The Best Ways to Listen to Music on Your Android

May 31st, 2011 Admin No Comments »

Dragging around an MP3 player and a phone in your pocket or briefcase these days just seems silly. There are plenty of applications available for Android that can turn your smartphone into a fully fledged jukebox, even if you don’t have much space left available on your SD card or internal memory. Whether it’s radio or streaming you’re looking for, Android has apps to help you rock out wherever you are or whatever mood you’re in.

Pandora:

Pandora is an internet radio streaming service that’s gotten damn good at determing what it is you like listening to and playing more just like it. Pandora works by creating customized stations around a certain band or artist. Pandora plays a song for you from that artist, and based on the thumbs up or thumbs down you give to the song, it bases future plays on your decision. Each song has the ability to be favorite, disliked, or skipped.

These decisions help Pandora really hone in on what you like and don’t like. For an internet radio service, it’s quite possibly the best in the business.

Grooveshark:

At the time of writing, the Grooveshark app is currently out of service. There is rumor that it will be making a return sometime very soon, and that makes us excited. Grooveshark for Android lets you search for anything you want to hear while on the go. Hear a song in the store that you want to jam out to in your car? Search for it on Grooveshark and let it rip. Grooveshark also has customized radios, similar to Pandora, that play songs similar to the one you were already listening to. With apps like Grooveshark that let you build playlists of any songs you want, there’s no need to even have a music library on your phone.

Subsonic:

Tired of not being able to listen to that mountain of MP3s you have on your home computer while you’re out and about? Subsonic fixes that problem. A simple application install on your home computer provides instant access to your entire music collection from your smartphone. The Subsonic app is easy to install on your phone and provides you with the ability to play almost any music formats (including obscure ones like OGG and FLAC) streamed directly from your home computer to your phone. Subsonic is just like having your massive iPod with you, but on your phone. The desktop application interface could do with a little redesigning, but otherwise, it’s a fantastic app.

Songbird:

Lastly, if you’re looking to keep things “old fashioned” and want to play music directly from your phone without using the somewhat shabby preinstalled music player, give Songbird a try. The simple and streamlined look makes browsing your music easy, and with Flickr integration, automatically pulling photos of the band and album from Flickr as you listen to a song, we think Songbird may be our favorite music player out that lets us play tunes straight from our SD cards.

Top 5 Apps for Android

May 21st, 2011 Admin No Comments »

New apps are added to the Android marketplace on a daily basis, meaning that it can be difficult to sift through them all and determine what the best apps for your personal productivity actually are. Below, you will find a list of the top 5 apps currently available for Android to help get the most out of your smartphone.

Google Goggles:

It’s an app like Google Goggles that can really make you realize how far modern technology has come in the past few years. Google Goggles allows users to take photographs of historical monuments, business cards, products, and even landmarks and through the Google search engine, gives all relevant information about a product that a user might need. In a restaurant and would like to know the history of the Heinz ketchup bottle sitting next to your plate? Google Goggles has you covered.

Dropbox:

If you have Dropbox installed on your home computer, you probably already know the ease of use of being able to automatically sync your files between computers. With dropbox on your Android phone, you can automatically have access to all of the files that were updated on your home computer without having to work your way through the complicated process of emailing files to yourself or syncing them via an SD card.

TripIt:

For travelers out there, TripIt is an indispensable resource. TripIt allows users to forward their confirmation emails for flights, rental cars, and hotels to their TripIt account and have the app automatically organize everything you need to know about your travel plans in this easy to use app. That means that instead of fumbling around with crumpled papers in your briefcase or backpack, your smartphone can be your personal organizer and keep you on track for flights, cars, and travel plans no matter how frequently you travel.

Shazam:

We’ve all had those moments where we’re standing in the grocery store, or sitting in the car, listening to a song that we can’t quite figure out who it’s by. Shazam allows you to simply hold your smartphone in the air and let the song play into the microphone. Shazam looks through its endless database of songs and tells you the name and information of the song that you’re hearing. Truly remarkable and helpful for those moments when you can’t just Google the lyrics or ask your friend if they remember who it’s by either.

Barcode Scanner:

The real beauty behind Android’s ability to recognize things like barcodes and products is the ability to save money while you’re shopping in the store. The barcode scanner lets you scan barcodes, and in an instant, you are redirected to the web where you can find deals, reviews, and information about the product you’re looking at. This is a great way to figure out if the store you’re in has a huge markup, or if it’s worthwhile to take the plunge and buy from the traditional brick and mortar you’re in.

Learn English Reading JFK Gives You The Power To Make Language Come Alive!

May 20th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

If there’s one gift that truly keeps on giving, it would definitely have to be the gift of education. Indeed, learning is something that we all need to continue doing in order to really take advantage of everything that life has to offer. Now, you might come to a point where you really do need to think about other skills that you need to develop. For example, if you know that your English isn’t the best or you want to grow in the language, you need to pick up some English lessons.

