For $20, this moisture-absorbing bag of magic beads claims to be 700 percent more effective than rice, and faster than silica gel (which is what some other device-drying products use). All you do is remove your device's battery (if possible), drop the gadget in the bag, seal it up, then go to bed. When you wake up, your device should emerge dry as a bone--and, with luck, fully functional. (There are no guarantees, but water doesn't always mean a death sentence for small electronics. Once the moisture is gone, it should perk right up again.)
I haven't tried a Bheestie Bag myself, as I've managed to keep my phones and other gadgets from taking unintended swims. But (where the Bheestie sells for $18) are extremely favorable.
The catch, of course, is that you really need to buy one in advance, keeping it on hand just in case of water damage. Still, if you're the accident-prone type, you might be better off spending $20 now than hundreds later to replace your device.
Reader Fred wants to know if a laptop hard drive can be plugged into a desktop PC. "The pin out appears to be the same," he notes, "but there is no separate power-supply connector."
Short answer: yes. Long answer: it depends on a few things. For starters, Fred, you neglected to tell me what kind of drive it is--IDE or SATA--or what kinds of drive(s) you have in your desktop.
However, you did give me a clue. Because there's "no separate power-supply connector," that means it's most likely a 2.5-inch IDE drive. (Newer SATA drives for laptops have the same interface and power connectors as their larger desktop counterparts.)
If I'm right, you can use your laptop drive inside your desktop--but you'll need an adapter. Fortunately, they're cheap; Newegg, for example, has the for just $5 shipped. It includes the necessary Molex adapter for connecting to your desktop power supply.
However, your desktop might not have a drive bay that can accommodate a 2.5-inch drive. If that's the case, there are adapters available.
Or you might consider an easier and more versatile solution: an enclosure that turns your old internal laptop drive into an external USB drive. That not only saves you from having to tinker around inside your desktop, but also gives you a drive you can easily use with multiple PCs.
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