Posted by on January 18, 2012 No comments

Millions of Americans oppose SOPA and PIPA because these bills would censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S.
Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.


Take Action

    Source: Google

Profiles based on time schedules

Posted by on January 6, 2012 No comments

Its been awhile since I have posted on the site but I wanted to post this for you guys that have requested something for Android that allows you to create profiles on your devices.

Basically, Android doesnt give you the option for the phone to silence itself at a certain time of day or night. Sometimes you forget to silence the phone and head off to bed just to be wakened by a rogue email alert or  silly Facebook update. Thats annoying, right?

Some of you all have come from BlackBerry devices and have used profile options with BlackBerry phones and have requested me to search out and find the best way to have your new Android phone automatically switch profiles.

So, without further introduction..

“Profile” is a paid app that allows you to create custom profiles on your Android device. So for example, at 11:00PM I have my Android device set to automatically go to “silent” mode. I have also created profiles for work as well as when im driving (need a loud ringer due to the loud blaring music you know).

You can also have the app turn on and off, bluetooth and WIFI.

It’s a 1.99 for the app, its a small price to pay to have your sanity and peaceful sleep during the night!

to download, just search the Android Market from your device or click the following link . . 

 
Android Market Link

How-to: Backup your apps with “Listables”

Posted by on December 13, 2011 No comments

Hey guys, today I want to share with you a very nice app.

Have you ever dealt with the fact that you have to Factory Reset your Android device? Maybe during a software update or just for any other reason? Well, we all hate to lose our apps that we have installed and dread the fact that we have to manually download each one again.

Sure you could get a piece of paper and write down each app you have installed, or maybe you could just try to remember them.. right?

well that takes a lot of time and patience that I personally don’t have.

In comes Listables.

Listables is a free app download from the Android Market. Just head over to the Market and download the app and follow the directions below and you will have a list of the apps you have installed. The list will save to your SD Card and when you get ready to reinstall them, its a snap!

Check out the following and you be ever so grateful that you did!

 

Step 1 -

Download Listables from the Android Market:

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.alostpacket.listables&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5hbG9zdHBhY2tldC5saXN0YWJsZXMiXQ..

Step 2 -

Open the App and click Applications.

Step 3 -

Hit the “select all” button at the bottom of the screen.

 

Step 4 - 

Press the Menu key on your phone and select “Save”

Step 5 -

Now you will get a menu asking which format you would like to save the list in, choose XML.

Step 6 -

Here you get a Menu asking what you would like to name the file, just choose the button that says “OK”

 

Step 7 - 

Your finished backing up your list!

Now that you have your list generated, you can now wipe out the phone and start over fresh. Lets pretend you just got a new Android Phone and you want your apps from your old device.

Simply insert your SD Card from your old phone, into the new phone. Now go to the Android Market and reinstall Listables.

Step 8 -

to restore your apps, open Listables and choose “Applications”

Now Hit the menu key and choose “Load”

You will be greeted with a menu that says “load list”

Select the list that is most current, if its your only one.. just one will be listed.

Step 9 -

Click the list you wish to restore

 

Step 10 -

The app will then list all the apps that were in that backup.

To install the apps, just click each one and it will take you to the Android Market to reinstall the app!

After you download each one, press the “Back” button on your phone and it will return you to the Listables app and the list of apps you need to install.

 

Thats it folks, pretty straight forward and easy to do!

Now your back to normal, the only downfall is that the app doesn’t restore your data from each app. So if it was Angry Birds.. you will have to start over. Sorry!

 

Note: to see large images from the screenshots, click the image.

 

 

Android Market Movies Special

Posted by on November 30, 2011 No comments

Just wanted to write a quick post letting everyone know that Google is running a special right now, several movies in the Android Market are just 99 cents to rent!

Here are a few of the top titles right now:

Green Lantern Bridesmaids Fast Five

For those that don’t know, you can rent movies from the Android Market and watch them straight on your Android Powered Devices.

Android App: Number Guru

Posted by on November 27, 2011 No comments

Hey guys, have you ever had a number call you and didnt have a clue who was calling?

sure you can hope that they leave a voicemail and then maybe you can figure out who it was. Or, you could download a app called “Number Guru”.

Number Guru will allow you to easily identify who just called you, completely free!

Number Guru will allow you to lookup number from your call log and/or you can manually enter phone numbers and search. The app is very user friendly and quick. You can also see what other users are saying about the number. read spam reports and percentages of lookup’s for a particular number.

So instead of guessing, look it up!

 

to download Number Guru simply scan the following Barcode with your Android powered smartphone:

Less than stellar battery life with Android?

Posted by on November 16, 2011 No comments

So, you love your Android phone but not as happy with the battery life you are getting?

Battery Savings 101:

3G/4G data:

Data services on your smartphone drain a lot of battery. weak signal can really eat into your battery, keep a eye out on your signal strength and be sure you have a good steady signal.

