Readers offer their best tips for bypassing browser filters, saving on coffee, and easily viewing PDF attachments.
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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.
Use SSL to Bypass Some Web Filters
Laser712 lets us know one easy strategy to get around browser filters:
As a work-around for browser filters, you can often use the secure version of the website. For example, at my office, http://www.facebook.com/ is filtered. However, if you slip in that s, (aka https://www.facebook.com/), it is not. The same works for any site that has a secure version. Violà, quick bypass!
While this won't work on keyword based filters, it could work on specific sites that are filtered (as it does with my employer).
Order Larger Coffee Cups and Add Cream for Cheap, Large Coffee
Photo by Christyxcore.
Lozerette shares a quick tip for getting more coffee for your buck:
If you like a lot of room to add cream to your coffee, you can save some money by ordering a smaller size in a larger cup.
When I worked at Sbux, we used to have people come in all the time asking for a "grande (medium) drip with an inch-and-a-half of room."
Order a small coffee in a medium cup. You only pay for the small, you get plenty of room, and you ultimately end up with the same amount of coffee.
Forward Emails with PDF Attachments to Gmail for Easy Viewing
Will Hawker shares a simple email filter that makes for easier PDF viewing:
I use this to forward PDF attachments to my Gmail, where I can view them online without having to download Adobe Acrobat:
1. Sign into you Windows Live Hotmail account. Go to your inbox
2. Hover over 'Folders' on the left hand side, click on the cog that appears, then click on 'Manage Rules'
3. Click the new button, to create a new rule.
4. Select 'Message has attachments' in Step 1 and input your Gmail address in 'Forward to' option in step 2.
While lots of browsers have built-in PDF viewers, this is nice if you're at work and you can't install browser plug-ins and lightweight PDF readers. It also works well for opening .doc files if you don't want to wait for Word to load.
Create Visual Aids to Help Kids Stick to Routines
Jkdufair shares this neat project that helps kids get ready in the morning:
My daughter made this for her son to get ready in the morning and I thought it was pretty cool and kinda lifehacker-ish.