From The Tips Box: Siri Annoyances, Android Battery Life


Readers offer their best tips for killing plugins like Flash when they become unresponsive, using Siri’s Raise to Speak feature, and getting more life out of your Android battery.

Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons — maybe they’re a bit too niche, maybe we couldn’t find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn’t fit it in — the tip didn’t make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favourites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments or use the contact form on the right.

Kill Flash And Other Unresponsive Plugins Without Quitting Your Browser


KBS shares a trick to avoid killing your entire browser when Flash freezes:

If your Firefox is unresponsive due to Flash Player or another Adobe plugin, rather than killing the browser, kill the plugin-container in the Windows Task Manager (“Ctrl+Shift+Esc”) which will free your browser. Usually, the plugin container with the largest size (usually Flash) is the one causing unresponsiveness.

If you’re using Chrome, you can just hit Shift+Esc to get to Chrome’s built-in task manager and kill the culprit there.

Get Siri’s Raise To Speak Feature Working Every Time

CamJN lets us know a few tricks to get Siri’s “Raise to Speak” feature working every time:

To get Siri’s Raise to Speak feature to work every time, move the phone from a “using an app” position in front of you to your ear and be sure to make at least a 45 degree angle change in the process (around the horizontal axis). Siri will respond with much better frequency. I saw this on Redmond Pie.

Photo by Vasile Cotovanu.

Use Another Phone’s Battery For Better Life On Your Older Android Phone

Lowell shares a much-needed Android battery tip:

I just saw this tidbit on Google+: If you have a Thunderbolt, pick up the battery from the HTC Rezound. It’s the same size as the Thunderbolt’s battery, but higher capacity. Haven’t checked it out yet myself, but lots of people have had success with this.

Obviously not all batteries will fit into all phones, though I haven’t looked to see if this works with phones besides the Thunderbolt. If battery life is driving you crazy, give it a Google and see if your phone has a similar “big brother” available.

Photo by Dushaun.

Clip Nails After Showering For An Easier Cut

The Inquisitive Guy shares a quick hygiene tip:

Whenever you want to cut your nails, do them preferably after bathing, ’cause you’re nails are comparatively (much) softer than otherwise. It’ll be much easier for you to cut them then. Applies to both finger and toenails.

I’ve always found this a useful approach; your mileage may vary, but it’s an easy trick to try out. Photo by adrian8_8.


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