Readers offer their best tips for getting free Wi-Fi at the airport, avoiding accidents at intersections, and cooling down your car on a hot day.
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.
Get Free Wi-Fi By Sitting Near Airport Lounges
Photo by Hojusaram.
Antrikshy sneaks in a bit of free internet time at the airport:
When travelling, sometimes you might come across airports that do not provide free Wi-Fi services. But you can sit near airline lounges. They usually have free Wi-Fi and they are often times unsecured and leaking out into the public space.
Make sure you’re staying safe on those public Wi-Fi networks!
Avoid Hard Brakes at Traffic Lights by Watching the Pedestrian Lights
Photo by Cmeaux.
Xagest keeps intersections safe by judging when traffic lights will change:
Traffic cameras at intersections are becoming more common in some areas, some people get a bit nervous whenever they drive up to a traffic light. I’ve noticed that a lot of people break hard as soon as the yellow light comes up, and that can get pretty dangerous (and not very good for your car).
If you want to have some idea of how much time you have before that green light turns yellow, then red, take a glance at the Walk/Don’t Walk light. A lot of them have timers now, and they’ll let you know how much longer it’ll take before the light turns yellow. Even if it’s just the blinking hand, at least you’ll know that you have a bit of time before the light changes.
Open Car Windows with the Key Fob
Photo by Michael Crane.
Jsertic helps us cool off our cars before we get inside:
I thought this was common knowledge, but I recently came across some persons who did not know the following:
On newer car models, if you keep the unlock button on your remote pressed for a few seconds, the windows of your car will automatically open. This is really nice on a hot day, as I can open my windows from 50 meters away and the interior of the car will have cooled down enough to drive away at once.
Same goes for the lock button, which will of course close any open windows, which is nice if you see that you forgot to close a window while leaving, as you don’t have to unlock the car, get in, put the key in the ignition, close the window…
This doesn’t work on every car, but certain car companies (like BMW and Lexus) do have this enabled.
Command-Click URLs in Safari to See a Breadcrumb View of the Current Page
Jon shares a neat hidden feature in Safari:
Just found an interesting feature in Safari (on the Mac). Hold ⌘ and click on the title of the webpage on the top of the window. A breadcrumb for the site pops up and you can easily go back a bit in the site’s navigation. Sure comes in handy!
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