Here’s a quick OS X tip – but only works if you’re using OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). You’ve always been able to drag items from the Trash to your Desktop (or any other folder) if you decide not to delete them. Now you can move some (or all) files from your Trash back to [...]

This tutorial will guide you through the steps required to confirm a program or file is the correct “version” by comparing it to its MD5 hash. This can be very useful if you’re downloading a program from a 3rd party, and want to confirm it hasn’t been tampered with etc.
If you’re interested, here’s a [...]

This very brief tutorial will show you how to add quick access to your Control Panel from your Windows 7 desktop – without having an ugly “shortcut” icon.

Normally, when you create a shortcut to something from your Windows 7 desktop, it includes the rather unattractive “Shortcut” icon (see below).

To create a [...]

This very brief tutorial will show you how to display all of the Windows 7 System Tray icons (also referred to as “System Icons”) – rather than the few that Windows chooses to display.

Start out by clicking the Show hidden icons button (the little ‘up arrow’) in the System Tray. Then click the [...]

This tutorial will guide you through the steps required to edit the hosts file in OS X.
Note: editing the hosts file can have fairly adverse effects to your Mac if you’re not sure what you’re doing. This tutorial will show you how to edit it, but be careful doing so.

Start out by [...]

Do you own an iPad, an iPhone, or an iPod Touch and enjoy watching movies on any of these devices? If you have a big collection of movies on your computer and would like to be able to watch these movies on any of these devices I have the perfect solution for you – Air [...]

One of the great new features in Safari 5, for both Windows and Mac, are Extensions. These are similar to the “Add-On’s” that Firefox has had for years – they allow you to alter the behavior of Safari to better suit your needs. This brief tutorial will show you how to enable Extensions in Safari, [...]

This tutorial will guide you through the steps required to install Jolicloud – a Linux based operating system made specifically for Netbooks – along with Windows.
Jolicloud is an Operating System that has been created specifically for Netbooks. It’s fast, free, and comes with a great variety of free software. For an overview of the [...]

This is a screenshot simulation of Google’s “Chrome” web browser. Click here to launch the simulation in a new window/tab.
If this is the first time you’ve used/seen a screenshot simulation, you should check out complete list of screenshot simulations on Simple Help.
—Related Articles at Simple Help:Screenshot Simulations IndexScreenshot Simulation: Safari 2.x PreferencesHow to [...]

During the course of Internet connectivity troubleshooting, local network troubleshooting and/or various app testing, there may come a time when you need to disable IPv6 for your Network Adapter. This very brief tutorial will show you how to do just that.

Start out by clicking the “Start Orb” and selecting Control Panel from the [...]

The really good folks over at Cat Pig Studios noticed how quickly and how much interest my previous review/tutorial of their software (Radium) generated. So they graciously offered to give away another 3 licenses to Simple Help readers!
Once again, the first 3 people who leave a comment on this post will be sent a [...]

This very brief tutorial will guide you through the steps required to change the background color in Finder.
Changing the background color in Finder is something that after you do, you’ll wonder why it wasn’t made more obvious as a feature (it’s a bit buried, as you’ll see in this tutorial). NOTE: the color change [...]

The folks over at Cat Pig Studios asked if I would review their Internet Radio streaming software for OS X, Radium. I agreed on the condition that they offer 3 free, permanent licenses (Radium is free to try for 30 days, and then costs $16 to continue to use). Keep reading for a step by [...]

This brief tutorial will show you how to increase (or decrease) the font size of the documents you create/edit in Pages for the iPad.
For something as “simple” as increasing or decreasing the font size in a document, Apple kind of missed the boat on this one. It took me 10 minutes of exploring to [...]

This brief tutorial will guide you through the steps required to add PDF files to iBooks on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, using Dropbox.
Note: If you aren’t near the PC/Mac you use to sync your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch with, using Dropbox is a great way to get PDFs into iBooks. If [...]

This brief tutorial will show you how to add PDF files to iBooks so that you can read them on your iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone.

First up – we’re going to make the assumption that you have iBooks installed on your iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone. If you don’t, click here to install it.
Now [...]

