is PPP modem, and hopefully you have broadband via your Ethernet port or Airport wireless.
Because SurplusMeter was actually created with the idea of tracking exactly how much you use the Internet
, you can even set a Month starts on date (ie. the first day of your billing cycle) - since that’s how most ISP’s who limit your bandwidth will monitor it. If you don’t actually have a “set in stone” download limit, you can ignore the Download limit: setting, but you
How to take great screenshots in Windows 2007-09-26 15:57:56
Why MWSnap doesn’t show up on every “top Windows
freeware” list, I’ll never know. Version 3 has been around since 2002 (!?). Admittedly, it hasn’t been updated since 2002 either - it still works perfectly well in XP (I haven’t tested it in Vista yet). With the resulting screenshots you have a choice between BMP, JPG, TIFF, PNG and GIF formats, with selected color depth and quality settings - among dozens of other features. This “part tutorial, part overview” will get you started using MWSnap in no time.
When you start MWSnap for the first time, you’ll be prompted to specify which language you want to use. Make your selection and then click Ok.
click to enlarge
The main MWSnap window will appear. Hover your mouse over the items in the Toolbar to become familiar with some of the options and settings. For the sake of this tutorial I’ll show you how to take a screenshot of a “window” - which can be any open p
How to create an .iso file in Windows 2007-09-26 07:30:37
Using the same software that allows you to extract the contents of an .iso, MagicDisc, you can create
.iso files. This brief tutorial will guide you through doing just that.
First, make sure to download MagicDisc and install it. The installation is very straight forward - you’ll mostly click ‘next’ a bunch of times. At the end of the installation, you’ll probably be notified that new hardware was found and installed.
Right-click on the new System Tray icon, and select Make CD/DVD Image…
Insert the CD or DVD that you want to create an image of, and select the drive that you put the disc in from the CD/DVD-Driver: list. Select Standard ISO image file (.ISO) from the Output format list. Now give your file a name in the Output File area. By default, the .iso will be saved to your desktop. If you want to change the save location, click the small ‘opening folder’ button next to the Output File name. When you’re ready, click OK.
Watch as MagicDisc Read more:Windows
More on BlogRush 2007-09-26 03:01:08
I have to admit, I almost want this one (BlogRush) to work. It’s like the little train that could. It came out of nowhere, had huge publicity immediately, and then huge problems, immediately. Today it rolled out the promised “Flavors” feature. So now I have a slightly more appealing widget.
The BlogRush CEO sent out another long-winded email today (I’m talking 50+ paragraphs) that I’ll summarize for you here:
-”we won’t rest” until it’s working great, acknowledgment of problems
-huge list of excuses for problems
-reassurances that BlogRush isn’t some passing “fad”
-huge rant full of threats to current “cheaters”
-we’re moving to a manual, human reviewed process for allowing sites into out network, and we’re going to review everyone who has signed up already
- SPECIAL NOTE TO ALL LOW-TRAFFIC MEMBERS: In the near future we’ll be giving our low-traffic members (those that need more tr
Overview: Delicious Library for OS X 2007-09-25 09:00:40 DeliciousLibrary
has been out for a while. I know this. I’ve had their site bookmarked for months, and during my last ‘bookmark cleanup’, I decided it was time to finally time to download and install it. The following article is part tutorial, part overview, and has lots of screenshots. If you’re a serious DVD, book or CD collector, you may want to take it for a spin.
Delicious Library is $39.95 to purchase, but a time-limited demo is also available. You’ll need Mac OS X 10.3 “Panther” or higher.
Since you’re using the demo version of Delicious Library, you’ll be prompted to click USE DEMO every time you open the program. Such is life..
The very first time you open Delicious Library, you’ll be asked if you want to Create an empty library or Start with our sample library. I opted for creating my own..
click to enlarge
Assuming you have an iSight camera - be it built in or USB (or Firewire?) - you’ll want to tr Read more:Overview
Overview: Mailplane - a Gmail client for OS X (plus beta invites) 2007-09-25 07:00:16
Mailplane is a stand-alone Gmail
client for OS X. Besides including all of the great features of Gmail, Mailplane adds extras such as built-in drag-and-drop attachments, quick import from iPhoto and iTunes, Growl notifications when you get new messages and much more.
Update: All 5 of my invites have been given away. If you’d like to sign up for an invitation to the beta program please visit http://mailplaneapp.com/beta/request_invitation.php. If you’d like an invite to the beta program, leave a comment. I have 5 invites to give away to the first 5 commenters.