Of course, this is pretty obvious. Why wouldn’t you want to speak better English and grow your vocabulary? That’s not to say that your home language isn’t beautiful — but there’s a certain power in learning English well.

Now, we’re all about things Android around here, and we feel there’s no reason to not combine the power of the Android platform with great software and your desire to really learn a new skill. As we looked around for software that would meet our needs, we stumbled across Learn English Reading JFK.

Strange name? Not really — it describes exactly what you’re going to do. You might have heard this before — in order to really learn how to speak English well, you will need to make sure that you actually learn English from a source that is not only timeless, but will help you understand some idioms and other “quirks” about the English language. It will make you sound more natural as an English speaker, which most people learning English as a second language dream about anyway.

The app allows you to pull upon the power of audiobooks in order to learn English in a more natural way. What better source material can you think of that could compare to JFK’s famous inaugural speech?

There is a built-in dictionary, as well as flashcard technology. Now it’s easier than ever before to reinforce English lessons without feeling like you’re going backwards.

These days, English is the language of business and even style — so why wouldn’t you arm yourself with a free app like Learn English Reading JFK? Check it out — you might just learn a thing or two!

Android Task Managers

May 19th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

The best part about the Android operating system is the lower level access that it provides to users. Unfortunately, many users that utilize this feature to use applications like task managers and task killers use them in order to stop applications in hopes that it will make their phone work more efficiently. In reality, ending programs that you think are “unnecessary” on your Android phone can lead to problems and ultimately does nothing for the performance of the phone. Let’s take a look at why.

Linux

Android is essentially built on a Linux architecture. The way that Linux handles memory usage is much different than a standard Windows PC. Whereas in a Windows based operating system the more programs you have running, the more sluggish your machine. Ending some of these programs to free up memory on a PC is generally a good thing, as it allows for faster memory access. In Linux however, more available memory does not necessarily mean more speed. Linux manages memory much differently than a PC and freeing up more of it has no effect on performance. That means that using 20 megabytes of memory or 150 megabytes of memory in a Linux based operating system yields the same performance for all of the applications running. Unused memory is just memory that could be doing something useful for you.

Built In Task Manager

The downloadable task managers that are available to manage applications don’t do much more than the Android operating system does by itself. By default, whenever Android needs extra memory for another application, it will automatically end other programs to allow itself to operate. In addition to that, whenever an application is finished performing the tasks it needs to complete, Android automatically ends that application to free up the memory for the next task in line, meaning no user input is needed.

Ending Programs Preemptively

Another issue that you can run into when using 3rd party task managers is ending programs before they need to be closed. Most often, programs are open for a reason. By ending a process because you want to free up memory could halt a necessary task that was running in the background. This means that in order for the task to complete, the program will have to start over from scratch and use even more time the next time it needs to run.

It may also be important to note that ending processes on Android using an app that kills all running processes could affect the phone itself. Ending processes that you are unsure of their function could lead to you not receiving phone calls, text messages, or voicemail properly. It’s best to leave Android to do what it does best; manage memory. Google wouldn’t have released an operating system that couldn’t effectively manage memory and was best left to end users to figure out how best to control the innards of their phone. Microsoft on the other hand….

Google Nexus S Phone Review

April 20th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

Price: $529.99 no contract
Contract price TBD.

Battery:

The Google Nexus S is one of the newest phones to hit the market, and it definitely shows. The criticisms about the Android series of phones are hardly present when you really look at the specs on the Nexus S. For example, you have a phone here with a battery life of about 428 hours in standby mode, and 6 hours of talk time. That’s pretty lengthy compared to say, the BlackBerry Bold or even the new Torch.

Memory and Processor Speed:

There’s a lot of power in the Google Nexus S, and you only need to look at the process and memory to see what’s up. Indeed, this phone has a great set of processor and memory chops, from the 1Ghz Cortex A8 processor. From the memory side of things, you have a 16GB flash memory onboard, which gives you plenty of room for just about everything you can think of. Now, you don’t have external memory capabilities, but the 16GB should give you everything that you need — really.

Screen:

The screen is really where the Nexus S shines through. You have a 4″ WVGA screen with 480×800 resolution — not too shabby. Add in the fact that you have Super AMOLED on your side, and you can rest assured that you’ll be able to watch plenty of movies — you can even turn the screen into landscape mode to watch your videos in style. After all, you do have 16GB to use as you see fit!

It’s a touchscreen to the core, which might please some fans and turn away others. If you haven’t had a touchscreen before, try this phone before you decide the touchscreen format just isn’t your cup of tea, okay? You just might like it!

Form:

The form is more or less the standard smartphone — thin, flat, squished candybar style. It’s wide — 63mm x 123.9mm x 10.88mm, but it’s definitely light at just 129g. This means that if you’re worried about breaking it, you might want to make sure that you actually keep it close to you on a belt or in a holster.

