Readers offer their best tips for avoiding trial subscriptions that automatically charge your credit card, browsing the web without distractions, and cleaning dish towels overnight.
Don't like the gallery layout? Click here to view everything on one page.
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.
Avoid Automatic Subscription Charges After Free Trials
Jeremy Bensley shows us how he keeps his card from automatically being charged after trial periods:
Use Multiple Browsers to Avoid Distractions
Jo shares her system for staying on task in his web browser:
Soak Dish Towels Overnight for Clean Washing Tomorrow
Photo by Kirrily Robert.
sirmeili describes how to keep dish towels clean:
Google Model Numbers for Details, Archiving
quintus314 tells us how he organizes his devices' model numbers:
</img> 
</img> 
</img> 
</img>
Don't like the gallery layout? Click here to view everything on one page.
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.
Avoid Automatic Subscription Charges After Free Trials
Jeremy Bensley shows us how he keeps his card from automatically being charged after trial periods:
Avoid subscription dues when your "Free Trial" expires by using a temporary credit card number issued by your bank (e.g. "ShopSafe") that has a lower limit than the subscription amount. When the service tries to charge the card it will be rejected for insufficent funds.
Use Multiple Browsers to Avoid Distractions
Jo shares her system for staying on task in his web browser:
I'm currently writing a 5000 word project for my MBA but kept getting distracted in Firefox. I'm using Google Docs so I can access my work from anywhere, whether or not I have my laptop with me but I'd been finding it hard to concentrate when working on it from Firefox (my default browser) as I've got all sorts of alerts and customisations in place. My tweaks such as permanent, faviconized tabs for gmail and Google Reader (with unread counts), my blog stats and Remember the Milk kept distracting me and making me 'just quickly go and check them' and find I'd accidentally spent two hours looking at random things online. I've also got a Twitter notifier which tempts me with unread tweet counts (though I did at least get round to disabling the pop-ups as new tweets arrived. Given that I was finding it hard to concentrate anyway, these distractions were too tempting.
I'd downloaded Chrome to play with and see if I liked it but hadn't really used it much until I realised that it would be perfect to use when I wanted to ignore everything else and get on with some writing. I now close Firefox and just use Chrome when I want to thrash through some writing and it works perfectly - no tempting distractions. Using the full screen view and hiding the Google Docs toolbar means I just have a clear screen with just my writing on show (see attached screenshot with my text blurred) and it is much more of an effort to sneak off around the internet and get distracted.
I'd downloaded Chrome to play with and see if I liked it but hadn't really used it much until I realised that it would be perfect to use when I wanted to ignore everything else and get on with some writing. I now close Firefox and just use Chrome when I want to thrash through some writing and it works perfectly - no tempting distractions. Using the full screen view and hiding the Google Docs toolbar means I just have a clear screen with just my writing on show (see attached screenshot with my text blurred) and it is much more of an effort to sneak off around the internet and get distracted.
Soak Dish Towels Overnight for Clean Washing Tomorrow
Photo by Kirrily Robert.
sirmeili describes how to keep dish towels clean:
I was reading the article on replacing paper towels with cloth ones and someone mentioned how unsanitary that could be. So I thought I would offer up this tip for Dish towels (the type for washing, not drying). At the end of each night simply boil a kettle of water and pour that, a little dish soap, and a cap full of bleach to the sink. Just add your towels and let them soak over night. In the morning (or when you're ready to use them), just drain the sink, wring them out and they're ready to go! they even have the added benefit of having a little soap in them for when wiping down counters and dishes. You'll also find this helps to keep your sink clean as well. I hope this helps some people out and gets them to drop those pesty paper towels!
Google Model Numbers for Details, Archiving
quintus314 tells us how he organizes his devices' model numbers:
When I get a new device, I like to Google the model number. That way, I know of any oddities it may have, and later, I can go into my search history for the model number instead of finding my device.