From The Tips Box: Slippery Phones, Windows Explorer Icons

Readers offer their best tips for using your smartphone at your desk, changing Windows Explorer views on-the-fly, and packing your lunch.

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.

Use Shelf Liner to Keep Smartphones from Sliding Around

Mikebeato shares a solution to his slippery, caseless iPhone:

My iPhone 4S has a shiny, slippery back. I worry about it sliding around my desk, especially as it vibrates for phone calls, emails, text messages and other alert notifications throughout the day and night. Here’s an inexpensive, non-stick solution: use padded shelf liner.

Change Windows Explorer’s Icon View With a Keyboard Shortcut

Keithb1 shares an AutoHotkey script to quickly get a better look at a folder in Explorer:

I was able to get this view toggler to work reliably in Win7. The finer sorting, on the other hand, is not working out.

#IfWinactive ahk_class CabinetWClass ; various View options for folder windows

^d::send !{V}{D} ; Details

^l::send !{V}{L} ; List

^i::send !{V}{X} ; Large Icons

^t::send !{V}{S} ; Tiled view

return

Hitting Ctrl+D in Explorer will go to Details view, Ctrl+L will go to List view, Ctrl+I will go to large icons, and Ctrl+T to Tiled view.

Use Apple Store Bags for Portable Lunches

DoubleOh187 lets us know a better container for your “brown bag” lunches:

If you shop at Apple stores, you’re aware of their drawstring bags. Because they are pretty robust, they can be repurposed as a lunch bag. I’ll pack my lunch inside one of these bags the night before, toss it into the ‘fridge and it’s ready for the following day. I’ve had a food item leak on the inside and the bag contained the errant soup quite well.

Quickly Scroll Through Windows Explorer’s Column Add and Removal Tool

Java-Princess shares a shortcut hidden deep in Windows 7:

Here’s a way to delay Repetitive Strain Injuries appearing prematurely in your mouse finger. When you’re in Windows Explorer and you open up a folder and the view isn’t displaying the columns you want the usual remedy is to right-click on the header bar, hit More… and scroll or click your way to the column description you want… sometimes multiple times through the huge list of options. The Crabby Office Lady wannabe was telling me this is one of the least pleasant and most hideously implemented user interfaces in Windows; a huge list of options and a tiny check box to aim at. You can negate some of the scrolling pain by typing the first letter of the feature you want and the dialog box will go there. Hitting the Home, End, Page Up and Page Down buttons also has the expected effect.