Please note: at this time, the ‘contest’ is for folks living in the US only. I’ll do an International version of the ‘contest’ soon.
The first 50 people that become a fan of the Simple Help Facebook Page and fill out this form, will be sent a free Simple Help sticker (or two.. or three..). [...]

You know all those annoying “apps” that your friends use (FarmVille, Mafia Wars, Gift Creator etc) and end out showing up in your Facebook News Feed? This tutorial will show you how to use F.B Purity to clean up your Facebook News Feed by blocking those particular entries, plus much, much more.
Before you even [...]

Apple recently launched the version 5 of its Safari Web Browser for the Mac and Windows platforms. Other than being faster than previous versions the new release also brings in some new features. Two of these features are pretty amazing – the Reader, and the support for extensions. Let’s look at these two feature in [...]

This brief tutorial will show you how to download and install new themes for your Windows 7 PC.
Though Windows 7 includes lots of “eye-candy” that previous versions of Windows didn’t, it can still get a little dull using the same theme day and in and out. Here’s how you can download and install new [...]

Earlier we looked at how to get started with using Windows Live Writer to write blog posts to a Wordpress blog. Now let’s look at some more advanced features that Windows Live Writers has to offer for Wordpress users.
If you don’t have Windows Live Writer already installed, download it now as a part [...]

By adding simple transitions to your Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 slides, you can help turn a dull presentation into a slightly less dull presentation This brief tutorial will show you how to do just that.

Start out by selecting the slide you want to add a transition to. I’m using the first one [...]

In this first tutorial, we’ll show you how to setup Windows Live Writer – a free program from Microsoft for creating, editing and managing blog posts on your Wordpress based site.
Windows Live Writer is a desktop tool that allows you to easily post blog entries, edit and manage old ones, and also manage comments [...]

This brief tutorial will guide you through the steps required to clear the cache, delete the cookies, delete your browsing history and even more, from Safari 5 – for both Windows and OS X.
Just select either Windows or Mac for the instructions on clearing your private info in Safari 5.

Safari 5 for Windows

[...]

One of the most annoying ‘features’ of a PC with Windows freshly installed, is that it highlights all the new programs you install. Disabling this behavior is one of the first thing I do when I’m working with Windows 7. Keep reading for the brief walk-through.

As you can see in the screenshot below, [...]

This tutorial will show you how to use the web service Photovisi to create great looking collages of your digital photos – without the need to download any software at all.

To get started, head over to photovisi.com. Click on the large Click here to start! button.
You’ll be presented with a pretty big [...]

Pictures of earth from space are the coolest. Wouldn’t it be great if we could get the latest images of what the earth looks like straight on our desktops? Die.net offers just such a service. They provide the latest computer generated image of what the earth might look like at the moment. Things like the [...]

The (currently) free Adobe Air program NoteSync lets you quickly create notes and then sync them with your Google Docs account. This brief tutorial will run you through the steps to create and sync notes from your desktop to Google Docs.

Start out by heading over to notesync.com and then click the Install Now [...]

Although I liked a lot of things about the design used in this release of Ubuntu (10.04, Lucid Lynx) I found one thing a bit annoying. The window controls (the maximize, minimize and close buttons) have been moved to the left side of each window bar – in a Mac-like manner, rather than in the [...]

Now that Google has released an encrypted Google web search (background info here), you’ll want to make it your default search engine in the Firefox “Search Box”. This tutorial will show you how to do just that.
Using the encrypted version of Google search will very likely become the “default” in the coming months. For [...]

This is an easy one for me – I check my email most often on my phone. In NYC, having Google Maps on my phone has also been a huge time saver (and has helped me avoid getting lost countless times). If I’m waiting for someone, I’ll occasionally check Facebook or read my RSS feeds [...]

Sadly, yes. With that said – I really enjoy my work. So it’s not that bad, and I do tend to scale back the type of “work” that I’ll do on vacation. Sometimes I’ll think of something work-related while I’m not at work, and using my mobile is often the easiest way to quickly take [...]

The folks over at ReclaimPrivacy.org have created a fantastic tool that will quickly scan all of your Facebook Privacy settings, and report back to you any “weaknesses” it finds. It’s simple to use, and provides links to each privacy setting that it determines as ‘weak’ so that you can make the change right away. [...]

