I love Lifehacker’s tips. Espe­cially the odd ones that make you won­der how peo­ple came up with them.

There are a plethora of odd tips and tricks out there on the Inter­webs. Here are three of my favourites.

1. Put your break­ing hard­drive in the freezer.

“Many hard drive fail­ures are caused by worn parts that no longer align prop­erly, mak­ing it impos­si­ble to read data from the drive. Low­er­ing the drive’s tem­per­a­ture causes its metal and plas­tic inter­nals to con­tract ever so slightly. Tak­ing the drive out of the freezer, and return­ing it to room tem­per­a­ture can cause those parts to expand again.”

2. Put your bro­ken video card in the oven.

“Sol­der joints some­times crack over time, cut­ting the con­nec­tions between elec­tronic com­po­nents and caus­ing hard­ware fail­ure. Expose those joints to con­stant heat, in an oven set to 200 to 275 degrees centi­grade, and the lead will melt, clear­ing out any cracks and recon­nect­ing the joints. After the card has seen enough bak­ing, leave it to cool for a few hours, and it should be work­ing once back in a computer.”

3. Put your drenched mobile phone in rice.

“Use a des­ic­cant to wick away any left­over mois­ture. The most con­ve­nient choice is uncooked rice. Just leave the phone (and its dis­con­nected bat­tery) sub­merged in a bowl of grains overnight. If you’re wor­ried about rice dust get­ting inside your phone, you can instead use the pack­ets of sil­ica gel that often come stuffed in the pock­ets of new clothes. But act­ing fast is far more impor­tant than avoid­ing a lit­tle dust, so don’t waste time shop­ping if you don’t already have a drawer full of sil­ica gel.”

Author: Nathan Campbell

Nathan runs St Eutychus. He is currently a student at the Queensland Theological College. In a previous professional life he worked in public relations for an economic development and tourism marketing organisation. He is married to Robyn. He likes coffee and the internet.

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