Apps updating/syncing on schedule:

Many apps such as facebook, twitter, etc.. have options to update in the background on a timer. For example, Facebook. Facebook has a option in settings that says “Update every..” if you set that to update on a scheduled time it will drain some battery. Combine that with other apps and you will wind up with a big battery drainer.

I high recommend setting to a higher hourly update or simply having it set to “manual” update. Really why do you need the app updating while the screen is off and your not using it.. is Facebook really that important?

Bluetooth, GPS and WIFI:

These simple features that make our smartphones so great are also battery eaters.

If your not using Bluetooth then you should turn it off. Same goes for WIFI and GPS. WIFI and Bluetooth “scan” every so often to check for available devices and wireless high speed internet. These scans are on a very low interval, for example: WIFI scans every 15 seconds!

Screen Brightness:

Here is a good one folks, Most of your battery drain comes from the screen. It takes a lot of power to run the display on the phones now a days. The larger the screen the more power it uses.

If you think having it set to “auto brightness” is the best for battery you would be wrong.

Having Auto Brightness set to “ON” does not help as much as you think. Basically, when its set to “ON” the phone uses a sensor located on the front of the phone to “measure” ambient light around you. The sensor constantly measure ambient light and adjusts the screen brightness on the fly. This uses a reasonable amount of power and processor time on the phone.

I recommend adjusting the brightness manually, its really not that hard! You can even download a app from the market to make it really easy to do. See InvisiBright in the Android Market.

Apps:

Apps and lots of apps, having a bunch of apps on your phone can lead to battery issues. Some apps aren’t perfect so they are considered “Rogue” apps in my book. These apps can cause memory leaks. Memory leaks are issues that cause the phone to be “laggy” this can also result in causing battery drain.

In a nut shell, limit your apps. Do you really need all those apps on your phone? If you look at a app icon and answer the following question then you will get a better idea of what you dont really need on your phone: “Do I use that app often?”

If you look at a app icon and find that you dont use that app very often.. UNINSTALL IT! the more apps you have installed the less space that your phone has to “breathe” its just like a computer. If you have lots of programs on your PC it will be slow. If you have lots of apps on your Android phone.. it will be slow. Being slow makes the phone work harder to perform normal tasks. The harder the phone has to work, the worse the battery life on it.

 

 

So class, thats it for the session. Try some of the things i mentioned above and see if you dont realize that your battery life goes a lot further.

Thank me later ;-)

Just say NO to TaskKillers!

Posted by on November 10, 2011 No comments

Just say NO to Task Killers!

Its a bit difficult to explain and I will refrain from overwhelming you with the nerdy details. Just pay attention and you will understand..

In the early days of Android, the OS (operating system) wasnt the “well oiled machine” it should have been. Paired with low-end devices you would deal with some lag on the device and battery drain, etc.. overall your experience was less than desireable.

Android OS has a built-in task killer that you actually never see. The device was built to “kill” (or close) apps as needed. For example, you opened a couple apps and they took up some system resources. Then you turn around and open a app that required more resources than your phone had available. Android’s built-in task killer would close out (kill) the apps that you ran either (that were still running in the background).

That didn’t always work very well and you would experience the poor battery life and lag we mentioned earlier. So, to help out you was somehow informed about these “task killers” that “really helped” keep your phone operating smoothly.

Fast forward to today, we have more powerful devices and a more polished Android OS.

Todays phones have more computing power than some computers. The Android OS is more powerful and more polished as well.

Now when you run apps, they run more smoothly and Android maintains the device with a much better built-in task killer. Installing a “task killer” from the market on a new, more powerful device, will actually hurt your device more and burn more battery than before. I know some people will argue that installing a Task Killer on a new Android phone does help, it truely is a placebo effect. You just think that it really helps out and I PROMISE you this is far from the truth. Installing a Task Killer will only combat the built-in task manger and drain your resources and battery even more.

A Task Killer is a big NO-NO nowadays, If you are running one on your Android device right now take this challenge..

Remove the Task Killer from your phone. Let Android take control of your device and I promise you will notice a much smoother device and better battery life with less Force Close’s as well.

I can write a much more detailed and informative post about this and I will if you request it. Just trust me on this and remove the Task Killer now!

Want to read a few other highly recommended Blog articles about Task Killers? See the following links:
http://kschang.hubpages.com/hub/Android-OS-Task-Killer-beneficial-or-placebo-only
http://androidspin.com/2010/05/25/why-you-dont-need-a-task-killer-app-with-android/

 

Android App: Read It Later

Posted by on November 7, 2011 No comments

If your like me, you stumble upon sites and news articles from time to time that you really want to read. But what about articles you find while your in a hurry?

Bookmarking a webpage isn’t always the best option and its hard to remember the URL to the article or post. In comes Read it Later for Android.

