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.

First you’ll need to head over to http://getvolery.com. When signing up, use the code simplehelp (note: we were given 100 invites to this service, so act quickly before they’re all used up).

Then you select the apps you want Volery to download and install for you. The software is broken down into categories like “Web Browsers”, “Messaging”, “Media”, “Documents”, “Anti-Virus”, “File-Sharing” etc. Place a check in the box next to each application you want Volery to download and install for you.

click to enlarge

Once you’ve selected all the apps you want to download/install, click the Get Installer button. You’ll be prompted to download a small .exe file. Save it to your desktop, My Documents or Downloads folder.

After the download has completed, run the file. If Windows asks if you’re sure you want to run it, click the Run button.

Volery will now begin downloading and installing all of the software you selected.

click to enlarge

Click the show details link to see where you are in the process.

click to enlarge

And once everything has downloaded and installed, just click the Done button.

click to enlarge

All of your software is now nicely installed and ready to use.

One of the big benefits to using Volery is that you can just sit back and play Solitaire until everything is done. You don’t need to go from site to site, download and manually install each piece of software. Plus, they automatically select “No” for the software that asks if you want to install those annoying Toolbars.

If you’re worried that Volery is installing something else on your PC, take a look at their Privacy Policy, quoted below:

Your email will only be used for account notifications, we don’t spam or sell email addresses. All the apps in our directory are user-requested and useful. We do not list malware or other shady apps. We install apps like you would: with default settings and we say “no” to all browser toolbars and other junk. All we do is install the apps you choose. Not even volery is installed. And, of course, we do not include any form of malware or spyware.

That means after you’ve finished using Volery, you can delete the .exe that you downloaded from them – because not even their software was installed on your system, just the software you asked it to install for you.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

An Introduction to Synaptic
Roundup: The Under-appreciated Posts
Screenshot Simulation: Safari 2.x Preferences
Why you get so many "Returned mail: User unknown" emails
Use your Menu Bar to quickly create OpenOffice.org documents

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).

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



2. Another, faster way to view a files properties is to hold down the Alt key, and double-click the file.



3. As I mentioned earlier, this always works if you want to view the properties of a system file, like the Recycle Bin



4. And even items like shortcuts.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

Screenshot Simulation: Windows XP SP2 System Properties
Screenshot Simulation: Windows ME System Properties
Screenshot Simulation: Windows 2000 Pro System Properties
Screenshot Simulation: Windows ME TCP/IP Properties
How to change the timestamps of any Windows file

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 his page, download iRinger, and watch this video.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

How to create a custom iPhone and iPod touch icon for your web site
How to access uTorrent from your iPhone or iPod Touch
How to reorder the icons on your iPhone or iPod Touch springboard
How to accurately relocate the cursor in Notes for your iPhone or iPod Touch
How to determine your iPhone data usage

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 programs on your Android phone, but it keeps internal memory free so your device runs faster.

This tutorial will show you how to partition your SD card so that you can run programs from it.

1. Before you even get started, here are the disclaimers. First, you’re going to be wiping your SD card completely clean. That means that every file you currently have saved on it, should be backed up before you even get started. Second, you’re going to need a rooted Android phone in order to take advantage of the partitioned SD card. Luckily we have a detailed tutorial that shows you just how to do that, if you haven’t already. Finally, you’ll need to have the Android SDK installed on your PC. And as you may have guessed, we have a tutorial for that as well (NOTE: you only need to follow the first 10 steps in the previously mentioned tutorial to install the SDK).
2. Now that you’ve backed up your SD card, rooted and installed CyanogenMod (or any other mod that includes Apps2SD by default) and have the Android SDK installed on your PC – lets get started.

   Right-click on this link and save the file (sdparted.txt) to the root of your C:\ drive. Note: don’t save it to you’re My Documents folder, your Downloads folder or your Desktop. It needs to be saved right on your C:\ drive. This script (sdparted.txt) was developed by “51dusty” at the xda-developers forums. You may want to visit this thread at the xda forums and download the latest version of sdparted.txt, as it is updated somewhat frequently. The version I’ve provided is v0.5.2.


sdparted.txt in the root of C:\

3. Connect your Android phone to your PC via USB. Boot into cm-recovery by holding down the Home button on your phone when you hit the Power button. This should bring you into cm-recovery (see image below).



