Many many hotels
In my life, I think I've stayed in 1000+ hotels, mainly when I travelled with work. I hate hotels with a passion and now never stay in them if there is an self catering apartment alternative. Anyway, my colleagues and I used to know a few techie tricks to make the weeks away slightly more bareable. Being networky types, we always had cables and toolkits etc and an infinite number of engineers sitting in a infinite number of hotel bedrooms for an infinite number of days will figure out most problems.

1. How to watch TV in the bath.

Never not accomplished this. Often, a simple realignment of the TV angle so that it can be seen from the bath - possibly via the bathroom mirror.

Advanced tip: Dismantle the wardrobe mirror and place in bathroom. 2 mirrors are always better because you invert the inverted image and then you can read the text.

BONUS TIP - the remote works generally if you bounce it off the mirrors.

EXTRA DOUBLE BONUS TIP - placement can be tricky. Dont sit in the bath and work out how to adjust the mirrors. Go to the TV, look from the point of view of the screen back through the mirrors until you can see the bath.

Advanced tip 2: Always take a decent length mains extension, and importantly - co-ax, with various male and female adapters. Move the TV into the bathroom and place on the bog, extending the cables as needed. Always works, but semi-dangerous.

Advanced tip 3: Flat mirrors halve the size of whatever youre looking at. Dont believe me? Its true, next time youre looking in a steamy mirror, trace round your face, then look at what you've drawn. Youre so used to looking at a mirror, you've forgotten that everything is halved. So two mirrors, and the image gets very small. Buy a magnifiying mirror - like the ones girls have for makeup, and improvise.

2. Watching pay movies for free.

In most hotels, to get the clunge movies, or just the regular pay movies, quite often they are there already on your telly, you just cant get to them.

The trick is that they are on channels you cant choose with the supplied remote control. ie the remote goes to 99, but the fanny starts at 100. Buy a universal remote and go crazy. Just takes some brute force to find what you want. Alternatively, google for IR senders and use your laptop's IR port if you have one.

3. Not so much a hack, more of a theft. Find an empty room in your corridor ( knock on with an excuse if necessary) and phone the hotel with your mobile. Call reception and asked to be put through to room service. Order, using the empty room number, and ask for it to be left outside the door. Generally, they dont tally the orders with the room until later, by which time you've grabbed it. Risky, and many hotels now are wise to this, but many arent. Its mostly foolproof, just dont display your mobile number. Its unlikely they'll call the pigs or anything.

Got loads more, just cant really be arsed to type anymore.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Fri 21 Aug 2009, 12:04, 2 replies)

on a similar note to this...
i always take a 2 phono lead and a scart adapter with me when away. One way or another, this will plug me into most tellies, at which point i can pop it onto AV and let my mp3 player spit out tunes to its heart's content.
( bluemeat has been best of all the animals since, Fri 21 Aug 2009, 12:26, closed)

Telly in the bath is awesome
One Relisys 17" widescreen TFT TV, some glass, a pair of weatherproof speakers, some cable and a lump hammer. I now have a telly at the foot of the bath, set behind a glass panel, with remote control (in an Aquapac so it floats) and most of the AV inputs brought out to a connection panel on the landing. Plug an Xbox 360 and HD DVD drive in on the landing and I can watch movies, too!

Oh, one thing though - when making the hole in the wall, don't drop the lump hammer in the bath, it tends to punch through. Still, replaced the bath with a Jacuzzi, so every cloud...
( eXOBeX, Fri 21 Aug 2009, 17:25, closed)