When first launched, Mailplane will ask a few questions. I opted to install the iPhoto plugin and check for updates when Mailplane is started, but not to make it my default mail client quite yet. These settings can be changed later, so don’t worry about them too much. Click Finish when you’re done.
click to enlarge
Enter your Gmail account info in the spaces provided. Review the optional settings a Read more:Overview
How to keep the software on your Mac up to date 2007-09-25 02:19:02
From the AppFresh site:
AppFresh helps you to keep all applications (third-party and Apple), widgets, preference panes and application plugins on your Mac up to date, from one place. It works by checking the excellent iusethis.com for new versions and lets you download and install available updates easily.
This tutorial will walk you through the steps to get started using AppFresh.
When you open AppFresh for the first time, you’ll be prompted with a few options. Because I want to have the final say on what software gets updated, I opted to remove the check from the Install applications if considered safe. But I did leave Enable automatic search for unknown applications checked. Click Next to continue.
click to enlarge
Enter your user name or email address and password for the osx.iusethis.com service. If you don’t have one yet, select the Register new account (it’s a 100% free, spam-free and great service). Click Finish when you’re done.
click to enla
How to extract (or access) the contents of an .iso file in Windows 2007-09-24 09:00:47
If you’ve downloaded an .iso (or .bin, .img, .cif, .nrg, .img etc) and don’t want to burn it to get to its contents, you can download and install MagicDisc, a freeware app that lets you “mount” the image file as if it was a CD/DVD drive. This tutorial will guide you through doing just that.
First, make sure to download MagicDisc and install it. The installation is very straight forward - you’ll mostly click ‘next’ a bunch of times. At the end of the installation, you’ll probably be notified that new hardware was found and installed.
Also, there will be a new icon in your System Tray. Right-click that icon and select Virtual CD/DVD-ROM, then click X: No Media (where X is the next available drive letter on your system - in the screenshot below, the drive is E:)
Click Mount …
And then navigate to the image file (iso, uif, bin, img etc), select it and click the Open button.
click to enlarge
If you have Windows
set to Read more:extract
When not to accept advertising 2007-09-24 08:00:22
I was recently approached by someone who wanted to buy $550 worth of advertising on Simplehelp, and ended out turning them down. After seeking the advice of a number of other bloggers, here’s why I said no.
This post could also be called “Why I still don’t have an iPhone”.
The entire email transcript between “James” and I can be found as a screenshot at the end of this post. The only info that I Photoshopped (Gimp’ed really) out of the email is James’s last name and email address.
So - on Sept 12th I received an email from James, asking if I was interested in selling him advertising on Simplehelp. My response was sure I’m interested, what did you have in mind? He responded with a request to insert a paragraph on 8 different pages on Simplehelp, with his “links adjusted in them”. His next line was what made me actually consider his offer - he citied a “Technorati Top 100″ blog (SmashingMagazine) as an examp
Cool Dashboard Widget: Google Calendar 2007-09-23 18:36:36
I’m sure the GoogleCalendarDashboard
Widget was big news earlier this year, and somehow I missed it until now. But that got me thinking - maybe a couple of other people missed it as well.
Exactly as its name implies, it’s a widget you can install to your dashboard that displays the next x days, for any of your Google Calendar
s.
Just paste the XML URL’s for your Google Calendars into the configuration section of the widget.
When you click any of the events in the widget, your default browser will open a new window (or tab) and load that calendar event.
BlogRush - First Week Summary 2007-09-22 14:38:30
Last Saturday I mentioned that I signed up for BlogRush, and that I’d be reporting back with the results today. Well the stats (Dashboard) section of BlogRush kicked in this week, so now I know how many folks I’ve referred, how many “credits” I’ve earned, and how many visits BlogRush has sent my way. Like others, the results aren’t great.
The first 7 days in a nutshell:
BlogRush has sent 14 visitors to my site, with my content being displayed 19,640 times. Which gives it a a click-through rate (CTR) of about 0.00071.
I currently have a “credit balance” of 43k, give or take.
I’ve referred 6 people to BlogRush, who in turn generated 5,164 “credits”.
So as you can see, the stats aren’t great. To give them some credit, BlogRush has admitted that the CTR is low for most folks, due in part to some people “cheating” the system by falsely increasing their credit numbers. To combat this, they’re mo Read more:First
, Summary
Recommend Site To A Friend
