Some uber creative folks have come up with ways to make $20 laptop stands out of IKEA BENJAMIN stools and wire mesh file organizers, but who has $20 to spare nowadays? Also, anyone with access to a pile of books, a shoebox, or a CD spindle is capable of turning these everyday items into super cheap laptop stands, but where’s the ingenuity in that?

Instead, check out the three creative and inexpensive laptop stand solutions offered below; all are cheap to build—less than $10 or free in some cases—and all can be used to help save your neck when it comes to proper home office ergonomics. Anyway, lets get down to business.

The DIY Cardboard Laptop Stand

Yale Student Tim Xu is a self-proclaimed dabbler and technophile. Not only does his cardboard laptop stand raise his MacBook’s screen to a comfortable viewing height, but it also sports a few integrated cutouts to help hide cable clutter. As far as the idea behind the stand, Tim states “No real inspiration, really, besides utility. I drew some plans up during lunch one day and I just went through with it.”

Creating your own stand from the photo above shouldn’t be too difficult; it appears all you need is four interlocking cardboard pieces sized to fit your laptop’s base and cut to your desired height, then arranged into an isosceles trapezoid.

• PROS: The design is simple and the material is cheap, especially if you utilize any extra cardboard you have lying around. Also, the stand should be pretty stable and sturdy as long as you use corrugated cardboard; a material that most shipping boxes are made of. Last but not least, cardboard can be composted and recycled depending on the recycling facilities in your neck of the woods.
• CONS: Aside from having some plain looking cardboard furniture in your workspace, I can’t really think of many drawbacks to this design.

The DIY Cheapskate Laptop Stand

I was inspired by Tim’s laptop stand and wanted something that could raise my laptop screen by 8″ and not show too much cardboard. The final result is a stand that is partially hidden by the laptop’s keyboard and takes up a small amount of desktop space. Although this stand has held up well under constant use, I wouldn’t recommend leaving your laptop on it unattended! I’ve included some instructions below if you’re interested in building your own, or you can download a PDF of the instructions by clicking here.

UPDATE (11/18/06): I received a few requests from the commentators on Instructables.com to provide printable templates, so below you will find links to the PDF instructions and printable templates.
 
The templates are designed for an 8.5″ by 11″ sheet of paper; turn off any options that scale the PDF and print the templates at 100%. Also, only pages three through five of the PDF template need to be printed, and be sure to consider the environment by reusing scrap sheets of paper.
 
- DIY Cheapskate Laptop Stand PDF Instructions
- DIY Cheapskate Laptop Stand PDF Templates
 

• PROS: The stand has a small desktop footprint, provides decent monitor height, and is comprised of inexpensive corrugated cardboard. Also, the cardboard can be composted and recycled depending on the recycling facilities in your neck of the woods.
• CONS: It’s not the most robust or stable stand out there, and CD/DVD slots may be obstructed if they’re located on the front of the laptop. Also, if you consider cardboard to be ugly, then it’s ugly. Last but not least, it’s not advisable to type or mouse on your laptop’s keyboard when it’s sitting on the stand.

The Contemporary $10 Laptop Stand

This contemporary laptop stand was created by Flickr user lazymonster, and consists of an IKEA GRUNDTAL paper towel holder ($5.99) bolted to a piece of plexiglass. Luckily for lazymonster, he had a piece of plexiglass lying around but you can also try visiting a local glass shop or hardware store to see if they have any scrap pieces you can use. The instructions for this laptop stand can be found on lazymonster’s DIY laptop stand set on Flickr.

I asked lazymonster about the design and this is what he had to say,

I guess the only thing I would do to improve it – maybe remove the spring from the metal. It can be a bit bouncy if I bump it. I probably won’t get around to it though. I received a lot of encouragement to add vent holes, but that never happened either.

• PROS: It’s a great looking design, and the stand’s footprint is tiny. There is also plenty of space to store your keyboard under the stand when not in use.
• CONS: It’s not meant for typing on when your laptop is sitting on the stand, then again what laptop stand is? Also, you’ll need access to some tools that can safely drill through stainless steel.

In Conclusion…

There are plenty of items you can use to create a decent laptop stand, and I definitely encourage you to get a laptop stand whether it’s one of the inexpensive ones featured in this post, or one of the more popular stands like the Griffin Elevator, Rain Design’s mStand, or Ergotron’s line of laptop stands. By the way, I’ve included some additional inexpensive laptop stand ideas below that I didn’t have time to write about, so be sure to check them out too!

As always, feel free to share any inexpensive and creative laptop stand ideas you may have in the comments below!

Sincerely,
The Closet Entrepreneur

Who says you have to spend money to have a unique business card holder? All you really need is an Orbit gum pack and some elbow grease and you’ll be one your way to being the life of the party; or at least on your way to saving some cash.

Step 1: Procure an Orbit Gum Pack

If you’re too cheap to buy a pack of Orbit gum (I recommend the Bubblemint but have been dying to try the Mint Mojito), then ask around on Freecycle.org or steal a pack from your roommate or fellow cubicle farm dweller.

