From The Tips Box: Windows Explorer Details, Broken Ethernet Cables

Lifehacker readers offer their best tips for bringing back the Details pane in Windows Explorer, protecting fragile ethernet cables, and storing small items without losing them.

Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favourites. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments or send it using the contact tab on the right.

Bring Back the Details Pane in Windows 8 Explorer

Brian lets us know where the Details pane is hiding in Windows 8:

I recently upgraded to Windows 8, only to find that one of my more used features in Windows Explorer — the Details pane at the bottom of the window that shows you information about the selected item — was gone. I thought it was gone forever until I opened up the View menu and found the option to bring it back, on the left side of the Ribbon (the Preview Pane is there too). It puts it on the side of Windows Explorer, which is a bit more annoying and inefficient than it used to be, but at least I can bring it up when I need it.

Protect Fragile Ethernet Cables with Heat Shrink Tubing

Pascal shares a fix for cables that keep breaking:

I find that LAN cable heads break often, and it’s a really annoying problem. The usual LAN cable doesn’t offer protection for that, so I came up with a hack.

Just cut a shrink tube about 1 cm long and put it on the head of the LAN Cable.

Then get your blow dryer and heat it until it fits snug!

Hold Small Items in an Old Contact Lens Case

MsCassLopez keeps her stuff close and protected:

Keep a small plastic contact lens case in your pocketbook with spare pairs of earrings for when you need a quick change from casual to professional (or church lady to disco chick).

We’ve talked about using a contact lens case as a pill caddy before, but you can use it to store pretty much anything (and keep from losing said stuff). Bonus tip: As shown in the above picture, it makes a handy parts tray for electronics, provided you only have a few small parts. Photo by Lenore Edman.

Get Rid of Seemingly Un-Removable Firefox Plugins

Moon discovers a way to get rid of Firefox plugins that don’t have “Remove” button:

There are some Firefox plugins that won’t go away, and don’t have a “Remove” button in the Add-On Manager. I found this article on removing them.

I was after the one for Winamp, “Winamp Application Detector:”

• Loc­ate the fire­fox install­a­tion folder (usu­ally C:\Program Files\Mozilla Fire­fox\ or C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\)
• Open the exten­sions subfolder
• Delete the file npwachk.dll

Check out the original blog post at DIY Media Home for tips on other similar plugins.