This holiday season, there are a few things you can do to make your life a little easier. Xbox 360 HDD upgrades, Christmas light repair, and stripping Kindle DRM are all great ways to save time and money. Xbox 360 HDD upgrades: If you’re looking to upgrade your Xbox 360’s hard drive, now is the time to do it. Microsoft has announced that they will be discontinuing the use of optical drives in their consoles, so now is the best time to upgrade if you haven’t already. Prices for an Xbox 360 HDD upgrade range from around $60-$100, so it’s definitely worth considering. Christmas light repair: This holiday season, be sure to take care of your Christmas lights! If they start to give you problems (like not turning on or staying on), don’t hesitate to call a professional. Prices for Christmas light repair range from around $50-$100, so it’s definitely worth considering if your lights start giving you trouble this holiday season. Stripping Kindle DRM: If you own a Kindle Fire or any other Amazon tablet device, be sure to check out StripMyKindleDroid.com! This website allows you to remove all of the Kindle DRM from any e-book that you own. This is great if you want to read an e-book on another device (like your computer) without having to worry about copyright restrictions. Prices for StripMyKindleDroid range from around $5-$15 per book, so it’s definitely worth checking out if you want to remove Kindle DRM from any e-books that you own. ..

Once a week we round up some of the interesting questions we’ve answered from the Ask How-To Geek mailbox and share them with the greater readership. This week we’re looking at Xbox 360 upgrades, Christmas light wiring, and stripping Kindle DRM.

How Can I Upgrade the Hard Drive on my Xbox 360 Slim?

Dear Hard Drive Hacking,

Hi! I have a new Xbox 360 Slim 4GB. It doesn’t come with a hard drive and I can’t afford the 250GB hard drive add-on. I do have a laptop hard drive (the Western Digital Scorpio 120GB). Is there anyway I can use this drive instead of buying the pricey upgrade? Thanks!

Sincerely,

Hard Drive Hacking in St. Helens

How Can I Troubleshoot and Repair My Christmas Lights?

Dear Mr. Griswold,

I know you guys normally cover computer stuff but since I do see electronics projects pop up now and then I figured it was worth asking. I’m late putting up my Christmas lights this year and so far everything has been a mess. I have tons of strands with bad bulbs. I have a bunch of extra bulbs so it’s not like I can’t replace the bad ones… but with the whole strand dark there’s no way to tell which one is the bad one! Surely there has to be some sort of tool for this kind of thing? It’s got to be cheaper than buying all new strands! Help!

Sincerely,

Clark Griswold

Since you’re talking about burnt out bulbs, we’ll assume you’re talking about incandescent mini lights. You’re right, there are tools available to help you. In fact the tools in question work so well most home owners would call them down right magical. What you need to help with your Christmas light woes is a multi-function tool; we highly recommend the Light Keeper Pro. It’s highly reviewed and the comments on it are absolutely glowing. It will help you do several things including testing strand fuses, pulling bulbs, and fusing shunts. The last one is the most important feature and it does it very well. Mini Christmas light strand bulbs are designed with a fail-safe mechanism. In the event that the bulb burns out there is a small shunt that will melt and fuse the two wires together so, despite the bulb being burnt out and not illuminating, the current will continue to flow through the strand and the rest of the bulbs will stay on. The most common cause of total strand blackout is one or more shunts failing to melt and re-form the circuit. The Light Keeper Pro (and similar tools) send pulses of electricity through the line that melt the improperly joined shunts. Without a tool like that you’d either have to throw the line out or go through and test every single bulb in the whole strand. For a little over twenty bucks we think you’ll find it’s a worthwhile investment and a huge time saver.

How Can I Strip the DRM on My Kindle Books?

Dear Book Worm,

Is it possible to strip the DRM from my Kindle books so I can do things with them like I would with a book purchased from a DRM-free ebook store? I’d like to be able to give a book to a friend when I’m done reading it or keep a copy on my Kindle and my laptop (as oppose to, you know, start running an underground book store with all my illicit copies). Is there any way I can go about this?

Sincerely,

Book Worm in Wisconsin