What to Do if You Drop Your iPhone in Water

The worst has happened.  Your iPhone has gotten wet, and as with all electronics and water, you fear the worst; your iPhone is broken.

This horror story has happened too many times, but if your quick and on the ball, you can possibly prevent your iPhone from damage.  Follow the instructions below to help fix your water damaged iPhone before it is too late.

• First, take your iPhone out of the water!

• Turn your iPhone off immediately!  Water and electricity do not mix well, and if there is anything you can do to help preserve your iPhone it is to make sure it is off immediately.

• If your iPhone fell in any type of salt water, beer, soft drinks or anything else, put your iPhone in fresh water to clean off any of the previous liquid.  A quick rinse should be fine, do not go overboardwith useless water damage.

• Get a ziploc bag and put uncooked rice or silica gel in it (the packets that come in shoeboxes and beef jerky packets to keep them free of moisture) and place the iPhone and the rice/silica gel inside the plastic bag.

• Keep your iPhone in this bag for 48 hours, or AT LEAST 24 hours.

• Take your iPhone out and turn it back on.  Hopefully if you were fast enough your iPhone will work perfectly again!

How to Replace Your Cracked iPhone 4 Back Glass

So you broke the back on your iPhone 4?  That is a bummer.  But don’t fret, it is not really as bad as it may seem.

With a couple of steps you can make your iPhone 4 or 4S look just like new again.

1) Go to eBay.com and search iPhone 4 (or 4S) Back Glass.  You should be able to find them for around $15-20.  Make sure it includes screwdrivers.

2) Once you receive your new iPhone 4 Back Glass, go ahead and take the old glass off of your phone and swap to the new glass as shown below.

3) Now your iPhone looks just like new!

Repair Steps

a) Unscrew the two screws at the bottom of your iPhone using the screwdriver that was included with your iPhone Back Glass (as shown below)

b) Slide the back of the iPhone glass up towards the top of the iPhone, which will release the back off of the iPhone.

c) Place your new iPhone glass against the back of the iPhone where the old glass was located and slide it back down to lock it in place.

d) Using the screws you previously unscrewed, screw the new back glass back into place

Enjoy!

How to Get Out of Your Sprint Contract without Paying an Early Termination Fee

Have you been itching to leave Sprint, but you are still on contract?  As it turns out, their terms and conditions have changed recently, and this may mean that you can get out of your Sprint cell phone contract without paying the dreaded early termination fee (or ETF).

This is applicable for people on family plans and have a discount applied on their account.  Basically what Sprint has done is that they have decided that only the first line of your family plan will be able to have a discount (not the additional plans), whereas previously, they did give this discount.  Since this discount will raise most people’s plans prices each month, there are opportunities to get out of your contract without paying the ETF.

Call the Sprint Consumerist Hotline (703-433-4401) and tell them that you would like to cancel your service because of the increase on your bill regarding your discount on your family plan lines.  Make sure to mention that since this is an increase of your bill on your contract, that you do not need to pay the early termination fee.  They should know about this, and if they do not, ask to speak to a manager.  This will be valid as long as they are made aware within 45 days of the change.  Make sure you have a new carrier to port your number to after you cancel your Sprint service.

Enjoy your savings and don’t worry about paying any of the dreaded ETF!

How to Create a Backup of your iPhone

Although it is fairly easy to do, there are still a lot of people that would not entirely know how to create a backup of their iPhone.  Here is a quick guide in case you find yourself unsure of how to create a backup.

•  Plug your iPhone or iPod into your computer
• Load iTunes
• Find your iPhone or iPod on the left side under the Devices section of iTunes
• Right Click on your Device
• Click Backup

How to Put a Passcode on your iPhone

Are people always messing with your iPhone? Or do you just want to make sure your data is safe in case you iPhone gets lost or stolen?  Either way, there are several different situation that making having a passcode on your iPhone a good idea.

With the iPhone, you are able to create a 4 digit passcode to prevent people from getting into your phone’s data.  To do this is simple, and there are also several options you may not have known about including:

• The ability to have a complex multicharacter passcode

• The ability to erase all data after 10 failed passcode attempts

• The ability to require a passcode only after leaving the phone idle for a certain number of minutes.

Here is how you do it:

1)      In your iPhone, go to the “Settings” application

2)      Select “Passcode Lock”, it should be near the bottom of the screen.

3)      Select “Turn Passcode On”, it should be near the top of the screen.

4)      Enter in a 4 digit passcode, and then reenter it once more to confirm.

5)      Now you have a passcode on your iPhone!

In addition, you can add several options:

If you would like a complex password, combining both numbers and letters:

1)      Slide the “Simple Passcode” slider to say off.

2)      Enter in your old passcode

3)      Now you can enter any string of characters as your password.

If you would like your iPhone to only require a passcode after leaving it idle for a certain number of minutes:

1)      Select “Require Passcode: Immediately”

2)      Change to your preference of when you would like the passcode to be required, ranging from 1 minute to 4 hours.

And finally, if you would like your iPhone to erase all of its data in the case of 10 failed passcode attempts:

1)      Slide the “Erase Data” slider to say on.

2)      Confirm on the next page by clicking “Enable”

Be careful as in the case you were to forget your passcode and try 10 times, all of the data on your iPhone will be erased!  However, this can be particularly handy in case you were to get your iPhone lost or stolen and it had sensitive data on it.

And that’s how you put a passcode on your iPhone!