From The Tips Box: Smartphone Stands, Ugly A/C Units, Fresh Sandwiches


Lifehacker readers offer their best tips for creating swivelling smartphone stands, adding sites to Chrome’s new tab page, and covering up ugly air conditioners.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.

Create a Swivelling Smartphone Stand From a Lamp


Lifehacker readers offer their best tips for creating swivelling smartphone stands, adding sites to Chrome’s new tab page, and covering up ugly air conditioners.

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.

Create a Swivelling Smartphone Stand From a Lamp

FireAway3 shares his custom mobile phone holder:

I made an articulating mobile phone holder. I never quite want my mobile phone in the same place,

so I took some scrap balsa I had lying around and made a holster.

Next, I put some rubberised foam strips inside the holster to hold the phone securely at any orientation.

I ordered a mini-ball head designed for a tripod on eBay for just over $US5.

Then I went to IKEA, picked up a Tertial work lamp for $20.

Attach it all together with superglue, epoxy or whatever else is handy. Zip tie a USB charger to the lamp’s arm and call it a day.

I made another one, put it next to my bed, its great for watching Netflix or reading an ebook. If you wanted you could adapt it with any other kind of cell phone mount, and the ball head is nice but isn’t strictly required.

Hide an Ugly Air Conditioner with Chalkboard Paint

Amy finds a way to de-uglify that big air conditioning unit:

Found this project online. It solves the problem of unsightly A/C units in your house by hiding it under a box and painting it with chalkboard paint. Functional AND looks good!

You can read the full blog post over at Decor Hacks.

Keep Tomorrow’s Sandwiches Fresh by Freezing the Bread

Yusuo85 makes sandwiches in advance and keeps them fresh:

Little tip my nan gave me to keep sandwiches fresh for work or school when you make them the night before.

Freeze the bread loaf as soon as you get it and then take out what you need and butter and make the sandwich on frozen pieces of bread, wrap in tin foil and stick in the fridge overnight to slowly defrost. When you go to grab them in the morning they’ll be nice and soft and completely fresh. It’ll be as if you just made sandwiches with a brand new loaf!

I think a big part of this is the butter he puts on the bread before freezing it — that’ll help keep the bread from getting soggy if you have other condiments on it. Photo by Christian Cable.

Fix Broken Windows 7 Themes by Refreshing Icon Thumbnails

Moon discovers a strange Windows glitch, and fixes it:

This is for Windows 7.

I’m the sort of geek who likes to switch between themes, just because I can, becaues I feel like it. I go back and forth between a stark high-contrast theme, and another one that’s all blinged up.

Sometimes, Windows 7 won’t let me do that just on a whim, not even if I stop and restart the DWM and Themes services. A mouse click on a theme will do nothing, even in a case like that. A reboot would be necessary.

I think I found a way to avoid the reboot. Go into Folder Options, check/uncheck “Always Show Icons, Never Thumbnails.” Then OK your way out of there.

That fixed it for me. Good to be shallow.

I’ve never had this happen myself, but it’s good to know if you ever encounter a similar problem.

FireAway3 shares his custom mobile phone holder:

I made an articulating mobile phone holder. I never quite want my mobile phone in the same place,

so I took some scrap balsa I had lying around and made a holster.

Next, I put some rubberised foam strips inside the holster to hold the phone securely at any orientation.

I ordered a mini-ball head designed for a tripod on eBay for just over $US5.

Then I went to IKEA, picked up a Tertial work lamp for $20.

Attach it all together with superglue, epoxy or whatever else is handy. Zip tie a USB charger to the lamp’s arm and call it a day.

I made another one, put it next to my bed, its great for watching Netflix or reading an ebook. If you wanted you could adapt it with any other kind of cell phone mount, and the ball head is nice but isn’t strictly required.

Hide an Ugly Air Conditioner with Chalkboard Paint

Amy finds a way to de-uglify that big air conditioning unit:

Found this project online. It solves the problem of unsightly A/C units in your house by hiding it under a box and painting it with chalkboard paint. Functional AND looks good!

You can read the full blog post over at Decor Hacks.

Keep Tomorrow’s Sandwiches Fresh by Freezing the Bread

Yusuo85 makes sandwiches in advance and keeps them fresh:

Little tip my nan gave me to keep sandwiches fresh for work or school when you make them the night before.

Freeze the bread loaf as soon as you get it and then take out what you need and butter and make the sandwich on frozen pieces of bread, wrap in tin foil and stick in the fridge overnight to slowly defrost. When you go to grab them in the morning they’ll be nice and soft and completely fresh. It’ll be as if you just made sandwiches with a brand new loaf!

I think a big part of this is the butter he puts on the bread before freezing it — that’ll help keep the bread from getting soggy if you have other condiments on it. Photo by Christian Cable.

Fix Broken Windows 7 Themes by Refreshing Icon Thumbnails

Moon discovers a strange Windows glitch, and fixes it:

This is for Windows 7.

I’m the sort of geek who likes to switch between themes, just because I can, becaues I feel like it. I go back and forth between a stark high-contrast theme, and another one that’s all blinged up.

Sometimes, Windows 7 won’t let me do that just on a whim, not even if I stop and restart the DWM and Themes services. A mouse click on a theme will do nothing, even in a case like that. A reboot would be necessary.

I think I found a way to avoid the reboot. Go into Folder Options, check/uncheck “Always Show Icons, Never Thumbnails.” Then OK your way out of there.

That fixed it for me. Good to be shallow.

I’ve never had this happen myself, but it’s good to know if you ever encounter a similar problem.


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