By default, you can use the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta for free for 30 days. Using the Office 2010 Trial Extender you can change the trial length from 30 to 180 (total) days.

Start out by visiting the Office 2010 Trial Extender home page. Locate the download link and download the file. Note: Office [...]

By default, you can use the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta for free for 30 days. Using the Office 2010 Trial Extender you can change the trial length from 30 to 180 (total) days.

Start out by visiting the Office 2010 Trial Extender home page. Locate the download link and download the file. Note: Office [...]

I have an Ubuntu desktop at home which I sometimes use as a server. I work from my laptop mostly, but sometimes I need to check something or do some work on my desktop. I could walk away from my laptop and sit at the desktop, or I could configure a Remote Desktop system instead. [...]

For me this is an easy one – I update geolocation based social networking services like foursquare and brightkite from my phone far more often than I do from my computer, and I update twitter and FaceBook far more often on my computer than I do my phone.
The reason why is pretty simple – [...]

Many of us are used to using fancy word processors for typing out letters and other documents. Most word processors come bundled with an automatic spellcheck feature built in. Even email clients have these. However, if you part of a small, dying breed of people who still use command line text editors you might find [...]

It’s an interesting question, and for me it has a couple of different answers. Because it’s a mobile device, I wouldn’t be able to replace my cable modem with it (or all of my Internet connected devices would go offline when I took my phone out with me).
I can’t personally foresee a time when [...]

This tutorial will guide you through the steps to enable your Android device to log all of the calls made to and from it to your Google Calendar.

Start out by using the QR code below to launch the Android Market and take you to the download location for CallTrack. If you need help [...]

This very brief tutorial will show you how to disable Facebook’s latest “has some privacy issues” service, Open Graph.
I’m not going to write a long-winded explanation of what Open Graph is. You can find a very nice summary of it here. What I will do is show you the steps required to block this [...]

Cyberduck, an FTP client for OS X that we have previously covered, doesn’t show hidden files by default. This very brief tutorial will show you how to view them.

Launch Cyberduck and connect to one of your FTP sites. As illustrated in the example image below, there are two files on my server – [...]

This brief how-to will show you the required steps to overcome the error “There is not enough memory available” when you try to sync your iPad with iTunes.
There’s no way this is the ideal solution – it doesn’t actually fix the main issue at hand – but it will allow you to successfully sync [...]

This step-by-step walkthrough will show you how to stream audio and video from your PC running Windows 7 to your XBox 360.
One of the features that Microsoft built into Windows 7 and the Xbox 360 was the ability to stream audio and video (movies, tv shows, music, podcasts etc) from your PC to your [...]

There are a number of backup methods that you can use in Linux to make sure your data is safe and available. The simplest is probably to backup everything. This method, although viable under certain circumstances, is not always the smartest way to go if you have space constraints. So you can use a more [...]

This tutorial will guide you though the steps to set up and use the Find My iPad feature that’s included with your MobileMe subscription.
In addition to an email address, iDisk storage space, a web calendar and address book that’s easy to sync with iCal and Address Book, MobileMe includes a feature to recover your [...]

This tutorial will show you how to force Firefox to open new tabs at the end of the tab bar, rather than next to the existing open tab.
This new behavior (opening new tabs next to the current one) was introduced in Firefox 3.6. Some people like it, others done. If you fall into the [...]

Here’s a useful tip for people that access their computer or server over the Internet using SSH. Change your SSH port from the default port 22 to something else. Although this is not a foolproof hack to secure your server, it can at least help greatly. Let’s look at you this would be done on [...]

If you’re getting the message “Cannot connect to Netflix. Please try again later. If the problem persists, please visit netflix.com/help on your computer” each time you try to use your Netflix disk to watch movies on your PS3, this brief tutorial will show you the answer.
It’s actually quite simple, although I wish it was [...]

This tutorial will guide you through the steps required to stream videos (movies, TV shows etc) from your PC running Windows 7 to your PS3.
Using Windows Media Player – which comes built in to Windows 7, you can stream (most of) the videos from your PC to your TV via your PlayStation 3. I [...]

lsof is a very powerful Linux command line tool. It ships with just about every Linux distribution and gives you a list of open files, sockets, and pipes.
The most basic usage of the tool is to type the command name followed by the Return key, # lsof. This command should return a rather long [...]

