Slashdot Mirror
Three Low-Tech Hacks for Phones and Tablets
OK, now before everyone starts shouting "DUH!", I can tell you that I was at a conference right before New Year's, and every day from about 11 a.m. onward, I heard people saying that their phones were about to die, that they would either about to drop off the grid or would have to spend the next half-hour shackled to an outlet via their phone charger, etc. I never once heard anyone mentioning swapping in a spare phone battery, and according to my own survey of my friends, none of them have ever tried it either. But that conference was my first trip after ordering two spare batteries for my Stratosphere from Verizon ($10 each), and it was also the first trip where I never had to waste a second thinking about how to stretch out the phone's battery life or how much time I had left. Just swap in the second battery at around 3 PM, and then swap in the third one at around 10 PM, if there was still anything worth staying out for.
You could instead get "extended life" batteries for certain models of phones as well, but they cost much more than the standard batteries, and some users report that they make the phone noticeably heavier and bulkier. There are also portable phone chargers — which charge themselves from wall outlets, and then carry a charge that can be used to re-charge the phone through the micro-USB connection — but of course they're bigger and heavier than spare batteries, and you have to leave the phone connected to it while the phone is recharging. I didn't see the need for either of those products after picking up two regular spare batteries.
The most inconvenient part of the process was recharging the multiple batteries at the end of the day — since I didn't have a standalone battery charger, I could only recharge the batteries by charging them in the phone itself, swapping each one out after it had spent an hour charging (if I stayed awake that long). To that end, it would be convenient if more phone manufacturers would make battery-only chargers, so that at the end of the day you could plug your depleted spare batteries into their own re-charger at the same time that you're using the normal phone charger to charge the battery currently in the phone, then go to sleep and let everything charge up overnight. There standalone chargers for some phone batteries, like the Blackberry, but they're in the minority. (Meanwhile, iPhones do not have user-serviceable batteries at all; when the battery dies and becomes non-rechargeable, you're supposed to take it to an Apple repair center to be replaced.)
It seems odd to me that phone manufacturers spend millions of dollars figuring out how to extend the battery life of their phones, and here's a solution that works for almost everyone who has a zippered pocket for spare batteries (and a phone other than an iPhone). But I didn't think of it for years, nobody else that I've talked to ever thought of it either, phone manufacturers don't steer people toward this option, and most of them don't make standalone chargers that would make the process easier. Well, now you know.
2. Hacked furniture to hold a tablet PC above your bed
For years I'd occasionally watched movies on my laptop in bed, and I always felt bit of a strain on my back or neck while sitting up and leaning against a pillow, but eventually the movie would distract me if it was any good at all. Then a week ago, in an act laden with heavy-handed but unintentional symbolism, I dumped all of the books out of one of my bookshelves to make it easier to watch TV without getting out of bed:
The protruding shelf is attached to the bookcase with a pair of metal clamps, and then weighed down with some heavy books to counterbalance the weight of the tablet. (You want the clamps tight enough that the shelf can't move at all, relative to the bookcase.) The tablet holder, a Zuwit 360 Degree tablet stand, is attached to the end of the shelf using its own built-in clamp, and then bent into a downward arc to hold the tablet.
In case you're wondering why I didn't just clamp the tablet holder to a nightstand next to the bed, the answer is that none of the tablet holders I looked at had a flexible gooseneck that would extend far enough. (Remember, the gooseneck doesn't just have to reach from the edge of the bed to above your head; it has to arch up and then bend downward to hold the tablet from above, all while giving you enough slack to reposition the tablet in the air if you want to.) I assume there's a practical upper limit on how long the manufacturers want the gooseneck to be; if it's too long, then when it's extended sideways it could bend under its own weight plus the weight of whatever it's holding. Hence the shelf extending out over the mattress.
To make this work, you need a gooseneck tablet holder like the Zuwit that specifically has short teeth protruding over the edge of whatever it's holding, to grip it so that it won't fall when the tablet is held upside-down. (I'd originally tried this with a BESTEK tablet holder, but the tablet gripper didn't have teeth coming down in front of the screen, so the tablet would occasionally fall out and land on my head.)
It was a bit of work to put together, but I've never felt rested in a more comfortable position while watching a 2-hour movie. All cheaper than installing a flatscreen in your ceiling, and better, actually, since you can reach up and rotate the tablet whenever you change position.
