Stone Soup

How To - Find What You're Looking for on a Website

Ever do a search for say "son of a mill worker" or "son of a goat herder" only to click on one of the links in the results page and find yourself at a webpage without any idea where the original phrase you were looking for can be found? The solution to this troubling dilemma is a simple one, but only recently did a friend show me how to do it and have I realized that few of us are acquainted with this helpful tool:

In short, press Ctrl + F.

The following steps offer more detail and cover some contingencies you may run into.

1. Once you are at the page that supposedly has "son of a goat herder" on it, if you are using a PC, press 'Ctrl' + 'F' (I imagine on a Mac it is that strange double infinity button plus 'F'. Mac users please correct me if I am wrong).

2. A text box will pop up that allows you to retype the phrase you are looking for. Once you press 'Enter', the phrase you are looking for will be highlighted where it is located on the webpage.

3. If it does not locate the phrase you are looking for it probably means the phrase is on an internal page within the site, accessed by a secondary link button. If that is what you run into, and you are still determined to find your treasured phrase, you must make your own educated guesses about your internal link options. For example, if you see a link named "Barack Obama" you might guess that on that page is where you would find . . . "son of a goat herder".

Now that you have mastered a new trick, I bid you good luck in your future websurfing!

How To - Resuscitate a Waterlogged Cellphone

Those who witnessed the event held out little hope for a recovery. Others shared similar stories of doom. Nor did I hold my breath that my phone would ever be revived after its unexpected ride with me into a pool after a zealous friend pushed me in at a wedding party. But never say never, I say. I was able to bring my old-school Nokia (the model is nearly three years old) back to life after following the four easy steps below.* You may have to adapt this method for a flip phone. Of course, whatever type of phone you have, this may or may not work for you, but it’s worth a shot if you don’t have insurance, don’t want to buy a new phone, or at least want to recover any records you have on the phone. Good luck.

1. Take off the cover and battery of your wet phone. You now have three pieces. Place these pieces standing upright somewhere and let gravity pull the water out. Hanging them is the best. Otherwise, put a wet cloth or porous surface of some sort underneath these pieces to either absorb or let the water run away from contact with any soft pieces of the phone.

2. Test your phone after a few hours of this draining. It probably will not work yet. At this stage my phone made static noises like the circuits were frying. If it doesn’t work, you need to continue draining or try Step 3: evaporation.

3. Put the three piece of your phone outside if the air is relatively dry and warm enough for decent evaporation.** The display screen and inside of the keypad and battery should be facing down. Again, it’s good to be on a surface that will absorb or let water run. If the weather conditions are not right, put it under some kind of light that will be hot enough to evaporate water, but not too hot that it melts or warps the phone.

4. Test your phone. If it works, dance around and feel as crafty as MacGyver for a few minutes. If it doesn’t work, you might really have to say goodbye.***

*This method is really about common sense. As you try these steps, you should adapt them to your particular circumstances and hardware.

**My pieces of phone sat in the sun and overnight for two days before I remembered it was out there, picked it up, put it together, and found that it worked!

***One last thing you can try is to let your phone dry in different positions. The water needs to get out wherever it is stuck in the circuitry. Let all the nooks and crannies be drained.