From The Tips Box: Dual Monitor Aero Snap, Android Browser Text

Readers offer their best tips for using Aero Snap with two monitors, reading text in the Android browser, and making a DIY adjustable laptop stand.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.

Adjust Your Desktop Position for Multi-Monitor Aero Snap

Isaaclyman shares an easy way to make Aero Snap work better with multiple monitors:

I like a dual-monitor setup. I also like Windows 7’s “snap” features — dragging to the right border for a half-screen window and stuff like that. For a long time, I’ve assumed that you can’t have both. If you try to right-snap a window, it will just fly to the next monitor.

The solution: Under my display settings, I click and drag the right monitor up so that its bottom-left corner is touching the left monitor’s upper-right corner. It’s a nice compromise. You have to go through the corner to reach the other monitor, but then you get snap features with your dual monitors. Sure, it takes a few minutes to get used to. But in no time at all, you’ll be snapping and switching with ease.

Java-Princess lets us know you can also do this by holding shift when you drag your window, which is another good alternative.

Pinch, then Tap to Zoom for Desired Text Size in Android Browsers

Jesseg lets us know an easy way to get the text size you want while fitting it to your Android phone’s screen:

Here’s an Android browser tip I recently discovered. If you want to have the text of a web page a certain size, and you still want the browser to change the text justification to fit on your screen, you can do a pinch-zoom so the text is whatever size you want, then double-tap the screen.

Use Rubber Door Stops as a Cheap, Adjustable Laptop Stand

Sandiegoguy creates a laptop stand out of two household objects:

Cheap Laptop Stand: Use two rubber door stops that cost less than a couple of bucks a piece. They firmly anchor the laptop to the table top, providing space underneath to circulate air; they’re cheap; and they are compact—easy to pack and carry along in a computer bag.

What I love about this is that it’s adjustable, in a way. You can move your laptop up and down the doorstops to get the perfect angle for you.

Add Oft-Used Google Filters to a Search Keyword

Rbenjamini makes it easier to search Google results for the past year:

Lately I’ve noticed that when I search Google I get initial results that are out of date and not so relevant. This is especially when dealing with installation of new software that isnt working right and trying to get the lastest info from forums, etc. So I end up going to the side bar and clicking on “past year” to get the more recent links. I found that I started to do this on most of my searches and wanted to cut down that annoying extra click so I set up a bookmark that has the “past year” feature already built in. The URL is:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%s&hl=en&biw=1116&bih=886&prmd=ivnsr&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:y

I did this by going to google.com, selecting “Advanced Search” on the side of the input box, expanding the “Date, Usage..” section, selecting “Past Year”, then clicking “Advanced Search” on the bottom right. Once I’ve made my search, I just replace the search term in the URL with %s (as seen above), and I have my keyword that I can add to Firefox or Chrome. You can do it with any parameters you want.