But as a proof-of-concept only, this is a pretty ugly piece of furniture, and while I'm able to get in and out of bed easily without hitting the protruding shelf, it gets more complicated if you're ever have "company." In my case, there's enough space behind the bookcase that I can tilt it backward, moving the protruding shelf and the tablet holder so that they're no longer over the bed. This solves the problem of how to get it out of the way, but not the fact that it's still a pretty ugly conversation piece. You can un-clamp the protruding shelf from the bookcase and hide it away, but you're still left with a bulky, empty bookcase oddly perched at the end of your bed, and that's too much of a pain to lift and move some place every time you want to assemble the tablet holder or disassemble it when you have company coming over. I want to take another go at it using a shelf attached to a stack of milk cartons — which would be even uglier, but much lighter and easier to disassemble and move out of the way.
Speaking of milk cartons and ideas that make my chiropractor happy:
3. Hacked furniture to hold a tablet in front of an exercise machine
So that's what I did with the BESTEK tablet holder that didn't work for holding the tablet upside-down in bed; it works perfectly well attached to a stack of milk cartons, where the tablet only has to be held sideways. Again, ugly. But again, easy to disassemble and hide if I know company's coming over.
Of course there's a space on the elliptical trainer (underneath the control panel) for holding books, tablets, and other reading/viewing material, but it requires you to crane your neck downward to focus on that space, and I always felt uncomfortable looking in that direction for more than a few minutes while exercising. The obvious idea was to hold up the tablet by attaching the gooseneck tablet holder to the control panel of the elliptical itself, but (a) the body around the control panel is mostly hollow plastic, which has too much "give" for the clamp to attach to it securely; (b) if the tablet is attached to the machine directly, then it jiggles while the machine is moving, making it hard to watch the screen; and (c) the gooseneck still doesn't reach far enough to hold the tablet higher than eye level, which is best for your posture if you're looking at it while exercising.
Hence, the tower of milk cartons. Now when I first went to the local Container Store and was told that a stack of five milk cartons would cost $60, I assumed I was being subjected to the usual downtown Bellevue yuppie price-gouging that also gave us $500 "minimalist" bookshelves available in the same store, but, no, that is actually what non-stolen milk crates actually cost. (They're so easy to walk off with, and useful as "modular furniture," that the International Dairy Foods Association as launched a campaign to get people to stop stealing them.) With a bit of experimenting, you can find the right height for the gooseneck tablet holder, and position the tablet so that it's far enough from your face for comfortable viewing, while still close enough that you can touch the screen. (The stack of books in the topmost crate keeps it from tipping over from the weight of the tablet.)
Of course if you work out on an elliptical at a gym, it's a bit less convenient to carry a stack of milk crates in with you. Maybe a tablet accessories company should come out with a portable, collapsible tripod that rests securely on the ground while extending upward to provide a thick, flat surface about 5 feet above the floor — where a gooseneck tablet holder could be clamped onto the flat surface and then hold the tablet itself in front of the user's face at the right altitude.
Then if you start watching a movie on the tablet while working out and you don't make it all the way through, you can finish the movie on the tablet while it's suspended above your head in bed. Gives you something to do while swapping out the batteries in your phone and waiting for them to recharge.
I have multiple batteries and its great. One of the main reasons i don't like Apple hardware.
I think we just went from "news for nerds" to "news for morons who couldn't find their ass if it wasn't attached" in one post.
1. get a spare battery.
2. get a long arm to hold your device for you.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Clearly you're not a musician or you would have found this.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
I used to carry the spare batteries, but the portable phone charger can charge my phone AND other devices about 3 or 4 times. My ear is not tethered to my phone, so it's not a big deal to have my phone plugged into a plastic device that's about the same size as my phone. If you can't put your phone down for a few minutes at a time, then go for the spare batteries - but then you've got to figure out when you are going to charge them. Want to spend your whole evening in the hotel charging a variety of batteries in your phone?
1. Carry a spare battery.
2. Clamp your replacement tablet over your bed so you can masturbate without the tablet slipping off the bed and breaking.
3. Clamp your tablet in front of your treadmill - fuck it, you're never going to use that thing. Forget 3.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Some of us can't swap batteries!
Have gnu, will travel.
Soulskill is killing my soul with this "story".
