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.

Using a small, free extension you can turn Chrome from a web browser into a web browser and server. It’s super helpful for web development and perhaps the easiest and fastest way to get a web server up and running. Although it’s not going to replace a full fledged server with a database, PHP etc, it does have quite a few features – which you can read about here.

One of the particularly helpful features is that this works in Windows, macOS, Linux, Chrome OS – any operating system that Chrome works with.

1. Start by heading over to the Chrome Web Server extension page on the Chrome Web Store. Install it as you would any other extension by clicking the Add to Chrome button.



2. Launch Web Server from your list of Chrome Apps (enter chrome://apps in the Chrome address bar to get the full list).



3. The web server will instantly start and a window will appear with a bunch of options. The first thing you’ll need to do is specify a web directory – the place where all of the html and related files you want to use with your web server are stored. To do so, click the CHOOSE FOLDER button.



4. Navigate to the folder that contains the files that make up your web site, select it and click the Select Folder button.



5. Now review the Options and make any changes you see fit. Then click the Show Advanced Options link.



6. Again, make any changes you see fit. As you’d expect, you can of course change these at any point in the future.



7. You can view your web site by visiting the URL http://localhost:8887 or http://127.0.0.1:8887



8. If you enabled the Accessible on local network option you’ll be able to access the web server from other computers/devices on your network by entering its IP address followed by :8887 (the default port). For help determining your IP address, see this guide for Windows 10, or this one for older versions of Windows, or this one for macOS.



9. That’s it! To stop the web server, just close its window.

If you want to run a much more advanced web server on your Windows PC, we have a guide that explains how to easily install WordPress in Windows.

The post How to Run a Basic Web Server With Google Chrome appeared first on Simple Help.

Thanks to the good folks at Bitnami, the entire process is remarkably easy and straight forward. The final result will be a completely functional WordPress installation that you can use as a development and testing environment. As a huge added bonus, it doesn’t even take very long to set up.

Let’s jump right in!

1. The screenshots used in this guide are from a Mac, however, Windows users will have absolutely no trouble following along as the software is the same on both platforms.
2. If it’s not already installed on your Mac or PC, download and install VirtualBox. VirtualBox is an app that lets you run other operating systems on your computer, in a virtual environment. That means you can have a second and completely different operating system (like Linux) running on your computer without having to reboot or alter your existing operating system at all. The installation is super straight-forward, mostly you’ll just click “Next” a bunch of times.
3. With VirtualBox now installed, download the .OVA file from here. The file is approximately 730MB so the download may take a few minutes depending on your Internet connection speed.
4. Launch VirtualBox and select File and then Import Appliance…



5. Navigate to the Bitnami .ova file that you downloaded back in step #3. Select that file and then click the Open button.



6. Back on the Appliance to import screen, click the Continue button.



7. Click the Import button on the Appliance settings screen.



8. Wait a few moments for the import to finish.



9. Now you’ll be taken back to the main VirtualBox window. Select your newly added bitnami-wordpress entry from the list in the left column of the window, and then click the Start button.



10. Your virtual device will start up for the first time.



11. You’ll be presented with a screen that says to wait a few minutes – so do exactly that, just wait a few minutes. It may seem like nothing is happening but your device is being setup in the background.


click to enlarge

12. Then screen will update and just as promised, you’re now able to view your login credentials etc. Even better – you’re done setting up VirtualBox. Yep, it was that easy. On this screen you’ll find a URL – likely something along the lines of http://192.168.x.x – enter that URL into a web browser on your Mac or PC.


click to enlarge

13. Ta-da, there’s WordPress! You now have WordPress up and running inside of a virtual machine on your computer. You can interact with WordPress exactly as if it were being hosted on a server somewhere else on the Internet. For example, add /wp-admin/ to the end of the URL you were provided in the previous step.


click to enlarge

14. Enter the username and password that were also provided back in step #13 to sign into your new install of WordPress on your Mac or Windows PC.


click to enlarge

15. At this point you can run updates, install themes and plugins – everything you’d be able to do with a “normal” WordPress installation. A good starting point might be to take a look at 7 “Must-Have” plugins for WordPress.


click to enlarge

16. When you’re done working in WordPress, close the VirtualBox machine. When you want to work in WordPress again, just launch VirtualBox and start the bitnami-wordpress entry again. That’s all there is to it.

