Lifehacker readers offer their best tips for fixing broken luggage wheels on the fly, bookmarking all open tabs in Safari, and fooling inaccessible thermostats.
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.
Fix a Broken Luggage Wheel With Duct Tape
John shares his fix for a broken luggage wheel:
The wheel on my favourite carry-on bag had a chunk come off of it on one trip. It wasn’t too many trips later that the plastic part of the wheel came off completely, leaving behind the little metal core that housed the bearings. This left me scraping through the terminal and carrying the bag through anyone’s house so as to not leave a trail of scrape marks behind me. Other than the wheel, the bag was in fine shape so I hated to throw the thing away. So, I crafted a new wheel using duct tape and wrote up an Instructable about it.
Bookmark all Open Tabs with Safari
Harald shares his discovery of a feature in the latest Safari update:
The latest Safari update introduced a very useful feature. You can now save every open tab as a bookmark all at once. Just go to the Bookmarks tab in the menu bar. It gets automatically saved as an “Automatically Open in Tabs” folder. This will probably make things a lot easier when you have to postpone some kind of project.
This feature has been around in Chrome and Firefox for a while now, and it’s a welcome addition to Safari. In either Chrome or Firefox, just right-click any tab and choose Bookmark all tabs.
Fool Inaccessible Thermostats with Chill Spray
In honour of Evil Week, David shares a clever workaround for fooling thermostats you might be locked out of adjusting:
If you feel cold but are not authorised to adjust the thermostat, you can fix the problem without touching the forbidden controls. Simply use a can of chill spray (or an inverted can of compressed air) to cool the thermostat’s sensor. In some installations, this may cause the heater to come on, but in most cases, it will simply disable the air conditioner for up to 10 minutes. Do this every half hour or so and you’ll find you no longer have a case of the chills!
Make Glowing Costumes with EL Wire
Risa, over at Adafruit, shares a simple way to add some light to your costume:
There’s still time to make an illuminated Halloween costume — just add electroluminescent (EL) wire. We’ve got guides for how to make TRON-inspired hoodies and EL wire animal masks.
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