4. Now locate your Android SDK folder. Inside the tools folder, copy the two files adb.exe and AdbWinApi.dll to your C:\windows\system32 folder.



5. Now open a Windows Command Prompt (click Start > Run > enter cmd and click OK). At the prompt, type:

   adb push /sdparted.txt /sbin/sdparted

   Then enter:

   adb shell chmod 755 /sbin/sdparted


click to enlarge

6. Now enter the command adb shell. You should get a ‘new’ prompt as seen in the screenshot below.


click to enlarge

7. At this point you issue the command to partition your SD card. There are a number of ways to do this, but the most common is sdparted -efs ext4

   This will create a swap that’s 32MB, an ext4 partition that’s 512MB and the remainder of your card will be a fast32 partition. This allows for 512MB of apps to be installed on your SD card – which is plenty of space. If you’d like to set your card up differently, see all of the options listed here. For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll run:

   sdparted -efs ext4

   Right away you’ll be asked to confirm this action. Type Y and hit enter. Note: it’s important that you type a capital Y, not a lower case y.


click to enlarge

8. Again, you’ll be asked to confirm your action. Type Y.


click to enlarge

9. And yet again you’ll be asked to confirm your action. Type Y.


click to enlarge

10. Now you’ll be presented with a ‘print out’ of your newly partitioned SD card. It should look similar to the screenshot below (but not exact, unless you have an 8GB SD card, as I do). Type exit to leave the adb shell. Restart your phone.


click to enlarge

11. That’s it! You’re done! When you install apps now, they’ll be installed to your SD card instead of the interal phone memory – allowing you to install many, many more. You should also see a nice improvement in your phones speed.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

How to delete a Boot Camp partition
Email Virus Warning: That Greeting Card isn't from Mom
How to resize Linux partitions using GParted
How to access your OS X partition from Windows in Boot Camp
How to install the most popular software on your new PC all at once

This tutorial will guide you every single step of the way through the process of rooting your Android phone, and installing the Cyanogen ROM.

NOTE: this tutorial is no longer accurate. I’m leaving it up because steps 6-20 are still required for the new way to install CyanogenMod.

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 want to root your Android phone, give Lifehackers Five great reasons to root your Android phone a read.

It should be noted right up front: following the steps in this tutorial may void the warranty on your phone. All of your settings and applications will be wiped out (but the data on your SD card will remain intact).

Note: the steps and screenshots in this tutorial are specific to the HTC G1. It’s my understanding that this process will work perfectly fine with the myTouch 3G, but I cannot personally confirm that, as I don’t have one.

Here goes:

1. Start out by plugging your your phone into your PC via USB. Once it’s connected to your PC, you should see a small USB icon in the upper left corner of your phone. Drag the “menu bar” down and there will be an entry titled USB connected. Tap (or click) it.



2. Now tap the Mount button.



3. In your browser, visit this page and download the latest stable release of CyanogenMod. The file will be in the format of update-cm-x.x.x-signed.zip (make sure to download the zip file and not the md5sum file). At the time of this tutorial, update-cm-4.0.4-signed.zip was the latest CyanogenMod. Use the date column on the right side of the page to determine which one is the latest version.

   Once you’ve downloaded the file, copy it to your Android’s SD card. The SD card can be found by going to My Computer and locating the drive that represents your SD card.



4. After you’ve copied the CyanogenMod .zip file to the SD card on your phone, slide down the menu bar again and this time tap Turn off USB storage.



5. You’ll be prompted with a Turn off USB storage window – tap the Turn Off button.



6. Now open the browser on your Android phone. Enter the URL http://ryebrye.com/files/flashrec.apk.



7. The file is just about 4MB in size, so it might take a minute or three to download.



8. Once the download has completed, tap the download entry for that file.



9. If you haven’t previously enabled installing 3rd party applications, a warning window will pop up. Click the Settings button on that screen. Note: if you have previously enabled installing 3rd party apps, skip down to step #12.



10. The Application settings window will open. Tap the ‘grayed out’ check mark next to the Unknown sources entry (so that a green check-mark appears).



11. Tap OK on the warning window.



12. Use the Back button to return to the downloads list. Now tap the download entry for flashrec.apk again. This time you’ll be prompted to install it. Click the Install button.