The post How to Install WordPress on Your Mac or Windows PC appeared first on Simple Help.

1. Head over to the User-Agent Switcher and Manager add-on page and install it as you would any other Firefox add-on. Once it’s installed you’ll see a new icon in the upper-right corner of Firefox.



2. When you click the User-Agent Switcher and Manager icon a large window will pop-up.



3. To change the User-Agent for Firefox, start by clicking the Browser menu from the upper-left corner of the User-Agent Switcher and Manager pop-up window. From that list, choose the browser you whose user-agent you want to use. In this example, I’m choosing Safari.



4. Next, click the Operating System menu (it’s right next to the Browser menu). I’ve opted to use iOS.



5. Now select the version of the browser you want to use.



6. If you only want the current window (or tab) to use the alternate user-agent, click the Window button. If you want to use the new user-agent across all windows and tabs, click the Apply button.



7. The User-Agent Switcher and Manager icon will change, indicating the new user-agent that your current window/tab is using.



8. Click the Refresh Tab button to reload the page you’re currently viewing. This will send the ‘new’ user-agent to the web site and it will load as if you’re using that browser.



9. As you can see in the screenshot below, YouTube now thinks my browser is Safari for iOS (iPhone/iPad) and it has loaded the mobile version of YouTube.com.



10. When you’re done and want to switch back to the default Firefox user-agent, re-open the User-Agent Switcher and Manager pop-up window and click the Restart tab if you selected Window back in step #6. If you selected Apply so that the new user-agent was applied to all of your tabs and windows, instead of clicking Restart, click the Reset button.



11. That’s it! You can now use Firefox to ‘trick’ web sites into thinking you’re using a browser that you’re not actually using.

For more Firefox tips and tricks, be sure to scroll through the Firefox category.

The post How to Change the User-Agent for Firefox appeared first on Simple Help.

ps. the vast majority of these are free!

Unless you see a $ next to the App, it’s either free or there’s a free version.

Internet

1Password ($2.99/mo) – never worry about remembering secure passwords again
Chrome and/or Firefox and/or Vivaldi – all better than Safari
Cyberduck – sometimes you gotta upload
Dropbox and/or Google Drive – backups made easy
Private Internet Access ($3.33/mo) – if you’re not using a VPN you’re asking for all kinds of trouble
Transmission – download using Bittorrent
Skype – call mom!

Multimedia

Spotify – all you need is music
VLC – the last video player you’ll ever need, and it does audio too
Handbrake – convert video from almost any format to almost any format
Plex – stream your media
Kodi – stream your media pt. 2
Steam – more and more games work on macOS

Productivity

MacUpdater – keep all your macOS apps up to date
Evernote – take and manage your notes across all your devices
ImageOptim – optimize your images
Skitch – markup your images
Gimp and/or PhotoShop ($20.99/mo) – edit your images and graphics
ThumbsUp – resize your images the easy way (guide)
OpenOffice and/or LibreOffice and/or Microsoft Office ($varies) – work, work, work
Slack – work and chat, chat and work

Utilities

BetterTouchTool ($7.50) – the Swiss army knife of macOS
coconutBattery – manage your batteries (Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch)
AppTrap – uninstall your Apps properly
VirtualBox – run other OS’s on your Mac (eg. Windows, Linux etc)
The Unarchiver – extract from .rar files and many others

If you purchased a MacBook, MacBook Air or MacBook Pro with a smaller SSD hard drive, you may want to consider uninstalling some of the Apps that come pre-loaded with your laptop. For example, I’ve never used Garageband in my life – uninstalling it is an easy way to reclaim 1.44 gigabytes of drive space. If you’re using Office 365, LibreOffice or OpenOffice, you can also reclaim some space by uninstalling Numbers, Keynote and Pages. Finally, if you aren’t planning on doing any video work with iMovie – it’s a whopping 2.82 gigabytes that could be reclaimed.

