John Cox

Blogs · @wyome · Now · Shelf

Tagged storage · everything

Interesting

GULDDRAGARE storage combination, beige/with 4 doors with shelves, 623/4x143/8x847/8" - IKEA

This is an IKEA product page for the GULDDRAGARE storage system, a traditional-style cabinet with panel doors below and open shelves above, built from fiberboard and particleboard with solid ash legs. The one substantive piece of content is a customer review warning that it wobbles badly side to side unless anchored to the wall, which most buyers won't do, so many will be returned. The reviewer's fix is to add metal cross supports from the Ivar cabinet at the door level, where they stay hidden when the doors are closed, and to consider bracing the visible upper section too.

Permalink

IKEA Shoppers Discovered a Different Use for This Bamboo Drying Rack

A French home-organizing creator repurposed IKEA's OSTBIT bamboo dish-drying rack—normally a countertop tool for air-drying plates and glasses—as a vertical, wall-mounted holder for rolled hand towels. Using adhesive mounting strips instead of drilling, she stuck the rack beside her bathroom mirror, turning its pegs into slots for neatly rolled towels, giving a boutique-hotel look with a renter-friendly, no-tools installation. It's a handy example of buying a product for one IKEA-catalog purpose and finding a smarter, better one.

Permalink

What to Do if Your Home Has Little or No Closet Space

This article provides 14 practical storage solutions for older homes with limited closet space, ranging from traditional furniture like armoires to modern alternatives such as portable closets and wall-mounted systems. The suggestions emphasize both maximizing existing closet space through organizational tools and creating new storage through repurposed rooms, built-in structures, and creative use of often-overlooked areas like door backs and under-stair spaces. The piece also recommends decluttering regularly and storing seasonal items off-site to manage the reality that old homes require more intentional storage strategies than modern houses with built-in closets.

Permalink

This Stylish IKEA Bookshelf Looks Like Custom Built-Ins for Way Less (Yes, Really)

IKEA's LÅDMAKARE is a $270 shelving unit that combines open display shelves with lower closed cabinets, offering flexible storage that blends seamlessly into rooms thanks to its open-back design and minimalist oak finish. The interior shelves are shallower than the side boards to accommodate cables, and the side panels have cutouts for baseboards, allowing the unit to sit flush against walls. The piece can be styled individually or combined with others to create custom built-in looks, used as an entertainment center or room divider, and configured in advance using IKEA's customization tool.

Permalink

How to Make a Vinegar Fruit Wash That Really Cleans Your Produce

A vinegar fruit wash—made by mixing one part vinegar with three parts water—effectively removes bacteria, mold spores, and pesticides from produce because vinegar's 5-6% acetic acid kills pathogens and prevents mold growth, extending freshness longer than plain water rinsing alone. The article explains when and how to use the wash (spray method for smooth fruits, soaking for small or textured produce), emphasizing the importance of washing all produce immediately upon purchase and drying thoroughly before storage to prevent cross-contamination in the fridge.

Permalink

I Think These 'Spa Shelves' Are the Best Storage You Can Put in a Guest Bathroom (or Almost Any Bathroom, Now That I Think About It)

This piece centres on the Bilton Towel Rack from Rowen and Wren as a solution for small guest bathrooms, praising its vintage train-luggage-rack design and open storage, which an editor argues is key for guests who won't want to rummage through closed cupboards. It rounds out with several alternative towel racks and shelving options at different price points and styles, from modern gold ladders to Scandi wooden holders, plus a nod to a six-week holiday organising schedule for pre-hosting prep.

Permalink

Amazon Glacier

Amazon S3 Glacier offers tiered storage classes for archiving large datasets at low cost while maintaining different retrieval speeds depending on business needs. Organizations in media, healthcare, finance, and other sectors can use Instant Retrieval for data requiring millisecond access, Flexible Retrieval for standard archive needs, or Deep Archive for rarely-accessed compliance records, with options like Object Lock ensuring regulatory requirements are met. The service is particularly suited for long-term retention of patient records, media libraries, regulatory archives, and backup data that would otherwise require expensive on-premises storage.

Permalink

Performance Calendar » localStorage Read Performance

localStorage operations are orders of magnitude slower than reading from memory because they require disk access and inter-tab synchronization, making the performance cost substantial and variable depending on browser load. Rather than worrying about data size, the key optimization is minimizing the number of read operations—storing as much data as possible in single keys and caching values in memory reduces the cumulative expense of repeated getItem() calls.

Permalink

Moving your iTunes Library to a New Hard Drive

This guide explains how to properly move an iTunes library to a new location—whether to an external drive, secondary internal drive, or new computer—by distinguishing between the iTunes library database (the index file) and the iTunes Media folder (the actual content files). The key insight is that iTunes stores full file paths in its database, so manually moving files will break those links; instead, users should use iTunes' "Consolidate Files" feature, which copies files to the new location while updating the database references. The article also covers iTunes' distinction between "managed" files (stored in the iTunes Media folder and controlled by iTunes) and "referenced" files (stored elsewhere and merely pointed to by iTunes), explaining how this affects relocation options and whether users can preserve their own file organization.

Permalink

Speed Up Windows Vista: Use ReadyBoost

Vista's ReadyBoost feature uses USB flash drives to cache disk reads, speeding up random hard drive access without replacing RAM or improving gaming performance. The system encrypts cached data for security, and setup is automatic—just plug in a USB drive and select ReadyBoost from the detection menu, with Windows recommending an optimal cache size. While not equivalent to a RAM upgrade, ReadyBoost offers measurable performance gains for the minimal cost of a flash device.

Permalink