With a very simple click of a “share” button you can opt to save it to “Read it Later”. If your setup with Read it Later you can even view saved content from your PC, Tablet, etc..

Read it later is super easy to use and is in my top 5 “must have” app list.

Information from Read it Later:

Description

One reading list, everywhere you are.Used by over 3.5 million people worldwide.

Read It Later lets you save any web page or video on your phone, tablet, or browser to view later – even offline – in an easy-to-read interface. It automatically syncs your queue across all your devices (Android, iPhone/iPad, Firefox, Chrome) making sure your content is always ready to view on the go, in the air, and at your leisure.

New York Times, Business Week, and TechCrunch call it the “DVR for the web.”
FEATURES:

VIEW CONTENT ONLINE or OFFLINE
Save full articles and videos for viewing later. Downloads the complete web page for magazine-like offline reading (video viewing online only).

FORMATS ARTICLES FOR EASIER VIEWING and READABILITY
The unique Article View captures article text, images, captions and videos in a uniform, easy-to-read format no matter where the article is from. You can adjust the text size, font, alignment and darkness for night-time reading.

WORKS EVERYWHERE
View and add articles or videos to your queue on any computer or mobile device. Save in any Android app with a share menu. Save directly from your computer with our browser extensions and bookmarklets found here: www.readitlater.com.

BEAUTIFUL AND SMART
You can search, sort, and even tag the items in your list. All of your read articles are archived so you can quickly dig up anything you read in the past. It remembers your scroll position so you can start reading exactly where you left off.

WHAT YOU GET IN PRO?
You’ll get some additional features like viewing your entire queue (no limits), easily search, sort, tag and archive content in queue, scroll with the volume rocker and a one touch rotation lock.

image

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Android App: 3G Watchdog

Posted by on November 5, 2011 No comments

In todays world of Mobile Devices we use a lot of data on our smartphones and most carriers limit your data to a certain amount. Typically wireless carriers limit you to 2GB, 4GB or 5GB of data.

To put this in terms that you can easily understand and answer some questions about “just how much can I use my device without costly overage charges” I recommend a app called 3G Watchdog.

3G Watchdog will measure and monitor your usage and display it to you so that you can always be aware of where you are in your data usage for the current bill cycle.

Information from 3G Watchdog:

Description

3G Watchdog.Guarding you against costly Internet overages.3G Watchdog data counter monitors your Mobile Internet (3G/Edge/GPRS) data usage, shows a status icon (green/orange/red) in the notif bar and a detailed report page. Widget (2 sizes). And much more!

Just install the app and answer a couple simple questions about your bill cycle date and how much data you are given from your wireless carrier and your pretty much set. You can also customize the app to alert you when you are close to using all your data.

QRCode to Android Market

Android App: Pulse News

Posted by on November 5, 2011 No comments

   If your like me you enjoy staying up to date with the latest news from your favorite sites around the internet. When your on the go its hard to do. But now with Pulse News app for Android you can keep up with all your favorite RSS news feeds in a very easy to use and pleasing app called Pulse News.

Pulse News makes it simply to stay connected on all your devices. Pulse.Me is a feature that allows a single login and password that you can use on all your wireless devices to sync your favorite feeds.

I use Pulse News on my Android Tablet, Phone and even my PC.

As a long time user of Pulse News, I highly recommend this app to you if you want to stay connected.

Information from Pulse News:

Features

  • Dual view: For each article on Pulse News, you can switch between a clean text summary of the article or go to the website directly. When you tap on an article, both are ready to view, almost instantly!
  • Dashboard: With the dashboard layout, you can continue to browse news stories on Pulse as you read an article.
  • Offline sync: No internet? No problem. Pulse loads the news stories you read, and makes it available wherever you are.
  • Integration with Google Reader: Pulse News allows you to directly import all your RSS feeds from Google Reader. The stories you read on Pulse will be marked as read on Google Reader. Stories you star in Pulse, will be starred in Google Reader.
  • Easy share: Found an interesting news article? Sharing a news story on Pulse via Facebook, Twitter, Instapaper, Read it Later, Evernote or email is simple.
  • Save stories: For users who want to bookmark their favorite stories, Pulse.me offers a simple archive for favorites found across the Pulse platform. For users that don’t have time to finish reading a story, tapping the star button will save the story for later. Saved stories will be synced across your account on any device and the web.
  • News discovery: Pulse features new content every week. You can also search for a news source by simple keywords. You can add up to 60 news sources in Pulse.
  • Smooth transitions: No getting lost in applications as you rotate your Android device. Special care has been taken to maintain consistency between Landscape and Portrait views.
  • Stay up to date: Want to read the latest news as soon as its published? With a single tap, you can refresh all your news sources instantly without ever leaving the application.

 

QRCode to Pulse Website and Download link: