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via LH -mac -news -roundup -sponsors on 5/4/08
We asked earlier this week what disposable items you had found creative re-uses for, and the answers are in. Not surprisingly, some of you have some pretty crafty uses for household goods that usually end up at the curb. From CD-R spindles to corks, twist-ties to tissue boxes, lots of supposedly one-use items can save you money, free up space, and be seriously handy when the need arises. After the jump, a roundup of our readers' waste-reducing reuses. Yogurt photo by Dan4th, all others by How can I recycle this.
CDs/DVDs and their cases
Along with organizing cables and toting bagels, both borked and discarded CD- and DVD-Rs and the spindles they came in can find second lives: - "The (spindle) covers can be turned upside-down and used as small tabletop bins as well (especially the 50 and 100-packs)."—kureshii
- "An outer plastic container from a 50-spindle of CDs or DVDs makes a great desk pen or craft tool holder if you tuck toilet-paper tubes into it."—kevinw1.
- Commenter mrs_helm said she's heard that used CDs/DVDs hung outside will repel flies, while kevinw1 ties them to tree branches to keep birds away from his seedlings and plants.
- mrs_helm's other CD/DVD re-use: "Cover one side with felt and place under breakable figurines so they don't scratch the furniture." They might also work under furniture on hardwood floors, provided you can cover them with the right material.
Dryer sheets
We've long been fans of the pan-cleaning, shoe de-stink-ifying, anti-static dusting squares, and our readers have even more novel uses for them: - "Used dryer sheets will clean your iron - just run the iron over it on medium heat."—kuisine
- "Stick used dryer sheets into drawers to keep clothing smelling nice."—ac042186
Plastic containers
There's no clear consensus, at least among commenters, as to whether it's safe and prudent to re-use plastic bottled water containers (urban legend buster Snopes.com has a somewhat mixed answer to the standard claims), but, along with re-using plastic grocery bags, cutlery and storage containers, they keep their plastics out of the landfill with some crafty uses: - "Plastic yogurt containers make great starter pots for seedlings."—elsifer.
- "... The Stonyfield quart-sized yogurt containers are marked as dishwasher safe. We make our own chicken stock, and freeze it in those yogurt containers."—skyesong.
- "The plastic bags that newspapers are delivered in make for a great umbrella bag (when you have to carry your wet closed umbrella into your office, etc."—Thunderpants.
- "Plastic Chinese food containers: store miscellaneous parts in in my garage."—gargouille.
- "I sell and trade a lot of used books, so I cut up the heavy plastic wrap from the cases of bottled water and use it as a waterproof liner for shipping. I use brown paper cut from grocery bags for the outer wrapper."—gwynn1101.
- Photo by MiRo740.
Odds and ends
Objects that seemingly have only one specific purpose—keeping your wine fresh, dispensing tissues, and the like—are no match for our space-minding, clutter-savvy readers:
- "2 wine corks can make a quick and easy laptop stand."—Brad N. (and previously explained in detail by reader George).
- "I save those pop-up tissue boxes for the car. They make great trash receptacles and it is easy to tell when they are full."—RubberduckGrrl.
- "I have saved every twist-tie I've come into contact with, and I end up re-using every one. Keep your pens together in your bag. ear bud cables organized at the gym. Chip clips. Shower curtain rings. Any tech cable that's snaking around the room. Half of that single-serve bag of coffee."—Transuranic.
- "Nylon mesh from fruits and veggies can be used to protect glassware (mostly bottles)."—ac042186.
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After you've installed nLite, load your installation CD into your disc drive and make sure you've got your 25-character product key handy. Launch nLite, click to the next screen, "Locating the Windows installation." Before you go further, create a new folder somewhere on your computer, at the hard drive root (as in "C:\") if possible. Click "Browse," select your CD drive, and you'll be prompted to copy your CD to a folder. Select the folder you created, then wait for the copy to finish. 
NLite's next screen will ask what you want to customize on your install disc. If you only want to update to SP3, only click the "Service Pack" button. But unless you love answering questions and never touch a setting in Windows XP, you'll want to flip all the switches green and click "Next."
Now nLite will ask for slipstream files, or packages you want to integrate into the installer. You'll always want to have the latest service pack available, since, for instance, Service Pack 3 incorporates the fixes made in SP1 and SP2, so it makes them unnecessary. If you grabbed the latest beta of nLite, you'll see a Service Pack 3 already offered for integration, but it's an older release candidate. Hit the "Choose" button, select the executable file you downloaded from Microsoft with the seriously long file name, and give nLite a few minutes to implement it. When you see the version number change, hit "Next" and move on.
"Hotfixes and Update Packs" is for all the tiny little Windows Updates between service packs. If you're including SP3, you can pretty much skip this part. But in the future, and for those not jumping onto SP3, I recommend running WinUpdatesList. You'll see a list of all the updates you've installed, and sorting by date and type should show you what you've installed since the last service pack. Right-click on an update, and you'll get a link to a related Microsoft Knowledge Base article, where you should be able to download the fix directly and patch it into nLite. You can also roll executables for Windows updates—like 
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Fortune magazine has compiled a list of 9 "forbidden' foods that have been banned (for some reason or another) in the US. Trans fats in NYC, foie gras in Chicago... Here's the list:
Real Simple online rounds up seven common cooking mistakes you can easily avoid if you practice a few simple tricks of the trade. For example: 