13. Once the installation has completed, tap the Open button.



14. On the Recovery Flasher window, tap the Backup Recovery Image button.



15. Let the recovery flasher do its thing. It’ll only take a few moments.



16. Once the backup has completed, you should be presented with a screen that says Backed up. at the top. Now tap the Flash Cyanogen Recovery 1.4 button.



17. Once this process has completed, you’ll be presented with a screen that says Flashed new recovery image. at the top.



18. At this point you need to power your phone off. Hold down the power button and select the Power off option.



19. Tap OK to shut your phone down.



20. Hold down the Home button and click the power button to turn your phone back on. It’s very important that you hold down the Home button when turning your phone back on or Android will over-write the recovery image that you just installed.

    When Android powers up, you’ll be presented with a new screen – the Cyanogen recovery image. Use your trackball and navigate down to nandroid v2.2 backup. Click this entry with the trackball.



21. Cyanogen will now create a recovery image for you. This is very helpful if you ever need to restore your Android phone. Don’t skip this step.



22. Once the backup has completed, you’ll see a screen with Backup complete! at the bottom.



23. Now scroll down to the entry titled wipe data/factory reset and click it with your trackball.



24. You’ll be asked to confirm this action by clicking the HOME button on your phone. Do so now.



25. Cyanogen will now wipe your Android phone. Once this process has completed, scroll to the apply any zip from sd entry and click it.



26. Select the .zip file that you copied to your SD card way back in step #3. Again, this file should be titled something like update-cm-x.x.x-signed.zip. Once you’ve selected that file, click it (using the trackball-button).



27. Click the HOME button to confirm this action.



28. The process of applying the CyanogenMod can take a couple of minutes to complete, so don’t worry if nothing seems to be happening.



29. Once it says Install from sdcard complete at the bottom of your screen, scroll to the reboot system now entry and click it.



30. Your phone will now restart. You’ll notice that the boot screen is slightly different now. This is a good sign.



31. Once your device finishes starting up, right away you’ll notice a new background image.



32. If you’d like to confirm everything installed, open your Settings, scroll down to About phone and select it. There should be a new entry in that list titled Mod version. It should say CyanogenMod-x.x.x (where x.x.x is the version you downloaded and installed).



33. Once again mount your SD card in Windows (see steps #1-3 above). There should be a new file on your SD card titled recovery-backup.img. Copy this file to your PC. This is the backup that you created in step #14, and it’s very important and helpful to have if you should every decide to restore your Android phone. It’s also a good idea to copy this file elsewhere – to your online backup service, a DVD, an external drive etc. You may even want to email a copy to yourself if you use an online email service like Gmail, so that it will always be stored on the Gmail servers.



34. That’s it! You’ve now rooted your phone and installed the CyanogenMod mod. Explore your Applications and phone – you’ll notice a number of new apps and features. One of which is that you now have 5 ‘home’ screens instead of 3. You should also notice that your phone is considerably faster – one of the main reasons to go through this process.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

How to partition your Androids SD card to install apps on it
How to copy music to your Android phone from Windows
How to copy music to your Android phone from your Mac
How to install CyanogenMod 4.1.99 on your G1 Android Phone
How to take screenshots of your Android based phone from Windows

This tutorial will guide you through uninstalling programs that aren’t listed in the Add/Remove Windows Components section of the Control Panel.

1. Some programs (Windows Messenger, WordPad, Pinball to name a few) are “hidden” from the Add or Remove Programs and/or Add/Remove Windows Components lists, making them difficult to uninstall. This tutorial will show you how to uninstall them – using Windows Messenger as the example.
2. Start out by selecting the Add/Remove Windows Components section of Add or Remove Programs (in the Control Panel).


click to enlarge

3. You’ll notice that Windows Messenger is listed, but if you read the fine print, when you opt to remove it it’s only actually removing the entry from the Start menu. Which is hardly useful. To really remove Windows Messenger (and other programs not listed) keep reading.


click to enlarge

4. Navigate to the folder C:\windows\inf. If you don’t see the inf folder, you’ll need to enable displaying hidden files and folders. To do so, follow steps 2 and 3 in this tutorial. Once you can view that folder, open it and then open the file sysoc.inf in a text editor like Notepad.



