In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to get rid of the dreaded Softonic Toolbar that plagues many of us when we download something from softonic.com

Firstly, I’m going to download an application from Softonic. The reason I am doing this is because on the Toolbar, there is an option to Uninstall and I want Windows users to see this. I will not go through the steps of doing it on a Windows computer because the instructions are available to you. Users of Mac OS X are not as fortunate.

So I’ll fast forward through this installation process, even this dirty part where they don’t give you the option of not installing the toolbar.

So now that the toolbar is installed, you can see it in Safari, as well as this little Alerts Bell that appears in my Menu Bar.

So if you click on the Softonic Icon and then select Uninstall, here is where the Windows users can get the uninstall instructions from.

If you are using a Mac, follow these simple instructions. First we gotta open the Finder. I think a lot of you make the mistake of selecting your user account to get to your Library. Instead, click on the main Hard Drive. The first thing we are deleting is located in the Applications folder. The folder we are deleting is called Toolbars.

Next, click on Library, and then Application Support, and delete the folder called Conduit or however it is pronounced.

Lastly, click on Library, and then on InputManagers and delete the folder called CTLoader.

Now watch the alerts bell in the menu bar as I quit Safari. See ya!

I’ll re-open Safari to show you that the Toolbar is gone, and everything is back to normal, and I can once again open a link in a new tab.

If you haven’t yet, watch the SEO For iWeb Walkthrough Video Tutorial to learn how to make your iWeb site rank higher in search engines. Learn how to add a Statcounter.com AND Google Analytics code to your website.

To install a Statcounter code on all pages of your iWeb website, we are going to be using RAGE Software’s iWeb SEO Tool. This application can be downloaded for free at www.ragesw.com

After you’ve downloaded and installed iWeb SEO Tool, open up your web browser to www.statcounter.com. If you don’t have an account with Statcounter, click on the register button on the top left part of the navigation menu. Fill out all the required information and register your account. After you have registered, login with your username and password.

Once you are logged in, you will need to create a new project in order to get your code. Click on the “Add New Project” button.

In the following form, you will need to enter a title for your website followed by  your website’s URL. Then you will need to select a category for your website, and your time zone. You also have the option of having the statcounter not count your visits to the site by blocking your IP. If you don’t care for this feature, just leave it blank.

When you are done filling out the form, click the Next button. Now, you will  need to click on the “Configure and Install Code” button. You have a few options for which type of statcounter you want. Choose whichever option you like best, and then click on the next button.

In the drop down menu that says “default installation guide select iWeb. Then press the “Next” button. We are then given our Statcounter code. We must highlight this code and copy it.

Now open up iWeb SEO Tool. Load your iWeb site by clicking on the “Open Website” button. Your iWeb site must be saved to a folder on your hard drive in order to do this. If you wish, you can also load your site directly from your iDisk.

On the left hand side, all of the files from your site will appear. Under the Site Settings tab, paste the code we just copied into the Analytics code box.

Then press the “Apply to Entire Site” button.

Finally, you must publish the changes so that the Statcounter code can begin tracking visits to your site. The Publish button is located in the top right corner of the application. Here you will have the option of publishing to FTP or to MobileMe. Make sure you have your FTP or MobileMe information handy.

Once you publish your site, you can then go back to statcounter.com and view your site’s statistics as they appear.

In this video tutorial, I am going to show you how you can bid on items in eBay using the application GarageBuy. Keep in mind that in order for you to be able to place a bid using this application, you must first allow the application to let you sign in with your ebay account.

GarageBuy makes it easy and efficient for bidding on items. First, type in your search in the search box located in the top left corner of the application. When the popup window appears, you can narrow your search down by selecting a more targetted category. You can also set a limit to how many results you want to be shown.

After the auction listings have loaded, click on an item that you wish to purchase. Then hit the Place Bid button. In the bid placing window, you will be provided with reliable information such as the name of the seller, and their feedback percentage, You will also be shown the current bid price, along with how many bids are placed.

To place your bid, type in your bid in the text box that says My Bid. If you look below the text box, you will be shown what the minimum amount is that you must bid. When you have type in your bid, press the place bid button and your bid will be placed.