Camera:

If there’s one thing that smartphone fans demand, it’s a great camera. One of the things that the Nexus S tried to do was have not only one camera, but two cameras. There’s a back-facing camera to take pictures of just about everything the world has to offer. There’s also a front facing camera for those self portraits that everyone likes to post on Facebook. It’s so much easier to capture that stuff with the front-facing camera.

If you thought that you wouldn’t get video recording, you might want to think again — you actually have plenty of video recording power to play with. The cameras boast flash and auto focus, meaning that you actually might be able to take some good pictures!

Other Features:

Quad-band GSM power — 850, 900, 1800, 1900
Wi-Fi
Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
Near Field Communication
Assisted GPS
microUSB 2.0
Android 2.3 Gingerbread

Comments:

There is definitely an audience for this phone, and you shouldn’t feel bad if you don’t fit into that audience. It’s really hard to look at a phone and think “Oh yeah, I want that” if it doesn’t meet your needs 100%.

This was a phone that had a huge hype, and a lot of people feel that the hype just doesn’t match the phone. Early reviews were quick to point out the lack of expandable memory. An SD card might have saved the day, but the Google team decided to skip over it. This is going to be a phone that’s hot with the teen set and other people that are new to touchscreens.

If you’re thinking about this phone because you want to get in to the Android craze, you are in good company. It wouldn’t be a bad phone for that purpose, as long as you realize the high and low points of the phone.

Overall, we like the Google Nexus S, but we think that a few firmware updates and maybe an overall hardware update to accommodate expandable memory might be just what the doctor ordered!

Rule the Open Road with 5 Android Apps for Your Car

April 13th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

Ah, the open road — is there really anything like it? If you’re a huge road geek and an Android user at the same time, you’re really in for a treat — there are plenty of Android apps to choose from. Instead of worrying about how to really maximize your trip experiences, you will just need to think about getting the right apps on your Android phone.

Not sure what apps to even think about? You’re in luck — we picked out 5 Android apps that are definitely designed to rock the house — err, car.

1. Vlingo

Staying safe on the road means going handsfree — you’re not dreaming of holding that phone to your ear, are you? Really? After all of the news…well, never mind. In a nutshell, Vlingo basically lets your hands stay on the steering wheel and your voice does the heavy lifting. It can look up companies for you, as well as take notes and send text messages for you as well. Your mileage will vary a bit at the beginning, since you have to train it a bit to get it to work. However, Vlingo still makes the top spot because who doesn’t want to be as safe as possible in the car?

2. GasBuddy

Unless you’re running one of those modified fuel tanks in your car, you need gasoline — sweet crude oil gasoline, we mean. Call it what you want, if you run out of it, you’re going to really be up a creek without a …well, you know what we mean. GasBuddy is free and it lists all the nearby gas stations using your location. You can get details about each and every station so that you’re not making the mistake of visiting a station that doesn’t exist anymore. Now that would be a real drag.

3. Wardrive

A geek and their Wi-Fi are hard to part — but if you’re a real road warrior, you might have a hard time finding that sweet, sweet, wireless access. Don’t worry — just use Wardrive! It’s a sweet Android app that tells you exactly where your next Wi-Fi hotspot is. You can then drive to it or just hover around it — whichever won’t get you thrown in jail, of course. Read the rest of this entry »

7 Sizzling Android Apps for Photographers

April 6th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

It’s said that when you have a great camera, the entire world opens up to you, just begging to be captured. OK, so that might just be the battle phrase of the truly passionate photographers, but what’s wrong with that? When you know that you really want to get the most out of taking pictures, you tend to look at anything that’s going to help you achieve this goal.

Most shutterbugs tend to be pretty tech savvy, but you still may not realize that the new Android phone you picked up can actually do some neat camera stuff as well. Of course, you’re not going to compose your next prize-winning photo on your cell phone, but you can explore pictures in a way that definitely goes beyond the stock abilities of your camera.

There are plenty of Android apps out there for photographers, but here are 7 of the most sizzling Android apps for photographers.

1. PHOforPHO

Who doesn’t like a free app? After all, you’ve probably spent good money for your Android phone, so it doesn’t hurt to have something that you can just add quickly to your phone to really improve your camera experience.

However, PHOforPHO is for people that already have mastered the basics of photography. If you need a program that will help you manage your SLR, this is definitely the app for you. What it actually does is

2. CamCalc

Another freebie Android app, and boy, what a freebie this one is! You can actually pick up CamCalc and instantly handle those little calculations every serious shutterbug needs to handle when you want to nail the perfect shot. If you find yourself on the road a lot with your “serious” camera and your phone at the same time, you’ll find that this is really a lifesaver.

