From The Tips Box: Makeshift Tripods, Android Photos, Hard Drive Adaptors


Lifehacker readers offer their best tips for turning lamps into tripods, getting rid of empty photo albums on Android, and fitting 2.5-inch hard drives into a 3.5-inch slot.

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.

Turn Any Table Lamp Into a Camera Tripod

Patrick McDonald discovers a hidden “feature” of modern table lamps:

You know how most table lamps have a little screw off cap on the top that lets you remove the lamp shade? The remaining male thread screw is the EXACT same as that used by camera tripods. Just screw your camera onto the male post and, viola! Instant temporary camera tripod-with a built-in backlight!

Delete Empty Folders from Android’s Gallery App

Joshua Hammer shares a fix for one of Android’s annoyances:

Android Central just outlined a very simple way of getting rid of those very pesky empty “Instant Upload” Album folders sitting in your Gallery app. All it involves is heading over to the Picasa Web Albums page and deleting those folders.

Even if those folders had been deleted from your Google+ albums they would still show up on your phone and they just didn’t look good. This trick will also allow you to get rid of duplicate folders. For the full details, head over to Android Police.

Make a 2.5-inch Hard Drive Adaptor with Two Cassette Tape Cases

Marcel Kaiser discovers a useful DIY trick:

When I was building a PC for a friend, I had the problem that I didn’t have a HDD rack for the 2.5″ hard drive. After some time of ransacking various boxes, I found two audio cassette cases. Heureka!

You’ll need two audio cassette cases, a strip of duct tape, and a sharp knife for drilling holes. Check out my blog post for more pictures of the process.

Improve LibreOffice’s Interface With Its Full Screen Toolbar

Scottintheway brings LibreOffice into the 21st century:

. . .If you put [LibreOffice] in full-screen mode you can edit the full-screen floating toolbar to have any number of useful menu options. This basically gives you a menu-bar-free interface (saving valuable vertical pixels).

. . .Not a bad solution, especially for people who are used to the Adobe Creative Suite layout style. A nice, functional, floating sidebar that saves a ton of vertical pixels. It’s a single click to see the status bar (for word counts, etc.) and on the rare occasion any additional menu functions are needed, it’s a single click to get out of full-screen.


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