Simple Help » Other http://www.simplehelp.net Common questions, simple answers Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:12:32 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 How to block someone on Facebook http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/11/05/how-to-block-someone-on-facebook/ http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/11/05/how-to-block-someone-on-facebook/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:45:07 +0000 Ross McKillop http://www.simplehelp.net/?p=3415

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 front – by blocking someone you are not 100% completely blocking absolutely every possibly interaction on Facebook with that person. As Facebook explains:

If you block someone, they will not be able to find you in a Facebook search, see your profile, or interact with you through Facebook channels (such as Wall posts, Poke, etc.). Any Facebook ties you currently have with a person you block will be broken (for example, friendship connections, Relationship Status, etc.). Note that blocking someone may not prevent all communications and interactions in third-party applications, and does not extend to elsewhere on the Internet.

It’s also worth mentioning that when you block someone, not only will they not be able to see what “you’re doing” on Facebook – you won’t be able to see what they’re doing either. It is a two-way block.

  1. First up, sign in to your Facebook account. Towards the upper-right corner, hover your cursor over the Settings link. A little ‘drop-down’ menu will appear. Click Account Settings

  2. Click the manage link in the Privacy section of your settings page.

  3. Enter the name of the person you want to block in the Person field. Alternately, you can enter their email address in the Email filed, but you’ll need to know exactly which email address they have associated with their Facebook account. Now click the Block button.


    4. click to enlarge

  4. If the name you entered matches more than one person, a list will appear displaying all of the possible matches. Locate the person you want to block, and click the Block button.

  5. If at any point you want to remove this block, return to your Account Settings page, and click the remove link next to the blocked person.

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]]> http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/11/05/how-to-block-someone-on-facebook/feed/ 1 3 Google Voice Invites http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/11/04/3-google-voice-invites/ http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/11/04/3-google-voice-invites/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:45:57 +0000 Ross McKillop http://www.simplehelp.net/?p=3404

Update: invites all sent. As soon as I have more, I’ll be sure to offer them up here.

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 service does not work outside of the US).

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]]> http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/11/04/3-google-voice-invites/feed/ 9 How to test your Internet connection speed http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/11/04/how-to-test-your-internet-connection-speed/ http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/11/04/how-to-test-your-internet-connection-speed/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:00:19 +0000 Ross McKillop http://www.simplehelp.net/?p=3333

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 what your actual upload and download speeds are.

  1. Head over to the dslreports.com Flash Speed Test page. As the title suggests, you will need to have the Adobe Flash browser plugin installed (you probably do already). Note: before you run a speed test, make sure that any current uploads or downloads are finished. To get the most accurate results, you don’t want any of your bandwidth to be used while running the test.
  2. Now select from the list of speed test sites. Choose the one closest to you that isn’t too ‘busy’ by clicking it once.

    3. speed test selection
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  3. An odometer will appear and the test will begin.

    4. speed test odometer

  4. Upon completion of the test, the results will be displayed.

    5. speed test results

  5. As indicated by the image above, my download speed was 1796Kb per second and my upload speed was 1874Kb per second. This is considerably less than my ISP claims. With that said, there are a number of factors that can affect your results. As mentioned earlier in this tutorial, if you have any uploads or downloads running at the time you take the test, your results will be lower than they should be. There may also be an unavoidable delay on the ‘path’ that data travels to get from the speed test server to your home computer. It’s best to run the test several times throughout the day (at different times) and compare results. Regardless of your connection time (dial-up, DSL or cable) – during the “peak” usage hours, speeds will almost certainly be slower.

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]]> http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/11/04/how-to-test-your-internet-connection-speed/feed/ 0 Hope you had a great summer! http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/09/07/hope-you-had-a-great-summer/ http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/09/07/hope-you-had-a-great-summer/#comments Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:10:06 +0000 Ross McKillop http://www.simplehelp.net/?p=3100

Now that summer is pretty much over, you’ll find tutorials showing up on Simple Help much more often.

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]]> http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/09/07/hope-you-had-a-great-summer/feed/ 1 How to use a command line version of Google http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/07/22/how-to-a-command-line-version-of-google/ http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/07/22/how-to-a-command-line-version-of-google/#comments Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:45:56 +0000 Sukrit Dhandhania http://www.simplehelp.net/?p=2976

Google has some amazing services to offer such as search and translation. Goosh is a web based service that brings you the power of Google in a command line interface in your web browser. Goosh stands for Google Shell. Note: Goosh is NOT an official google product!


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Don’t be deceived by how simple this web application looks. At the command prompt enter search simplehelp.net like in the example above, and watch Goosh run a search and return web sites just like Google usually does. You can also run more specific searches if you like.


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If you want to run an image search for boats you can run the command images boats. Or if you want to run a search for boats in Wikipedia, use the command wiki boats. Goosh smartly returns results to all these queries right in the command line interface.


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What’s more is that Goosh allows you to log into your GMail account right from the command line also. Enter the word login followed by the Return key, and voila, the GMail login screen will appear.

So, have fun exploring and using Goosh. I find that once I get used to it, it seems to make web searching quite efficient, and a lot of fun.

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]]> http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/07/22/how-to-a-command-line-version-of-google/feed/ 0 How to display your Flickr photos on your Facebook wall http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/07/06/how-to-display-your-flickr-photos-on-your-facebook-wall/ http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/07/06/how-to-display-your-flickr-photos-on-your-facebook-wall/#comments Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:15:05 +0000 Ross McKillop http://www.simplehelp.net/?p=2948

This brief tutorial will show you how to display your Flickr photos on your Facebook wall.

  1. The first steps is to sign in to your Flickr account. From the top menu select You and then Your Account from the drop-down list.

  2. In the Personal Information section, select the Extending Flickr link.

  3. Now scroll down and look for the Your Facebook account line. Click the Link your accounts link.

  4. At this point you’ll be re-directed to Facebook. Sign in if necessary. You’ll be presented with a small section outlining your Flickr account.

  5. And now each time you upload a photo to Flickr, it will appear on your Facebook wall.

  6. That’s it!

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]]> http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/07/06/how-to-display-your-flickr-photos-on-your-facebook-wall/feed/ 0 How to determine which of your tweets have been favorited, and by whom http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/04/26/how-to-determine-which-of-your-tweets-have-been-favorited-and-by-whom/ http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/04/26/how-to-determine-which-of-your-tweets-have-been-favorited-and-by-whom/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 06:52:54 +0000 Ross McKillop http://www.simplehelp.net/?p=2622

I discovered this brief ‘howto’ (on twitter, of course) from @the_api_book via @ginatrapani.

Head over to google.com and enter the search phrase:

site:twitter.com/*/favourites your_username

where your_username is your twitter user name.

For example, this search returns the results for all of the folks who have favorited a tweet made by the user @lifehacker, and which tweet it was that was favorited.

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]]> http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/04/26/how-to-determine-which-of-your-tweets-have-been-favorited-and-by-whom/feed/ 1 How to remove the DiggBar from sites visited via digg http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/04/19/how-to-remove-the-diggbar-from-sites-visited-via-digg/ http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/04/19/how-to-remove-the-diggbar-from-sites-visited-via-digg/#comments Sun, 19 Apr 2009 08:43:43 +0000 Ross McKillop http://www.simplehelp.net/?p=2506

If you’re as unimpressed with the new DiggBar as I am, this brief tutorial will show you how to make sure it never appears on a site you visit via digg again.

There are a couple of ways of going about making sure you’ll never see the DiggBar again.

If you’re always signed into digg, it’s as simple as changing one of your preferences. From digg.com select My Profile -> Settings -> Viewing Preferences (if you’re signed into digg right now, just use this link). In the Site-wide Preferences section, select Never show DiggBar for external links from the Show DiggBar? drop-down menu.

disable the diggbar from your digg preferences page

If you’re not always signed into digg while you’re using it (I rarely am) – install the Remove Digg Bar Greasemonkey script (you’ll need to have the Greasemonkey Firefox Add-On installed in order to use that script). If you use Safari (OS X version) as your browser, this tutorial will guide you through installing Greasemonkey scripts in Safari.

disable the diggbar using greasemonkey

Finally, if you run a site based on WordPress and want to make sure that no one from digg will see the DiggBar when they visit your site from a link on digg, install the DiggBar Remover WordPress plugin.

Final Note: some people love the new DiggBar. That’s great. It’s all about personal preference. I just happen to be in the “nope, don’t like it” crowd.

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]]> http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/04/19/how-to-remove-the-diggbar-from-sites-visited-via-digg/feed/ 1 Mid-Week Fun: Pearl Jam Game http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/03/04/mid-week-fun-pearl-jam-game/ http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/03/04/mid-week-fun-pearl-jam-game/#comments Wed, 04 Mar 2009 09:22:24 +0000 Ross McKillop http://www.simplehelp.net/?p=2331

Bored this today? When I had a day job I certainly disliked Wednesday the most, even more than Monday. So to kill some time today, head over to PearlJamTenGame.com. Each stage of the puzzle that you complete, you “unlock” a different song from the upcoming reissue of Ten (Pearl Jams first album). If you can complete the entire puzzle (it took me 31 minutes, you can do it faster I’m not very good at these games) you get access to a cool but short video montage of Pearl Jams history.

screenshot of the pearl jam game
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]]> http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/03/04/mid-week-fun-pearl-jam-game/feed/ 0 How to purchase US iTunes content in Canada http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/02/17/how-to-purchase-us-itunes-content-in-canada/ http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/02/17/how-to-purchase-us-itunes-content-in-canada/#comments Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:17:02 +0000 Ross McKillop http://www.simplehelp.net/?p=2284 iPod

Thanks to my friend Armen for this trick. This tutorial will guide you through the steps required to buy or rent content that’s only available in the US version of the iTunes Store, from Canada. I would be hugely appreciative if you could give this a try if you live in Australia, England, France, Italy or any country other than Canada and let me know if it works by leaving a comment.

  1. The most important part of this trick is to purchase a MasterCard gift card (a temporary/disposable MasterCard). These are available in many stores across Canada, including Macs and Shoppers Drug Mart. They come in $25, $50 and $100 denominations.

    2. mastercard gift card
    click to enlarge

  2. Launch iTunes. Select iTunes Store from the left navigation, and if you already have a Canadian account, click on the ‘your email address’ button in the upper right corner.

  3. Click the Sign Out button.


    4. click to enlarge

  4. Now back in the iTunes Store, click the Sign In button.

  5. Click the Create New Account button.


    6. click to enlarge

  6. On the intro screen, click the Continue button.


    7. click to enlarge

  7. You’ll be asked to enter your credit card and address info. Don’t. Look for the line that says If the billing address is not in Canada, click here, and click the click here link.


    8. click to enlarge

  8. In the Select a country: drop-down list, select US. Now click the Change Country button.


    9. click to enlarge

  9. You’ll be taken back to the iTunes Store, where once again you’ll have to click the Sign In button.

  10. And again, click the Create New Account button.


    11. click to enlarge

  11. Notice that the iTunes Store now thinks you’re in the US. Enter in the gift card MasterCard info, and a US billing address. You can probably just make one up, but you might want to confirm that the ZIP code and city match up. Update: using an address in Oregon is a good idea as they have no state tax. Thanks @staciebee!


    12. click to enlarge

  12. Once you’ve filled in all the appropriate info, click the Done button.


    13. click to enlarge

  13. Now you’ll be signed in to the US iTunes Store. Navigate to whatever content it is you want to buy/rent and go for it!


    14. click to enlarge

  14. You should have no problems downloading the movies/music/TV show etc.


    15. click to enlarge

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]]> http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/02/17/how-to-purchase-us-itunes-content-in-canada/feed/ 24 How to quickly share files with your friends http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/01/30/how-to-quickly-share-files-with-your-friends/ http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/01/30/how-to-quickly-share-files-with-your-friends/#comments Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:45:44 +0000 Skyler Huse http://www.simplehelp.net/?p=2220

One of the problems I have with file sharing is that more often than not, it’s rather slow. When I say file sharing, I mean between one person and a friend, not bittorrent, eDonkey or Gnutella. For this you usually have to go through an Instant Messenger’s file sharing program or through sites like Rapidshare or Megaupload. The problem with IM file sharing is that it’s usually slow and if it gets interrupted, often you’ll have to start all over. The problem with sites like Rapidshare is that they don’t stream, which can be frustrating. Yes, there are sites like Streamfile that try to fix that last problem, but it can still mess up and you have to start all over!

filephile sending a file

So, here’s where Filephile comes in handy. You add your friends email address to it and you can send them a file or even a whole folder of files. It also lets you add a description to the file(s). Your friend will get an Incoming File Transfer window that shows your email address, the description you added, and an option for them to add you to their buddy list. They also get to choose where to save the file.

filephile receiving a file
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The only real downside to this is that you have to sign up at the site to be able to use Filephile. This isn’t that bad though, because it’s really easy to do, and it will resume file transfers when it can if something messes up on either side. In addition, it’s cross platform, which means you can send files to all your friends. It doesn’t matter if they’re on Windows, OS X, Linux, or even BSD.

filephile transfers in progress
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There aren’t many downsides to this. It gives you free and simple file transfers that are only limited by the down/upload speed of the computers in the transfer.

