My wife realized quickly that this thing is thirsty! It’s quite a hassle to fill a bottle with water, move the presents, crawl under the tree, fill up the reservoir, go to the kitchen to refill the bottle, add more water to the reservoir, and then rearrange the presents like they were before we started. Ok, it’s a 2-minute task total, but do that once-a-day every-day for a month and you’ve just spent an hour watering the Christmas tree and moving packages around. I knew there had to be a better way.

As I thought about the problem, I realized that a siphon was the solution to my problem. However, I knew that a bucket of water and a hose under the Christmas tree was just a little too redneck for my wife. So, I had to come up with some way to disguise it.

This afternoon I made a trip to the local hardware store, came home and built my Hidden Christmas Tree Watering System. It works great and didn’t take long at all to put together. It took much longer to write the Instructable, but I’m glad I had that experience. I may write more in the future now that I know how their system works.

Anyway, I would appreciate it if you would check it out and let me know what you think in the comments below or on the Instructables site. I have another question too, would you prefer that I put projects like this on Instructables or just post the pictures and instructions here on my blog. I’m trying to figure out the advantages and disadvantages of each way.

Update (11/13/2008): A couple hours after I posted this Instructable, I received the following email from the Instructables Robot saying it had been chosen as a “Feature”. Cool! Thanks, Instructables!

Your Instructable “Make a Hidden Christmas Tree Watering System” was just featured by one of our editors!

Look for it on the Instructables homepage within the next 30 minutes. Being featured means we think you are awesome.  Keep up the great work!

-Eric

Update (11/15/2008): I just noticed that Lifehacker has picked this up and posted a link to it. There is lot’s of good conversation there. Thanks everyone!

Greg,

I discovered your Ceiling Fan Questions and Answers blog while researching a particular question. I read your articles on ceiling fan efficiency, but still haven’t found an answer to my question, so I thought this might be a good question for your blog.

We have several ceiling fans in our home. If I remember correctly, they have all specified that we are to use 60-watt or less bulbs. This is both the 3-bulb and 4-bulb models of fans. I find that 60-watt bulbs In the bedrooms are fine. However, in my office I want more light than this provides. I just replaced the four 60-watt incandescent bulbs with four 23-watt compact fluorescent bulbs (equivalent light of four 100-watt incandescent bulbs). This is the kind of light I like in my office! My guess is that the manufacturers specify 60-watt bulbs or less because of the heat generated, but I don’t know that for certain. I’m wondering if my use of four 23-watt compact fluorescent bulbs will damage the fan or cause some other safety issue since they provide the equivalent light of four 100-watt incandescent bulbs. If so, must I stick with four 15-watt compact fluorescent bulbs (equivalent light output of 60-watt incandescent bulbs) or is there something else I can do to safely increase the amount of light in my office without installing new fixtures or stand-alone lamps.

Thank you for your time. I’m sure I can’t be the only person looking for an answer to this question. Great job on the blog too!

Within just a few minutes, I received the following response from Greg:

Great question…and yes, we should address this on our site.

Actually, the maximum wattage for the sockets is based on 2 things: the heat generated by the bulbs and the wattage they consume. The compact fluorescent bulbs will consume less wattage and burn cooler, so they are better in both aspects. You can certainly use the 23 watt bulbs. You could potentially use 60 watt CFLs if they made them.

Wow! I’m guessing that a 60-watt CFL would be like equivalent to a 240-watt incandescent. With four of them that would be like having nearly 1000-watts of incandescent light in my office! I could probably tan while I worked!

If you have questions about ceiling fans, I suggest you send Greg an email–and of course, check out their store too.

• Office Stuffer
• The Daily Saint
• Yanko Design
• My Personal Organizing Tools Review
• Laura Stack

Most of the reviewers gave it an overwhelmingly positive review. This made me want to try on out, but it wasn’t yet for sale. So I decided to make my own. I bought a 4″x6″ clear acrylic picture frame from my local Wal-Mart–they didn’t have a 8-1/2″x11″ frame, but I like the idea of having something that doesn’t take up a lot of desktop real estate. The piece of acrylic that usually serves as the bottom when it is in picture frame mode makes a good stand to keep it at the perfect angle for writing while it is in writeboard mode.

