5 Hacks to Make Your Tech Life Easier
The phrase “life hack” may be overused, but the actual life hacks—ways to fix everyday life problems with creative thinking and everyday objects—are just as useful as they were when “selfies” was still a nonsense word.
So why are we still talking about life hacks? Because they’re fun. And more importantly, because they work. Who doesn’t want to know how to cut 20 grape tomatoes in one fell slice? Who doesn’t want to show off their speedy shirt-folding skills?
There are dozens of life hacks that can help you get the most out of your tech devices, as well. In no particular order, here are some of our favorites:
Charge your USB devices in the TV.
So you left your device plug at home. So have most people. If your hotel doesn’t have any handy spare plugs in the bedside drawers, don’t panic.
According to the folks at Lifehacker, you can plug that USB cable right into the TV! Most modern HDTVs in hotels have USB ports, and as anyone who owns a Chromecast knows, the TV port works just fine for powering up USB-connected devices. You may need to turn on the TV to start the charge.
Clean your screen with a coffee filter.
Got a dusty TV or monitor? Don’t have a spare microfiber cloth within reach? Those 400 coffee filters you accidentally bought in bulk can do the job. According to Apartment Therapy, since the filters are lint-free, they won’t leave anything behind when you use them to wipe your screens, and they won’t scratch the display. Add some water if you want to rub out any fingerprints or other mysterious spots and smudges.
Use toilet paper rolls to organize your cables.
Pandora’s box had hope in the bottom. Yours just has a Medusa-like tangle of indeterminate cords and cables. You know the one I’m talking about.
Complex’s solution for this common issue is darn near genius; save your empty toilet paper rolls, stand them upright inside of a box, and put a folded cable into each empty roll. Even larger cables can be tamed by using an empty roll to keep your careful coiling job secured. Write on the outside of the roll to identify which cable is within, so you can avoid uncoiling several cables when looking for one in particular.
Put your smartphone in a cup to turn the volume up.
While we’d all love to be so prepared as to have a set of portable speakers on hand for every possible occasion we want to pump up the jams for, it’s just not realistic.
Have a cup? A mug? A bowl? Any other sort of container with an open top? While putting your device into any of these objects will help boost the noise, Lifehacker tested a number of alternatives to arrive at one definitive (and easy to find) solution: The humble paper cup.
According to their trials, the paper cup will deliver the best sound (but if you happen to be in a car with a broken radio, putting the device into one of those plastic bin-things in the back seat will work too).
Keep chargers fray-free with a pen spring.
Those little springs in your pen do more than enable your nervous clicks during long meetings. You can also wrap it around your charging cable where it meets the connector to help reinforce the part of the cable that’s most vulnerable to twisting and stretching.
By Joel Keller, Presented by Lenovo
