It isn’t hard to make a cheap iPhone or iPod stand, but if you’re looking for a cheap stand that won’t scratch your iPhone, will hold it solidly, and is extremely skinny and portable, this one is tough to beat.
The stand in question is simply a piece of acrylic that has been cut like an easel back with a small slot to place the charging cable. As you can see from the photo, the stand is great for turning your iPhone into an alarm clock or propping it up for a movie in bed. The cut can also be modified to fit just about any flat-screened phone with a screen worth peering at.
Check out the tutorial at the link below for more pictures of the build process. You can also see a version created by Lifehacker reader cyberfux, here.
How to Make an Easy iPhone Alarm Clock Stand [Instructables]
Apple really set the bar just a tad too high when it named iTunes’ music recommendation service, and, in general, Genius doesn’t provide awesome mix tape ideas from your subconscious. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be better. Wired suggests a few ways to get along with Genius, like sticking with the iTunes store’s genre labeling and un-checking suggestions that are way off. The general suggestion, though, is giving Genius time to figure out your library, which obviously means you need to buckle down at work and start tearing through albums. (
Some Lifehacker editors are partial to the ambient but beat-driven tracks available on 
Any playlist gets better if you can bump up the sound quality. If your personal style, or office culture, forbids the ear-enveloping headphone "cans," in-ear earbuds can work just fine—if you know how to put them in. Luckily, a CNET audiophile can explain, with detailed pictures, exactly how to fit earbuds into your ears for better sound fidelity and long-term comfort.
If you hear someone with a killer tune playing from their own hard drive, they can usually be cajoled into sending a copy your way. But what if they’ve brought that track in on their MP3 player? Grab a copy of 
Sites like Lifehacker can seem like such a tease sometimes. We tell you about the 
Sometimes your web radio station or music recommendation service, like 
You're out for a jog or on the way home from work when, suddenly, an insipid, album-filler track just kills your whole groove. Don't try and make a mental note to banish that track—mark it one star. Then set up your music manager to never load one-star tracks onto your player, and you're on your way. (
If your music collection came from a lot of sources, some of them more shadow-y than others, your files are probably a librarian’s worst nightmare. Tagging them all with the right genre, artist, album, track, and disc numbers can be done easier than you think with software tools like 
If you want iTunes (or another programmable music manager) to surprise you with good, relevant picks from your library, Smart Playlists are the way to go. Gina’s recommended Smart Playlist settings can ensure you’re hearing music you haven’t heard in at least a week (unlike with, say, the radio), find the seldom-played gems in your collection, and compile best-of lists for the year so far, the holidays, or whenever.
If you’re a movie buff that just can’t get enough of the trailers, teasers, and clips from upcoming movies, HD-Trailers makes it easy to get your fill.
Giving your cell phone or iPod a semi-permanent, clever-looking home on your wall doesn’t have to cost more than $2. A used shampoo bottle and some basic tools are all that’s needed for MAKE’s outlet-mounted “charging pocket.”
If you’re looking for a fire-and-forget way to bulk encode your media, EncodeHD is a drag-and-drop video solution with support for for over a dozen devices.
Windows only: If you’re looking for a fire-and-forget video converter to help stock your iPod, iPodME is a dead simple and lightweight tool for bulk converting your video files. 
Windows only: Pod to PC can grab the music and movies off nearly any Windows-formatted iPod for transferring to your PC, and avoids duplicates while doing so.
Windows/Mac/Linux (all platforms): Floola, the go-anywhere, no-iTunes-required iPod manager, has updated with some nifty new features, including the ability to natively sync your Google Calendars to your iPod.