Other

Yep. Leave a comment below and use the email address you want me to send the brightkite invite to in the E-mail field of the comment form (not in the body of the message). The first ten get invites, then I’ll just disable comments or delete this post. Cheers!

Update: all gone

If you’ve been wondering why there haven’t been any Mac tutorials lately, here’s the reason - I’ve acquired another site, SwitchingToMac.com. I’ll be leaving all of the existing Mac content here, but going forward, Switching To Mac will be where all my Mac/OS X focus goes. Simple Help will turn into a Windows and Linux (and Windows Mobile, Symbian, BlackBerry etc) site. If you’re an RSS subscriber because you liked the Apple content, you might want to unsubscribe from this site (you don’t have to) and subscribe to the Switching To Mac RSS feed instead.

Also, there’s a pretty active forum over there, with a lot of really helpful, friendly and active folks.

You may have also noticed that the massive majority of posts lately have been from folks other than myself. Ken Murray is a Linux genius and recent N95 owner, and Skyler Huse has been coming up with some great Windows stuff. This has allowed me to focus on getting Switching To Mac transferred (I had no idea domain transfers could be such a hassle), redesigned and a lot of articles queued. Ken and Skyler will continue to contribute to Simple Help, though you should see more frequent posting on my part too.

I’m one of those people who can’t claim they were on BBS’s long before the Internet. I do go back far enough that my first computer had a 14.4kbps modem, and the word broadband was only used by a handful of people. I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I got my first desktop with a Pentium chip. Compiling Linux kernels in just 8 hours? Amazing!

Times have certainly changed. I’ve switched from Linux to OS X, from a desktop to a laptop (MacBook Pro). My mum has adopted my EeePC as her own, and prefers Ubuntu to Windows (this is a woman who last year would ask me daily how to attach pictures to her emails). Her desktop is sitting next to mine, unplugged in the garage. Smaller, faster, cheaper. I’m not complaining

Instead of offering help, this time I’m looking for some.

1. Folks who would like to contribute tutorials for Simple Help. Windows and Linux tutorials specifically. You’d be paid on a per post/tutorial basis (via PayPal). It can be a “one off” thing or an ongoing thing, it’s up to you. Think of it as a “paid guest blogger” deal.

2. Someone who has experience customizing WordPress themes. I’ve recently purchased one, for a new site I’ll be doing, and because I’m artistically inept, I need someone to customize it. This project would not involve actual WordPress coding - the theme itself has all of that covered. I’m looking for someone who can take an existing theme and give it a custom look (vs. the “out of the box” look that it has by default). This is, of course, a paid job as well.

If you’re interested in either of the above items, please contact me. Please include links to your previous writing or design work. Thanks!

Once again I’ve been issued 10 invites to the Brightkite service. If you’d like one, leave a comment below, and be sure to use the email address you’d like the invitation sent to in the E-mail part of the comment form.

Update: and that’s it, all 10 invites have been spoken for. As soon as I get more, I’ll offer them up here.

PC-BSD 7 was recently released, and with it comes a whole slew of updates and upgrades. Some of the highlights include:

[click to continue...]

This tutorial will guide you through installing and setting up OpenTape. Opentape is a free, open-source package that lets you make and host your own mixtapes on the web. [click to continue...]

Jaiku has moved to the Google servers, and they’re now allowing unlimited invites to existing subscribers. Since I’m an existing subscriber, apparently I can invite as many people as I’d like. So - leave a comment below, make sure to use the email address you’d like the invite sent to (not in the comment itself, but in the E-Mail field of the comment form). I’ll send it to you right away (assuming I’m awake when you leave the comment). Cheers!

About a month ago I decided I was going to do something about the insanely loud noise coming from my PC. I incorrectly assumed it was one of the large fans at the back causing what sounded like a jet-engine noise. Turns out, it was the tiny little fan on the video card creating all the ruckus. Thanks to The Shadow over at the How-To Geek forums my video card fan is now running completely silent. If your video card is running loudly, follow the steps outlined below to quiet the little guy down. [click to continue...]

One often overlooked aspect of using your computer productively is the desktop. Instead of having a pretty picture of the beach, try using one of these wallpapers.

[click to continue...]

A very common criticism of Twitter (other than its uptime) is that it’s just a distraction, “noise” that doesn’t actually help you in any way. Well, here are 12 ways you can use Twitter productively. [click to continue...]

If you’d like to stalk me online, please feel free to view/add me on FriendFeed. If you’re more of a Twitter person, you can follow my rantings here. And who can leave out Facebook - you can be a Simple Help fan or join the Simple Help group, whatever floats your boat. But there’s more - Simple Help is on StumbleUpon and MyBlogLog.

I really do hope that these social networks give OpenSocial a chance.

I’ll admit, this is a bit of a plug for my friend Ba (yes that’s his name). He has recently launched a fantastic and terribly easy-to-use online product that allows you to create comics - Bitstrips. For those of you who may be witty as hell, but aren’t artistically gifted, Bitstrips does the heavy lifting for you. What are you waiting for, go check it out. And please feel free to leave links in the comments to any comics you create!

Boing Boing has a great article that every Canadian needs to read. It’s brief, to the point, and provides some very easy steps for us to stop some truly awful legislation.