If you’re one of those people who is very particular about protecting your privacy you might find many sites on the web today very intrusive. There are some basic steps that a lot of users might be familiar with, like clearing your cookies and browsing history frequently. Here are some advanced tips on how you [...]

If the “clicking” sound you hear each time you tap a key on the iPad’s keyboard annoys you, just follow these quick steps to disable that sound.

Start out by tapping Settings from your iPad dashboard.

Select General in the Settings column, and then Sounds from the General column.

click to enlarge
Slide [...]

This brief tutorial will show you how to display the Bookmarks Bar in Safari for the iPad, and how to add bookmarks to it.

Start out by selecting Settings from the iPad home screen.

Select Safari from the Settings column, and then slide the Always Show Bookmarks Bar switch to ON

click to [...]

In this brief tutorial I’ll show you how to clear the browsing history, the Safari cache and cookie files in Safari for the iPad.

Select Settings from your iPad home screen.

Select Safari from the Settings column on the left. Towards the bottom of the Safari column you’ll see 3 buttons – Clear [...]

This very brief tutorial will show you how to add Apps to the dock on your iPad.
By default, Apple includes 4 apps in your iPad’s Dock – Safari, Mail, Photos and iPod. But that doesn’t mean you can’t add more.

Locate an App you want to add to the dock. Tap it and [...]

This tutorial will guide you through the process of converting PDF files so that they can be read in iBooks, the iPad application.
iBooks uses an ebook format called ePub. Using a free converter application (and ebook manager) called calibre you can quickly convert PDF (and other file formats) to .epub files, which you can [...]

This brief tutorial will explain how to force your iPad to restart if it gets stuck or freezes up.
Just to ease your mind – forcing your iPad to restart will not cause any loss of data – with the possible exception of any work you were doing at the time the iPad and/or App [...]

This very brief tutorial will show you how to use iTunes to copy Keynote for iPad presentation files from your iPad to your Mac or PC, using iTunes.

Connect your iPad to your PC or Mac. In iTunes, select your iPad from the Devices list.

Select the Apps tab from your iPad Settings [...]

This tutorial will guide you through the steps required to import presentations to Keynote for your iPad.
It’s actually quite easy – it’s just not as ‘obvious’ as Apple makes most things.

Connect your iPad to your PC or Mac. In iTunes, select your iPad from the Devices list.

Select the Apps [...]

This brief tutorial will show you how to import documents from your Mac or PC to Pages for the iPad.
Creating a new document in Pages for the iPad is easy enough – but what if you want to work on an existing document that you created on your Mac or PC? Using iTunes you [...]

In this tutorial we’ll use a photo taken using an iPhone, transfer it to an iPad via email, insert it into a Pages document, and send it as a PDF to your friends.

First take a photo with your iPhone and send it to yourself via email. Once the email has arrived on your [...]

Adding a 4 digit pin code to your iPad will help you keep it secure – especially if it’s lost or stolen. It would be bad enough to lose your iPad – but it would be much worse for the person who finds your iPad to be able to access your personal information (photos, notes, [...]

This tutorial will show you how to remove the “Sent from my iPad” signature that Mail automatically adds to each of the email messages you send from your iPad.
One of the first things you might notice while using Mail on your iPad is that it automatically adds the signature line “Sent from my iPad”. [...]

This brief tutorial will show you how to find the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth MAC addresses on your iPad.

Start out by selecting Settings from your home screen

Select General from the list on the left side of the Settings window, and then About from the column on the right side.

click to enlarge
Here [...]

This very brief tutorial will show you how to take a screenshot using your iPad, and how to transfer it to your PC or Mac.
The process is actually exactly the same as it is with an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Click the Power button on the top right corner of your iPad, and [...]

This very brief tutorial will show you how to install the 3.1 Boot Camp Update in Windows.

Make sure you’ve booted your Mac into Windows. From the Start menu select All Programs and then Apple Software Update

Make sure there’s a check mark in the box labeled Boot Camp Update (version 3.1) and [...]