Don’t forget – all of the above mentioned Apps can be downloaded and reinstalled for free via the App Store at any point in time.

Garageband – 1.44GB
Numbers – 427MB
Pages – 508MB
Keynote – 682MB
iMovie – 2.82GB

The post 31 Apps to Install on a New Mac – 2020 Edition appeared first on Simple Help.

While the steps and screenshots in this guide are specific to Windows 10, this software will work with all modern versions of Windows and you should have no trouble following along. Note: We also have a Mac version of this guide.

1. Head over to the WinSCP download page and click the large DOWNLOAD WINSCP button.



2. Once the download has completed, locate the file in your Downloads folder and double-click it to start the installation. You’ll be asked if you want to install the app for all user accounts on the computer you’re using or just for your account. Make the selection based on your needs.



3. Click Accept on the License Agreement window.



4. For the Setup Type select Typical installation (recommended) and then click the Next button.



5. This time select Commander as the User interface style and then click Next



6. Finally, click Install



7. WinSCP will now be installed. It doesn’t take very long so don’t go too far away.



8. On the last WinSCP installation screen make sure there’s a check in the box labelled Launch WinSCP, and make sure there isn’t a check in the Open Getting started page box. Click the Finish button.



9. The WinSCP app will now open up and the Login panel will appear.



10. From here you’ll need to enter a bunch of information about your server connection, all of which should be provided by the owner/administrator of the FTP/SFTP site itself. First, select either FTP or SFTP from the File protocol: drop-down menu. In the Host name: field enter the name or IP address of your site. If you’re connecting to an FTP site, enter 21 as the Port number: – if you’re connecting to an SFTP site, enter 22. Then enter your username and password in their respective fields. When all of the required fields have been filled out, click the Save button.



11. On the Save session screen give your Site name a descriptive title. If you don’t want to enter your password each time you connect to the site, place a check in the Save password (not recommended) box. You can also have a shortcut created on your desktop that when double-clicked will open WinSCP and start the connection to this site right away, which is very handy. Click the OK button when you’ve made your selections.



12. If you’re making an SFTP connection, when you connect to your site for the first time you’ll be prompted to save a host key to your local cache. Click the Yes button.



13. WinSCP will now finish the connection and display the contents of your S/FTP site in the panel on the right side of the window.



14. The panel on the left side of the WinSCP window contains your local files – ie. your computer. Navigate to the folder that contains the file, files or folder that you want to upload. Select them and then “drag and drop” them onto the panel on the right side of WinSCP – which is the remote S/FTP site.



15. Click the OK button on the Upload confirmation message window.



16. Now your files/folders will upload from your computer to your FTP/SFTP site.



17. When the upload has completed, it’ll display those files/folders in the ‘remote site’ panel on the right.



18. To download files or folders, select them from the ‘remote site’ panel then drag and drop them into the ‘local’ panel.
19. That’s it! Now you can upload and download files using FTP or SFTP in Windows.
20. If you need any further help by all means feel free to leave a comment below, or check out the WinSCP documentation.

The post How to FTP or SFTP in Windows 10 appeared first on Simple Help.

Let’s jump right in!

1. Start out by installing Simple History as you would any other WordPress plugin.



2. Once it’s installed, don’t forget to Activate it.



3. From the Settings section of your WordPress menu, locate and click Simple History



4. Review all of the settings, but make sure that both on the dashboard and as a page under the dashboard menu are selected



5. Now that you have the plugin installed, activated and ready to go – visit your WordPress Dashboard. You’ll see a new ‘section’ titled Simple History (probably at the bottom of your Dashboard). As you’ll see, the only ‘events’ displayed so far relate to the Simple History plugin itself. Going forward, all of your WordPress activity will be listed here.