You can't tell me that he was the first to have these ideas:
- Swap batteries! How could I NOT think of that! To be honest, I *did* buy spare batteries for my phones. But I never used them. Part of the problem is the loooong boot process of most current phones, another part is the flimsy back cover - and the fact that I use an additional leather cover for my phone. And the aforementioned rule of the USB chargers. Makes changing multiple batteries *very* inconvenient. I just pack a small 2xUSB / 2A charger and cables wherever I go. It's a good conversation starter to have another USB cable for the person sitting next to you (with the same problem). Plus, my phone would literally suck the batteries empty within a few hours.
- Hacked furnitures: I wonder what dimwit coined the word "hack" for that. But I guess that, just like me, there must be more people doing this kind of thing. Hold a tablet above my bed? My SO would literally KILL me. Exercise machine vs. tablet computer: I have that. But for a laptop, since I still don't own a tablet. And my phone is obviously too small.
Three obvious suggestions, three sarcastic responses:
Changing batteries has also been available for laptops forever. It is totally inconvenient. How much time per day do you spend managing your batteries?
Why are you watching movies on your tablet? Don't you have a nice big screen? Wouldn't a study pillow be easier?
And finally...real geeks don't exercise.
In my day, a "hack" was building a serial interface to an IBM Selectric typewriter to turn it into a printer...
Today, a "hack" is buying a spare battery for your phone.
You're still standing on my lawn.
I just found a new way to hack my desktop computer and you simply MUST try it! /end sarcastic parody post
For years I have been annoyed by having to bend down and turn my computer on or off.
I hacked it by putting a power strip between the plug and the wall and now can turn it on and off by stepping on the power strip's switch.
Of course I get all kinds of disk errors, but Windows does that anyway and almost always fixes things for me.
Now I don't have to do all that stretching anymore!
Makes as much sense as the asinine article posted up there.
That an a multipot wall plug. And the charger for the battery as the requires a unique charger, and does not charge through the USB. I guess we can never win.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
This article was really a very subtle commentary on the misuse of the word "hack", using a parody of creative reuse of household objects to point out that common sense doesn't require any special qualifications.
I am afraid that it is too subtle for most people to understand, especially those who normally use the stuff they own to accomplish what they want to do, as opposed to those who use the things they own strictly for the use pictured on the box.
Oh, also, don't most geeks have a camera tripod around somewhere? Wouldn't that have saved the ridiculous expense on the milk crates and the emotional stress of the ugly bookshelf?
"Proximity to wonder has blunted our perception and appreciation of it" --Tim Hartnell in 'Exploring ARTIFICIAL INTELLI
I think I'm lost. Is this Pinterest?
I got sick of scooping dog food for my puppy out of the bag with my hand, so I grabbed a plastic cup and started using that instead. I call it the "puppy food cup".
Sorry to "cool story bro" you, but that stuff is kind of weak. "Buying a new battery", "overcomplicated solution to replicate this. (note the standing function. Works great for me while in bed.)", and "I just bought college dorm room furniture" don't really qualify as hacks. Unless the slippers I bought this weekend qualify as a "temperature hack for keeping my feet warm."
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
The battery tip is great, but even better than "more manufacturers making out of phone chargers" would be standard sized batteries, or at the very least, standard battery connectors, so anyone could make out of phone chargers, or one charger fits all.
the above is my personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect that of the little voices in my head
Aside from the "this is a hack?" issue, get a headboard and clamp the tablet holder to that.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
"Get a spare battery" is a hack now?
Yeah, I'm going to shout DUH anyway. The reason people don't bother with spare batteries/portable chargers is that both of those things are one more thing to carry around that you're almost never going to actually use. Nobody wants to carry extra batteries around on the off-chance they'll die before they can recharge (which is why most iPhone users don't care about removable batteries), and in the case that someone actually predicts that their battery will die before they can recharge they do actually buy a cheap portable charger, or, more likely, they just say screw it I'll live until I can charge again. In the case of the former, it probably gets used once (maybe), and then tossed in the junk drawer never to be seen again.
As for the "furniture hacks"....dear god. We used to call this kind of half-assery "jury-rigging", which pretty much implied an ugly temporary fix that lacked elegance but got the job done. "Temporary" is the key word here. If you're going to use one of these solutions on a permanent or semi-permanent basis, put a little effort into the damn thing. Using wood-clamps to hold your furniture together might work, but it's hardly something to proudly show off to the world.
I appreciate a clever hack as much as anyone, but the battery thing isn't a hack, it's obvious, and the furniture stuff is really just sloppy, lazy jury-rigging for someone who doesn't want to put in a minimal amount of work for something just a touch less trashy. If you're okay with this kind of stuff in your house, that's fine, I don't care and if I came over I doubt I'd give it a second thought, but to showcase it on Slashdot? I don't get it.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
while I'm able to get in and out of bed easily without hitting the protruding shelf, it gets more complicated if you're ever have "company."
Funniest line in the whole article, not a concern on /. especially not after installing the "camera mount" over the bed. At least have the discretion to install a tiny web cam instead of trying to use an ipad for your "home movie making"
Seriously though been there done that with the exercise machine, and milk crates are rickety (and $10 a piece?) but concrete construction blocks from home depot work better and are cheaper. Nice and heavy. Unless you're really hard core and use mortar, my advice is use cheapie orange cargo straps to clamp the bricks together, otherwise collapse is inevitable. You don't need DOT rated 5000 lb straps, just enough that "washing machine vibration" won't slowly gradually topple them. Duct tape might work too. Obviously this is more appealing in the "homemade basement" home decorating class of gym than the "I'm trendy let me show off my shiny new expensive unused gym" upstairs. The truly hardcore who build their own power rack out of cedar 4x4 landscaping posts in their basement will probably attach the tablet to the power rack. I don't have enough ceiling height for a power rack in my basement so I don't have this "problem". (and no a weight lifting power rack isn't 19 inches wide unless your body is totally weird)
For a couple decades I've done the treadmill in front of the TV and behind the couch thing. The idea was walk while watching TV. Rather than walking a lot, I ended up not watching TV a lot. Almost as positive of an outcome, I guess. Anyway a phone/tablet with hdmi out is an obvious solution to the treadmill display desire.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Heh, I sometimes do use a rowing machine or treadmill when the weather outside is horrible. Like with the ice right now I wouldn't make it 1 km outside without breaking a leg. So what did I do? Put the treadmill in front of the TV, hook up laptop, and watch a movie. Can't really contemplate the universe in your own living room when your cat is trying to attack the treadmill you're on. At least I've found it difficult.
Then again, when I do go running alone I do listen to music, but that's mainly to keep a rhythm for interval training. Otherwise I found this great entertainment form called asking a friend if she feels like going along! Though I guess we're too old fashioned.
r.e. "news for morons who couldn't find their ass..."
There's an an app for that: blutracker-locator.
Attached ass or not, blutracker should help.
I think we just went from "news for nerds" to "news for morons who couldn't find their ass if it wasn't attached" in one post.
funny +1 I guess mods never seen billy madison
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I got a virgin mobile 3g/4g hotspot. I got the 2GB for $35/mo, which comes with unlimited wimax. Now, after 10GB/mo they will throttle you to 2mb/s, so it won't compare to Google Fiber, FIOS, or anything of that nature. In my experience it's more reliable and better speeds than Clear. So what I did was take my service-less Android, set up Google Voice, and downloaded Groove IP for Android. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gvoip&hl=en . So now I can make outbound and take inbound calls using Google Voice, carry the wireless hotspot in my pocket, disable 4g mode, and basically have phone and internet for $35/mo. As a single guy, this is pretty sweet. The virgin mobile is a little hard to activate, but the investment in terms of effort is worth it.
Mark Anthony Collins
Store your extra cell phone battery in your front pants pocket along with paper clips, foil gum wrappers and loose change. You never know when a fire in your pants will come in handy.
What the fuck is this?
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?
I'm AC because I can't be bothered to log .. I mean .. what the FUCK is this?
Why not go the whole way? Why not title the piece 'Three Secret Hacks No-one That Will Add Five Years To Your Life'. That's *real* link bait. $NUMBER $VERBS That Will $OUTRAGEOUS CLAIM.
Hacks? These aren't hacks. Someone had a vague idea, couldn't fit it into a tweet so instead shit it into a word-processor and scrabbled around to fill it out with more ideas. Yet they couldn't make it beyond three. Hacks? Changing the batteries in your fucking phone? Which of you unbelievable cunts upvoted this? It has appeared on the FRONT PAGE OF SLASHDOT, like a turd hung on a rainbow.
Is this the same Bennett Haselton who founded Circumventor? Who is dedicated to combating internet censorship? What irony, I now want to censor your post.
Metal clamps? COUNTERBALANCED BY HEAVY BOOKS? Is this April 1st? Did I accidentally fall into some timewarp and miss winter? And you'd tried it before but had to change your method because the tablet kept falling out and slamming into your head? How many times, Bennett? Did it damage the part of your brain that assesses quality of submissions on the internet?