If you have a Linux server that you are using to host a web service or run anything important it’s a good idea to run frequent backups. It is an even better idea to run these backups from another location every once in a while, if you are not already copying your backups to another [...]

This is a list we have compiled that includes 20 utilities to help you recover lost data (files), fix a PC that doesn’t want to start up, copy files from a scratched CD/DVD, and much, much more.
Advanced PSD Repair
Advanced PSD Repair (APSR) is a powerful and free tool to recover corrupt Photoshop [...]

This brief tutorial will show you how to set selective, specific tweets to also show up as your Facebook Status.
You probably have a friend or two on Facebook who insists on sending every twitter message (tweet) they write to also update their Facebook status. This can get a little.. annoying.. if you follow them [...]

Welcome to my must-have list of Android Apps! The list includes replacements for existing/included Android apps, social media apps, games, audio/video apps and a bunch of other helpful apps.
To install these, click on the name of the app. This will take you to AndroLib where you can scan a QR code. This will launch [...]

QR (”Quick Response”) codes (as pictured left), are two-dimensional bar codes that you might have started noticing on web sites, in magazines or on products when you go shopping. They allow you to quickly scan them with your camera and either launch a web site, show product info, display plain text, send an SMS [...]

Well the latest MacHeist bundle has been released, and for $19.95 you get 5 (and up to 7 if enough people buy the package) useful apps.
The apps included in this bundle are: MacJournal, RipIt, Clips, CoverScout and Flow. Assuming the bundle reaches it’s “goal” (usually does) – you’ll also get a copy of Tales [...]

The folks at MacHeist are gearing up for another deal on a bundle of apps, but right now you can get a copy of Squeeze for free (regularly $9.95).
About Squeeze:

Squeeze is a background file compressor for Snow Leopard that transparently compresses the folders you configure it to process. Mac OS will read those files [...]

After you install Windows via Boot Camp, you may notice that your Mac will now boot up into Windows by default. This brief tutorial will show you how to set your Mac to load OS X rather than Windows each time it starts up.

First things first – start your Mac in OS X. [...]

Still not a Google Wave user? Well Simple Help has 28 invites for anyone interested. Just be sure to use the email address you want the invite sent to in the “Email (required, but never shared)” field of the comment form below.
—Related Articles at Simple Help:3 Google Voice InvitesJango Invites10 Brightkite Invites for Simple [...]

That’s right, it’s free Simple Help tee-shirt time! The first 10 (ten) people who leave a comment will receive a brand new Simple Help shirt at absolutely no charge. No need to pay postage, no hidden costs etc. I’ll pay for it all.
All I ask is that you occasionally wear the shirt in public [...]

This brief tutorial will walk you through the steps required to add set a picture as the background to your Google Calendar.

The default Google Calendar view can be rather… dull.

click to enlarge
To make it a bit less boring, add a background image. To do so, start out by clicking Settings from [...]

This tutorial will show you how to use CM Updater to easily update your version of CyanogenMod on your Android phone.

Start out by opening your Settings. Scroll down to the Applications section and select it.

Make sure there’s a “check” in the Unknown sources box. Exit out of your Settings.

Now [...]

If you are somewhat familiar with using the Linux or UNIX command line interface it is quite likely that you have used the history command. For those not familiar with it the history command allows you to search through the commands you have already run on your computer’s command line.
An example of its usage [...]

A really neat tool I was introduced to a few days back is wkhtmltopdf, a freely distributed tool that allows you to convert HTML pages into PDF documents. This is not something I’ve found a lot of use for too often, but when I’ve needed it it’s been a life saver. Let’s take a [...]

Oftentimes my Ubuntu desktop loses track of time. Really. What happens is that the time it maintains goes a few minutes here and there every month. So I like to use a very useful Linux service called NTP to help keep the clock on my Ubuntu desktop in sync with well maintained clocks over the [...]

This tutorial will guide you through blocking people on Facebook.
Whatever the reason – a stalker, an ex – just someone you don’t want to have any contact with – you can quite easily cut them out of your Facebook life. Follow the steps outlined below to do so.

It’s important to note this up [...]