6. You can also view a ‘full page’ version of events by locating the actual Dashboard entry in your WordPress menu, and then clicking the Simple History link.



7. Now let’s pretend some time has gone by. As you can see in the screenshot below, Simple History has detected all sorts of activity on my site.


click to enlarge

8. It also groups similar events together. Just click the link…



9. … and the menu expands, showing each event.



10. The information you gather with Simple History can be used in all kinds of ways. One thing I learned (quickly) is just how often people try to gain access to WordPress itself – hundreds of times per day! I have since lowered the permissions for certain accounts so that even in the worst case, an intruder will still only have very limited access to WordPress.

    It can also be very helpful to know the IP address being used to try and gain access – particularly those that try over and over again to get into your site. By editing your .htaccess file you can stop those people from even trying.

If you’re interested in really boosting your WordPress site, be sure to check out our guide on must-have plugins for WordPress.

The post How to Monitor Your WordPress Site Activity appeared first on Simple Help.

Note: we also have a Windows version of this guide.

1. Start by downloading CyberDuck – a free FTP App for macOS. Open the .dmg file once the download has completed, and drag CyberDuck to your Applications folder to install it. Once it’s installed, launch it from your Applications.



2. Click the Open Connection button.



3. First select the type of connection you want to make. Click the ‘up and down arrows’ button (see screenshot below) to select one.



4. FTP is the default, but FTP-SSL and SFTP are both becoming more popular and common. Refer to the documentation that came with your FTP info to make sure you select the right one.



5. Enter the Server name in the space provided. The server name is usually provided to you by whomever created your FTP account. Enter your Username and Password in the spaces provided. NOTE: if you’re using FTP and not FTP-SSL or SFTP, there may not be a password field on this page. Don’t worry, wait till the next step :)



6. If you weren’t prompted for a password on the previous screen, you will be now. Enter it in the space provided, and place a check in the box labeled Add to Keychain if you don’t want to enter your password each time you connect to this particular FTP/FTP-SSL/SFTP server.



7. And now you’ll connect to your FTP server. It may contain files and folders related to your web site if that’s the FTP server you’ve connected to. The window may be blank or empty if you’ve never uploaded any files or folders.


click to enlarge

8. To create a new folder, select File from the Apple Menu, and then New Folder… from the drop-down list.



9. Enter a name for the folder, and click Create.



10. CyberDuck will now create the folder. Double-click the folder name to ‘enter’ that folder.


click to enlarge

11. To upload files, locate them in your Finder, select the ones you want to upload, and then ‘drag and drop’ them to the main CyberDuck window.


click to enlarge

12. The main Cyberduck window will refresh and the files and/or folders you just uploaded will be listed. Also, the Transfers panel will indicate that everything was successful.



13. To delete a file or folder, right-click it and select Delete from the pop-up menu. You can also rename files this way (select Rename…) etc.



14. If you want to save the FTP server information (so you don’t have to enter it every time you want to connect to it) – click the Bookmarks item from the Apple Menu and then select New Bookmark.



15. Most of the info will be populated already, just make sure to give it a Nickname so that you can quickly identify it in the Bookmarks list.



16. Congrats – you can now FTP or SFTP from your Mac! “Click around” in Cyberduck to find its other features, like how to see “hidden” files and folders. If you have any other questions regarding the use of CyberDuck, please feel free to leave a comment below.

The post How to FTP (or SFTP) From Your Mac appeared first on Simple Help.

The most common reason for wanting to compress PNG files is so that they can be used on the Internet, and whatever medium it is they’re being served through (a web page, twitter, even Facebook) will load faster – because the files are smaller in size. The additional benefit is that the images themselves will not suffer in quality.

If you have a website, it’s particularly important to compress your image files, as Google is putting more and more weight on ‘page speed’ when it determines where your content ranks in their search results. The smaller your files, the faster your page will load. So lets jump in!

