From The Tips Box: Laptop Cables, Spam Inboxes, Shoe Trees

Readers offer their best tips for keeping your laptop’s cable intact, cleaning out your spam folder, and keeping your shoes nice longer.

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.

Strategically Coil Your Laptop Cable

Pojken is fed up withhis fraying MacBook cable:

As you can see, my MacBook wire is torn up, partly due to my cat, partly due to my rolling chair.

For the cat, I lightly rub Vaporub on it (to keep the cat away). For the rolling chair, I use the little clip that comes with the cord. I make a big loop so that the cord hangs off the table and doesn’t lay on the ground.

Create Your Own Spam Filter

Dathbe makes up for the default spam filter’s shortcomings:

I get a daily digest of emails caught by my company’s spam filter every morning. I have to look through it to make sure a client’s email didn’t get caught accidentally, so the more emails that are in there, the more annoying it is to check. I’ve taken to adding repeat spammers to the “safe” list so that they come through. Then I set up a rule in Outlook that automatically deletes all emails from that address. Voila — no more reading through the same spammy emails every morning.

Use Newspapers To Keep Your Shoes In Shape

Sarah W. finds a cheap substitute for wooden shoe trees:

Put a rolled up newspaper in your boots to help keep their shape. This makes them look nice longer, without having to buy the plastic/wooden equivalent.