How To Change The Batteries in an Accutire MS-4021b Tire Gauge

If you enjoyed my review of the Accutire MS-4021b tire pressure gauge, you may also be interested in how to change the battery. Changing the batteries inside an Accutire MS-4021b tire pressure gauge is easy. You'll need:
A Phillips screwdriver (I used a PH1 sized bit and it worked fine).
3 new LR44 batteries to replace the old ones inside your gauge. These batteries are also called A76,  357, or AG13 and are 1.5 volts each, making for 4.5 volts of total power.

Flip the gauge over and unscrew the battery compartment cover. It will drop out when you turn the unit upside down. Then hit the handle against the palm of your hand until the batteries pop out. It took quite a bit of force to knock them loose. I was surprised at how securely they are held in place.

Here you can see the original batteries that came with my device, no-name "button cell" batteries marked LR44. Also note that the battery compartment is completely enclosed in plastic. As cheap as this device is, it seems like there actually was some engineering that went into it. There is no possible way those batteries are getting knocked loosed even if you drop it, and it keeps dirt out of the inside of the gauge. There are even little symbols molded into the compartment showing you which way to turn the new batteries so the polarity is correct, another nice touch I was not expecting.

Just line up your three new LR44 batteries like the inside of the compartment shows and squeeze them into the metal battery holders. Then screw the battery compartment cover back on. Piece of cake!

5 Winning Strategies for Bananagrams

To follow up on my review of the Bananagrams word game, I thought I would share some of my winning strategies for Bananagrams. Use one or all of these tips and tricks and get ready to show your friends and family who's boss!

1. Create a backbone. Try to create the longest word possible as early in the round as possible. This long word will form a backbone for your plays and makes it a lot easier to use up tiles as you "peel" them. Even if it takes you more time to think up a really long word, you will be able to play a lot of shorter words in a small amount of time after you assemble your backbone.
2. Don't be scared to shuffle all your tiles mid-game. To go along with number 1, if you get to the point where you have too many three and four letter words in the middle of a hand, you might run out of easy places to play your next few tiles. Don't hesitate to shuffle all or most of your tiles and make a nice long backbone even in the middle of a hand. You can then play short words off your backbone and stage a dramatic comeback by the end.
3. Two-letter words are gold. If you're looking to keep your opponents on their toes, dropping a freshly peeled letter tile onto your plays at right angles to an existing word to make a two-letter word lets you peel again right away. Keep it up, and you'll frustrate the other players and have letters available for more advanced plays when the opportunity arises.
4. No dumping. Any way you look at it, dumping is a bad bargain - you always get three tiles back when you get rid of one. And most savvy players will simply assume your dumped tile is a Q, Z, or X and simply avoid it until you're forced to pick it back up. Even if you do mix it in with the other unused tiles, you might end up with it again anyway. Just become familiar with short words that use these trouble letters or incorporate them into your backbone word, and you'll be better off.
5. Go rhyme-crazy to switch out letters fast. This isn't as obvious as the other winning strategies, but rhyming can help players of any skill level come up with words using their letters. It's also a great tactic for swapping out the starting letter of a word with a different one to free up that letter. Of course, you could always try playing more two letter words like in number 3.

That's it! Follow these 5 winning strategies for Bananagrams and prepare to take the other players to school. Of course, there's no substitute for a large vocabulary and good spelling skills, and you'll still need your own micro-strategy for getting through the "peels" at your own speed, but these tips and tricks can give you the extra edge needed to win!

How to open a .webarchive file type

After 15 minutes of trying to figure out how to open a .webarchive file type on my Windows computer I realized that the internet could use a simple, step by step description of what to do to view this file. I will deal specifically with opening a .webarchive file on Windows 7, but the process is pretty close on Windows XP too.

Steps to open a .webarchive file on Windows 7:

1. If you do not already have Apple's Safari browser, you will need to download and install it. This is because .webarchive files are a type of file saved by the Safari application, and to my knowledge only the Safari application is able to open them again. Head to Apple's website, find the option to download Safari, download it, and then install it.
2. You will need to save the file to your computer. This gets tricky because if you're downloading the file from the internet (say as an email attachment) Internet Explorer will try to open the file itself, but it just pops a blank tab after it realizes it doesn't know what to do. On my Windows 7 machine, it pops a dialog at the bottom of the browser window, asking if I want to open or save the file. You need to save it somewhere on you computer.
3. Open the locally saved .webarchive file with Safari. Find your .webarchive file, right click on it and choose "open with." Then you'll have to browse through your machine's programs and choose Safari as the application you want to open it with. Once you have it open, you should see a saved image of whatever the file contained.

That's it! It took me a good 15 minutes to figure this out, and I imagine there are some folks out there who could use some directions on this. If you find that this method does not work for you or you would like to add any additional information in the comments please do so.