So, you dropped your phone in water. You are screwed, right Nope, just order some Chinese Food, and you’re good to go – Sort of. Actually, submerging your phone in dry rice or silica gel packets are a simple, effective way to resurrect your phone. Moisture absorbant silica gel packets can be purchased for a few bucks and effectively dry your phone. Dry rice has this same affect as well and helps to unbrick your phone. Read more about saving a wet cell phone.

“One final, perhaps surprising, note: If your phone gets soaked in salt water, you should probably flush the whole thing in fresh water before it dries. When salt water evaporates, it leaves crystals that can damage a phone’s fragile components. Just be sure to remove the battery before flooding the device.”

Are you one of those people who changes their ringtones frequently? If so, you may be surprised to learn that there are many online tools that allow you to create your own ringtones within a matter of minutes. To get started, visit one of the most popular online services that offer the ability below:

1. Makeownringtone.com. With this site you have a variety of options when it comes to uploadable formats. You can choose from MP3, MP4, QCP, OGG, AAC, and MMF.
2. Audiko.net. This is one of the most popular services for creating your own ringtone. Upload your song, take the excerpt that you want to act as your ringtone, and start the download process.
3. Mobicious.com. By offering a free service, Mobicious.com has a leg up on the competition. All you have to do is upload your MP3, clip the portion that you want to use, and turn it into a ringtone that can be instantly sent to your cell phone.

Once you find a service you enjoy, you can create as many ringtones as you want while being assured that each one is 100 percent unique. If you want to learn to edit MP3, wav and other audio files, use audacity to create custom ringtones.

After a few months of use, our gorgeous new gadgets incured a fair share of dings and scratches.  However, all is not lost!  Learn how one man bought a horribly abused iPhone on Ebay and polished it up to look brand new.  It’s a superb tutorial including both case and screen refurbishing which you can apply to all of your neglected gadgets.

Steps to Resurrection:

• Buy a scratched iPhone on eBay
• Gently dry sand external scratches
• Add some water and wet sand
• Polish with a 3M Headlight Lens Restoration Kit (~$15)

Unfortunately, the Apple logo is erased in the process, but I’d say it’s a worthwhile sacrifice for the outstanding results. But we’re not finished yet! We still have to repair the front screen which was severely cracked.

LCD Repair:

The LCD repair is a slightly more delicate process since we have to remove the entire front of the device and expose its circuitry innards.  Nonetheless, it’s not too complex and the image below walks you through the screw removal process.

Materials:

• Replacement iPhone LCD
• Compressed Air ( or bike pump) 
• E-xacto blade ( or something flat and thin)
• Small Phillips screwdriver
• Suction cup

With this detailed tutorial, just about anyone can refurbish their scratched and damaged gadgets.  It’s pretty cheap too, the 3M cleaning kit costs less than$15 and the screen replacement is less than $10.  So what are you waiting for?