There are two versions of the first iOS 16 wallpaper – a regular version and another for “dark” mode. Both images are high-resolution, which means they will look great on an iPad, iPhone or even on your Mac. If you need help figuring out how to set these as wallpapers, we’ve got an easy to follow guide on how to download and set an image as a wallpaper on an iPhone or iPad.

 

 

Here are the first two macOS 13 “Ventura” wallpapers – one for light mode and one for dark mode.

Thanks to iDB for providing these images!

The post Download Now: The iOS 16 and macOS 13 “Ventura” Wallpapers appeared first on Simple Help.

Best of all – you don’t need to sign up for anything or download/install any software! Using the free service TuneMyMusic, you can copy the playlists you’ve created in Spotify over to the Apple Music app (and/or iTunes). Here’s how –

Please note: even though the screenshots used in this guide are from a Mac, the entire process is identical whether you’re using Windows, Linux or macOS.

1. Head over to the TuneMyMusic home page (link opens in a new tab/window) and click the big Let’s Start button.



2. Select Spotify as the source.



3. You’ll be prompted to sign into Spotify (if you aren’t already) and then click the large AGREE button so that TuneMyMusic can access your playlists.



4. Click the Load from your Spotify account button.



5. A window will appear with a list of all of the playlists you’ve created on Spotify. Place a check in box next to each of the playlists that you want to export to Apple Music and then click the Next: Select Destination button.



6. Click the Apple Music button to select the destination.



7. A small window will appear – click the Login to your Apple account button in that window.



8. Enter your Apple ID and password in the spaces provided.







9. Depending on your settings, you may be prompted to authenticate with 2 factor authorization. If you are, enter the auth code after you receive it.



10. Now click the Allow button so that TuneMyMusic can create new playlists in Apple Music.



11. Finally! Click the Start Moving My Music >> button. Note: your playlists aren’t “moved” – they’re copied. They will still exist and be accessible in Spotify, they’ll just also exist in Apple Music.



12. The process is actually pretty quick. It only took a minute to export 12 of my playlists (659 songs in total).



13. Once it’s done, you may notice messages about missing files (see screenshot below). If you do see a message about x missing files, click the Show list link next to that playlist.



14. Scroll through the playlist until you find the missing song(s). These tracks either aren’t available on Apple Music or TuneMyMusic wasn’t able to locate/identify them.



15. Open the Music app on your Mac, iTunes on your Windows PC, or the Apple Music app on your iPhone or iPad. Ta-da! All of your Spotify playlists are now accessible in your Apple Music collection. That’s it – you’re all done.

The post How to Transfer Your Spotify Playlists to Apple Music (or iTunes) appeared first on Simple Help.

Unlike formatting text in Twitter, it’s actually quite easy to format the text in your YouTube comments. Here’s how –

If you want to make text bold, put an asterisk ( * ) before and after that text.

That means a comment formatted like this: wow that was *great*

Will look like this: wow that was great

To add italics your text, put an underscore ( _ ) before and after the text you want italicized. To strikethrough or “cross out” text, use a dash ( – )

Before:

After:

There is a catch. You can’t put a comma ( , ) directly after the last word you’ve opted to format, or the formatting won’t work. For example, if you were to type:

This *won’t*, work

The word “won’t” will not be bold, but if you remove the comma, it will work:

This won’t work

You can use this video to test out formatting for yourself (I uploaded it, it won’t bother me – and you can listen to my dear friend Hook playing w/ the Allman Brothers Band).

As a tip, use the styling somewhat sparingly. The same way shouldn’t make your comments IN ALL CAPS, don’t make entire comments, especially long ones, in all bold text.

The post How to Format Text in YouTube Comments Bold, Italicized, or Crossed Out appeared first on Simple Help.

Using the app Plash you’ll be able to customize your desktop background like never before. There are quite a few features that make this app capable of a lot more than just displaying some static HTML on your desktop. You can add custom CSS and JavaScript to the website, interact with it, automatically reload the site at a specified interval, and much more.

Something to note right up front – the latest version of Plash requires macOS 11.3 (Big Sur) or later. There is an older version that works with 10.15, though not all features are supported. To install the older version just download and open the .zip file, drag-and-drop it to your Applications folder and then open it from there (and skip the first two steps in this guide).