This brief tutorial will show you how to test the speed of your Internet connection.
Many Internet Service Providers are playing the “we’re faster” game. That is, they claim to have faster speeds than their competitors. Common claims will be “Speeds up to xMB per second!” etc. Using a ’speed test’ you can find out [...]

I have 3 Google Voice invites for the first 3 readers who leave a comment on this post. Please make sure to use a working email address in the “Email (required, but never shared)” field (not in the body of the comment).

Please remember that Google Voice is currently only available to US residents (the [...]

If you have a blog or a website with a lot of content sometimes the images can take a toll on the load time of the pages. There are a number of steps you can take to speed things up. If you analyze the loading of your website you might notice that the images take [...]

When Apple released iTunes 9, they finally changed the behavior of the green zoom button to match most other apps in OS X. Then in iTunes 9.0.1 – and almost certainly due to customer feedback (it really annoyed me to have to learn yet another keyboard shortcut to switch back to the mini-player) – they [...]

This brief tutorial will introduce you to a new service from Secure by Design Inc. that allows you to select from a slew of popular (and free) software, and then have it all installed at once – in the background. Keep reading for an invite to this private beta and an overview of the service. [...]

This brief tutorial will guide you through upgrading CyanogenMod 4.1.99 to 4.1.999 on your Android G1 phone.
Fortunately, the process to go from 4.1.99 to 4.1.999 is much, much easier than updating to 4.1.99 itself. For a full list of all the changes in v4.1.999 see the changelog. One of the bigger changes is that [...]

This tip will show you how to quickly view the properties of any file in Windows – whether it’s a regular file, a shortcut or a system item (like your Recycle Bin etc).

Most of you know that you can right-click a file and select Properties to view its properties.

Another, faster way [...]

By default, Internet Explorer 7 and 8 “hides” the Menu bar. This tip will show you how to quickly toggle it on and off.

One of the first things you probably noticed in IE 7 (and then in is that the File Menu is no longer displayed.

If you want to quickly [...]

This tutorial will take you every step of the way through installing CyanogenMod 4.1.99 on your G1 phone – the first “legal” version of CyanogenMod (after Google sent cyanogen a cease and desist).
The steps outlined in this tutorial were gathered from the official announcement of 4.1.99 on the xda-developers forum. For more information on [...]

This tutorial will show you how to stop iPhoto from launching each time you plug in your iPod Touch (or iPhone, or any device with a camera) – and still allow iPhoto to automatically launch when you plug in your digital camera.
The application Image Capture was recently updated to include much awaited functionality – [...]

This video tutorial will show you step-by-step how to create iPhone ringtones from almost any audio or video source.
I was going to write up a tutorial on how to use this software, but it turns out the author already has a fantastic video tutorial. So all you have to do is head over to [...]

This tutorial will take you step by step through the process of partitioning the SD card in your Android phone so that you can save (and run) applications on/from it.
The process of installing programs on your SD card – knows as Apps2SD, App2SD and A2SD – not only allows you to install many more [...]

For anyone familiar with the Linux or UNIX command line interface it’s quite likely that grep has crossed your path sometime. grep is a wonderful command line tool that helps you search for a word or words through files. It ships with almost all flavors of Linux by default. For those who aren’t familiar with [...]

The other day I was doing some cleaning on my Linux server and I noticed that over time people had created and left empty files. So I decided to create a shell script that would run through the system and let me know how many files like this existed, along with their path.
Here’s a [...]

This very brief tutorial will show you how to set Firefox to open your bookmarks in a new tab, rather than taking over the existing one.

Install the Open Bookmarks in New Tab Firefox addon as you would any other. Make sure to restart Firefox for it to become enabled.

Select one of [...]

If you run or administer a production MySQL server it’s quite likely that it sometimes runs a little slow, and can be a very time consuming effort to figure out why. To be able to pinpoint the query that slows the DB down can be hard to track down. MySQL has an option to help [...]

This tutorial will guide you every single step of the way through the process of rooting your Android phone, and installing the Cyanogen ROM.
I’ve created this guide by using several other sources I found online. None were (in my opinion) as comprehensive and easy to follow as this one.
If you’re wondering why you’d [...]