5. This is the ‘heart’ of this tutorial. Any item that has the word hide in it, isn’t displayed in the Add/Remove Windows Components section. Locate the line that starts with msmsgs. In that line, locate the word hide, and remove it. Also, make sure to remove the comma (,) after it. The new line should read:

   msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,7


click to enlarge

6. Now open the Add/Remove Windows Components section of Add or Remove Programs. You’ll see that “another” Windows Messenger entry now appears – this one allows you to actually remove the entire program, not just its Start menu entry. Place a check in the box next to it, and click the Next button to remove it.


click to enlarge

7. To confirm that it’s really gone, click Start, select Run and enter msmsgs.



8. You should get an error message stating that Windows cannot find msmsgs. That means it’s really uninstalled.


click to enlarge

9. Again, you can remove several Windows programs that aren’t listed using the same method. Just remove the hide, entry. But remember – be careful what you uninstall. Some of the hidden items are hidden for good reason – they’re required by Windows.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

How to disable some of the unnecessary features and services in Windows Vista
How to customize Ubuntu for your Eee PC
How to make Leopard look more like iTunes 7
How to stop programs from automatically running each time Windows starts
How to decrapify your new Windows PC

This brief tutorial will show you how to stop Windows Vista from highlighting new entries in your Start menu.

One common complain about the Windows Start menu is that by default, new programs are highlighted in yellow after installation. To stop this behavior just follow the few steps outlined below.

1. Right-click any blank/unused area of the Taskbar and select Properties


click to enlarge

2. Select the Start Menu tab from the top, and then click the Customize… button.



3. Scroll down until you find the entry Highlight newly installed programs. Remove the check from the box in front of that entry.



4. Click OK to return to the Start Menu screen. There, click the Apply button and then click OK to close that window. From now on, newly installed programs will not be highlighted. That’s it!

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

How to install fonts in Windows XP and Vista
How to easily tweak Windows Vista
How to disable some of the unnecessary features and services in Windows Vista
Screenshot Simulation: Windows Vista TCP/IP Properties
How to install a tftp client in Windows Vista

As you’ve noticed, when you copy files from one location to another, Windows will pop up a message asking if you want to overwrite existing files (if they have the same name). There’s a “Yes to All” button, but there’s no “No to All” button – which means you have to click No for every single file you don’t want to overwrite. This can be a real hassle if the copying was an accident in the first place. This brief tip will show you how to use a “No to All” feature.

1. The Confirm File Replace window doesn’t have a “No to All” button.



2. This forces you to click No each time you don’t want to overwrite a file.



3. But there’s a trick – hold down the Shift key on your keyboard, and then click No. That will tell Windows that you don’t want to overwrite any of the files you’re copying – a hidden “No to All” feature.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

Use Secrets to customize OS X
How to remap your keyboard in OS X
How to change your screen resolution (Windows and Mac)
How to fix the "We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully" error
How to compress PNG images to speed up your website

This brief tutorial will show you how to make the scroll bars wider or more narrow in all Windows programs.

There are a number of reasons why you may want to change the width of the scrollbars in Windows. If you have a touchscreen device, making them a bit wider can help you “grab” them. If you’re a power user and rarely click the scrollbars (you use your mouse’s scroll wheel etc) – you can regain some “screen real estate” by making them more narrow. Whatever your reason, here’s how to change their width.

1. Start out by right-clicking a blank area on your Desktop. Select Properties from the pop-up menu.



2. Select the Appearance tab at the top of the Display Properties screen, and then click the Advanced button in the bottom right-corner of the window.



3. Click the “down arrow” in the Items: area. A long list of “items” will appear. Select Scrollbar from that list.



4. The default size for the scrollbars is 17. If you want to increase the size of your scrollbars, choose a higher number. If you want to decrease the size of the scrollbars, choose a smaller number.



5. Click OK after you’ve made the change.



6. You’ll be taken back to the Appearance tab of the Display Properties. On this screen, click the Apply button. After a few moments, your scroll bars will take on their new size.



7. Below is a screenshot of an enlarged scroll bar (30px instead of 17px).



8. And here’s a screenshot of a scrollbar that I’ve decreased in size – down to 4px.



9. If you’re unhappy with the results, just repeat the process until you find a size you like. And if you decide you want to go back to the default, just set the size to 17. That’s it!