3. Camera Magic

If you’re the type of person that isn’t impressed by the standard camera on cell phones, you’ll actually be impressed by Camera Magic. Instead of using the default camera, you will get a camera that also has true digital zoom as well as autofocus — great features that can help you really bring out the best in just about any picture you take. There are also plenty of filters available for you to use, making this choice a real winner for just about anyone that seriously wants to take some awesome pictures while they’re out experiencing the best that life has to offer. Read the rest of this entry »

Pulse News Reader

March 29th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

Pulse News Reader is a free app that allows you to easily keep up with news and your RSS feeds. The big draw for this app is that it easily integrates with your current Google Reader account and feeds. The unique tiled display of news items is a great alternative to the standard list type presented by most RSS reader apps including the official Google Reader app from Google.

A single tap on a news item in Pulse News Reader will open the article up in an easy to read, specifically formatted for mobile, format. You can change this option if you want to have a single tap open the item on the website in your browser, but for most websites, the mobile formatted text makes them much easier to read on your phone or tablet. If you’re using the first item viewing option, then you can even pinch-zoom or double-tap zoom to make the font sizes larger or smaller. Pulse has also recently added a feature to sync with your Facebook links feed. So, when someone shares a link on Facebook, it can appear in your “pulse”, and you can view it just like any of your other RSS items. Sharing items with Facebook, and even Twitter, is also super easy to do, as it only requires two taps, one to select share, and one to select where.

A great thing about Pulse is that it is very easy to use, and even comes with a tutorial should you feel the need to watch it. The app comes with many built in sources, but makes it easy to remove them and add other ones if you want to. The interfaces are all clean and polished, and make performing any task you want simple. There is even a customizable widget that comes with the app, which is basically a smaller version of the full app, depending on how you set it up.

With easy to use browsing features, searching features, and sharing features, Pulse News Reader does more than its name implies, and does it all well. It’s surprising to see an app as polished as this freely available on the Android Market that isn’t created by Google. This is a must have for people who follow many RSS feeds and want an easy way to read them all on their mobile Android Device.

Google Chrome to Phone

March 16th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

Google Chrome to Phone is a must have Android app from Google for anyone who uses Chrome as their regular browser on their computer. The app works in conjunction with the Chrome extension to send links straight to your phone. It will also work with a Firefox extension called Send to Phone, but as of now, users of other browsers are out of luck.

The features offered by this app make it very convenient to have. Specific links sent from the computer will even open up in their appropriate apps on your Android device. For instance, a links from Google Maps will open up in the Google Maps app, YouTube links will open up in the YouTube app (whether or not the video will actually play is a different story, because some videos have been marked as not playable on mobile devices). You can even copy a phone number off a website and send it straight to the dialer. Other useful features include copying text in your browser and sending it to your Android device’s clipboard, and of course the main feature, opening up full web pages on your device’s browser straight from your computer’s browser.

As mentioned before, Chrome and Firefox are the only two browsers supported by this free Android app right now, but look for more to jump on the bandwagon in the future. With all of the major browsers now supporting some type of extension system, it’s only a matter of time before users create extensions to communicate with this app so that they can use their favorite browser with it. Also, if you aren’t at least running Android 2.2 yet, you’re out of luck along with the non-Chrome and non-Firefox users, as it requires FroYo or a later version of the Android Operating System.

If you have Chrome or Firefox, Chrome to Phone from Google is a must have. Whether it’s full web pages, parts of them, phone numbers, videos, or maps, Chrome to Phone has you covered in an easy to use fashion. One simple log in to your Gmail account is all it takes for the sharing to begin.

CalWidget

March 15th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

Let’s face it, the default calendar widget that comes with Android leave a lot to be desired, especially for people who rely on using the app. Enter CalWidget from Egg ‘n Stone, a full replacement for the default calendar widget that hooks right into the calendar and offers a ton of customization options, and will display more than one upcoming event.

CalWidget is simply a widget, but that doesn’t mean it’s simple. This free app is far from simple, coming in many different sizes ranging from 2×1 to 4×4. You can also choose which calendars show up in the widget, in case you are syncing multiple ones. You can even have a widget for each if you want. Other customization options include how the date is displayed, which colors are used, and how far ahead the widget will display events. The default is one month, but if you really rely on using your calendar, I doubt this widget will be displaying events that far in advance, unless you are on a tablet, then it might be able to reach a month.

There really are no cons at all for this free Android app. The only complaint one could make is that the customization menus are not pretty, but they get the job done quite fine. Egg ‘n Stone (an odd sounding developer name) has produced a much needed calendar replacement widget that is a must have for anyone who makes use of their calendar on their Android device. CalWidget does everything it needs to very well including displaying events in a very easy to read fashion, and doesn’t try to do anything else. There are no ads at all, and nothing to detract from the app in any way shape or form. CalWidget is just a great free app for Android.

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