If you’re a Windows user, click here to get started. If you’re on a Mac, click here to get started. We also have a separate tutorial if you’re using Linux, which you can find here. All of the methods outlined in these guides use free software.

1. Start out by heading over to the PNGGauntlet home page. Click the Download button and install PNGGauntlet as you would any other Windows program. Once the installation has completed, place a check in the box labeled Launch PNGGauntlet and click the Finish button.


click to enlarge

2. The first time you use this tool you may want to save the original files and have the new ones created in a different folder. Eventually once you’re happy with the program, you can set it to simply overwrite the existing files after they’ve been compressed. So click the … button at the end of the Output Directory: field.


click to enlarge

3. Select the folder (or make one) that you want to save your compressed PNG files in. Click OK when you’re done.



4. As illustrated in the screenshot below, you’ll see the path to the directory where your images will be saved. Now, click the Add Images button.


click to enlarge

5. Navigate to the PNG files you want to compress, and select them all. Click Open.


click to enlarge

6. Now it’s time – click the Optimize! button.


click to enlarge

7. PNGGauntlet will now start compressing your files. This process can actually take quite a while, depending on two main things – how many images you’re working with, and how fast your computers CPU (processor) is.


click to enlarge

8. Once completed, you’ll see how much each file was ‘shrunk’ and how long it took to complete the entire procedure. As seen in the screenshot below, it took about 15 minutes to work on 15 PNG files, but the resulting files are considerably smaller now!

   Take a moment to view some of the ‘before and after’ images that you just compressed. You’ll see that there was no change to the ‘quality’ of the image, it’s simply smaller in size.


click to enlarge

9. Once you’re happy with the tool, you can place a check in the box labeled Overwrite Original Files.


click to enlarge

10. That’s it! One last suggestion – if you’re going to compress hundreds of images at once, you may want to let the program run over-night, while you’re not using your PC. If you are running PNGGauntlet while using other programs, try to minimize how many you’re using, and close the programs not in use. That will also help speed up the compression process.

1. To compress PNG files on your Mac, head over to ImageOptim home page and click the Download button. Once the download has completed, double-click the ImageOptim.tbz2 file to uncompress it.


click to enlarge

2. Drag the file ImageOptim.app to your Applications folder, and launch it from there.


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3. Select ImageOptim from the menu bar, and then Preferences from the list.

   On the General tab, place a check in the box labeled Backup original files before saving – if you want to keep backups of the files before you compress them. I personally don’t bother, but you may want to try it out at first so that you can compare and confirm the image looks exactly the same after it has been compressed.


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4. Simply drag-and-drop .PNG files into the main window of ImageOptim.


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5. Right away it will start to do its thing. You’ll be able to watch the progress as the program shrinks your images.


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6. Once completed, you’ll be presented with a summary of how much space was saved/files were shrunk. You’ll also be able to see exactly how much each individual file was shrunk by looking at the Savings column.


click to enlarge

7. That’s all there is to it! As I mentioned in the Windows section, compressing PNG files can take quite a bit of time – depending on how many you’re compressing at one time, and how fast the speed of your CPU (processor) is. If you’re working with a lot of files, you may want to let ImageOptim run over-night. If you’re using your Mac while you compress PNG files, you may want to minimize the number of programs you have open, as that will help speed the process up too.

The post How to Compress PNG Files Using Windows or OS X appeared first on Simple Help.

In a nutshell, version 2.8 of the Gimp changed the method used to save files, slightly. More specifically, the “text” of the menu items has changed. The following guide will explain the ‘new terminology’ – so you can save images in different formats. Though the screenshots used in this tutorial are from the OS X version of the Gimp, the steps are identical and the screens are extremely similar.