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

How to update the scroll bars in OS X Leopard to the new gray "iTunes-style"
How to resize Linux partitions using GParted
How to increase the number of tabs Firefox displays
How to create and extract zip, tar, tar.gz and tar.bz2 files in Linux
How to resize images using The Gimp

This brief tutorial will show you how to easily trim a second or two from the time it takes for Windows to start up.

1. Each time Windows starts you’re presented with the Windows “boot logo” and a progress bar. Displaying these items actually causes Windows to load a bit more slowly – because it has to load them. This tutorial will show you how to disable that boot logo and progress bar, allowing Windows to load faster. Note: I timed my Windows startup with and without the boot logo and status bar. The start time averaged 1.9 seconds faster without the logo and status bar.



2. Click the Windows Start button and select Run from the menu.



3. Enter msconfig in the Run window and click OK.



4. Select the BOOT.INI tab. Place a check in the box labeled /NOGUIBOOT, click the Apply button and then the OK button.


click to enlarge

5. At this point you’ll be prompted to restart your PC. Save any open work, close any open programs, and click the Restart button.



6. Unless you’ve previously disabled the System Configuration Utility “warning” message, it will appear when your computer starts up again. Click OK. The System Configuration Utility will open again – you can revert your changes if anything went wrong (very unlikely, unless you made additional changes outside of the scope of this tutorial). When you close the System Configuration Utility you may be prompted to reboot your PC again – even though you didn’t make any changes this time. You don’t need to, and the “warning” message will not appear the next time you restart.


click to enlarge

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

Power Up Your Windows Desktop With Pitaschio
How to test your Internet connection speed
How to stop programs from automatically running each time Windows starts
Get More Out Of Your Scroll Wheel With Katmouse
How to speed up your Windows PC with SpeedUpMyPC 2009

This tutorial will guide you step by step through the process of adding audio files (mp3, ogg, wma, etc) from your Windows PC to your Android phone.

Note: the steps and screenshots in this tutorial are specific to the G1 Android phone. They will likely be similar if not identical as new Android devices reach the marketplace.

1. In order to add music to your Android phone you’ll need to plug it into your PC using a USB cable. Once it’s connected to your PC, you should see a small USB icon in the upper left corner of your phone.



2. Drag the “menu bar” down and there will be an entry titled USB connected. Tap (or click) it.



3. Now tap the Mount button.



4. Depending on how you have Windows configured to react when a new drive is detected, you may see a Removable Disk screen similar to the one below. If you do, select Open folder to view files using Windows Explorer, click OK and skip the next step. If you don’t see a Removable Disk window, proceed to the next step (#5).



5. Double-click the My Computer icon on your Desktop, or open My Computer from your Start menu. There will be a new drive listed – double click it.



6. You’re now viewing the contents of the SD card in your Android device. There should be a folder titled Music – but if there isn’t don’t worry – just create it.



7. Now navigate to the location you store your audio files on your PC. Select the ones you want to copy to your Android phone/device and copy them by clicking Ctrl+c or right-clicking on them and selecting Copy.



8. Return to the Music folder on your phones SD card and paste the files into it (click ctrl+v or right-click and select Paste).



9. Your music/audio files will now copy over.



10. Once you’ve finished adding files to your phones Music folder, double-click the Safely Remove Hardware icon in your system tray.



11. Select the USB Mass Storage Device and then click the Stop button.



12. Select the drive that represents your Android phone (in my case it was F: drive, as indicated in the screenshot below) and click the OK button.



13. Windows should now prompt you that it’s OK to remove the device (your Android phone). But before you disconnect the USB cable, keep reading.



14. Back on your phone, pull down the top menu bar again, if it isn’t still being displayed. Tap (click) the Turn off USB storage entry.



15. Now tap the Turn Off button.



16. At this point you can disconnect your Android phone from your PC. To listen to the files you just added, go to your Applications screen and select the Music app.



17. Tap either the Artists, Albums, Songs or (if you added them) Playlists button.



18. And now you’ll be able to play your songs and/or audio files on your Android phone!

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

How to copy music to your Android phone from your Mac
How to take screenshots of your Android based phone from Windows
How to quickly enable or disable Wi-Fi on your Android device
How to update CyanogenMod from 4.1.99 to 4.1.999
How to take screenshots of your Android based phone from OS X

This tutorial will walk you every step of the way through the process of taking screenshots of your Android phone.

1. Start out by downloading and installing the drivers for your Android phone.
2. On your Android phone, select Settings.

