Readers offer their best tips for hiding external hard drives, salvaging magnets from shower curtains, and working around Google Music’s 30 second previews.
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About the Tips Box: 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 favorites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments, share it here, or email it to tips at lifehacker.com.
Hide External Drives Behind Monitors for a Clean Workspace
Joshua shows us how he keeps his desk nice and neat:
How to hide a hardrive on an iMac easily with a wire tie: Just tie the drive to the arm that connects the base, simply and easy trick.
While this may be easier on an iMac than other monitors, the idea of sticking your drive on the back of your monitor can be used on any computer. When in doubt, use duct tape.
Keep Magnets When Throwing Out Shower Curtains
Photo by rick.
Jonathan Fournier makes the most out of his old shower curtain liners:
When I change out my shower curtain liner every few months, I cut the three or four magnets out of the bottom and use them on the fridge. Free(ish) magnets!
Save Your Ties from Messes With a Bobby Pin
mindtrix shows us how to save ties from taking a swim:
‘Tis the season, and with it comes the eggnog, carols and the outrageous Xmas ties.
I am not a tie man myself, but one thing I know you don’t want this season is your tie dipping in your glass of eggnog!
So keep that noose out of your nog with a bobby pin! It may not be overly fashionable, but its small enough to do the job and barely be noticeable.
If your holiday ties are really bad, though, and you’d rather they die a horrible, eggnoggy death, we won’t blame you.
Bypass Google’s One-Play Limit With Private Browsing
MooseStuff sticks it to the man with this Google Music workaround:
If you use Google to listen to some tunes, you know how annoying it can be to go back to a good song only to find you only get a 30 second sample. well if you open a new incognito window (or private mode of choice) it will play the full song, however you need a new window each time you want to play it.
iLike (whch plays from MySpace) is the only service I found that seems to make you listen to 30-second samples after the first try, and Google Music seems to change what service it automatically plays from at will. If it keeps sticking you with iLike, though, this is a nice little workaround.