The Jot-It comes  with a fine point dry-erase marker that has n eraser on one end. I already had a fine-point dry erase marker (without a built-in eraser), so I decided to use that instead.

The Jot-It comes with several cool templates to help you write down your task list, organize projects, and to assist with other notes. I decided to design and print my own template for it.

I’m well pleased with the way it turned out, and you can’t beat it for the price. I’ll admit that it’s not as sexy as the Cocoa Writeboard, but it’s a nice way to see if the Cocoa Writeboard is a good fit for how you work. If this simple and cheap one works well for you, then you can always buy one of the sleek looking ones from Cocoa later.

If you’re a practitioner of Leo Babauta’s Zen to Done system, this is a great tool on which to write your 3 Most Important Tasks each day. It is also a great way to collect thoughts that come into your mind while at your desk for later processing–of course, it does limit how much you can collect before you have to process it all and erase it. Most of all, writing on a small-size board like this is fun–which means that it’s a productivity tool that you’ll probably actually use.

Perhaps the best use for a tool like this is for frequently used checklists. Create templates for your morning pre-flight checklist, evening post-flight checklist, weekly review checklist, travel checklist, or other checklists that you use. Just put them in the frame, work your way down the checklist, then erase your check marks when you’re done. I used to laminate some of my checklists so that I could use a dry-erase marker to check things off each time. The Writeboard method makes it much easier to update the list if things change; just make changes to the electronic master of your list and print it out–no need to laminate.

I just visited the Cocoa web site and I see that their Desktop Writeboard is now avalable at Target.com for $24.99 (plus shipping and state sales tax, where applicable). It isn’t yet available in the Target retail stores. According to their web site, they are planning to produce a smaller version. I like my 4″x6″ so well that I’ll probably wait for that until I buy one. Until then, my Poor Man’s Desktop Writeboard is working just fine.If you decide to make one of these, let me know how it works for you in the comments.

I was traveling out of town this past week and realized that I had used up all my deodorant. I knew that the hotel had complimentary toiletries for travelers that forgot to pack something, so I asked them if they had deodorant. They gave me a trial size of Speed Stick® Regular scent Deodorant. I’m pretty picky about some products and I normally only use Speed Stick Unscented Antiperspirant Deodorant. I knew that I could tolerate it for a couple days though, and I was sure that it would allow those that were close to me to tolerate me much better than if I used nothing at all.

When I travel, I like to pack as lightly as possible. I have never been able to find the Speed Stick Unscented Antiperspirant Deodorant in a trial size (0.5 oz.), so I’ve always traveled with the full size (3 oz.) container. When I applied my deodorant this morning, I noticed that I was nearing the end. I decided to see if the cartridge would fit in the trial size container. I was amazed that it did fit! Now I have a trial size of my preferred scent–or rather unscented.

If you have been unable to find your favorite Speed Stick scent in a trial size, try this:

1. Purchase a Speed Stick Regular Scent Trial Size.
2. When your current container less than one third full, turn the dial at the bottom of the container until the cartridge is totally loose.
3. Do the same thing for the trial size container.
4. Reinstall the cartridges on the opposite containers by turning the dial until the cartridge is seated well.
5. Switch the colored caps to match the scent that is actually in the container.

The pictures below explain it pretty well.

How did I do it? A slingshot? A pellet rifle? A call to a friend at the electric company? Nope. I used a small, cheap laser pointer to shine on the photocell of the streetlight and overload it. It would turn it off for about 7 minutes. When it would start to slowly come back on again, I would just shine it back at the photo cell again before it got back to maximum brightness. We enjoyed about 30 minutes of nice quality time together in the dark.