   

3. Then select Applications -> Development -> and enable USB debugging by placing a check in the box next to it.



4. Now you’ll need to download the Android SDK from http://code.google.com/android/download.html. Select the Windows version, and save the file. It’s not a huge file, but it’s not small either. Depending on your Internet connection speed, it might take a while to download.


click to enlarge

5. Once the download has completed, unzip the file to somewhere on your hard drive that you’ll remember. Your C:\Program Files\ folder is one good place, but anywhere will do.
6. Now you’ll need to download the JDK (Java Developers Kit) from http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/. Don’t be confused by the number of different files that are available to download on that page – the one you’ll need is Java SE Development Kit (JDK). Again, the download can take a while.


click to enlarge

7. Once completed, run the JDK installation. Click Next all the way through until you’re done (the installation is very straight forward).
8. Now plug in your Android Phone, if it isn’t already.
9. Locate the folder you unzipped the Android SDK in (step #5 above), open the Tools folder and double-click ddms.bat (it might be titled just ddms if you don’t show extensions).



10. The first time (but not subsequent times) you open the Android SDK DDMS, you’ll be prompted with a window (see screenshot below) asking if you’re willing to send usage statistics to Google. Review the Google Privacy Policy if you’re unsure if you want to enable or disable this feature. Click the Proceed button to finish opening DDMS.



11. The Dalvik Debug Monitor will open. Make sure your device is listed in the upper-left window, and select it by clicking on it once.


click to enlarge

12. To take a screenshot, select Device > Screen capture …



13. The Device Screen Capture window will open, and display whatever is being displayed on your Android phone.



14. On your phone, navigate to the screen you want to capture.
15. Back in the Device Screen Capture window, click the Refresh button.



16. The screen you want to capture (again, the one you navigated to on your Android phone) should appear. Click the Save button.



17. Choose a name for your screenshot, then select a location to save the file. Click the Save button.


click to enlarge

18. Repeat steps 14 – 17 to take more screenshots.
19. That’s it!

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

How to take screenshots of your Android based phone from OS X
How to copy music to your Android phone from Windows
How to copy music to your Android phone from your Mac
How to quickly enable or disable Wi-Fi on your Android device
How to partition your Androids SD card to install apps on it

This tutorial will guide you through the steps required to backup your Windows Live Contacts (the Contact Manager that comes with Windows Live Mail).

1. Start out by opening Windows Live Contacts. Select All contacts from the Contacts pane on the far left of the window.


click to enlarge

2. Click the Menu’s button and then select Export -> Comma Separated Values (.CSV)



3. Click the Browse … button on the CSV Export screen.


click to enlarge

4. Navigate to the location you want to save your Contacts backup file and then enter a name in the File name: field. A descriptive name is always a good idea so you can easily find and identify the file later. Click the Save button when you’re done.


click to enlarge

5. Back at the CSV Export screen, click the Next button.


click to enlarge

6. Place a check in the box next to each field that you want to make sure is backed up. Click the Finish button when you’re done.


click to enlarge

7. Your contacts will now be backed up (exported) to the file you specified back in step #4.



8. Now you’ll be able to restore your contacts should the need ever arise.


click to enlarge

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

How to import your Gmail contacts into Outlook 2007
How to customize Windows Live Messenger (remove ads, add/remove buttons etc)
How to import your Gmail Contacts into the OS X Address Book
An Introduction to Windows Live Toolbar v3.0
How to sync your Windows Mobile device with your Mac

This brief tutorial will show you how to change the Created, Modified and Accessed timestamps for any file in Windows.

1. Start out by downloading and installing SKTimeStamp. The installation is very straight forward – you’ll click ‘Next’ a few times and be done.
2. Now select a file, right-click it and choose Properties from the menu



3. On the General tab you can view the Created:, Modified: and Accessed: timestamps (date and time for each attribute). Once you’ve installed SKTimeStamp, a third tab will appear on the Properties window – TimeStamps. Select this tab.



4. Using the drop-down arrow next to each item (Created:, Last modified: and Last accessed:) you can alter the date for each of attribute. You can also alter the specific time by using the up and down arrows of the ‘time’ section for each item.