MILK CRATES? $60? STACKED ON... I ... running ... WHAT THE FUCK.
I'm kidding. Well done. Ingenious. Do you have a blog?
Slashdot is rapidly degenerating into the Geek tab at FARK.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Forget the nonsense and pay for the extended life battery, when available for your phone. They're worth it and changing a battery in the middle of a conversation is not an option. My phone works for hours more with my elb. Heaven.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
None of these hacks will help impress anyone with your technical prowess; I'm just putting them here because they made my life easier.
I take it it's "Slow News Day."
I'm going back to bed. Zzzzzz ...
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Seriously, mounting a tablet in front of an elliptical? I find ellipticals generally useless anyways but if you have the spare energy and focus to browse the news on your iPad then you're just fucking around. Congratulations. You built no new muscle, burned 50 calories and wasted 30-60 minutes of your life. Go reward yourself with a Starbucks or something.
Seriously, go pick up heavy things or do some interval training. It takes the same amount of time, takes much cheaper equipment and setting up your tablet just right to watch stupid Youtube videos will be the last thing on your mind. Oh, and DON'T actually go for that sugary "coffee" swill afterwards.
Depart not from the path which fate has assigned you.
/., wtf?!? There is so much stupid in that, I can't even begin to say where to start on it. It's Tuesday already. Don't do this to me on a Tuesday!
Jeebus.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
I do not think it means what you think it means (at least by the standards of this community).
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I use a USB external battery. I'll charge it at night right alongside my phone and then I carry it along with me. It connects to my phone using a standard USB->microUSB connection. (Apple users could use a USB->Apple cable, but I have an Android phone.) I get two "30%->100%" charges out of this battery. (I'll rarely let it dip below 30%. Given that, with heavy use, it usually will take about 4 hours to deplete my phone's battery this much, I can wind up going for 12 hours before needing a recharge. (Since I bought mine, other models came out which would give me 3 or more phone charges.)
The poster says that USB external batteries are bulky, but how much bulk would keeping 2 batteries on you be? Not to mention the inconvenience of having to open your phone's case, shut down your phone, open the phone itself, replace the battery (making sure to remember which is the charged and which is the depleted), put everything back together, and boot your phone back up.
This is the one I bought ($30 on Amazon) in case anyone's interested.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
And it's a work HACK, a HACK to use at WORK! I noticed I got hungry around 4pm so started buying a bag of biscuits when I was out for lunch. It's not much but it's certainly slashdot material.
"Hack" #1: So that I'm not tethered to a wall outlet, or go off the grid, I stay up late so I can manually swap out batteries and wear out the plastic clips that holds them in. Assuming I own a phone that has changeable batteries.
Better solution #1: Buy a universal external battery charger which is usually a small box that can easily fit in your pocket with a 9-volt battery and a charging cable.
"Hack" #2: Empty an entire bookcase of books, buy a bulky and expensive holding bracket, and jury-rig the whole thing together just so I can watch a movie that I may or may not even enjoy. But at least I put some of those books to good use as a counter-balance. Although I hope I don't sit up quickly in bed and headbutt my expensive tablet.
Better solution #2a: Read one of the books on my bookcase. When tired, or when I have stopped enjoying it, put it down. Plus now I can get out of bed much easier.
Better solution #2b: If I really need to watch movies at night, but a $20 goose-neck lamp and use some bent coat hangers to suspend the tablet. Or if I don't like the movie, take the coat hanger bracket off, and use the lamp to be a bedside lamp so I can read a book. See #2a.
"Hack" #3: Buy milk crates (hey another place I can put all those books I displaced and don't read), and attach failed device from "Hack" #2.
Better solution #3a: Use a portable music player and listen to music or listen to an audio book.
Better solution #3b: Using a bungee cord and a decorative plate holder, and place the tablet over the console. You don't really need to watch the clock.
Better solution #3c: Buy a sheet music holder (under $40 for even an expensive one) and place it just in from of the elliptical. It collapses down much more compact than 4-5 milk crates.
" I never once heard anyone mentioning swapping in a spare phone battery, and according to my own survey of my friends, none of them have ever tried it either."
You need to expand your circle of friends. Before the iPhone, pretty much all cell phones had replaceable batteries. My old Nokia had a desk charger you could park the phone on for charging, and it had a slot to charge a second battery. This phone would go 3 days between charges (IIRC).
