[Assam] Low-Tech Fixes for High-Tech Problems

[Ram Sarangapani]

 Someone sent this to me. Don't know if these work, but seem interesting.
There is one about re-using the cell phone dropped in a toilet..... my
solution - I would lose the phone.

--Ram


>  *February 19, 2009*
>
> *****Basics*
>
> *****Low-Tech Fixes for High-Tech Problems *
>
> *****By PAUL BOUTIN*
>
> BEHIND the cash register at Smoke Shop No. 2 in downtown San Francisco, Sam
> Azar swipes a customer's credit card to ring up Turkish cigarettes. The
> store's card reader fails to scan the card's magnetic strip. Azar swipes
> again, and again. No luck.
>
> As customers begin to queue, he reaches beneath the counter for a black
> plastic bag. He wraps one layer of the plastic around the card and swipes it
> again. Success. The sale is rung up.
>
> "I don't know how it works, it just does," says Mr. Azar, who learned the
> trick years ago from another clerk. Verifone, the company that makes the
> store's card reader, would not confirm or deny that the plastic bag trick
> works. But it's one of many low-tech fixes for high-tech failures that
> people without engineering degrees have discovered, often out of
> desperation, and shared.
>
> Today's shaky economy is likely to produce many more such tricks. "In
> postwar Japan, the economy wasn't doing so great, so you couldn't get
> everyday-use items like household cleaners," says Lisa Katayama, author of
> "Urawaza," a book named after the Japanese term for clever lifestyle tips
> and tricks. "So people looked for ways to do with what they had."
>
> Popular urawaza include picking up broken glass from the kitchen floor with
> a slice of bread, or placing houseplants on a water-soaked diaper to keep
> them watered during a vacation trip.
>
> Today, Americans are finding their own tips and tricks for fixing
> misbehaving gadgets with supplies as simple as paper and adhesive tape.
> Some, like Mr. Azar's plastic bag, are open to argument as to how they work,
> or whether they really work at all. But many tech home remedies can be
> explained by a little science.
>
> *****Cellphone Losing Charge*******
>
> If your cellphone loses its battery charge too quickly while idle in your
> pocket, part of the problem may be that your pocket is too warm.
>
> "Cellphone batteries do indeed last a bit longer if kept cool," says Isidor
> Buchanan, editor of the Battery University Web site. The 98.6-degree body
> heat of a human, transmitted through a cloth pocket to a cellphone inside,
> is enough to speed up chemical processes inside the phone's battery. That
> makes it run down faster. To keep the phone cooler, carry it in your purse
> or on your belt.
>
> This same method can be used to preserve your battery should you find
> yourself away from home without your charger. Turn off the phone and put it
> in the hotel refrigerator overnight to slow the battery's natural tendency
> to lose its charge.
>
> *****Remote Car Key*******
>
> Suppose your remote car door opener does not have the range to reach your
> car across the parking lot. Hold the metal key part of your key fob against
> your chin, then push the unlock button. The trick turns your head into an
> antenna, says Tim Pozar, a Silicon Valley radio engineer.
>
> Mr. Pozar explains, "You are capacitively coupling the fob to your head.
> With all the fluids in your head it ends up being a nice conductor. Not a
> great one, but it works." Using your head can extend the key's wireless
> range by a few car lengths.
>
> *****Dry Ink Cartridge*******
>
> If your printer's ink cartridge runs dry near the end of an important print
> job, remove the cartridge and run a hair dryer on it for two to three
> minutes. Then place the cartridge back into the printer and try again while
> it is still warm.
>
> "The heat from the hair dryer heats the thick ink, and helps it to flow
> through the tiny nozzles in the cartridge," says Alex Cox, a software
> engineer in Seattle. "When the cartridge is almost dead, those nozzles are
> often nearly clogged with dried ink, so helping the ink to flow will let
> more ink out of the nozzles." The hair dryer trick can squeeze a few more
> pages out of a cartridge after the printer declares it is empty.
>
> *****Cellphone in the Toilet*******
>
> It could happen to anyone: you dropped your cellphone in the toilet. Take
> the battery out immediately, to prevent electrical short circuits from
> frying your phone's fragile internals. Then, wipe the phone gently with a
> towel, and shove it into a jar full of uncooked rice.
>
> It works for the same reason you may keep few grains of rice in your salt
> shaker to keep the salt dry. Rice has a high chemical affinity for water —
> that means the molecules in the rice have a nearly magnetic attraction for
> water molecules, which will be soaked up into the rice rather than beading
> up inside the phone.
>
> It is a low-tech version of the "Do Not Eat" desiccant packets that may
> have been packed in the box the phone came in, to keep moisture away from
> the circuitry during shipping and storage.
>
> *****Longer Wi-Fi Reach*******
>
> If your home Wi-Fi router doesn't reach the other end of the house, don't
> rush out to buy more wireless gear to stretch your network. Instead, build a
> six-inch-high passive radio wave reflector from kitchen items, like an
> aluminum cookie sheet.
>
> Follow the instructions at *freeantennas.com/projects/template*<http://freeantennas.com/projects/template>.
> Place the completed reflector — a small, curved piece of metal that reflects
> radio waves just like a satellite TV dish — behind your Wi-Fi router. It
> focuses the router's energy in one direction — toward the other end of the
> house — rather than letting it dissipate its strength in a full circle. No
> cables, no batteries, no technical knowledge required. Yet it can easily
> double the range of your network.
>
> *****Dirty Discs*******
>
> You need to clean a skipping DVD or CD, but as a bachelor you don't have
> any sissy cleaning fluids? Soak a washcloth with vodka or mouthwash.
>
> Alcohol is a powerful solvent, perfectly capable of dissolving fingerprints
> and grime on the surface of a disc. A $5 bottle of Listerine in your
> medicine cabinet may do the job as effectively as a $75 bottle of DVD
> cleaning fluid. Also, swabbing your copy of "Lost Weekend" with Stoli
> instead of fussing with a Discwasher kit is a lot more manly.
>
> Too Much Flash
>
> If your cellphone's built-in camera flash is much too bright, washing out
> photos, tape a small piece of paper over the flash. Experiment with
> different colors and thicknesses of paper to tone down the flash from
> superbright white to a more pleasing glow for evening photos.
>
> Crashed Hard Drive
>
> If — no, make that when — your PC's hard drive crashes and can't be read,
> don't be too quick to throw it out.***** Stick it in the freezer
> overnight.*
>
> "The trick is a real and proven, albeit last resort, recovery technique for
> some kinds of otherwise-fatal hard-drive problems," writes Fred Langa on his
> Windows Secrets Web site. Many hard drive failures are caused by worn parts
> that no longer align properly, making it impossible to read data from the
> drive. Lowering the drive's temperature causes its metal and plastic
> internals to contract ever so slightly. Taking the drive out of the freezer,
> and returning it to room temperature can cause those parts to expand again.
>
> That may help free up binding parts, Mr. Langa explains, or at least let a
> failing electrical component remain within specs long enough for you to
> recover your essential data.
>
> That's the spirit of folk remedies: They may or may not work, but what have
> you got to lose?
>
>
>