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]]> http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/01/30/how-to-quickly-share-files-with-your-friends/feed/ 7 5 Great Web Comics http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/01/27/5-great-web-comics/ http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/01/27/5-great-web-comics/#comments Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:30:34 +0000 Skyler Huse http://www.simplehelp.net/?p=2206

This is a list of five of my favorite webcomics. They were chosen because they update regularly, have great art, and have a good story to go with it all. I also tried to stay away from the well known comics (like Questionable Content). They are listed in alphabetical order, not by how much I like them :)

Flipside is a comic that follows a free spirited jester girl named Maytag and her lover Bernadette, a swordswoman. “It’s a romantic fantasy adventure with a lot of action, and a small dose of horror.” says the site. It’s aimed at the more mature crowd and updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

FreakAngels is a mature comic about some psychic friends in a post apocalyptic steam punk world. If this doesn’t sound completely awesome to you already, you should still check it out. The art is great and it updates every Friday, but that Friday always brings six new pages!

Gunnerkrigg Court is a strange comic. It’s about a girl going to school in a world where technology and nature live separated. It reminds me a lot of Harry Potter, but with less wizardry and more technology. It updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and has a very nice art style.

Punch an’ Pie is a comic I just learned about a few weeks ago. It’s follows a bisexual woman named Angela living her life. It’s really funny, the art isn’t bad, and the story keeps you reading. There’s lots of drama in this one and it is probably aimed at those of us trying to live life after college. I think it updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but I haven’t seen any promises to keep this on the site. Tho only problem I have with this comic is that I can’t find an RSS feed for it…

The Zombie Hunters is a comic that is exactly what you would expect from the title. Who doesn’t like zombies and great art? The site warns that it is ‘Rated R’ and says that it is ‘Updated every Monday and the occasional Thursday.’ It is probably the least often updated in this list, but it’s the only web comic I know of with a zombie theme.

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]]> http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/01/27/5-great-web-comics/feed/ 4 5 Reasons You Should Be Using Picasa http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/01/19/5-reasons-you-should-be-using-picasa/ http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/01/19/5-reasons-you-should-be-using-picasa/#comments Mon, 19 Jan 2009 11:00:07 +0000 Skyler Huse http://www.simplehelp.net/?p=2166

I love Picasa. Here are five reasons you should use it, along with some tips. They are listed in no particular order.

1. Picasa Photo Viewer is Fast and Beautiful


click to enlarge

Picasa’s photo viewer provides a nice alternative to the default windows photo viewer. It pops up images in a nice smooth animation and gives you some options, which are shown in the image above. It’s a very aesthetically pleasing way to view your images, and doesn’t require you to use any other part of Picasa! After Picasa is installed, just go to your start menu, go to the Picasa 3 entry, and click Configure Picasa Photo Viewer.

2. It Provides Quick and Easy Backup to the Web


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I never got into Flickr or any other image sharing sites, but I find Picasa to be a great (and simple) way for me to keep back ups of my images online. All you have to do is sign into your Google account and click Sync to Web! Before doing this, you may want to go into Picasa, go to Tools and then Options, and go to the File Types tab to make Picasa add more file types, then go to the Web Albums tab and change the default size to Original so it doesn’t resize your images.

3. Easy Image Editing


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While it may not be as powerful as Photoshop, Picasa is still a great program for editing images. It replaces most things with simple sliders and buttons. I actually prefer this to Photoshop for fast edits just because of its simplicity and speed. It also saves the original in case you ever want to revert it back. The above shows a photo before and after some simple slides and button presses.

4. Nice Screen Saver


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Picasa has a really nice looking screen saver with lots of different settings. To get to it in Picasa, go to Tools and Configure. Then click Settings to change some stuff. It offers several different ways to cycle through you images and allows you to choose which folders for it to use. Or you can even use an RSS feed!

5. It’s Made by Google!


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I won’t deny it, I’m a Google fan. I like pretty much everything Google releases. But even if you aren’t a Google fan boy, Picasa being made by Google still benefits you. It integrates well with your gmail and Picasa web albums, and Google loves easter eggs! Like the one above. You press Ctrl+Shift+Y to see it, and you can keep pressing it for more. They can also be dragged around.