1. Once you’ve made whatever changes you want to the image file (of whatever format) – select File -> Export to.



2. From here, you can determine the file format (.jpg, .png, .gif etc) you want to save the file as. Simply name the file, and add the extension of the format you want to use. In the example screenshot below, you can see that I’ve named my file file_name and since I added .png to the end of the name, that’s the type of file that will be saved. Click the Export button.


click to enlarge

3. If you elected to Export (ie. Save) the file as a .PNG, you’ll be presented with the usual PNG options.



4. If you opted to Export (again, Save) the file as a .JPG, you’ll be presented with the usual JPG options.



5. If you continue to make changes to your image file, and want to save them again, this time select File -> Export to file_name.png.



6. If you continue to make changes to your image file, and you want to save them as a new file, select File -> Export….



7. Give the file a new name, and click the Export button.


click to enlarge

8. That’s it! As you have probably figured out, Gimp basically changed the “Save” and “Save As” features to only work with the .xcf format. Now you use Export to, Export to filename.png/jpg and Export… instead.

The post How to Save Images as JPG or PNG Using the Gimp appeared first on Simple Help.

Update: while the steps in this tutorial are still valid, they’re also no longer necessary. The GIMP developers have created a “Native Build” of the GIMP, which means you no longer need to install any additional software in order to use it (and it works in Mountain Lion). Simply visit the GIMP download page and locate the Native Build for OS X. That version comes as a standard DMG, and all you’ll need to do is open the DMG file and drag GIMP.app to your Applications folder.

If you still want to install GIMP using the X11 version, the steps below are still accurate.

Background: OS X 10.8 doesn’t come shipped with X11 anymore, so you’ll need to download an alternative and possibly upgrade your version of GIMP. Here are the steps involved –

1. After upgrading to Mountain Lion, when you launch GIMP for the first time, you may get a message asking if you’d like to install X11 now. If this happens, click Cancel.



2. Open a Finder window and navigate to your Applications folder. If your “view” isn’t set to “columns” – switch it now (you can switch back to your default as soon as you’re finished this step). Select Gimp in your Applications by clicking on it once. In the ‘next’ column look to see which Version of Gimp you’re using. If it’s 2.8.0p1 or higher, proceed to the next step.

   If it’s lower, you’ll need to install an updated version of Gimp – which you can find here. Once you’ve downloaded and updated your version of the Gimp, proceed to the next step.


click to enlarge

3. Head over to the XQuartz home page and download XQuartz. Open the .dmg file and run the installer package (XQuartz.pkg).



4. Click your way through the installation process. At one point you’ll need to enter your OS X password.



5. Once you’ve installed XQuartz, launch Gimp. You’ll be asked to locate X11.app right away. Click the Browse… button.


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6. Navigate to Applications -> Utilities and select XQuartz. Click the Choose button.


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7. Gimp will now open, along with your new version of X11. Note: it may take quite a while for Gimp to launch the first time. If it appears as though it has frozen or isn’t going to open – give it a minute.



8. That’s it – you’ve got Gimp working in OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) now!

The post How to get GIMP Working in Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8) appeared first on Simple Help.

1. In the Just Type field, enter the following string of text:
   

   upupdowndownleftrightleftrightbastart

   Tap the Developer Mode button that appears in the Launch field.


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Note: Yes, it is in fact the Konami code :)

2. Tap the Submit button.


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3. Confirm that Developer Mode is now set to ON.


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4. Developer Mode is now enabled on your HP TouchPad running webOS.

The post How to Enable Developer Mode on your HP TouchPad appeared first on Simple Help.

If you have a blog or a website with a lot of content sometimes the images can take a toll on the load time of the pages. There are a number of steps you can take to speed things up. If you analyze the loading of your website you might notice that the images take up a huge part of the load time. Let’s take a look at how you can compress your .png images to improve on this figure.

We’ll use the tool pngcrush for this purpose. pngcrush is a free and open source command line tool that, as the name suggests, compresses PNG images. Take a look at the projects website for detailed information on how to use it. We will cover the basics in this article.

