Xbox controllers can be a bit of a pain to keep track of. Here are three tips to help you keep them in check:

  1. Keep your controllers in a cool place—the summer is the perfect time for heatstroke. Place your controllers in an air-tight container or bag, and store them in the fridge or freezer.
  2. Make sure your computer is cool—the summer can be quite warm on computers. If you have an air-conditioning unit, turn it on and leave your controllers at the side of the room while you work on other tasks.
  3. Scan your controllers—this is a great way to keep track of how many games you’ve played and how many hours you’ve spent on them. Use a software like GameMaker Studio to create custom controller designs or scan images of your controllers from online sources like Amazon or eBay.

Once a week we round up some great reader tips from the tips box and reader comments, and share the with the rest of you. This week we’re looking at an alternate way to control Xbox controller in Windows, how to keep your computer cool in the summer heat, and how to build a power DIY book scanner.

Control Xbox Controllers with Joy2Key

Srivatsan shared the following tip in the comments on our How to Use an Xbox 360 Controller On Your Windows PC guide:

That’s certainly a viable alternative to the $10 pricetag on Xpadder (although we’re such big fans of Xpadder and the general quality and user-friendliness of the app, we’re happy to support the one-man shop behind it). Thanks for sharing!

Keep Your Computer Clean to Drop the Operating Temperature

Mark writes into the Tips Box with the following tip:

We can’t say we’re surprised! We’ve solved overheating problems on more than a few desktop machines over the years by blasting away the 1/2” layer of dust bunny insulation on the hardware. A clean computer is a happy and better cooled computer.

Build a DIY Book Scanner

Uri writes in with this DIY book scanning project:

We’ve had one of these book scanners on our future DIY project list for ages, this might just push us over into starting work on it. Thanks Uri!

Have a tip or trick to share? Shoot us an email at tips@howtogeek.com and look for your tip on the front page!