Pay attention to where it shows how much time is left in the auction, as well as where it says that the page updates automatically every 60 seconds.

If we go to place a bid on an item that has less than one hour remaining in the auction, the time left will show up in red, and we will be able to see the time counting down by the second.

If we go to place a bid on an item with less than 5 minutes remaining, the price will automatically update after 20 seconds as opposed to 60. Automatic updates will continue to become more frequent as the auction comes closer and closer to its final seconds. This saves you time from having to constantly refresh as an auction is coming to a completion. You can still, however, press the Update Now button as often as you’d like.

So that is how you place bids on eBay items using GarageBuy. For more GarageBuy and other Mac software video tutorials, visit www.apptorial.com

First, we’ll make our search by typing in our query in the search box located in the top left corner of the application. A popup window will appear with different categories related to your search. You can narrow your search by selecting a subcategory that closely matches your search. You can also select up to how many results you want to be shown.

After just a few seconds, your results will appear. The first view option, the gallery list view,  shows the auction information with some of the auction images, as well as the current bid, the shipping costs, the sellers feedback, and more.

The second option shows the auction in a list format. This view gives you an easy look into several different auctions at once. You are able to neatly see the current bid price for each auction, the Buy It Now price, if it exists, the time left in the auction, the number of bids and more.

The third view mode will show you each items image, with the item title and its current price.

You can see more information for each auction in all three of the views in the bottom half of the window. The information is brought up by clicking on an individual auction. When you click on the auction, you will be given all of the auction information such as the Sellers username, total cost based on current price and shipping cost, as well as the location of the seller. You can also view all images contained in the auction by clicking on the images tab. The description tab will show you the actual description section from the eBay auction. The specifics tab will show the specific information for the product. This information might include the brand name, the condition of the item, the size of the item, or whatever other specific information that may have been inputted by the seller.

The other option for seeing the details, is to choose the full listing option. This will bring up the actual eBay listing shown within the application. You can easily switch between different auctions by just clicking on each listing your are interested in viewing.

You can also control the size of the auction listing in the first and third list views by using the scroll located in the top right corner of the window.

So that is how you perform a search, and browse through the listings with the different view modes in GarageBuy. To view more GarageBuy, and other mac software video tutorials, visit www.apptorial.com

In this video, I am going to show you how can sync eBay auctions with iCal using GarageBuy.

GarageBuy makes syncing auctions very easy to do. Simple select the auction you want, and then press the Generate iCal Event button. You can do this for as many auctions as you want. To view these auctions in iCal, just open up iCal and you will see that the auctions that were just selected to generate the event, are in fact included here in iCal.

When you place an auction in your watch list, you are also given the option of placing that auction in your iCal. To place an auction in your watch list, highlight the auction, and then select the Watch Auction button. When you click on the item in your watch list, you will then be able to check off if you want to generate iCal event in calendar. You will also be given the opportunity to select when you the alarm to notify you of when the auction is approaching completion. If you prefer to have alarm with sound, you can also choose that option.

To add a price threshold, Simply check off Price Threshold, enter your maximum price, and check off Remove Watched Items When over Threshold to let the application know that you want the item removed from your watch list.

The options for syncing with iCal can be altered by clicking on the GarageBuy button in the menubar, then selecting preferences, and then the iCal Events tab.

Here you will be given the option to choose the default action for the auctions as iCal events. You can select how far in advance you want to be notified, as well as the sound that you want the notification to make. Lastly, you can choose to have the application automatically create an iCal event for all eBay auctions that you place in your watch list.

So that is how you sync eBay auctions with iCal using GarageBuy. For more GarageBuy and other mac software video tutorials, visit www.apptorial.com

This video tutorial will introduce you to OpenMenu X and show you some of its features and how to use them.

There are three different ways you can access the OpenMenu X menu. Before I show you them, I first want to make a note that the second method works even on Snow Leopard Finder and 64-bit applications that are not compatible with the contextual menu plugins”. The first way is to right click on your mouse. This will bring up the contextual menu, from which you can have easy access to the OpenMenu X menu.

The second option is to tap twice on the command key. Doing so will bring up the menu at the current location of the mouse cursor.