5. Once you’ve made all the changes you want to the file, click the Apply button.



6. Click OK and once again right-click the file and select Properties. You’ll notice that the time stamps have changed.



7. If you ever want to quickly update the Modified time stamp of a file to the current day and time, right-click that file, select Properties, select the TimeStamps tab, and then click the Touch button. That will instantly change the Last modified entry to the current day and time.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

How to upload a website built with iWeb to a non .mac/MobileMe account
How to change the Windows XP System Properties logo and text
How to change your Computer Name (or Workgroup) in Windows XP
How to customize Windows Live Messenger (remove ads, add/remove buttons etc)
How to change the default web browser in Ubuntu

If you’re at all like me (or my mum) – your Windows desktop can quickly become cluttered with shortcuts and files. Using Stardock Fences you can not only organize your desktop for maximum efficiency (makes finding programs/files a snap) – it makes your desktop look great. This tutorial will guide you through setting up and using Fences.

1. As you can see in the screenshot below, a Windows desktop can often become cluttered with icons, making it difficult to find what you’re looking for.


click to enlarge

2. That’s where Fences comes in. First up, a download Stardock Fences. The installation is very straight forward – you’ll mostly click “Next” a bunch of times. At the end of the installation you’ll get a Welcome to Fences! window. Click the large Start using Fences! button.



3. On the Choose layout screen, click the Just create a couple fences button – we’ll add more further in this tutorial.


click to enlarge

4. You’ll notice two new “boxes” (fences) in the bottom right corner of your Windows desktop. One will be titled Project 1, the other Project 2. Don’t worry, we’ll be renaming these in a few moments.



5. At this point you may also get a message asking if you’d like to open the Fences Settings. Click the Open Fences Settings button to do so.



6. For the moment, we’re going to ignore the Fences Settings. Just move this window to the side.


click to enlarge

7. Right-click somewhere in the Project 1 background, and select Rename Fence….



8. Change the name from Project 1 to something more appropriate for the icons you’ll “store” in this location. I’m going to put all the program shortcuts to my games in this Fence, so I named it Games.



9. Now drag and drop all the icons you want to store in this Fence into it. As seen in the screenshot below, I moved all my game shortcuts into it.



10. Repeat the steps above to rename Project 2, then drag and drop the icons into it. In the example below, I created one titled Documents, and this is where I store all my MS Word docs, Excel docs, text files and PDFs. When you add a lot of icons to a Fence, you’ll notice that a scroll bar appears.



11. If you don’t want to scroll through a Fence to find the icon/file you’re looking for, move your cursor to the top of that Fence and it will turn into a “double-arrow”.



12. Drag the “double-arrow” and your Fence will increase in size. You can make Fences larger both vertically and horizontally – whatever you prefer. Once the Fence is larger, the scroll bar will disappear and all of your shortcuts/files will be visible.



13. You can also re-arrange Fences, or move them to an entirely different area on your Desktop, by hovering your mouse over the “Title Bar” of that fence until your cursor turns into the “4-arrow” version (see screenshot below). Then just click and drag the Fence to the location you’d like it to be in.



14. If you still have the Fences Settings window open, skip down to step #15. Otherwise, right-click on a Fence, and select Edit Fences…



15. From here you can adjust the settings for your Fences and get help on things like creating new Fences, customizing the label appearances, and changing the background color, level of transparency, etc.


click to enlarge

16. Speaking of creating new Fences… It’s actually very simple. Click any blank area of your Desktop with your right mouse button, and draw a rectangle. When you let go of the cursor, a Create new Fence here link will appear. Select it.



17. Repeat that step, name each Fence, and drag and drop the appropriate icons/files to each Fence until you have a tidy and organized Desktop.



18. Select the Customize tab from the Fences Settings. From here you can determine how labels are displayed (never, always, or only when you hover your mouse over that Fence). You can also change the background color and style for your Fences.


click to enlarge

19. One of the other neat features of Fences is the ability to hide everything on your Desktop. Just double-click a blank area of your Desktop, and everything will disappear. If you want to keep one (or more) of your Fences visible when you “hide everything” just right-click that fence and select Exclude from Quick-Hide.



20. That’s it! Have fun creating and customizing your Fences.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

How to display file extensions in Windows Vista
An introduction to Real Desktop – a Windows Desktop replacement
How to increase the screen resolutions available to Ubuntu while running in Parallels for OS X
Technology and Lifestyle
How to disable Remote Assistance and Remote Desktop in Windows XP