BTW - google "ipad holder treadmill" and you'll get a lot of options, including DIY versions.
Place nail here >+
Dude. Really? Ditch that crap and get a life for a change.
Dude. Really? Ditch that crap and get a life for a charge.
Today, I want to cut somebody.
I'm in. Let's "hack" something.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Whose phone dies at 11 a.m.? And again at 3, and then at 7 p.m? A smartphone that can't even last a full day isn't worth carrying around.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
I once valued having multiple batteries. Until I realized that remembering to keep them charged was more effort than simply having a spare cable with me. And, if it weren't for Apple and their proprietary connector I wouldn't even need that because everyone would just be using USB. For at least 80% of a usual day I'm near a charger, if I'm on top of things the phone will be charged enough to comfortably carry me through the other 20%. I do appreciate that for a small subset of the population who fly on a regular basis the dynamic might be a little different, but that's not most people.
The tablet stand for exercise equipment is a neat idea. I might have to try something like that some day.
Well... the battery bit is a bit over the top, but the jargon file has this to say about a 'hacker': [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe].
Can't be done for Apple devices.
There are hundreds of external battery pack solutions for the iPhone, most of them more compact than spare batteries for other cameras. And they can be recharged independently of the phone unlike your spare batteries, which was the whole point of his hack... You can also get them in any form factor, from a small extension to the bottom of the phone to a case for the phone to a simple brick you can use for endless recharging in a backpack.
In summary, battery packs > spare batteries.
Thereby making the iPad look as stupid as possible by trying to support itself like the Surface
The Surface doesn't have an arm.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Seriously? OP has not heard of spare batteries or standalone chargers? You can find one for any phone, with an stand alone battery charger for 10 bucks on ebay or aliexpress. The standalone battery charger that comes with these works with ANY battery (well any rectangular shaped three port battery, that is the standard for smartphones). Did OP even look at ebay before concluding the lack of standalone chargers?
After being a constant reader for the last 15 years, I've finally registered a user with your site. All in an effort to poo-poo your editorial staff for allowing such hogwash to pass to the front page. I expect this kind of grade level writing and subject content from LifeHacker, not you guys.
If you get an underpowered portable charger, you've thrown away your money. My charger has both a "fast" port and a "slow" port for lower power items, and charges my phone as fast as plugging into the wall.
None of these are "hacks", chief. Not unless you're part of the federation of sad people who want to have 'engineer' in their work title despite their job having nothing to do with creating solutions to technical problems.
I only read two solutions.
1. Have extra batteries and
2. Use a tablet holder where you don't want to hold your tablet - Attach it to some furniture. - Stretching this out to 2 different solutions is like patenting "...with a computer"
. .
It amuses me how overused the word hacked is used now days. 1.) You found a logistical method for keeping communications up throughout the day. (You didn't hack anything) 2.) You Found a way to clip your tablet above your bed. (You didn't hack anything) and enjoy your sore arms. 3.) Much the same as 2. I can see where you might be able to construe any modification as a hack. But, quit being a GD hipster and telling everyone you hacked this or hacked that. Good effort on the engineering and what not but they are hardly hacks IMO.
Mine does too. And even plugged into a wall, it takes well more than a few minutes of charging to last more than a half hour in the type of usage that drained the battery by the middle of the day. If I'm using my phone that much needing to charge it every half hour is a pain. Sure, if you don't need to use your phone, your method is fine, but every time I run out of battery early I'm on the go and doing lots of things with my phone.
I discovered early on that the small "5th pocket" in a standard pair of jeans is a perfect place for a spare phone battery. I use the Kindle app extensively on long plane trips, and being able to swap out the battery is a godsend.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I got a pretty good laugh reading the article and the comments.
Don't feel bad man. But seriously. Like everybody else said.. spare batteries ? Everybody that have a phone which can't last at least one full day (you can charge your phone when you're sleeping) already are aware of the fact that you can actually carry spare battery with you.
It would be more creative if you said carry a 9" laptop in your backpack and hook up your phone to its usb connection while laptop is in stand-by mode.
And those mounts.. are just lame. No matter how fancy you could make them (these pictures you showed.. are far from being fancy).
But.. I got a pretty good laugh anyway, so not all is lost.
I carry around a spare battery for my Android phone. Often, I'm traveling or otherwise away from home for long periods of time and I find it to be a lifesaver.
