Real Simple magazine’s weblog recommends dropping a raisin into a bottle of champagne that’s lost its effervescence and give it a couple of minutes before pouring. The last gasps of carbon dioxide left in the wine will stick to the raisin’s ridged surface and release as bubbles.

This won’t work with a bottle in your fridge for a month but if you’re at the end of a dinner party you might get a little more mileage out of your bubbly.

Raisin as Champagne Restorer | Real Simple

There have been shady ways in the past to unlock your iPhone or Android smartphone and use a SIM card from a prepaid service, but in the wake of AT&T’s recent decision to unlock phones for customers who leave their service or travel overseas you can officially switch your phone to prepaid and potentially save a lot of money without being a technological genius or deal with shady services.

The first prepaid provider to take note of this emerging market is Straight Talk. They were kind enough to provide an unlocked iPhone 4S and a sim card with one month of their $45 unlimited talk/text/data monthly plan to test and see if the service stands up to power users. In an effort to eliminate debt my wife and I have used prepaid smartphones through Virgin Mobile which left me excited to see what prepaid service was like on a powerful smartphone.

As most people know, the phones available with many prepaid service providers aren’t too exciting. Since we’re right at two years after the iPhone 4 and Samsung Galaxy SII came out there are a lot of smartphones leaving their contracts now that are way more powerful than the usual ones you can get from Virgin Mobile, Boost, and Straight Talk for $100-200.

The activation took a few steps, but wasn’t terribly complicated. Since the phone was factory unlocked all I had to do was insert the SIM, connect via Wi-Fi to unlockit.co.nz to get APN settings for Straight Talk, install the profile with those settings, and activate the phone on the provider’s web site. Maybe 15 minutes of work and the included instructions spelled it out step-by-step. I don’t think Lifehacker readers would have any trouble with it.

Once the phone was activated it was connected to my local AT&T service. 4G speeds were very fast, better than residential DSL according to mobilespeedtest.com. I streamed episodes of Firefly on Netflix during my weekly commute to test the speed and never had more than a second or two of hiccups as the stream was reestablished. Call quality was fine and photo/video texts were sent without problem. All in all I was impressed with the service. Keep in mind that even though the service is advertised as unlimited, after 2GB data throttling will kick in as it does with any non-Sprint phone.

If you’re looking to get off your contract and have a GSM phone with SIM cards (eg on the AT&T or T-Mobile network) you can use your unlocked phone with this plan. For $45 a month it’s a great way to use an iPhone, high-end Android, or Nokia Lumia Windows phone for probably a lot less than you’re currently paying. Having used a Samsung Intercept, LG Optimus V, and HTC Wildfire S on Virgin Mobile for the past few years I can say that having a powerful smartphone on a reasonably-priced unlimited prepaid network is very nice.

Have you made the switch from a contract wireless provider to a prepaid provider? If so, share your experience in the comments below.

Straight Talk

• Windows users, what are you using to rip DVDs?
• Any idea how I can automate my Gmail so that I can send my mom a photo of her granddaughter daily?
• I want to run an application at startup on my Ubuntu server but it requires a GUI; how can I launch it at startup and bring it into the foreground when I ssh -x in?
• People who boot into multiple operating systems: How do you manage your boot screen?
• Is there a way to set my iPhone 4S to take videos in a lower resolution?
• Any tips on how I can transfer files 3gb+ from my windows pc to mac?
• I want a fun RPG to play on my iPhone during the bus ride to work. I’m feeling something old school-like, maybe turn based. Can anyone recommend something?
• Is there any way to sync my Facebook contacts with my Google contacts?
• What’s the best way to do a thorough test drive of OSX?
• Is there a way for me to close my Macbook Pro so I can only have the external monitor on without making the Macbook have to go to sleep when close it?

Have you ever shared your internet connection with another person? Many users are protesting arbitrary price hikes from ISPs by sharing Wi-Fi connections. Typically this only works well if you’re within a few hundred feet, but outdoor wireless access points can extend this range up to 2,000ft if you don’t have any trees blocking line-of-sight.

Early retirement weblog Mr. Money Mustache engaged in an experiment to see if he could share a high-speed internet connection with a friend 900 ft away—too far for sharing a Wi-Fi connection using his router. He purchased and installed two high-power wireless outdoor access points, installed them on each roof, and found a way to run an ethernet cable from their router to their roof. In his particular case he had to step up to a more powerful antenna but that all depends on your distance and if any trees obscure your line-of-sight connection.

You’ll need to be savvy with how to manually set an IP address and be able to assign router DHCP Lan addresses on 192.168.2.x subnets, but you’ll be able to share an internet connection with a friend saving up to $300 per year and means that you’ll never have any problems getting a Wi-Fi signal in your immediate neighborhood. You can also use this technique with one antenna to fine-tune a nearby public Wi-Fi network that you can’t otherwise pick up at your home, such as a citywide pay-for-use Wi-Fi network.

Finally, most for-profit ISPs have restrictions against sharing internet connections. Make sure you have carefully reviewed your service restrictions to see if this is allowed before attempting this setup. If you disregard the restrictions you can face fines or worse. For that reason we’re tagging this a dark side post and reminding you that it is for educational purposes only.

Internet Sharing—How to Get Revenge on the Cable Company | Mr. Money Mustache

Measuring cups and spoons are necessary if you follow recipes, yet they seem to disappear easily. Household weblog Infarrantly Creative found a great way to keep them on hand in your kitchen by using paint sticks and cup hooks to put together a storage system for your measuring cups and spoons.

The 5-gallon paint sticks are usually free at most hardware stores and are used to stir paint. Get two of them and cut the the handles off to fit the width of your interior cabinet door. Sand the surface of the stick and then paint or stain them to match or contrast your cabinet door and predrill the holes on each side so adding a screw won’t split the thin wooden sticks. Then screw the sticks into place and screw the ¾” cup hooks into place.

When you’re finished you can label the cups/spoons if you like. In response to the demand for Infarrantly Creative to sell pre-made labels you can order the same vinyl labels as in the photo for $7 if you rather not use a label maker or a Sharpie. They also have a handy conversion chart that fits above the measuring cups and spoons for $12 or you can buy a set of both for $15. I’d rather just use a label maker and a printout, but the option is there if you want it.

Organizing Measuring Cups and Spoons | Infarrantly Creative