From The Tips Box: iTunes Remotes, Driving Posture, Better Facebook

Readers offer their best tips for using your iOS devices as iTunes remotes, keeping good posture while driving, and customising Facebook.

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? Add it in the comments or use the contact tab on the right.

Clear iOS Remotes When iTunes Refuses to Pair

Daniel shares a fix for iTunes not wanting to pair with the iOS Remote app:

The iOS Remote app is one of my favourite apps, and it’s great when coupled with an AirPort Express. For some reason, though, I was having a problem where I’d try to pair my iPad and it was not showing up in the iTunes sidebar like it was supposed to. Well, last night, I figured out a fix.

Head into iTunes’ Preferences, and go to Advanced. Hit the “Forget All Remotes” button. I never knew this was there, and I don’t know what exactly was going on — maybe it was still recognising my iPad from before I restored it and wouldn’t let me repair — but as soon as I hit the Forget All Remotes button I was able to pair it as normal.

Use Your Rearview Mirror to Keep Good Posture While Driving

Photo by Anna.

Bglaszcz tells us how he reminds himself to stop slouching:

I notice I have poor posture so I use this simple “hack” in my car. I adjust my rear view mirror to the height when I’m sitting up straight. I find every time I look at the mirror and can’t see everything that I’m slouching and it’s a quick reminder to have me straighten up!

Replace the Better Facebook Extension with Social Fixer

Dronak helps Better Facebook users get their customisations back:

The Better Facebook add-on has recently changed its name to Social Fixer, available here. I mention this because it looked like Better Facebook stopped working for me, so I had to manually update to the new Social Fixer version in order to get it working again. I thought I’d pass this along in case others using the add-on are having the same problem and not sure how to fix it.

Customise Windows’ Bubbles Screensaver

Keithb1 shares a hidden registry hack to change the appearance of Windows’ Bubbles screensaver:

If you’re sick of the same old Bubbles.scr (hey, who isn’t??), then these Registry items will give you something different.

Look in here:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Screensavers\Bubbles

Create or change these, all DWORD 32-bit values:

MaterialGlass ; set to 0

ShowShadows ; set to 1

TurbulenceNumOctaves ; try 200. Don’t get too crazy; 500 I think is the limit.