Label a Flash Drive with Your Name and Number

Readers are submitting their best life hack for a chance to win an autographed copy of our new book, Upgrade Your Life. Here's our latest winner.
Reader Jill carries her life on a thumb drive and if she loses it, she wants to make it as easy on the person who finds it as possible to return the drive. Jill writes in:

I've been messing around with a way to mark my thumb drive so it will (maybe) be returned if I lose it. Chances are, I won't actually "lose" it; I will leave it at the house of a friend or at work. But I want to get it back—ASAP—without having to call all over the universe to find it. Of course, the drive is encrypted so i don't need to worry about data falling into the wrong hands. I only worry about having to rebuild EVERYTHING because I carry my life on my thumb drive.

After trying out a splash screen and a launch.bat file, Jill decided she wanted something simpler and more obvious. She says:

I decided to just label my drive something other than "Removable Disk" and add an eye-catching custom icon to it.

So I created a next text file in Notepad, typed the word:

[autorun]

And saved it to the root directory—the "main" area of your drive, not in a folder—as autorun.inf.

I chose a big yellow smiley face for my icon but any brightly colored, unusual icon will be easily noticed. I copied the icon to the root directory of my thumb drive and renamed it myicon.ico.

Then I opened my autorun.inf file and added this text:

icon = .\myicon.ico
label=My Name (mobile xxx-xxx-xxxx)

(Of course, you will substitute your name and your mobile number for the above text.) I saved the file and marked it "read only" and hid it (just as an added sense of security—a lot of people have not learned how to tweak their "Show hidden folders" settings and, thus, will not be tempted to delete or
edit the file.)

Once I unplugged and re-inserted my thumb drive, it looked like this:

Nice! Congratulations, Jill! Your smiling USB drive label just earned you an autographed copy of Upgrade Your Life. Ok, tomorrow is the absolute final day of the contest, with just one copy of the book left. Submit your best life hack to win it now!

Convert Word Documents to Cruft-free HTML

Anyone who's tried saving a Word document as a web page knows you get way more than you bargained for in the HTML and CSS department in the result. The Productivity Portfolio blog offers two alternatives when you want to zip a .DOC to a .HTML file in a jiffy without all the cruft: Using the online Word HTML Cleaner at Textism (files up to 20K only), or sending yourself the document via Gmail and hitting the "View as HTML" link. Handy.

Word HTML File Conversion Tips and Resources [Productivity Portfolio]

20 Things You Can Use Twice Before Tossing

1. Dry Cleaning Bags: Use to pack suits, dresses and fine clothing when travelling, this will help protect it from wrinkles when packing. When storing the bags make sure to keep them safely out of reach of children, they really are that dangerous.
2. Butter Wrappers: Once you’ve removed a block of butter from its wrapping, place the wrapping in a plastic container or bag and refrigerate. Use it to grease baking pans.
3. Business Cards: Use the other side to label storage boxes and tubs and tape to the outside of the lid or side so you can see at a glance what the container is holding.
4. Used Envelopes: These make excellent lists for groceries, To Do lists, bookmarks and labels.
5. Cardboard Egg Cartons: You can use these to make homemade firestarters.
6. Tissue Boxes: Once they’re empty you can use these as a plastic bag dispenser, just fill with grocery bags and you’ll be able to neatly pull out one at a time.
7. Plastic Grocery Bags: Use as garbage pail liners, paint tray covers, packing material.
8. Plastic Bread Clips: Save a few of the square plastic clips that keep bread bags closed to use as tiny scrapers. They come in handy to remove labels, price tags, and even do a good job scratching lottery tickets.
9. Newspaper: Line kitty litter boxes for easy cleanup (top with kitty litter), protect work surfaces from crafts & interior paint jobs, giftwrap, use as packing material when moving or shipping.
10. Plastic Strawberry Baskets: Use as a homemade bubble machine, hold small packets in the pantry.
11. Cleaner Spray Bottles: Clean thoroughly and use to hold your homemade cleaners, use to spray plants…very important to clean thoroughly first.
12. Mesh From Veggie Bags: If you buy veggies that are bagged in nylon mesh, you can use that mesh for various cleaning jobs around the house and yard. Just wad up the bag and use it as a scrubber.
13. Styrofoam Food Trays: Clean thoroughly, wrap in foil then use as trays for giving gifts of baking.
14. Pantyhose: Use in the garden to tie plants to stakes, make shower spa bags plus there are 20 ideas found here.
15. Paper Towel Cardboard Rolls: Use to wrap extension cords, Christmas lights (keep untangled).
16. Citrus Peels: Use to make your own homemade citrus cleaners, candy peels to use in baking or freeze the peels to use for zest in recipes as needed, Save your peels from citrus fruits like lemons and oranges. You can toss them in the fire place when you have a fire going to give the room a nice, fresh smell.
17. Packing Foam Peanuts: Save them and reuse when packing breakables, storing Christmas decorations or sending gifts in the mail
18. Brown Paper Bags: Once used, twist into small rolls and use as fire starters.
19. Laundry Bottle Caps & Scoops: Wash thoroughly and use as sandbox, pool, bathtub toys or pet food scoopers (for dried food).
20. Cereal Liner Bags: Clean and use for stacking meat patties before freezing, store bread crusts, cover food in the microwave.