Otherwise, start at step #1 below and we’ll go through a bunch of examples of ways to use Plash.

1. Start by visiting Plash on the App Store, which will launch the App Store app. Click the GET button to start the installation process.



2. Once it’s done, click the OPEN button.



3. A ‘Welcome’ screen will appear. Give it a read and then click the Continue button.



4. Let’s jump right in and start using Plash. Click its icon from your menu bar (the new one that looks like a “splashing droplet”) and select Add Website… from the list of options.



5. For the sake of trying out the app, we’ll add one of the “really cool but not necessarily useful” sites to use as a desktop background first – WindowSwap. Enter the address: https://www.window-swap.com/Window in the provided space, and give it a name (doesn’t really matter what, something descriptive is helpful). Then click the Add button.



6. Ta-da! Your desktop background will turn into a random video looking out of someones window.


click to enlarge

7. You may have noticed a small Websites panel appeared once you added the first site to Plash. Ignore it for the time being – we’ll get to it in a minute or two.



8. Once again click the Plash icon in your menu bar and select Add Website… from the list of options.



9. This time enter the address: https://bing-photo-of-the-day.netlify.app and hit the tab key on your keyboard. After a moment or two, the name should auto-populate to something like “Bing Photo of the Day for Plash” – once it does, click the Add button.



10. This time your desktop background becomes the full-screen Bing Photo of the Day!


click to enlarge




11. Now that you’ve added two sites to Plash, you can switch between them using the menu bar icon. Click it and select Switch and you’ll see both of the sites we just added.



12. Plash has some pretty advanced features that you can use to take the “web page as a desktop” thing to the next level. Once again click the Plash menu bar icon, select Add Website… and enter: https://calendar.google.com then click the Add button.



13. Your desktop will switch to the Google Calendar sign-in page, which can be quickly fixed.



14. Fortunately you can interact with the web page you’ve set as the desktop. Click the Plash icon from the menu bar and select Browsing Mode



15. Plash will display a message that explains Browsing Mode – after you’ve read it click OK to close the window.



16. Click inside of the Email or phone field and sign into Google Calendar the same way you would as if you were using a normal web browser.



17. There it is! Your Google Calendar will now be displayed as your desktop background.



18. You’ve probably noticed it doesn’t look… awesome. Here’s where some of the advanced Plash magic comes into play. Using a bit of code provided by the author of Plash, you can make the calendar look amazing by blending into the background with your normal desktop wallpaper (see screenshot below).


click to enlarge

19. Remember that Websites window we looked at briefly way back at step #7? Bring it up by selecting the Plash icon in your menu bar and then Websites… from the list of options. Hold down the control key and then click the Google Calendar entry. Select Edit…



20. From here you can add custom CSS or JavaScript to the web page being displayed on your desktop. Start by placing a check in the box labeled Use print styles (Note: this option requires macOS 11). Next up, copy and paste the following text into the CSS: field then click the Done button.

* {
background-color: transparent !important;
color: white !important;
}

.QQYuzf,
.gboEAb,
header.NkK3Fc,
.Hrn1mc {
display: none !important;
}

[role="grid"] * {
border-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3) !important;
}

.tNDBE:not(.Wyo4Qe),
.SGWAac,
.QIadxc:last-child {
border: none !important;
}

[data-chips-dialog] {
background-color: rgba(0 0 0 / 80%) !important;
}




21. Ta-da! Your Google Calendar now looks much cooler.


click to enlarge




22. If you still have Browsing Mode enabled you can interact with your calendar the same as if it were being displayed in a web browser.



23. Of course that can get really annoying too, so just select the Plash icon and then Browsing Mode again.



24. You may also want to review the various settings and options – to do so, click the Plash icon and select Preferences…



25. Review each of the tabs and make any changes you see fit.



26. For more Plash site suggestions, custom CSS and other tips be sure to check out the user submitted content by visiting the Plash use-cases page.

The post How to Set a Web Page as the Desktop Background in macOS appeared first on Simple Help.

Please note: the steps and screenshots in this guide are from HandBrake running in Windows. The steps are similar enough (though not identical) for the macOS and Linux versions of HandBrake that you should have no trouble at all following along, even if you’re not using Windows.

1. Get started by downloading HandBrake and installing it. The app itself isn’t very big and doesn’t take long to download or install. Once the installation has completed, launch HandBrake.
2. Now you’ll need to load the video that you want to resize. To do so, click the File – Open a single video file. link.



3. Select the video and then click the Open button.



4. Once the video has been loaded into HandBrake, select the Dimensions tab.



5. Locate the Size section – this is where you set the dimensions you want the video to have. Make your changes to both the Width: and Height: numbers by using the up/down arrows next to each item. Make sure to maintain the same aspect ratio or the resulting video will looked ‘squished’.



6. Confirm that the Output: lists the Display size with your newly set dimensions.



7. Feel free to review the other encoding options that HandBrake offers, if you’d like. They have great documentation, and the app itself has a lot of features. This step is not mandatory, and the default settings will probably suit your needs. Plus, you can always make changes and try again if you’re not happy with the result the first time.
8. Finally, give your new video a name and choose a location to save the file in the Save As: field at the bottom of the window. Click the Start Encode button when you’re ready.






9. The status of your encode will be displayed at the bottom of the HandBrake app window. The larger (file size) and longer the video is, the longer this process will take. You may want to go grab yourself a cup of coffee. Of course, you can continue to use your computer while HandBrake does its thing – it’ll just be a bit slower.



10. Once HandBrake is done resizing the video, open up a File Explorer and locate the newly created file. Select it and then click the Properties button in the ribbon or right-click the file and choose Properties from the context menu.



11. Click the Details tab and locate the Video section on that screen. Confirm that the Frame width and Frame height are set to the correct, new dimensions.



12. Open the file in your favorite video player and confirm it looks the way it should etc.



13. That’s it! You’re all done.

HandBrake is a super helpful tool you can use for much more than just resizing videos, like converting videos to play on your iPhone or iPad and copying DVDs to play on your phone, tablet or computer.

The post How to Resize a Video in Windows, macOS and Linux appeared first on Simple Help.

Note: if you’re looking for the very latest iOS and macOS wallpapers, check out this post for the iOS 16 and macOS 13 “Ventura” wallpapers.

There are two versions of the first iOS 15 wallpaper – a regular version and another for “dark” mode. Here’s a .zip file that contains both, or you can download them individually via the following links: iOS 15 wallpaper #1 | iOS 15 wallpaper #1 (dark). Both images are high-resolution, which means they will look great on an iPad or even on your Mac. If you need help figuring out how to set these as wallpapers, we’ve got an easy to follow guide on how to download and set an image as a wallpaper on an iPhone or iPad.

There are a few macOS 12 “Monterey” wallpapers and here’s the first one.

Thanks to Macwelt for providing these images!

The post Download Now: The iOS 15 and macOS 12 “Monterey” Wallpapers appeared first on Simple Help.

At one point in time this was a bit more straightforward. It’s a little more complicated now, but mostly due to the sheer number of ways that you can install a theme in Ubuntu. We’ll cover a few of the most common methods using some of the most popular themes.

Table of Contents

1. Install Gnome Tweaks
2. Install New Themes in Ubuntu
   – the Pop!_gtk Theme
   – the Qogir Theme
   – the Arc Theme
3. Additional Ubuntu Theme Resources

Install Gnome Tweaks

Switching between installed themes is always done the same way, and it requires you to download and install the Gnome Tweaks tool. To do so, open a Terminal and enter the command:

sudo apt install gnome-tweaks

Once Gnome Tweaks has been installed you can close the Terminal. Click the Show Applications button (the one in the bottom left corner of the screen) and then search for tweaks. Click the app icon to open Gnome Tweaks.

Select Appearance from the list of options in the left column. From here you can change the theme that Ubuntu is using. Ubuntu doesn’t ship with very many themes, but it does include Adwaita (in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and above) and it’s quite popular (it’s the default theme for Fedora Desktop). Click the menu next to Applications – which is probably set to Yaru, the default theme for Ubuntu.

Select Adwaita from the list.

After a brief moment the Adwaita theme will be applied and the style of your applications in Ubuntu will change.

The Adwaita GTK Theme in Ubuntu (click to enlarge)

Switch the Icons to Adwaita as well to apply even more changes.

Install New Themes in Ubuntu

Now that you know how to switch between themes, let’s install a few.