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]]> http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/01/19/5-reasons-you-should-be-using-picasa/feed/ 5 Download or Rip Music from Facebook Profiles to MP3 Files http://www.simplehelp.net/2008/12/12/download-or-rip-music-from-facebook-profiles-to-mp3-files/ http://www.simplehelp.net/2008/12/12/download-or-rip-music-from-facebook-profiles-to-mp3-files/#comments Fri, 12 Dec 2008 09:25:02 +0000 Ross McKillop http://www.simplehelp.net/?p=1893

This brief tutorial will show you how to download music embedded in Facebook profiles and save them as MP3s.

  1. First and most importantly, you’ll need to use the web browser Firefox. Then download and install the Firefox Addon DownloadHelper. As with all Firefox Addons, you’ll need to restart Firefox for the DownloadHelper installation to complete. Once the installation is complete, and Firefox has restarted, you should notice a new DownloadHelper icon in your Navigation Toolbar (note: the icon may be slightly different looking depending on your version of Firefox)

    2. downloadhelper icon

  2. Now visit the Facebook page with the song you’d like to download as an MP3. Click the Play button.

    3. facebook music

  3. After the song has streamed for a a few seconds, you’ll notice the DownloadHelper icon has gone from “grey” to colored, and a small arrow will appear next to it.

    4. download helper gray   downloadhelper colored

  4. Click on the small arrow next to the DownloadHelper icon, and (usually) you’ll see a long and random file name. Click that file / link.

    5. facebook music download via downloadhelper

  5. In the Save As dialog box, rename the file to something more recognizable. Then save the file.

    6. facebook music download save as box
    click to enlarge

  6. That’s it! Just repeat the above steps for each song you want to download.

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]]> http://www.simplehelp.net/2008/12/12/download-or-rip-music-from-facebook-profiles-to-mp3-files/feed/ 10 6 websites to convert files from one format to another http://www.simplehelp.net/2008/11/05/6-websites-to-convert-files-from-one-format-to-another/ http://www.simplehelp.net/2008/11/05/6-websites-to-convert-files-from-one-format-to-another/#comments Wed, 05 Nov 2008 11:30:29 +0000 Ross McKillop http://www.simplehelp.net/?p=1600

This is guest post from Ivan at Hacks PC blog, where he writes about various PC Tutorials. Fell free to subscribe to his RSS Feed if you are interested to follow his writing.

Sometimes you have to convert videos, pictures or other files to another format. There are many applications which can convert various types of file formats. But why spend time downloading and installing software which can contain viruses, spyware etc, when you can convert many files online without downloading any software. Just go to the site, which offers free online conversion, the load file(s) from your PC, choose the format and press convert. This method is also very useful when you need to covert files from computers where you are not allowed to install any additional software, like at work or school. Below you can find list of free sites which offer online file conversions.

  1. Media Convert

    2. With this site you can convert images, movies, audio files, documents and archives files. The maximum file size is 150MB. Load the file, set the input file format and output file format, then click OK. Media Convert offers good Advanced Options, where you can modify converted files Audio or Video Quality, images size and etc.


    click to enlarge

  2. Zamzar

    3. Simple file conversion (images, music, video, docs and archive files) in easy 4 steps. When you convert files with Zamzar, you must add your email address. Once the conversion has completed, you’ll be notified at that email address. I’d suggest using a “temporary” or “throw-away” email address for this service.


    click to enlarge

  3. PrimoOnline

    4. PrimoOnline provides a super-fast way to create PDF files online, without the need to install any PDF software. Simply upload your file, enter your email address, and their server-based PDF creator will quickly convert it to PDF and deliver it straight to your email inbox.


    click to enlarge

  4. PDF conversion – PDF (Acrobat) to text

    5. This converter is especially designed to convert your PDF (Acrobat) file to plain text. It extracts the PDF file’s text and strips out any logos, fonts, layouts and graphics which the file may contain, leaving you with simple, reusable text.


    click to enlarge

  5. Movavi Online

    6. An online video converter that lets you convert videos that are up to 10 min each and 100MB in total size.


    click to enlarge

  6. Youconvertit

    7. Allows you to convert a huge number of file formats (documents, audio, video, archive files etc).


    click to enlarge

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