I got this cheap universal charger and it works great. I plug the charger into the wall and then plug in the dead battery. The charger also has a USB port, so I don't need a second charger for my phone. Overnight, just plug the phone and the second battery into the charger. When I wake up, both are charged.
It's only 650 mA, so it takes all night to fully charge both batteries. But that's fine with me.
As a bonus, it really is a universal charger. I've charged mine and others' camera batteries too. If it's a lithium ion battery and it physically fits, it charges.
Is this an early April Fool's Day joke? This is the worst 'article' posting that I've ever seen on slashdot. I don't jump on the "slashdot has gone downhill" bandwagon, but...seriously? A spare battery and extremely ugly furniture? Thanks, but no thanks.
If you have an ugly furniture setup in your home, then please, please don't post pictures on the internet and encourage others to copy it. You should be slightly embarrassed of your setup. Very poor aesthetics. No wonder you don't have to worry about "company" in bed.
If decent looking furniture is out of your price range, that's okay. However, don't brag about your terrible design philosophy.
A couple of years ago, phones with replaceable batteries (let's ignore Apple phones here for a minute) were actually quite common and if you are going somewhere where you can't mains charge (or charge off another device, which is an obvious trick, but you may need the right cable), then a charged spare battery makes some sense.
Fast forward to now and most new (non-Apple) phones have sealed batteries, which is quite deplorable because it's a trick to make your phone "disposable" at the end of your contract (i.e. it dies or get poor at charging/holding charge just as your contract is about to expire). So the correct tip was "either carry a spare battery or if you phone has a sealed battery, carry a second charged device and a cable to charge between the two". A shame the OP missed that obvious point.
As for the godawful clamp arrangement, I can see the one on the bookself crippling you as you walk past it without a tablet attached. It looks terrible - you may as well glue a tablet case/sleeve to an anglepoise lamp :-)
And as for the third one, what geek has actual workout equipment? I thought the most exercise Slashdot readers get is bending over to get the next Coke can out of the fridge :-)
Hate to break the news to you, dude, but according to the dairy association link you provided, each milk crate costs approximately $4, so the $60 price you were quoted for 5 of them is in fact for naïve yuppies.
You think the near-simultaneous appearance of "gorilla glass" and "gorilla arm" was a coincidence?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Turn screen brightness to 40 to 50 percent. Turn on automagic brightness. Enjoy.
Most people (on this world) don't get enough to eat. But I guess they are not real people to you. And the fact that you are consuming their part of the world to support your unconscionable waste doesn't bother you? I've got news for you. It isn't your freedoms they hate you for.
Just wait until one sits against your zipper for a little too long, or the two sit with contacts touching.
For some reason I hoped that he had found a free and easy way to control app permissions on Android.
(Other than deleting the apps outright.)
I use my treadmill every single day. Nowadays I am using a mini iPad to watch shows from my TiVo when I walk on it.
Plus, it was an elliptical trainer in TFA, not a treadmill.
A C-clamp?? Seriously. A FUCKING C-CLAMP?
What's the matter Haselton? Did you run out duct tape?
Three Squirrels
http://www.aane.org/asperger_resources/articles/miscellaneous/aspergers_syndrome_humor.html
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
2nd. This post is idiotic at best. Buying 2 batteries for your phone is what the salesman at the store has been telling you since 1992. Tips #2 and #3 are actually the same tip. I would recommend mounting a screen instead of your phone/tablet. Then plug your phone/tablet in to said screen as needed. Benefits: More convenient and better screen size. If your phone/tablet can't output to a screen then you got the wrong device, try again.
I know this is slashdot, but come on...
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
What do you guys do on tablets?
It begins with "mast" and rhymes with "conurbation".
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Another feature I'd like to see, is some temporary power storage outside of the phone (maybe an extra cap or something) that could provide a few seconds of battery-less power to swap batteries without restarting the phone.
That is a good point. Phones don't take that long to restart, but it's still annoying if you're in the middle of something important.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
For the furniture hacks, how would you have done it differently?
Because I can veg out and watch TV while doing it⦠(and I'd very likely be watching TV anyways).
It's such a "waste of time" walking/jogging outside. I have thought about biking more (and have used company bikes for some between-building transportation), but even if I did that, it wouldn't be an hour a day. Yes, some people consider watching TV a waste of time, but it's still something I'd prefer to do, and it keeps my mind off the exercising.