Handy How-To's

Charge your smartphones and other electronic gadgets with care, or else they might break prematurely or even catch fire. Here’s how: (1) Use the right charger, (2) Prevent heat buildup, and (3) Replace worn-out parts. Use the right charger Charge your gadget with the charger that was supplied with it, or with another charger of the same current rating (such as 1.0 amps, 2.1 amps, etc.). The current rating of a charger is printed on its body, as can be seen in the example below. Use a fast charger only if absolutely necessary. Fast charging shortens the life of the battery. Prevent heat buildup When charging your gadget, allow heat to escape freely by (1) Removing your gadget from its case, and (2) laying it on a well-ventilated, heat-resistant surface such as a bare tabletop. Prepare a spot where you can safely charge your gadget. For example, turn a small table into a charging station. If you need to charge several gadgets simultaneously, install an electrical power st...

Deter crime and gain peace of mind with a home security camera You may sometimes worry that your home is being broken into by thieves while you are away. Installing a home security camera will enable you to check your home any time you want to and record valuable evidence of a break-in if it does occur. Indeed, the mere presence of a security camera is often enough to deter crime. Let's say that you want to install a security camera in your home. What are your options? The traditional purpose-built, professionally-installed closed-circuit televison (CCTV) cameras are still unbeatable in terms of features and reliability, but they tend to be too expensive for the average homeowner. Luckily, as can be seen in the pictures below, you can now set up a home security camera using nothing more than your old smartphone or tablet and a free smartphone app. Of course, you also need to have broadband Internet and WiFi in your home. Set up an old smartphone as a security camera ...

How to improve the reliability of your smartphone As your indispensable travel assistant and communications tool, your smartphone must always be ready to do its job. Here’s how to prevent your smartphone from letting you down during your vacation. Invest in a power bank, travel charger and charging cable Bring one or two power banks with you so that you can top up your smartphone’s battery while you are on the go. How large should your power bank be? As a rough guide, you probably have to fully recharge your smartphone’s battery twice during a full day of sightseeing. For today’s typical smartphone, this means that your power bank should have a minimum capacity of 10,000 mAh. Invest in two 5,000 mAh power banks if flexibility and reliability are your primary concerns, or in one with 10,000 mAh if you prefer to carry less equipment and have a limited budget. Choose a name-brand power bank whose specifications (brand, model, capacity, etc.) are printed clearly on its body. Otherwis...

Having trouble sleeping? A cozy blanket of sound may be all you need. Lately, I have been sleeping more soundly. I wake up refreshed and ready for the day ahead. The reason? Brown noise. It’s amazing because there are no drugs, no side effects, no therapies, and no huge expenses. Its low pitched sound is like the soothing, muffled rumble of the ocean. When it’s time for me to sleep, I play the brown noise, lie in bed and surrender to its tireless drone. Soon, I am in dreamland. The brown noise has a calming effect and induces sleepiness. It also smothers distracting sounds such as street noise and the neighbor’s TV. My brown noise setup To generate the brown noise, I use my Android smartphone or tablet, a Bluetooth loudspeaker with good bass response, and the Noise Wall app which I downloaded from the Google Play Store . Similar apps are available for iPhone and iPad at Apple’s App Store. The Noise Wall app can play white, pink, blue and brown noise. It can also play two or mo...

Miscellaneous preparations Buy travel insurance that covers medical emergencies, lost luggage, and delayed flights. Make photocopies and softcopies of your passports, visas, plane tickets, travel insurance and other travel related documents and store them separately them from the originals. Upload the softcopies to your cloud storage or email them to yourself. Test all the important apps on your smartphone. Then, do not update your apps anymore until after you get back from your trip. The reason for this precaution is that an update may log you out of an app or, worse, cause the app to not to work anymore. For Android, open the Play Store app and, under Settings, select “Do not update apps.” Also, postpone Android upgrades when prompted. For iPhone, postpone software updates when prompted. Sometimes, your smartphone will prompt you to log on again to your email or other app. For this reason, make sure that you know the passwords of the various accounts that you have in your sm...

Take advantage of your smartphone’s capabilities Your smartphone can greatly enhance your travel experience and make life on the road more convenient. Complete as many of the following preparations as you can before your next trip. Activate international roaming Your first task is to ensure that you can call and be called through your mobile phone when you are overseas. The surest way to do this is to activate international roaming on your mobile number. Before traveling abroad, contact your service provider and ask them how to get international roaming. International roaming allows you to make long distance phone calls from abroad through your smartphone and instant access to the Internet via your smartphone’s mobile data. Compared to the alternatives mentioned below, international roaming is very convenient and more reliable. However, such convenience comes at a steep price, so resort to it only when the suggested alternatives have failed. For more on international roami...

Blue tack is a reusable clay that is used to temporarily stick one thing to another, such as a poster to a wall. Well, it turns out that blue tack can also be used to mount a smartphone to the dashboard of a car!  All you need is to do is to stick one or two lumps of blue tack to a convenient spot on the dashboard, and then stick your smartphone to it. But before you try blue tack, know how it stacks up against conventional car-mounts. Here is a brief run-down: Holding capability In my experience, a blue tack car-mount is quite capable of supporting smartphones with screen sizes of up to 6 inches. Use a clamp-based car-mount if your smartphone is quite large or if you drive your car off-road. Convenience A blue tack car-mount works just like a magnetic car-mount. Just glom your smartphone to it upon entering your car and peel it away when you’re done driving. No need to fiddle with the clumsy spring-loaded clamps found on many types of conventional car-mount. What’s...