Computer Solving - Technology tricks

Free website building program Website X5

Posted: 10 Nov 2011 06:10 PM PST

Free website editor

Website X5 is a free WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web editor, there is no need to know about any HTML code or CSS (Cascade Style Sheets), a wizard guides you through the process of creating a website, the user just needs to add text and images and if you get confused, there is a complete help manual and video tutorials showing you how to build a website.

The program is suitable for personal websites made by people with zero knowledge of web design, some web templates are included and they can be customized (header, menu layout and colour), the most adventurous users can add flash animations or videos if they wish so. Packs of web templates based on specific themes can be bought if needed, they include web layouts customized for small businesses, sports, technology, travel, artistic, etc.

Free web editor Website X5

Once the website is finished you can upload it to your webhost using Website X5 built-in FTP client or export it as .html to your hard disk, the paid for version of the software also allows you to export the whole project but unless you intend to create many websites this is not necessary. The step by step guide to create your website includes adding meta tags like website keywords, headers and “alt” image tag description, attributes that are not visible to the surfers but important to get your website indexed by search engines.

Website X5 free edition features

Creates standard HMTL5 code and CSS2.1/3

It can build websites of up to 10 pages

Comes with 100 free templates included

Basic text and image editor

This free web editor allows anyone to create a simple website, if you want a family, hobby or personal club site it will do a good job and save you money, to create a business website you will need to upgrade to their paid for version that comes with tools for e-commerce.

Visit Website X5 homepage

OS X Daily: Sort iOS Notifications by Time of Arrival

Sort iOS Notifications by Time of Arrival
Download and Play Fieldrunners for Free with Chrome
iOS OTA Updates Not Working? Here’s How to Fix Them
Change Siri’s Voice from Female to Male and Vice Versa
iOS 5.0.1 Released [Download Links]
Disable the Caps Lock Key on a Mac

Sort iOS Notifications by Time of Arrival

Posted: 11 Nov 2011 12:04 AM PST

Sort iOS app notifications by time of arrival

If you get a ton of alerts or use the iOS Notification Center as a queuing system, sorting them by most recent event is preferential to grouping them by app. Here’s how to sort notifications based on their time of arrival:

Open “Settings” and tap on “Notifications”
Under “Sort By” tap on “By Time”

Pull down from the clock in iOS and you’ll see the new grouping arrangement, where items will be mixed together in accordance to their occurrence, rather than by app.

Download and Play Fieldrunners for Free with Chrome

Posted: 10 Nov 2011 04:05 PM PST

Fieldrunners HD

Fieldrunners is a very popular tower defense game for iOS and Android, it usually costs between $3-$8 depending on the version, but guess what? You can download and play it for free using nothing but the Chrome web browser and Google’s web store.

Head over to the Chrome web store to start playing

You’ll want to download the game to be able to resume games, but you can also just play the game directly at the appspot url. The game can be loaded in either standard or high def mode, so choose accordingly based on your screen resolution.

Technically it’s supposed to be for Chrome only, but you can usually load the game with Safari or Firefox as well. You won’t need Flash either because the app is HTML5. Similarly, you can download and play Angry Birds for free with your browser too, just in case you haven’t beaten that dead horse enough yet.

iOS OTA Updates Not Working? Here’s How to Fix Them

Posted: 10 Nov 2011 01:34 PM PST

iOS OTA update

Over-the-Air (OTA) updates are one of the better refinements to iOS as part of the whole “post-PC” thing, they bring delta software updates directly to your devices, making for quicker updates and using less bandwidth (a delta update means only the differences between the iOS versions are sent, preventing a much larger package from being transferred iTunes or Apple).

Accessible from Settings > General > Software Update, if they’re not showing up for you here’s how to troubleshoot and get OTA working on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

iOS OTA Update Requirements

Make sure you fit the requirements to use the OTA delta updates.

Over-the-Air updates require iOS 5 or later, with iOS 5.0.1 being the first update publicly available through OTA
OTA updates require you to be connected to Wi-Fi, they are not available through 3G or Edge connections
iOS device battery life must be at 50% or greater, or the device must be connected to a power source (computer or wall)
Beta versions of iOS do not qualify for final OTA versions, you will need to restore to a previous version or from an IPSW file manually

If you meet all of the above and the OTA updates aren’t visible, give it a minute or two while Apple’s servers populate around the world. If you still have issues, the following three fixes will resolve the problems.

Troubleshooting OTA Updates

If you meet all of the above and an OTA update is still not showing up:

Turn Wi-Fi OFF and ON again, this is done through Settings > Wi-Fi > ON/OFF
Restart the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and plug it into a power source or computer
Reset Network Settings – you will lose wi-fi passwords and other network data if you choose this option, this is a last resort

Finally, if you are having timeout issues, you may be limited by Apple’s servers being overloaded. This typically only occurs during the initial moments of an iOS update, but sometimes just waiting it out can be the resolution.

Change Siri’s Voice from Female to Male and Vice Versa

Posted: 10 Nov 2011 01:04 PM PST

Change Siri's voice

Siri’s gender and voice is different based on the region, with a female voice for USA and Australian users, and a male voice in the UK. Regardless of which location you’re in or where you bought the iPhone 4S, you can change the gender of Siri yourself just by switching the language settings.

Changing Siri’s Voice & Gender

A word of caution: Siri is trained to identify and work with particular accents and dialects, changing the language setting for Siri can result in diminished dictation quality and reduced voice recognition. Generally it works best if you can pull off a fake accent of whatever version you are changing to, but it’s fun to test out regardless:

Launch “Settings” and then tap on “General”
Tap on “Siri” and choose a different language from the settings
Close out of Settings

Current choices and their accompanying genders are

English (Australia) – female
English (United Kingdom) – male
English (United States) – female

This is a fun tip from MacTrast, but don’t be surprised if you end up changing Siri’s voice back to the default setting for it to work at its best with your accent. @JGKunzler reports that it worked ok for him, but your mileage will vary.

iOS 5.0.1 Released [Download Links]

Posted: 10 Nov 2011 10:26 AM PST

iOS 5 Download via OTA Update

iOS 5.0.1 has been released to the public, the update addresses the battery problems that were associated with iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S, but also brings multitasking gestures to the iPad 1 and resolves several other bugs and issues. The update comes as build 9A405 and is highly recommended for all iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users running the newest iOS.

Download and Update to iOS 5.0.1

There are several ways to get iOS 5.0.1:

OTA Preferred method: download through Over-the-Air update by tapping on “Settings” > “General” > “Software Update” and then tapping on “Download and Install”
Download from iTunes: launch iTunes and you will get an update notification

If you’d rather download and install the firmware yourself and you know how to use IPSW files, use the links below.

iOS 5.0.1 Direct Download Links

These are direct download links from Apple’s servers. Right-click and “Save As” to avoid problems:

For those wondering, GSM is generally AT&T and CDMA is generally Verizon.

The brief release notes are as follows:

- Fixes bugs affecting battery life
- Adds Multitasking Gestures for original iPad
- Resolves bugs with Documents in the Cloud
- Improves voice recognition for Australian users using dictation

From our own experience, iOS 5.0.1 makes a significant difference in battery life. How does it stack up for you?

Disable the Caps Lock Key on a Mac

Posted: 10 Nov 2011 09:25 AM PST

Does anyone like CAPS LOCK? It’s the most obnoxious key on the keyboard and seems to have an increasingly tiny place in the modern world of computing, enough that Google’s Chrome OS notebooks (are they still around?) abandoned the key completely.

Here’s how you can disable a Mac Caps Lock key:

Disable Caps Lock key on a Mac

Open “System Preferences” from the  Apple menu
Click on “Keyboard”
In the lower right corner, click on “Modifier Keys…”
Click on the pull-down menu next to “Caps Lock Key” and select “No Action”
Press “OK” and close out of System Preferences

That does it, no more caps lock. Now if you press the key, it won’t do anything. Using the same preference panel you can also reassign it to serve as one of the standard command keys, if you’d rather not have a useless keyboard button.