First we’ll need to find some themes to download and try out. OMGUbuntu! has a list of 11 of the best looking GTK themes so let’s install a few of those.

1. Pop!_gtk is usually mentioned when the subject of Ubuntu themes comes up so let’s give it a try. This theme is installed via a Terminal, so open one up and run the following commands:
   

   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:system76/pop
   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install pop-theme



2. Once all of the files and their prerequisites have been downloaded and installed, close out of the Terminal window. Launch the Gnome Tweaks app again.



3. Select the Appearance item from the column on the left side of the window and then choose Pop from the Applications menu (and the Cursor, Icons and Sound menus if you want to go “full Pop” :)



4. Now choose Fonts from the column on the left side of the window and change the them to the Pop recommended ones, which are:

Window Titles: Fira Sans SemiBold (10)
Interface: Fira Sans Book (10)
Documents: Roboto Slab Regular (11)
Monospace: Fira Mono Regular (11)



5. The Pop developer suggestions you restart your shell to make sure all of the changes are applied – so click Alt + F2 on your keyboard, then r and hit enter.


The Pop!_gtk Theme in Ubuntu (click to enlarge)

1. Qogir is installed a bit differently. Start by downloading the zip file from the Qogir github page file and then extract its contents to your Downloads folder. Open a Terminal and navigate to the newly created Qogir-theme-master folder and run the install script by entering the following command:

./install.sh



2. This will copy all of the required files to the /home/your_username/.themes/ folder. Launch the Gnome Tweaks app again, select the Appearance tab and this time and choose Qogir from the Applications menu.


The Qogir Theme in Ubuntu (click to enlarge)

1. Some themes can be installed from directly within the Ubuntu Software app, and there’s even a way to link to them from the web. Open the page 11 Best GTK Themes for Ubuntu (2020 Edition) and scroll down to the Arc section (it’s #6 in the list). Click the Install the Arc GTK Theme from Ubuntu Software button.



2. You’ll be prompted to choose an application to open these types of links in. Click the Choose Application button.



3. Select Ubuntu Software from the list of app and then click the Open Link button.



4. This will launch the Ubuntu Software app on your computer and load the Arc theme installation page. Click the Install button.



5. Once the installation has completed, open Gnome Tweaks again and enable the Arc theme inside of the Appearance panel.


The Arc Theme in Ubuntu (click to enlarge)

Additional Ubuntu Theme Resources

My personal favorite Ubuntu/GTK/Gnome theme is WhiteSur. What can I say I’m a sucker for the macOS interface. WhiteSur still gets regular updates in 2021 and has a lot of customization options. In the screenshot below you’ll see the WhiteSur theme and WhiteSur icons with the WhiteSur wallpaper and Firefox and Dash to Dock have both been tweaked.

The WhiteSur Theme in Ubuntu (click to enlarge)

You may notice a number of themes have a different dock. Of course you should check with the theme documentation to see which one they recommend, but you’ll find a lot of the time it’s Dash to Dock – which happens to be my favorite and the one I use no matter which theme I’ve got loaded.

Dash Dock in Ubuntu (click to enlarge)

Gnome Look is the unofficial home to Gnome interface tweaks and eye-candy. They have themes, icons, wallpapers – all neatly organized with ratings and plenty of screenshots.

You can also use the Gnome Tweaks app to change your lock and login screen backgrounds.

The post How to Install Ubuntu Themes (With Examples) appeared first on Simple Help.

You know when you buy a game and you put the disc in it shows an icon related to that game? Have you ever wanted to do something like that to your CDs or DVDs, or even USB flash drives? It’s actually really easy to do. It just requires a text file and an icon. This tutorial will guide you through the steps required to create both.

1. Find an image you want to use as the icon for your CD, DVD or flash drive. I’ve decided to use the logo image this site uses – a red question mark. Once you have the image, head over to IcoConvert so that you can convert it into an .ico file. It’s super easy and completely free. When you get to Step #4, make sure to select Custom sizes and Multi-size in one icon and then place a check in all of the size options.



2. After you’ve downloaded your newly created .ico file, open up Notepad on your PC. Enter [autorun] on the first line and then on the second line enter ICON=ICON.ICO, replacing ICON.ICO with the name of your icon file. As you can see in the screenshot below, my second line is ICON=logo.ico – since logo.ico is the name of the icon file I created.



