One of my favorite sites is Cool Tools, run by Kevin Kelly, former executive editor of Wired Magazine and publisher of the Whole Earth Review.

Kelly describes a "cool tool" as "any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true." And his site features a ton of them.

One of my favorite parts of the site is the Tips. Cool Tool readers regularly send in their best tips for repairing, fixing, creating, whatever.

Here are some of the best from his most recent posts:

When a couple of the little rubber feet (LRF) came off the bottom of my laptop, I tried without success to re-attach the small bits of rubber with "super glue", rubber cement, and a hot-glue gun. After the last attempt, I realized that the rubbery material used with the hot-glue gun could by itself serve as an LRF replacement. This worked so well I ended up ripping out the still-attached LRFs. By now the hot-glue replacements have served longer than the original LRFs.

-- Preston L. Bannister

***************

I had a white board with old old writing on it - I tried Windex, alcohol, etc, to little avail, then my girlfriend suggested using a whiteboard marker - they are full of the correct solvent! Just color over what you want to erase and wipe it away.

-- David Spargur

***************

When your container of shaving oil is empty, try filling it with olive oil from the kitchen instead of spending $15 on a new stuff. I discovered that when I ran out a few years ago & I haven't looked back since. Olive oil does just as good a job and costs almost nothing per shave. People have been shaving with olive oil for thousands of years, there's no reason not to continue doing so.

-- Mark James

***************

When I need to solder a connection to a leaky pipe, I just stick a piece of bread into the pipe to sop up the drips while I fire up the blowtorch.

-- RW

***************

To track whether the dishes in your washer are clean, use a wet erase marker to write "Dirty" or make a fancy "D" on the inside door of your dishwasher when loading dirty dishes. When you run the dishwasher the mark washes away, so you'll know they are clean.

-- Carl DeCesare

*************

Don't pay for a anti-fogging bathroom mirror! The mirror fogs because the glass temperature is colder than the air causing the moisture dissolved in the air to condense. Just wipe the off the excess condensation and lightly blowdry the mirror and it will stay fog-free. Don't overdo it with the blow-dryer -- you don't want the mirror to crack from uneven expansion.

-- David Spargur

*************

Wintergreen oil (methyl salicylate) is the most penetrating of all penetrating oils. It is available at most drugstores at minimal cost. If you work on old machinery that is anywhere near saltwater (or salted highways) it's an essential weapon in tackling otherwise hopelessly rusted/frozen threads. It smells good, and though toxic and not to be kept within reach of children, is intended for topical application to human skin.

-- George Dyson

*************

Here is a much simpler way to keep paintbrushes soft, especially between coats: Don't clean them, put them in a plastic bag, and put them in the freezer. You can start painting with them right away, and when you are done, just put them in again. Eventually, you want to clean them (if you are changing colors, for instance) but I have had paintbrushes in the freezer for months and they are just fine when you take them out again.

-- Espen Andersen

For more tips from Cool Tools click here.