So, I am lame. I am writing about replacing an obsolete device with an obsolete device, but I did a pretty extensive search–no luck. Anyway, there seem to be plenty of 3G owners out there that did not recycle their originals. If you are like me and you don’t want to ‘spring for the goods’ until you are sure that a newer, shinier, cleaner iPhone is coming down the pike, substituting another Original may be a good short term solution.

1. Make sure to get a really good backup of your current iPhone by syncing with iTunes.

2. On the replacement phone follow these steps: Settings > General > Reset > Erase all Content and Settings on your original iPhone. FYI-this takes a stupid amount of time. When the iPhone says 1 hour to erase it means 1 hour. Watching the progress bar move is akin to watching a seed germinate.

3. After the erase completes, eject the SIM card out of your original iPhone.

4. Insert SIM card into the replacement iPhone.

5. Plug the replacement iPhone into the computer that contains your last good backup of your original iPhone.

6. Follow the prompts as if you are setting up a new iPhone. Most of the pertinent prompts should be populated from the SIM card. You will be prompted to enter your zip code, last four of social, and iTunes credentials.

7. Finally, you will be presented with an activation screen. At first, I backed away from this because it looks like you are creating a new account, but click submit.

8. After the phone is activated, you will be prompted to either setup a new iPhone or restore from a previous backup. Restore from the last good backup that you made in step 1.

Cheers to being cheap! Now, watch Apple is going to annouce this tomorrow.

Okay, I have to start this post by giving credit to an unnamed origami-ist that sat several rows in front of me on a flight from San Diego several weeks ago. Whoever you are, nice work.

In the eternal quest of being lazy innovative, we Americans are always spending more energy to do less work seeking ways to improve our exerted effort. But, seriously, holding an iPhone for a feature length presentation is just ridiculous (pinkies cramping, carpal tunnel, you get the picture). This little hack is an easy way to create an iPhone holder on the airplane with products available in the seat in front of you.

First, reach in the pocket of the seat in front of you and pick your favorite publication to deface (SkyMall, US Airways, etc., try not to use the emergency information card that might be equivalent to saying the b word on the plane).

Tear off the front or rear cover of the publication being careful to tear neatly and cleanly. Try to pick the best picture of the four sides (front cover, front inside cover, rear cover, rear inside cover) as you will see this periphery of this page is visible during your feature.

Place the chosen side on the tray table and fold lengthwise.

Lay your iPhone in the “pocket” with the screen on, so that you can see which section of the cover needs to be removed. You can mark on the paper or just use landmarks on the page to determine the “window” for your movie. Fold the cover to mark the perimeter of the “window.”

Folding the page in half, tear out the window along folded lines.

Now insert the iPhone into the folded sleeve.

Finally, attach the assembled holder to the seat in front of you by turning the tray table lock down to hold the folded paper.

Voila you have a perfectly respectable handsfree iPhone movie viewer that didn’t cost a dime (unless you checked a bag).