The third and final option of accessing the menu is by clicking on the OpenMenu X icon in the top right corner of the menubar.

All of these methods will bring you to the OpenMenu X menu. Once there, you are able to easily access its many features. You can see which applications you are currently running, as well as your recent items such as applications and documents.

OpenMenu X makes opening applications very quick and easy. Simply go to the Applications tab, and select the application that you want to open.

You can also open up websites from OpenMenu X. Under the URL tab, select the site that you want to visit, and the site will open up in your default browser.

You can also use the scripts section to perform actions such as a Google Site search. When you click on this feature, a search box will popup. Here is where you type in your search query. What this does, is it will do a google site search for the web site you are currently on.

The scripts section also allows you to perform a YouTube video search. Simply click on the Search in YouTube option, and another search search box will popup prompting you to type in your search. Another browser window will open taking you to YouTube with your search completed.

When doing a Google, or YouTube search, you can also simplify the process by not having to type in your search query. Instead, you can highlight the text you want to search, go up to the OpenMenu X icon, and select Google Site Search in the scripts section. This will perform a Google site search, with the text highlighted as the key words. The same thing goes if you want to search in YouTube. This is just another one of the many features making OpenMenu X a very powerful tool.

Now let’s take a look at how you can add items to the features listed in the OpenMenu X menu.

Let’s say you want to add a website to the URL section of the menu, simply open up your browser to that website, highlight the address and drag it into the URL section. You can do this for many different websites. I’m going to add three different websites for to give you a good example of the process for adding sites. When I’m finished, you can now see that these three sites have been added to the URL section of the menu.

If you wanted to add an application, you can click the plus sign in the bottom left corner or the window, and then select the application, and once again drag it into the desired location, which would, in this case, be applications. You can now see that this application has been added to the applications section.

OpenMenu X also makes it extremely easy to toggle through different applications as you are working. If you have many applications open at once, you can click on the OpenMenu X icon in the top right corner of the menubar, mouseover the running applications tab, and easily select the different applications. The applications shown are are the applications that you currently have open. When you select an application, the menu will bring that application to the front of your screen. This gives you a very simple and easy way to quickly change between applications without having to move windows around.

So that is how you use OpenMenu X. For more support, be sure to read the help manual, or visit www.artman21.com

In this video tutorial, I am going to show you how to use Timer Utility, a desktop alarm clock.

There are three different things you can use Timer Utility for. The first one I am going to show you, is the Alarm clock. To add an event, click on the plus sign in the bottom right corner. A new alarm will show up. You can change the name of this by clicking once on the name. Type in your new alarm name. Set your alarm by selecting the time for when you want the alarm to go off. When the time is set, click on the start button, and the alarm countdown clock will begin. 

You can edit some of the actions of the alarm by clicking on the Edit Action button. In the screen that pops up, you can choose to play an alarm, as well as have the application speak a message to you, or have the application launch a website. You can choose to have one, two, or all three of these options selected at one time. You can also choose to have a file, or application launched.

You can also create a countdown timer by clicking on the Countdown Timers tab and clicking the plus sign in the bottom right corner. Then select the hours, minutes, and seconds for your countdown, and press the start button. The edit actions in this tab is identical to what we talked about in the alarm clock tab.

The third option is to use the application for a stopwatch. The same method applies here as well. The stopwatch section can be useful if you need to monitor how much time you spend working on your computer, as you can easily pause and continue. You can also select the lap, and split buttons if you use the stopwatch for other purposes. 

The application allows you to have multiple timers going at all times. For example, you can have multiple stopwatches running, while having multiple alarm clocks operating.

This video tutorial will answer the extremely popular question, “What is Twitter?” Twitter is the next big craze in social networking, proving to be popular among many people including celebrities, and even the president of the united states, Oprah. 

Here we see the AppTorial Twitter account which I’ve just recently created. Up here in the What are you doing box is where people write their twitters, or tweets as it is most commonly known as. 

Below that screen, are recent tweets done by others on Twitter. These tweets shown here are from people who AppTorial is currently following. You will not see Tweets on your home page of people you are not following.

Let’s make a tweet right now so you can see what it looks like. So I type in my tweet and press the update button. Now my tweet is visible to all people who are currently following me. 