3. Now save that text file as autorun.inf by selecting All Files (*.*) as the Save as type: option, otherwise your file will be named autorun.inf.txt






4. Finally, copy your two files (the .ico file and the autorun.inf file) to the root of the drive you want them to be used with (in other words don’t put the inside of a folder on that CD/DVD or flash drive, just copy them right to the top level).



5. If you’re creating a custom icon for a flash drive you’ll need to safely unplug it and then plug it back in again for the icon to appear. If you’re burning a CD or DVD the icon will be visible when you insert the disc into a CD/DVD drive.



6. That’s it! Now you can include a custom icon on all of the CD/DVD’s that you burn in the future.

The post How to Add a Custom Icon to Your CD/DVD and Flash Drives appeared first on Simple Help.

Using the small and completely free app iFetchLyrics you can have the lyrics to all of the songs in your Music App automatically downloaded and added to each track.

iFetchLyrics version 2 requires macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or later, although there are older versions (v1.x) for pre-Catalina users.

1. Get started by downloading iFetchLyrics. Once the file has finished downloading, extract the app from the .zip file and drag it to your Applications folder to install it. Launch it from there.



2. Since iFetchLyrics hasn’t been signed, you’ll need to open it again. Click OK on the warning screen.



3. Right-click (ctrl + click) the iFetchLyrics app and select Open



4. This time click OK on the warning screen.



5. When iFetchLyrics asks permission to control Music.app click the OK button.



6. If you want to add the lyrics to all of the songs in your library, select Music from the Fetch lyrics for all songs in playlist: menu. If you’ve already added lyrics to some of the songs in your library, place a check in the box labelled Ignore songs already having lyrics. Be sure to review all of the info in the Legal Info section. Finally, click the Fetch Lyrics… button.



7. It might take iFetchLyrics a few moments to start – give it time.



8. The process of adding lyrics to all of the songs in your Music.app library will probably take a while. You may want to grab a cup of tea or coffee – but you can certainly continue to use your Mac while it runs.



9. Once it’s done, click the Finish button.



10. Open Music.app if it isn’t already, right-click (ctrl + click) a random track and select Get Info from the menu. Choose the Lyrics tab and… ta-da! The lyrics should now be added to the track info.



11. Now that you’ve added lyrics to the macOS Music app, perhaps you’d like to display them on your Desktop.

The post How to Add Lyrics to Songs in the macOS Music App appeared first on Simple Help.

Background

VLC is widely consider the best-in-class multimedia player across all popular operating systems – including Linux. Here’s how you can install it in Ubuntu –

Install VLC in Ubuntu

There are a few ways to accomplish this, but we’ll go with the “snap” method, as it’s the best way to ensure VLC stays up to date when new versions are released. Here goes –

1. Click the Show Applications button in the bottom left corner of the screen.



2. In the Type to search box enter the word terminal and then click the Terminal app when it’s displayed.



3. Enter the command:
   

   sudo snap install vlc



4. Ubuntu will prompt you to enter your password and after you do it will download and install VLC. Once that has successfully completed, exit out of the Terminal



5. Click the Show Applications button again and scroll down to the bottom – there’s VLC! Launch it by clicking on it once.



6. The first time it runs you’ll need to grant it permission to use the Internet to find info about the files you’re playing (cover art etc) – click the Continue button.



7. There’s the VLC we all know and love :)

Set VLC as the Default Media Player in Ubuntu

1. To set VLC as your default media player, click one of the buttons at the end of your menu bar (see screenshot below) and then select Settings from the list of options.



2. Scroll down the list of settings in the column on the left side of the window and select Default Applications. Now in the main part of that same window select the pull-down menu next to Video and choose VLC media player. If you want VLC to handle your audio files too, make sure to select VLC media player from the Music pull-down menu.



3. Now when you double-click a video file it will open up in VLC instead of the default “Videos” App.



4. That’s it!

While you’re here, did you know you can use an iPhone to control VLC? It’s true :)

The post How to Install the VLC Media Player in Ubuntu appeared first on Simple Help.

Background

The PortableApps app lets you turn any thumb drive into a “portable PC” filled with your software, settings and bookmarks, documents, photos, audio/video files, and more. It allows you to make any PC feel like it’s your own, and doesn’t leave anything behind. It’s incredibly handy to be able to plug it into a friends computer, work or school computer, and have everything you need ready and waiting for you to use.

It works on every modern version of Windows, all the way back to Windows 2000. Perhaps best of all, it’s completely free and it’s even open source, so you can rest assured that there’s no malware or spyware hidden in the app.

Installing PortableApps on a USB Thumb Drive

1. To get started, plug in your USB thumb drive. You don’t have to delete everything on it, but it might be a good idea to copy the contents over to your hard drive just in case something goes wrong and your data gets erased during the PortableApps installation – which is unlikely, but things happen…

   Visit the PortableApps download page and download the installer file. Once the download has completed, run the file.



2. After clicking Next a few times you’ll be asked what kind of installation you want. Select New Install and then click the Next button.



3. Choose Portable – install to a portable device and click Next



4. Select the drive that represents your USB thumb drive and then click Next



5. At this point you’ll be presented with a confirmation screen. Make sure the right drive has been selected and then click the Install button.



6. Just sit back and wait while the app installs itself onto your thumb drive. This process doesn’t take very long.



7. Finally, make sure there’s a check in the box labelled Run PortableApps.com Platform and then click the Finish button.

Setting Up and Using PortableApps

1. When PortableApps opens for the first time it displays the “About” screen. Close it by clicking the Close button.



2. The PortableApps app itself will be displayed in the bottom right corner of your desktop. To get started adding software to it, click the Apps button.



3. Select the Get More Apps… option and then the By Category option.



4. Give PortableApps time to load all of the software that it offers. This can take a minute or two so just let it do its thing.



5. Eventually a window will appear with a big list of all the software that works with PortableApps out of the box. Go through the list and place a check in the box next to each app you want to install to your thumb drive.



6. Click the Next button after you’ve made your selections.



7. Now PortableApps will download and install everything you just selected. This process can take quite a while, and unfortunately you can’t just leave it and come back later. Many of the Apps require you to click “Accept” to a Terms of Service. The good news is that you only have to go through this process once. Open Minesweeper or something to help kill the time.



8. Once everything has completed, click the Finish button.



9. Now the PortableApps app will have a list of all the software available on your thumb drive. Click one of the apps…



10. … and it’ll open up, exactly the same as if it was installed on the hard drive of the computer you’re using.



11. PortableApps also includes shortcuts to folders that it has created for you on the thumb drive. Click the Documents button.



12. Windows Explorer will open and display the contents of that Documents folder – which is on your thumb drive. This is a great place to store all of the files you want to take with you.



13. One last thing you may want to check out before you’re done – click the Options button.



14. Check out each tab/section and make any changes you see fit.


click to enlarge

15. The Themes tab contains a series of themes or “skins” that PortableApps can use. I didn’t love the default one, but I found a great one to use in this list. Select one of them and then click OK to apply the change.


click to enlarge

16. Keep trying the themes until you find one you like.



17. Finally – when you want to use this on another PC just plug in your thumb drive and navigate to it using Windows Explorer. Double-click Start.exe to launch PortableApps.



18. Remember that when you set up the apps on your thumb drive, the settings for those apps are stored on the thumb drive itself. So you can take your drive to use on another PC, and everything will ready to go. If you use Thunderbird to check your email through PortableApps, you may want to set it to leave mail on the server, so that your email is available to your “main” mail app as well.

The post How to Setup and Use PortableApps on a USB Thumb Drive appeared first on Simple Help.

The screenshots in this guide are from a Windows 10 PC. However, the software used in this guide is available to Windows, macOS and Linux users – so even if you’re not using Windows you’ll have no trouble at all following along as the steps and images are nearly identical.

1. Start by downloading and installing Audacity. Audacity is a well known, highly regarded, free and open source audio editor for Windows, macOS and Linux.
2. Once the installation has completed, launch Audacity and select File and then Open…



3. Navigate to the MP3 files you want to combine. Select both files by clicking each one while holding down the CTRL key (macOS users hold the Apple key), and then click the Open button.

   

4. Each file will now be imported into Audacity.



5. Once the importing has finished, you’ll have two Audacity windows open – one for each file.


click to enlarge

6. Choose the track you want to be first in the final, combined file. Click Select and then All

   

7. Now click Edit and then Copy



8. Bring the other Audacity window to the foreground, select Edit and then Paste



9. You should now have a screen similar to the image below. Use the horizontal slider to scroll through the “timeline” of your newly created file. In all likelihood you’ll be able to tell where to two files are joined.


click to enlarge

10. You can use the Play button to hear how the entire ‘combined’ MP3 will sound.



11. Now it’s time to save the combined files into one. Select File, then Export and finally Export As MP3



12. Give your new MP3 a name and choose a location to save it.



13. In the Format Options section, select the Quality pull-down menu. Choose from one of the available presets – the Insane option will provide you with the highest audio quality, and the largest file size. The Medium option will encode the file at the lowest audio quality and the smallest file size (although it’s still completely listenable, this one is best suited for spoken word audio tracks). When you’ve made your selection, click the Save button.



14. Now you can enter the metadata for your file, if you wish. Click OK when you’re done.

    

15. Audacity will now join the MP3 files and encode them together into one MP3, which probably won’t take very long.



16. That’s it! Give your newly created MP3 file a listen to make sure it all went smoothly. You’re done :)

Tip: What to Do When MP4 File Won’t Play on Windows Media Player

Should the need arise, we also have a guide on how to split an MP3 into two or more parts.

The post How to Join (Combine) Multiple MP3 Files into One appeared first on Simple Help.

Each of these wallpapers has an aspect ratio of 21:9, so they’ll fit your UltraWide Monitor perfectly.

click to enlarge (3440 x 1440)

click to enlarge (3440 x 1440)

click to enlarge (3440 x 1440)

click to enlarge (3440 x 1440)

click to enlarge (6880 x 2880)

click to enlarge (3440 x 1440)

click to enlarge (3440 x 1440)

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Background

Privacy is obviously important. Some of the ‘warning’ messages that Apple displays in iOS can make users a bit uneasy. Here’s exactly what Google has to say about privacy and the Google keyboard:

We know the things you type on your phone are personal, so we’ve designed Gboard to keep your private information private.

What Gboard sends to Google:

Gboard sends your searches to Google’s web servers to give you search results.

Gboard also sends usage statistics to Google to let us know which features are used most often and to help us understand problems if the app crashes.

If you use Gboard’s microphone, voice input will be sent to Google for transcription.

What Gboard doesn’t send to Google:

Other than your searches and voice inputs, Gboard doesn’t send anything you type to Google, whether it’s a password or chat with a friend.

To help you with spelling and to predict searches you might be interested in, Gboard will store the words you type on your device. This data is not accessible by Google or by any apps, and can be cleared at any time.

If you’ve turned on contacts search in Gboard search settings, this allows Gboard to search the contacts on your device so you can easily share. None of these queries are sent to Google.

Install and Setup the Google Keyboard in iOS

1. Head over to the Gboard for iOS page on the App Store and download it as you would any other iOS App.



2. Once the download and installation has completed, tap the newly added Gboard icon on your Home Screen.



3. Now you’ll run through a quick setup – start by tapping the GET STARTED button.



4. The first step involves turning on and granting certain permissions to the Google Keyboard. Tap the GET STARTED button again.



5. The Settings panel will open. Tap the Keyboards row.



6. Toggle the Gboard switch to ON and then toggle the Allow Full Access switch to ON as well.



7. When the confirmation window appears tap the Allow button.



8. Return to the Gboard app and finish the setup by tapping the UNDERSTOOD button.



9. The Gboard Settings will open up now that the setup process has completed. You can close this window for now.

Using the Google Keyboard in iOS

1. Open an App that uses the keyboard (Notes is a good one) and tap the “Google” button that should now appear just above the keyboard itself. If the button isn’t there, proceed with step #2 – otherwise you can jump down to step #4 below.



2. Tap and hold the ‘globe’ icon found between the numbers key and the microphone key.



3. Select Gboard from the list of options.



4. After you’ve tapped the Google button, a search window will appear. In all likelihood a few examples will appear in the list. Select or search for Restaurants near me to test out the search feature.



5. You’ll be prompted to allow Gboard to have access to your location. Tap the Allow While Using App button.



6. Now a bunch of restaurants near you will appear. Tap one of them.



7. You’ll see a Copied! notification appear by the restaurant you just tapped. Now ‘tap and hold’ on a blank area within the Notes App and select Paste when the contextual menu appears. This will paste a URL for the restaurant, along with its name, address and phone number. This is super helpful when you’re emailing friends about meeting up at specific location.



8. Right above the ‘search bar’ within Gboard there’s a row of options. Select YouTube from that list. Now when you run a search it will search YouTube.com, and you can tap one of the results to copy and paste it as well.



9. If you return to the main Gboard interface (with the keyboard visible) you’ll see a row at the top of the keyboard with a series of icons in it. Select the one with a ‘magnifying glass’ that seems to be hovering on top of a square smiley emoji.



10. This will bring up the ‘search GIFs’ panel. From here you can search for animated GIFs.



11. And of course you can copy and paste them into your current App as well.



12. You can also search through emojis and stickers this way.



13. If you select the ‘pen’ icon from the bottom row, you can even draw your own pictures – and copy and paste those too!



14. Once again return to the main Gboard interface and this time tap the Microphone icon from the row at the top of the keyboard.



15. iOS will prompt you to allow access to your microphone. Tap OK



16. From here you can dictate your messages and ignore the keyboard completely :)



17. Congrats – you’re now familiar with most of the features using the Google keyboard on iPhone. Keep ‘tapping’ around and discover more of the options. If you have any questions or concerns by all means leave a comment below!

In case your Android device came with a different keyboard installed, you can of course install Gboard on an Android device too.

The post How to Use the Google Keyboard on an iPhone appeared first on Simple Help.

Some are recent additions to Spotify, some are quite old but a bit buried.

Use a Sleep Timer with Spotify

Buried deep within the Spotify options is the ability to set a timer to turn Spotify off after a certain period. Here’s how –

1. Start playing a track or playlist and tap the “3 dots” button (see screenshot below) located in the upper-right corner of the app.



2. Scroll all the way down to the last of the options and then select Sleep timer



3. Choose how long you’d like Spotify to play for until the audio stops.



4. After making your selection you’ll a notification will appear letting you know the timer has been set.



5. Now you won’t wake up in the middle of the night with music still playing :)

Find All Podcasts With a Specific Guest

This one is for the podcast addicts. It’s fairly simple but at the same time pretty powerful. If you’re a fan of a certain actor, musician, celebrity, influencer etc, you can find all of the podcasts that they’ve participated in by running a search in Spotify.

Open Spotify and run a search for that persons name. Typically I put the name in quotation marks so Spotify knows to search for that exact name. Once the results are displayed, select SEE ALL in the Podcast Episodes section.

You’ll be presented with a list of all the podcasts with that person in them.

Edit Your Profile Name

For some reason Spotify didn’t want you to change your display name for quite some time. Now you can change your profile name, but you have to be using the iOS or Android app to do it (no, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to us either). Here’s how –

1. Open the Spotify app on your mobile device and tap the Settings icon (the one that looks like a cog, see screenshot below) located in the upper-right corner of the app.



2. Tap the View Profile link.



3. Tap the Edit Profile button.



4. Now tap the name you currently have set as your display/profile name.



5. Enter the name as you’d like it to be displayed on Spotify.



6. Now your newly set name will be displayed across Spotify – including the web, desktop client etc.

Organize Playlists in Folders

It wasn’t until I started using AuxParty a lot that my playlists became a bit unruly. After years of using Spotify I finally discovered that you can organize your playlists into folders – aptly named Playlist Folders.

Select File and then New Playlist Folder

A new item will appear in your list of Playlists

Click inside the newly created Playlist Folder and give it a name.

Now drag-and-drop Spotify Playlists into that folder. Ta-da! Instant organization.

Use Spotify as an Alarm

Unfortunately this one is limited to Android users, but you can now use tracks on Spotify for your alarms. Just make sure you’re using the latest version of the default Clock app for Android.

When you go to set an alarm, tap the Spotify item from the menu at the top of the app.

You can navigate through your tracks and playlists or use one of the specially curated tracks from Spotify as an alarm.

We have plenty of other tips and tricks for Spotify – from boosting the volume (iOS and Android) to creating Spotify Playlists from your YouTube “Likes”. If you’d like to see them all, just run a search for Spotify on our site.

The post 5 Advanced Tips & Tricks for Spotify appeared first on Simple Help.