ProTip: Carry A Lens Cleaning Cloth For Your Mobile Device’s Camera & Screen

Glasses cloths also known as lens cloths, we all have them especially those of us who wear glasses. These microfiber wonders clean smudges and fingerprints easier than any tissue, toilet paper, or your shirt. If you have a high-end pair of sunglasses they probably came with one of these. Heck, some sunglasses brands even give you a pouch for your glasses made of this material. But I keep a cloth on me pretty much always for a very different reason, my mobile device’s camera and screen.

I hate how my phone’s screen gets smudged up after a day or two of use.

5 Tips For Selling Stuff On Online Classified Ad Sites (Like Kijiji, Craigslist, & Backpage)

In the past little while I have realized I have a number of items which I simply have no use for or I have used them and now think that they can benefit someone else more than I can benefit from them so the time has come to sell them. When the time came to do this I turned to my local online classified advertisement sites which I am sure many of you know such as Kijiji and Craigslist but one other one which I believe is less well known called Backpage.

When I first put the ads up I assumed that it would be much like when I would buy and sell things on HowardForums (a huge, global forum and mobile/cellular community based out of Toronto) which has its own Buy/Sell/Trade sub-forum and which I used to buy and sell all of my cell phones from 2003 until 2009 as well as a large number of cellular accessories. On HowardForums (or HoFo as we geeks call it) someone would post an item, talk about it and the condition it is in, add some pictures, a price, and a preferred method of contact. If you wanted to buy the item you would follow their contact instructions and MAYBE try and see if you could get them to lower the price by a small amount.

I have found, in my recent experience with these sites, that there are a few things we should all be aware of when and if we decide to use them to sell items:

Guitar Pick: One Of A Gadget Geek’s Best Friends

A couple of years back I was using a Nokia N80 and I wanted to change the faceplate from the stock black to silver. In order to do this I immediately went to the internet and started to Google and found a video much like the one you see in the screenshot below and linked here. This video came direct from Nokia (as evidenced by the image in the beginning shown below) so I figured it was pretty trustworthy.

The video told of the need for an SRT-6 Housing Opening Tool which is the little blue triangular thing you see in the screenshot above. Later in the video it showed the usage of this SRT-6 tool and it was to wedge the housing open and disengage a clip on the inside which can’t be seen from the outside. That seemed pretty important because that was exactly what I was trying to do, switch the housing.

It occurred to me that this SRT-6 Housing Removal Tool looked an awful lot like something else which is way more commonplace in most of our every day lives: a guitar pick. Sure the SRT-6 has 3 different edges with, I assume, different thicknesses and it might be better for gropping in the hand and using as a lever when opening gadgets but essentially it’s a guitar pick. You could probably play guitar with an SRT-6 and no one would be the wiser.

Not only do guitar picks fill the role of the SRT-6 but over the years I have found that they are an amazing addition to my gadget tool arsenal. They’re great for wedging underneath a SIM card to ease removal. The same goes for microSD cards.

I will, however, never forget my trip to buy my guitar pick. At first I asked some guitarists I knew if they would part with a pick and they all said no. The next step, obviously, was to find a music store. My friends all pointed me to a chain called Long & McQuade and off I went. I got there and asked one of the sales reps where I could find individual guitar picks. The guy showed me to a rack of little drawers which each had a different size, material, thickness, or make of guitar pick and I started looking. The rep tried to help out by showing me their most popular brand but I took one look and said that it was way too thick. He showed me one that he said his co-workers liked or that was made by a high end guitar pick manufacturer (or something like that) and I rejected them each. He remarked, “Wow, you guitarists are really so picky.” I stifled a laugh and sort of awkwardly replied, “Umm, ya, I don’t play the guitar. In fact, I don’t need this for anyone to play the guitar.” He started laughing and asked what I needed it for. I pulled out my phone and explained what I needed it for he was amazed that I had the same phone as him and he asked me some questions about the device and how to make his work better and then left me to my own devices.

A guitar pick is a great little thing to have for anyone who has a gadget or two in the house and I highly recommend it. It is a really cheap investment and I am sure you’ll find a ton of uses for it.

Your Options In Life According To Yoda

This pie chart comes via Garr’s Posterous which seems to have gotten it from GraphJam.com but all my attempts to locate it on that site to provide a direct link have failed.

In life, according to Jedi Master Yoda, you have a certain number of options when face with a task. Here is the pie chart which illustrates these options.

Print this out and put it above your desk because it is so genius.

Coat Check ProTip

Thought I would pass some wisdom on you which I learned for myself a bunch of months ago but has become way more relevant as the weather has began to grow colder. The tip, as the title of this blog post and the above picture implies, is all about coatchecks and the tickets they give out so you can reclaim your coat later.

I have seen this happening to the best of us, you go out and use the coatcheck and receive a coatcheck ticket to reclaim your coat. Hours and many drinks later you arrive back at the coatcheck and want to pick up that coat. You start looking through your pockets, you rifle through your wallet, ladies you start taking apart your purses, and no ticket can be found! Did you lose it on the floor earlier when you pulled out your wallet, phone, gum, or whatever? Who knows! All you know is you are now either stuck with pleading with the coatcheck folks to give you your coat back because you can identify it and it’s very distinct and maybe you can tell them what’s in the pockets. The other alternative are to sit and wait until everyone leaves the establishment and if your coat is still there they give it to you or leave and freeze for the night and pick it up the next day. Suck right?

Not to worry though! I have a solution to this problem that ails all of us at one time or another! Check out the picture below:

Just take a picture of your coatcheck ticket right when you get it and before you shove it into whatever pocket or crevice of your purse. A key aspect to the taking of this picture is, of course, being able to clearly read the number on the ticket. Most coatcheck room staffers that I have ever spoken to about this and every one I have tried this with will accept this picture as clear evidence that that coat which you claim to be yours without a physical ticket is actually yours. Problem solved! You’re welcome! Now your can keep yourself warm all the way home and don’t have to worry about keeping that tiny ticket safe all night for later!

How to Add a Tweet Button With YOUR Twitter Handle On A WordPress.com Hosted Blog

You may have noticed since mid-August when you click the ‘Tweet’ button below my posts it would pop up the usual Twitter box which said the post’s title, had a link to the post and said that the post came “via @wordpressdotcom” and not “via @TheDanLevy” as it used to say.

This confused me to no end until I found the blog post linked below by a fellow named Waqas Ali who you can find on Twitter under the handle @WaqasADay.

How to Add a Tweet Button With Your Twitter Username into WordPress.com « Waqas A Day.

Since I implemented this change you will also notice that the actual share button has changed.

The above image is what the share button used to look like using the WordPress option to add in the ‘official’ share button. This button was cool because beyond popping up the share box you see below it also kept count of how many times a link was shared via Twitter. To be honest I don’t even know if this number was 100% accurate but then again I couldn’t tell because I wasn’t seeing the @mentions because they were mentioning @WordPressDotCom not @TheDanLevy.

How To: Add People To A Group Message/Chat On Facebook

A bunch of friends of mine and I are in the midst of planning a trip with a group of friends via Facebook. The method that was decided upon was a Group Message (which can also be turned into a Group Chat). In the planning of this trip every now and again someone has felt we should add another person to our plans  and every time someone wants to add another person to the group of boys coming out the same thing was repeated:

“Can someone add X to this group? I don’t know how.”

Turns out, I was the only one who knew how to do this so I figured a how to on my blog might be in order.

There are actually 2 different places – in Messages and in Chat that this can be done and it can be done, by my count, 3 different ways.  I will start with the Messages area of Facebook.

To add people from within the Messages area of Facebook: