Easy Solutions To Seemingly Huge Digital Problems

OK, so when I was 16 I dropped my very first real cell phone (as opposed to a TracFone) into the toilet, just weeks after getting it. I cried, but was grateful when my mother gave me hers, which was the exact same phone, and she got a cheap one. If I knew handy tricks like the following, I would've been spared tears, and a dead (or so I thought) cell phone.

Becky Worley, host of Yahoo! News's Upgrade Your Life, offers simple solutions to problems such as the one I mentioned. When something horrible happens to one of your digital companions, she's got an answer. Whether it be your cell phone, camera, iPod, or even CD's, there's ways to fix any problem.

Here's an example:

3. Wet gadgets
News flash: Gadgets and water rarely mix. If you do manage to leave your cell phone, camera, or other battery-powered gear out in the rain — or worse, drop them in a toilet — the prognosis is usually pretty grim.

Becky's solution: Before you give up hope, try dropping your soaked gear into a Tupperware container full of rice to draw out the moisture. Or, as a general preventative measure to keep moisture away, save some silica gel packs (you know, the ones you'll find in boxes of new shoes or beef-jerky packages) and stuff them in your cell phone or camera case.

The above is just one, but probably the most common problem that people endure when it comes to high-tech devices. Other handy-dandy tricks include how to clean cell phone covers and how to save scratched CD's and DVD's.

With Worley's helpful tips, anyone can take their "misfitted" gadgets and make them look and work like they did on the first day they had them. Had I known then what I know now, I would have laughed instead of cried, taken my phone out of the toilet and dropped it in a bowl of rice. And hey, with the amout of water that the rice would've absorbed, I could've gotten a meal out the deal too, alongside my newly refurbished phone.

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