Creative Ways to Reuse "Disposable" Items

We asked earlier this week what disposable items you had found clever re-uses for, and the answers are in. Not surprisingly, some of you have some pretty crafty uses for household goods that usually end up at the curb. From CD-R spindles to corks, twist-ties to tissue boxes, lots of supposedly one-use items can save you money, free up space, and be seriously handy when the need arises. After the jump, a roundup of our readers' waste-reducing reuses. Yogurt photo by Dan4th, all others by How can I recycle this.

CDs/DVDs and their cases

Along with organizing cables and toting bagels, both borked and discarded CD- and DVD-Rs and the spindles they came in can find second lives:

• "The (spindle) covers can be turned upside-down and used as small tabletop bins as well (especially the 50 and 100-packs)."—kureshii
• "An outer plastic container from a 50-spindle of CDs or DVDs makes a great desk pen or craft tool holder if you tuck toilet-paper tubes into it."—kevinw1.
• Commenter mrs_helm said she's heard that used CDs/DVDs hung outside will repel flies, while kevinw1 ties them to tree branches to keep birds away from his seedlings and plants.
• mrs_helm's other CD/DVD re-use: "Cover one side with felt and place under breakable figurines so they don't scratch the furniture." They might also work under furniture on hardwood floors, provided you can cover them with the right material.

Photo by How can I recycle this.

Dryer sheets

We've long been fans of the pan-cleaning, shoe de-stink-ifying, anti-static dusting squares, and our readers have even more novel uses for them:

• "Used dryer sheets will clean your iron - just run the iron over it on medium heat."—kuisine
• "Stick used dryer sheets into drawers to keep clothing smelling nice."—ac042186.

Photo by Fuzzy Gerdes.

Plastic containers

There's no clear consensus, at least among commenters, as to whether it's safe and prudent to re-use plastic bottled water containers (urban legend buster Snopes.com has a somewhat mixed answer to the standard claims), but, along with re-using plastic grocery bags, cutlery and storage containers, they keep their plastics out of the landfill with some crafty uses:

• "Plastic yogurt containers make great starter pots for seedlings."—elsifer.
• "... The Stonyfield quart-sized yogurt containers are marked as dishwasher safe. We make our own chicken stock, and freeze it in those yogurt containers."—skyesong.
• "The plastic bags that newspapers are delivered in make for a great umbrella bag (when you have to carry your wet closed umbrella into your office, etc."—Thunderpants.
• "Plastic Chinese food containers: store miscellaneous parts in my garage."—gargouille.
• "I sell and trade a lot of used books, so I cut up the heavy plastic wrap from the cases of bottled water and use it as a waterproof liner for shipping. I use brown paper cut from grocery bags for the outer wrapper."—gwynn1101.
• Photo by MiRo740.

  Odds and ends

  Objects that seemingly have only one specific purpose—keeping your wine fresh, dispensing tissues, and the like—are no match for our space-minding, clutter-savvy readers:

  • "2 wine corks can make a quick and easy laptop stand."—Brad N. (and previously explained in detail by reader George).
  • "I save those pop-up tissue boxes for the car. They make great trash receptacles and it is easy to tell when they are full."—RubberduckGrrl.
  • "I have saved every twist-tie I've come into contact with, and I end up re-using every one. Keep your pens together in your bag. Ear bud cables organized at the gym. Chip clips. Shower curtain rings. Any tech cable that's snaking around the room. Half of that single-serve bag of coffee."—Transuranic.
  • "Nylon mesh from fruits and veggies can be used to protect glassware (mostly bottles)."—ac042186.

Why You Should Clean Your Keyboard--Right This Minute

A new UK study shows that keyboards swabbed from an ordinary London office had more harmful bacteria than—you know what's coming—a toilet seat. Yeeks!

The accompanying survey showed that most users clean their keyboard infrequently (if at all), and clean their mouse even less often. Here's what you do: shut down your PC, unplug your keyboard and mouse, shake out any dust, lint and other crap, and wipe 'em down with disinfectant alcohol wipes. Right this very minute. For a more thorough cleaning which involves disassembly and compressed air, see this step by step guide. Or if there's just one or two rogue crumbs you'd like to fish out from between the G and H keys, use a piece of Scotch tape.