Twitter even allows you to send direct messages to other fellow twitter users. Let’s visit the Twitter profile for another fellow twitterer that I am currently following. To find all the people I am following, I simply click on the button near the top that displays how many people I am following.

All of these tweets here, are the tweets done by this person, and this person only. 

Following someone on Twitter is very easy. Simply find the person you want to follow, which can be done via a search, or by just coming across their profile. There is a little button beside their name, which will allow you to follow them.

So that’s what Twitter is all about in under 3 minutes. 

In this video tutorial, I am going to walk you through the process of customizing the software to your specific circumstances.

Over here on the record screen, you can see that there three sections, Stay well strategies, triggers, and symptoms. These headings can be customized, as well as all of the fields underneath.

Each section has its own customize button. If you click on the Custom button for the Stay Well Strategies,  you will notice all of the fields that appear on the record screen appear in the custom box.

In this box, you can add fields, delete fields, or edit the names of fields.

For example, if Medicine taken does not apply to you, you can delete it by highlighting it and clicking the negative sign in the lower left corner.

If you have any prior data in that field, a window will popup asking you if you are sure you want to delete the field. After we delete a couple of fields, and click okay, you will see how the Stay Well Strategies section has been changed.

You can also add a new field if you wish. To do so, click on the plus sign in the lower left corner and then type in the name of the new field. If you press okay, you can now see that your new field shows up in the section.

You can also change the positioning of each field. So let’s say for example one of the fields is used quite frequently by you, you may want to move it all the way to the top. To do so, highlight the field and press the move up button until you are satisfied. If you’ve taken it any spaces too far, just press the move down button. Here is what the section looks like after we have moved this field to the top.

If you want to make a field have the option to be rated, simply check off the box next to the field under the Rate heading. If you want to take the rating option away from one of the fields, just uncheck the Rate box.

Lastly, if you want to change the name of the heading go back into the custom box, and delete the old heading under Title, and type in your new heading.

When you hit the okay button, you will immediately see the change to your heading.

This same process for adding, deleting, and changing the names of the fields or headings will work for all three sections.

And that is how you use the customization options to make the application further suit your needs. To learn more about how to use Optimism, be sure to view the rest of our videos in our tutorial series.

This video tutorial is going discuss the Plan screen of Optimism. The Plan screen is the place to bring your understanding of your health together, in a strategy for ongoing health. By recording the things that impact your health each day, positive and negative, and working out the relationships, you can make decisions about the things that you need to better manage in your life, and other things that you need to do more of.

The Plan screen is intended as a dynamic document. You will need to change it over time as you come to better understand the different factors that affect your health. You might consider completing it and then keeping it up to date at each appointment with your health provider.

The more specific your entries are on this page, the more help it will be to you. For example, you could specify the names and phone numbers of your health professionals, or how many hours of sleep a day you need to remain well. The key thing to remember is that this is an evolving document and you will need to change it over time as your health changes.

In the Stay well strategies box, type in some strategies that you feel will help you reduce your triggers and symptoms.

In the triggers box, type in the all of the things in your life that may trigger an episode of illness for you.

In the symptoms box, type in the signs that tell you that something is wrong. Recording symptoms here allows you to remain more alert to them, and making you more likely to recognize them at an early stage of a deterioration in health.

In the signs that I need help box, this is where you type in points at which your illness is out of hand and you must seek professional help. 

If you do get to the point where you must seek professional help, you may not be well enough to get the help on your own. In the getting help box, type in the method that will ensure you to be able to get the help you desire. It may be a good idea to give a partner or friend permission to assist you.

Updating the plan sheet is extremely simple. You can easily delete any items that you wish to get rid of, and type in any new items that you now want to have. 

You may also print off the plan screen, or export is as a PDF so that you can email it to someone or keep a record for yourself. It is a good idea to export the plan sheet every time you alter it, so that you can keep track of all the items you have jotted down over time. Exporting is also very easy to do. Simply click on the PDF button and click the save button. When you open up the document, this is what it will look like.

So that’s how you utilize the plan screen. Be sure to learn more about Optimism by viewing the other videos in our video tutorial series.