From The Tips Box: Fruit Flies, Keyboard Adjustments, Booze

We deal with fruit flies, adjust our keyboards and walk down the aisle with some money saving tips for weddings.

Catch (And Kill) More Fruit Flies With Vinegar

Photo by uberculture

When we showed you how to repel flies with a bag of water, ValedaBam chimed in with advice on how you can deal with fruit flies:

To get rid of fruit flies, which are so plentiful this time of year, fill a small dish with about a half a cup of cider vinegar, and add a drop of dishwashing liquid. The cider vinegar gives [off] fumes similar to spoiling fruit, which attracts the flies, while the dishsoap breaks the surface tension. Flies land, flies drown, no more flies! It works like a freakin’ charm, it does. Plus, there’s a morbid sense of satisfaction, seeing how many you can catch in a single day.

Adjust The Height Of Your Keyboard With binder Clips

Tony wrote in to tell us about a clever binder clip hack he uses:

Here’s something I created in my office…

Considering that I lean back a lot while doing work, I wanted my
keyboard to have a higher angle, so I looked into my office’s supply
stash and came up with this easy solution.

Materials needed:

Large or medium binder clip (just 1)
Two rubber bands
Pliers

Push the rods in the binder clip inwards to release it from the clip.
Take a plier and bend the tip of the rod to straighten it. Repeat with
the other side so you have two. For added friction on the table to
prevent sliding, tightly wrap a rubberband at the base of each rod or
whatever rubbery material you can find. The last step is to simply
insert the ends of the rods into two available screw holes at the back
of your keyboard if available, and there you go!

Use different size binder clips for desired angle/height.

Save On Flowers And Drinks At Your Wedding

Photo by gojeffrey

Matt Lindley’s partner is Donnie Brown from Style Network’s “Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?” so he shared some tips on saving money on the big day:

Here is one of the big expenses… Bars:
Never make your guests pay for their drinks – bad form. Unless you are certain that most of your guests don’t drink, or unless you want everyone to leave early, you must provide alcohol. However, do not be tricked into paying more than you need. Many venues will offer both Package and Consumption bars. With Package, you pay a flat rate for alcohol service – no matter how much everyone drinks. Consumption bars are where you will pay an estimated amount up front… but your final bill is based on how much everyone drinks. I guarantee that after your event, you will end up owing money if you choose a Consumption bar – sometimes several thousand dollars.

Flowers:
Most churches do not require that you leave the altar arrangements – in fact, most would rather you get the flowers out quickly, as they have other weddings booked. Rather than pay for flowers that are only seen for a short time *and* pay for extra flowers at your reception, just pay for your ceremony flowers to be transferred to your reception location. We often place the altar arrangements on either side of the dance floor and use the pew decorations to spruce up the chairs of the head table.

Make a Bench Out of Leftover Fencing

Barry wrote in with a neat idea for using leftover fencing to create an around-the-tree bench:

A while back I was working on a fence and had about a dozen fence boards left over. The good thing is that tanalised timber will last for about 14 years. So I cut it up into bits and made a tree bench.

Enable Quick Twitter Updates with AutoHotkey

Alex sent in an AutoHotkey script he’s written that enables quick Twitter updates:

You can send quick updates with Windows + t. Also, I’ve added a TinyURL creator that converts the clipboard contents into a TinyURL.

You can find the instructions, code and executable here.

Force Firefox To Open All Links In the Current Tab

Reader Raghav wrote in to give us a quick Firefox tip for opening all links in the current tab:

Doubtless you’ve stumbled upon those annoying links that consider it their right to open themselves in a new tab. Well, now you can kill their arrogance with this simple tip: just press alt + shift while clicking any link in order to force it to open in the current tab.

Still, some may prefer to open links in a new foreground tab.