Installing pngcrush

Most modern distributions of Linux such as Fedora and Ubuntu have pngcrush available directly in their default repositories. So, to install it on you Ubuntu computer execute the following command:

# sudo apt-get install pngcrush

On Fedora do the following:

# yum install pngcrush

Using pngcrush

pngcrush optimizes a PNG graphics file by reducing the size of the files IDAT chunk. The process is not simple. The great thing about pngcrush is that the authors of the tool have simplified things for you. They ship it with a great option – brute. When you use this option you effectively tell pngcrush to try and use the most suitable method to compress the image at hand. There are about 114 different filters that can be used, so this option is mighty useful. Here’s how you would use it to compress an image:

# pngcrush -brute -e “.compressed.png” image01.png

The two options used here are -brute which I just explained, and -e. The second option tells pngcrush what extension to add the the filenames. So after the process of crushing is complete the compressed version of the file image01.png will be called image01.compressed.png. you can change the extension if you like.

You can also slightly modify the above command to compress several PNG files in a directory. Execute the following command:

# pngcrush -brute -d “/var/www/html/website/images/” *.png

The above command uses a new option, -d. This option tells pngcrush where to place the compressed image files after the compression is complete. The above command will compress all the PNG file in the current directory and place them in /var/www/html/website/images/.

I strongly suggest that you read up more about this tool and its options on the projects website. There are a lot of options that might help you speed up the process of compression or do a better job of it. Put the new images into your website and watch your pages load faster.

If you find yourself using Windows or macOS and you need to compress a PNG, we’ve got you covered.

The post How to Compress PNG Files in Linux appeared first on Simple Help.

Using the YourFonts.com (link opens in a new tab/window) service, you can create your own TrueType font in a matter of minutes.

The steps are painfully easy. All you’ll need to do is download their .pdf template and print it, fill in the letters/symbols, then scan and upload it. You’ll be able to preview your font and make any adjustments before purchasing it. They charge a reasonable $9.95 to create the font for you, and it’s available to download immediately after purchase (plus it’s emailed to you). I’ve compared the YourFonts.com service to a number of other similar “font generators” and it’s both easier to use and less expensive.

The template you use to create your font includes all of the letters of the alphabet, numbers, symbols and even your signature.

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Using your custom font is great for images for your website, editing PDFS, creating a signature for your emails, or even to use as the font for your IM conversations (though you’d be the one seeing it, unless both you and your chat friends have the font installed).

If you need help installing your newly created font, you can use this tutorial on how to install fonts in Windows or this tutorial on how to install fonts in macOS.

The post How to Create a Custom Font From Your Own Handwriting appeared first on Simple Help.

If you have ever handled the migration of a web service or a website from one server to another you know how crazy the experience can be. However, if you break the process up into clear steps and run constant checks you can make the experience a little easier on yourself. One of the problems that you might run into towards the end of the migration is the period when you have the website running well on the new location but need to wait for the domain name to be forwarded to the new server. You can either shut down your service till the domain is done forwarding, or you can setup your first server to forward all its traffic to the new server. Let’s take a look at how you can do that on a Linux machine using IPTables.

In case you didn’t already know, IPtables is a software firewall that ships with most distributions of Linux. It is an extremely useful software and can be used for a lot more than just as a firewall. In this exercise we will configure IPTables on a Linux server to redirect all the traffic coming on port 80, (which is the default web server port), to a server with the IP 122.164.34.240. The first step is to set your Linux box to allow this kind of forwarding to take place. Open a terminal window, log in as root user and run the following command:

# echo 1 >/proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

The next step is to tell IPTables to redirect the traffic to the new server:

# iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp –dport 80 -j DNAT –to-destination 122.164.34.240

Here’s where the IPTables magic happens. With the third and final step we tell IPTables to rewrite the origin of connections to the new server’s port 80 to appear to come from the old server.

# iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -p tcp -d 122.164.34.240 –dport 80 -j MASQUERADE

The final step is required because if we don’t tell the web server of the new server that the connections are coming from the client machines, it would think that they are originating from the old server.

The post How to Redirect Traffic to Another Computer (IP) in Linux appeared first on Simple Help.