Step 2: Prepare Orbit Gum Pack for Hacking!

If you haven’t done so already, shove all 14 pieces of gum in your mouth or offer them away to those individuals in dire need of fresh breath; in other words, do whatever it takes to responsibly empty out the pack. Once the pack is empty, carefully remove the inner foil lining by gently pulling it out.

Step 3: Insert Business Cards

One of two things will happen when you insert your business cards; either they will fit perfectly and you’ll be able to close the pack, or they will be too big and you’ll be upset that I didn’t warn you about the possibility that your business cards would not fit.

If you’re part of the latter “does not fit” group, then keep reading because you can still make use of your empty Orbit gum package! If you’re one of the lucky lads and ladies whose business cards fit, then feel free to check out the alternate business card holder below.

By the way, it appears that business cards from VistaPrint or any business card sized 9cm wide by 4.9cm tall or smaller (like MOO MiniCards) will fit just fine.

If your card doesn’t fit or you want to continue your hacking spree, then check out Step 4 after the alternate business card holder below.

ALTERNATE VERSION: To create the alternative version shown above, simply grab an X-ACTO knife or razor blade and separate the glued flap of one side of the Orbit gum package from the back of the box. *HINT* Use a sawing motion and be sure to hold the blade straight as it is easy to cut into the cardboard. Also, be careful not to slice yourself in the process; we wouldn’t want your new business card holder soaked in blood.

Once you have separated the side flap from the back of the box, simply glue the lid to the back of the box and trim the side flap to your liking. *HINT* I trimmed the flap way too small (as shown below) so feel free to leave some extra flap if possible; leave enough so that the new “side lid” easily closes and opens.

Step 4: The Orbit Business Card Display Hack

For this simple hack, grab a penny from the depths of your couch or your favorite penny jar and use it as a guide to cut a semi-circle in the flap as shown below.

Then, trim away a bit of the package to allow the business cards to be more easily accessed and seen. There’s no exact science to this, I just cut from one edge to the center of the box as shown below.

Next, find a thumbtack and use it to hang the display—you guessed it—as shown below.

Finally, stick a business card in the semi-circular cut you made and behold your nifty business card display!

Parting Thoughts…

If you really wanted to get fancy, you could write “Take One” somewhere on the display or deck out your Orbit gum package with some scrapbooking paper and supplies. Regardless, I hope you found the DIY useful and as always feel free to leave your ideas and tips below.

Sincerely,
The Closet Entrepreneur

Post Scriptum: Be sure to check out 12 Unique Business Card Advertising Displays for more ideas.

If you’re an avid Gmail user, then you’re familiar with Gmail’s custom ‘From’ address feature for managing multiple email accounts within Gmail. You’re probably also familiar with Gmail’s custom signature option which can prove cumbersome when sending email from a different account. For example, my regular signature contains personal Twitter, Flickr, and Blog URLs which I end up deleting and replacing whenever I send an email using my business account. If this sounds all too familiar, then keep on reading…

Getting Started…

There are two things you will need to get started, the first is Firefox 3 and the second is Ubiquity by Mozilla Labs. If you’re hesitant about installing and using these programs, just know that they’re free and can be uninstalled if needed.

Adding The Multiple Custom Signature Code To Ubiquity…

Once you have Firefox 3 and Ubiquity installed, access the Ubiquity command editor by invoking Ubiquity (option-space on the Mac or control-space on Windows) and typing “command-editor” then hit enter; you should see a new page with a large empty text area where you can type in commands and instantly put them to use.

To create a command that inserts a custom signature, simply cut and paste the text below into your command editor and replace Your Signature in the CmdUtils.setSelection’s parenthesis with (you guessed it) your signature.


CmdUtils.CreateCommand({
name: "signature",
preview: "Insert your signature; simple eh?",
execute: function(){
CmdUtils.setSelection( "Your Signature" );
}
})


To see the command in action, compose an email and place your cursor in the email message body then invoke Ubiquity and start typing signature. You should see the signature command pop up and when it does, simply hit enter and your new signature will appear where your cursor was located.

Expanding The Custom Signature Code…

The first thing you will want to do is create several different signatures, which is done by recycling your previous code and simply changing the name of the command. An example is shown below; this is what you should see in your command editor and note the different names that appear after the name: field (signature simple and signature full); this is the name given to each command.


CmdUtils.CreateCommand({
name: "signature simple",
preview: "Insert your simple signature; simple eh?",
execute: function(){
CmdUtils.setSelection( "Your Signature" );
}
})
 
CmdUtils.CreateCommand({
name: "signature full",
preview: "Insert your full signature.",
execute: function(){
CmdUtils.setSelection( "Your Signature\n\nhttp://yourwebsite.com\nYour Favorite Quote\nEt Cetera" );
}
})


One thing to note in the signature full code (second command) is that the \n creates carriage returns in your outputted text. Running the above signature full command in Ubiquity will result in:

Your Signature
 

http://yourwebsite.com

Your Favorite Quote
Et Cetera

To create additional signature commands, simply repeat the process and be sure to give each new command and different name. Now you have a simple way of inserting a custom signature for each email account. Also, this command can be used wherever a text input field is available, so you can insert custom signatures in blog comments, forum comments, Flickr comments, and other web-based email clients.

In Conclusion

I’m hoping you find this information useful, and definitely leave a comment if you have any questions or want to share your own custom Ubiquity commands. I’ve created a short video (shown below) just in case you want to see Ubiquity in action; email and feed subscribers may need to visit the blog post if the video is not showing up.

Also, if Ubiquity isn’t worth your while and you want a different solution, feel free to check out the Blank Canvas Gmail Signatures add-on for Firefox 3.

Sincerely,
The Closet Entrepreneur

Post Scriptum: Here’s an Ubiquity command for shortening URLs using the is.gd service –> click here Update: my is.gd Ubiquity command doesn’t seem to be working with the latest version of Ubiquity. I don’t have the time to look into the reasons why, but feel free to check out the code and make use of it if you can.

Who would’ve thought that the presentation app used to lull audiences to sleep could also be used to create an appealing Twitter background? The process is fairly simple and only limited by your imagination and Twitter’s 800Kb upload limit.

Step 1: Download The Twitter Background Template

The templates are designed around a common screen width of 1280px.

• PowerPoint Template – Tested on PowerPoint 2007 and PowerPoint 2004 (for Mac)
• Keynote Template – Tested on Keynote ’08.

Step 2: Create Your Twitter Background

After you’ve downloaded and opened the applicable template, you’ll notice four boxes that correspond to the various Twitter features as shown below:

At this point the sky is the limit when it comes to your design. For my background, I used a hi-res photo from Grunge Textures and fonts by Gyom Séguin; you can see the final result below:

Some items to keep in mind are…

• Allow breathing room for any graphics placed to the left of the main content area since the content area shifts left and right depending on the browser’s window size.
• Larger computer screens might cover up graphics placed to the right side of the sidebar.
• Small text may become pixelated depending on the output quality of your image.
• The templates are 1920×1200 pixels in size to account for most computer screens; feel free to change the template size to suit your needs.
• Respect the copyrights of photographers and designers; when in doubt ask permission before using and modifying anyone’s photos or designs.

Step 3: Export Your New Twitter Background

If you’re using Windows, then exporting your background will require some patience and elbow grease. Unfortunately, Microsoft makes it difficult for PowerPoint users to select the size and resolution of their slides when exporting to JPEG. You have the following choices…

1. Choose File > Save As; select JPEG as the file type, and save. Then using Microsoft Paint, change the image size to 1920×1200 by going to Image > Attributes.
2. If choice #1 yields a poor quality image, then you can adjust the output resolution by tinkering with the registry as explained in the following Microsoft Support article: How to change the resolution of a slide that you export as a picture in PowerPoint.
3. If the previous two choices seem daunting, then you can spend a few bucks on the PPTools ImageExport PowerPoint add-in which gives you complete control over the entire export process.

If you’re using Apple’s OS X, then exporting your background is considerably easier. Keynote ’08 users can export their slides as images by choosing File > Export; select Images, then choose the output format, size, and quality. PowerPoint 2004 for Mac users can export their slides as images by choosing File > Save As; select JPEG as the format, then click the Options button located on the bottom left of the dialog box. Doing so will bring up a Preferences panel which contains size and quality options for exported JPEG images.

If your exported image exceeds Twitter’s 800Kb upload limit for backgrounds, then try reducing the quality or size of your exported image.

Step 4: Uploading Your New Twitter Background

The final step is to log-in to your Twitter account and click the Settings link located at the top of the page. On the setting page, click the Design tab and upload your new background via the Background Image field; click on the Home link at the top of the page if your background doesn’t appear.

Additional Resources

Although PowerPoint and Keynote aren’t full-fledged graphic design applications like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, they can still be used to turn out some nice designs. If you’re looking for some resources and inspiration for your Twitter background, feel free to check out the following links:

• Twitter Background Guidlines via Comcast.com has additional info on designing a background around Twitter’s layout.
• Grunge Style In Modern Web Design via Smashing Magazine served as major inspiration for my design.
• Where can you find good images? via Presentation Zen has a thorough list of royalty-free stock images.
• Improve PowerPoint’s GIF, BMP, PNG, JPG export resolution via PPTools has additional info on exporting slides as images with PowerPoint.
• Twitter Treats has a growing collection of free custom Twitter backgrounds.
• Several personalized Twitter backgrounds can be found on Flickr’s Extended Twitter Background screenshot Pool and under the twitterbacks tag. Some of my favorites are shown below.

Also, feel free to share your Twitter PowerPoint/Keynote background design, tips, and questions by leaving a comment!

Sincerely,
The Closet Entrepreneur

Post Scriptum: Follow me on Twitter @tomascarrillo.