From The Tips Box: Wall Chargers, Reward Cards

Readers offer their best tips for creating a DIY charging station and using rewards cards effectively.

About the Tips Box: 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? Email it to tips at lifehacker.com.au.

Make a DIY Charging Station Out of Scotch Tape

Grant shows us his dead simple DIY charging station:

I’ve been using a cardboard cutout as a ‘nightstand’ with a charging cable and speaker connector for a while now, but I just now realised a simpler and more stylish solution: using a single piece of double-sided tape (and a bit of Scotch for good measure), I made a nice dock for my Zune to sit on as my alarm clock. It should work for just about anything, as long as it’s thin enough and the charging cord doesn’t yank on it too much (I filed down the prongs on mine).

Use Fake, Near-Holiday Birthdays for Reward Cards

Photo by Duncan Gough.

Michael.Stonis lets us know an easy way to make rewards more relevant:

When signing-up for rewards cards or reward programs, give a date around a holiday as your birthday (instead of your actual birthday). This way if they offer a free ticket or coupon, you can use it when it is probably more relevant.