I didn’t discover this technique on my own. I used to be a very avid astronomer and this is a trick that we would use when the glare from a streetlight was blocking something we really wanted to see. A Google search for ’streetlight “street light” laser’ will net you a lot of information that others have written about it. Here are a few words of advice before you do this yourself:

• Sweep all around the top of the light until you find it. Different models have them in different places. From my experience, they are usually very close to the top. This particular streetlight is about 50 yards from my house. You’ll find that it’s not easy to hold a laser pointer steady at that distance. The picture here shows my neighbor’s light in the day and the method that I use to find my target.
• It doesn’t work with every model of street light. Theoretically they should all have a photocell that can be overloaded, but you may not be able to reach it with your laser pointer from your angle. For some, it just may not work at all.
• Be prepared to make someone mad. My neighbor knows that I will periodically do this, and he’s fine with it. I even showed him how to do it himself so he could turn it off too. He doesn’t like it all the time either.
• Beware of aircraft. According to Clayton Cramer’s calculations the stories we heard about a year or so ago can’t be done by a regular person with a regular laser pointer by accident. However, don’t say you weren’t warned.
• It’s a laser! Just be careful! If you make someone go blind while you’re playing around, or othewise cause any harm to come to someone, you’re on your own.

If you try this little trick and it works for you, drop me a comment and let me know.

I got the idea to make some closet rod dividers to separate my clothes by type. With this quick, easy, and cheap tool, it made it much easier for my wife to put my clothes away, and it made it much easier for me to find what I was looking for.

Last week I ran across these Closet Dividers that were mentioned in a newsletter that I receive. When I saw the ad, it reminded me that I had never shared my template here. So I thought, Why not let my readers save themselves $12.99 and make their own Closet Rod Dividers just like I did?!

All you have to do is print my Closet Rod Divider PDF file onto cardstock and follow the step-by-step directions on the printout. (Printer dialogue options vary depending on which program you use to view and print PDF files. Make sure that you turn off any page scaling or shrinking options or else the closet rod hole may be too small). Label your Closet Rod Dividers and slide them onto your closet rod. As you can tell from the picture, I keep my dividers to the left of my clothes with the labeled tab folded over the type of clothes on the right. If you find other applications for this, or just find it incredibly useful yourself, be sure to let me know!

Happy organizing!

I decided that what I really needed was just a small zippered pouch for the iBook. The iBook is slightly bigger than an 8-1/2″ X 11″ piece of paper. I remembered seeing some padded 3-ring binders somewhere. Why not buy one of those and rip out the ring carriage, I thought.

I had some other stuff to pick up at Wal-Mart so I walked over to the school supplies isle. They had quite an assortment of padded 3-ring binders. This isn’t great padding, mind you, but I don’t think it has to be for casual use. I found one I liked (except for the color) for under $10. I also swung by the craft and fabric department to pick up some 3/8″ elastic to secure the iBook. Here is the whole story in pictures:

I settled on a Pen-Tab Pro Platinum 1-1/2″ Binder Organizer (www.pentab.com – sorry, but their site won’t allow me to link directly to the item). As you can tell, it is a little bigger than my 12″ iBook.

This organizer has LOTS of storage space! The flap on the front has a mesh storage department on the front and back of it, and a zippered pouch in between. There is plenty of space for panes, Post-it notes, and business cards as well.

When you upzip it and open it up, there is a four slot expandable file organizer for file folders or loose papers. Just what I needed for my meeting earlier that morning.

Step one in the hack was to rip out the carriage that held the ring binders. It was super easy in this model. I didn’t have to cut any rivets or rip any seams. The carriage was mounted on a single piece of plastic that was inserted into the back flap. I simply slid it out.

Step two was to sew in 4 pieces of elastic on the four corners to keep my iBook from sliding around inside. As you can tell, I didn’t get this perfect. It took a good hour or so to make all 8 stitches. The tough, inflexible canvas didn’t make it very easy. To figure out placement, just set your iBook inside and see where the elastic needs to go. You will want to cut the elastic shorter than needed to get a good snug fit. This also contributes to the difficulty of sewing it. It’s not impossible, however.

With the elastic in place, all I need to do is put in my iBook and pull the elastic over the corners. No one would ever suspect that I was carrying a computer in there.

If you decide to make one of these for yourself please take a moment to leave a comment. I would also love to hear about other enhancements that you might have in mind.