Uses for Binder Clips - Cords and Hardware

Since binder clips are back in style, I have no reservation about passing on two new methods innovators have discovered for using our favourite clips to more easily connect hardware to power and data cords.

Yesterday, Bob (using Google Reader!) kindly emailed me a new post from Lifehacker, Clip Your Laptop Plug to the Back of the Desk, that details how one of their readers, LT, used a binder clip to attach a power cable for a MacBook to his desk so that he doesn't have to go crawling around on the floor any more. LT's innovation didn't come out thin air. He built on the previous work of Lihab, who came up with the previously blogged DIY binder clip cable catcher that was not specifically for MacIntosh cables. LT says:

My MacBook's power cord has two parts—midway through it the brick plugs into another cord, and I never take the bottom half of the cord with me. So, using the clip, I secured the first half of the plug to the desk, and now I plug in the brick when I get to the office—no climbing required.

Today, Kerri sent me a link to DIY iPhone Binder Clip Dock, a 10-minute video that shows you how to turn 15 binder clips into an iPhone dock. I don't have an iPhone, and now I think I will not get one. Because:

1. I don't have the patience to watch 10-minute long Youtube videos;
2. I don't think I could give up 15 of my precious clips for one gadget; and
3. Nothing I would do, not even a 30-binder clip iPhone dock would be as cool as the input device that James wired for his iPod.

What did James do? He wired a rotary-dial phone and a hand-crank phone so they can plug into his iPhone and be used for listening and talking while the iPhone stays flat on the ledge of the crank phone.

Links:

• Pictures I took at Kerri's opening at the Manx
• Some of Kerri's photos
• Previously on this Blog: Uses for Binder Clips - Cable Management