From The Tips Box: Cold Water Bottles, Messy Aftershave, Hidden Wi-Fi

Readers offer their best tips for keeping your water cold, efficiently using aftershave, and finding free Wi-Fi when you’re out and about.

Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favourites. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments or send it using the contact tab on the right.

Freeze Just Part of Your Water Bottle to Keep It Cold

Jvanderh shows us a better way to keep water cold for long outings:

To keep your water cold, you might try freezing the bottle overnight (or freezing it 1/4 full, or half full, and topping up with water before you leave). It works well when I take the dog for long walks.

This may be common knowledge to some, but I’ve only ever seen people freeze full bottles of water — not just partial bottles, which seems to make a lot more sense if you’re going to start drinking it right away. Make sure you freeze the bottle on its side, so you have more of the ice touching your “top off” water when you leave. If the ice is all at the bottom, it won’t do as good a job of keeping your water cold.

Photo by Creative Tools.

Use a Roll-On Bottle for Less Wasteful Aftershave Applications

Jeff Parker discovers an easier way to put on aftershave:

Here’s a hack that has improved my morning routine immensely.

Don’t you hate it when you pour aftershave or cologne in your hand to apply to your face, and you end up getting as much on your hands as on your face? Then it’s wasted as you wash your hands and all of that expensive eau de toilette goes down the drain! Well, here’s a simple solution. Buy some glass roll-on bottles, pour in your aftershave or cologne, snap the rollerball on top and you’re all set. Now, just roll the applicator ball across your freshly shorn face and you will waste not a drop. Another benefit — your hands won’t smell like cologne or have to be washed again, either! You can find them all over Amazon, but here’s a pretty ridiculously cheap one.

Find Free Wi-Fi by Looking for Hidden Networks

Jonathan Danna finds free Wi-Fi when out shopping:

I just noticed this: Best buy has a hidden Wi-Fi network named “BestBuy” they use for their display devices. You can connect to it just fine by typing in the SSID (it won’t show up in the list of Wi-Fi connections) and there’s no password or wireless security.

We’ve shared some tools for finding hidden Wi-Fi networks before, but this is a good tip for when you’re shopping at computer stores — just look at the Wi-Fi networks the display devices are connected to.

Photo by Mike Kalasknik.

Restore “Send to Zipped Folder” in Windows’ Right-Click Menu

Moon loses a useful Windows feature and discovers a way to get it back:

I lost my right-click > New Compressed Folder functionality in Windows 7. I got it back with this, thanks to eHow:

1. Click the “Start” button.
2. Select “Run” from the Start Menu. If “Run” is not in the Start Menu, select the “All Programs” list and click on “Run” from the Accessories menu.
3. Type the following line into the Open field:

   cmd /c assoc .zip=CompressedFolder

4. Click “OK” or press “Enter.”
5. Right-click anywhere on the desktop to verify that “Compressed (Zipped) Folder” has been restored to the New menu.
6. Right-click an empty space in the folder and select “Paste.” Alternatively, go up to the Edit menu and click “Paste.” Close Windows Explorer.

How I lost the option, I don’t know. Don’t care at this point either.