NCAA Tournament March Madness app review - using newspaper and pencil much easier

I have four different brackets for the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament. That's not a lot, but it can keep you busy trying to follow all the games the old fashioned way by printing out your bracket and circling the winners. Surely Android must have a nice simple way to fill in your brackets and keep them updated for you, so I'll have more time to find other things to waste my time with.

So let's go find one.

First stop (from initial Google search) is NCAA March Madness Live for Android, the Official issue from Turner Sports Interactive, Inc. I just downloaded it, even though the average rating is 1.8.

If the OFFICIAL app sucks, I hold out little hope.

8: 10 a.m. Okay, got it. Now, let's check it out together.

Today is the Friday (March 16th) after the first full day of tournament play. I have four brackets on the desk in front of me. Can this app help me keep track of things?

8:11 a.m. Open app and check it out. First thing, I clicked the Bracket button. Why? I don't know. Because I want to see if I can load my own bracket picks.

Okay, that shows me a bunch of blank spaces for the second round and no discernible way to fill them in.

Oh wait, there's a button for My Bracket. Clicked on it: FORCE CLOSE.

Okay, sucking pretty bad on my Thunderbolt.

After restarting, it asks me for my login and password. I don't have one. Hmmm. And I don't see anywhere on this screen to register. Okay, close that window.

Oh, goodie. Some scores on the screen. Okay, at least I can see all the games and final scores by scrolling one screen. But, since I don't want to spend much more time, the easiest thing is to just pull out my print-outs and do the circling thing. Not a big advantage over doing it online, but more mobile.

8:22 a.m. Okay, rather than go through all of the games right now, I'll explore a little more. I clicked on the My Bracket link and was taken to a website which stated that the site was closed for new registrations, but I could log into my CBS Sports account by visiting the CBS website and logging in. Fortunately, two of my brackets are with CBS Sports.

8:24 a.m. Heading to CBSSports.com on my Android. Okay, right there, on the front page of the regular, old CBS Sports home page are all the scores from last night. So far, I don't need their app for anything. But maybe if I can make CBSSports.com talk to the app and let it know about my picks and keep me updated, that will be good.

8:29 a.m. Okay, really annoying bracket interface and I see nowhere that I can sign in to see my own brackets.

8:30 a.m. Giving up and move on to something else. I'll probably use the app to update my paper brackets, but this March Madness Android app was unable to grab my attention and smoothly guiding me through set-up and features.

Not a fan.

I'm thinking 1.8 is being generous.

READ MORE - NCAA Tournament March Madness app review - using newspaper and pencil much easier

Instagram is coming to Android and I don't care. Box cloud storage is a must have app.

Instagram coming to Android. Big whoop why?

The big announcement that the iPhone app of the year is soon to be available for Android Smartphone users. Somehow, I'm missing the excitement of this.

I visited the Instagram web site and their home page offers the following information:


It’s a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures.
Snap a photo with your iPhone, choose a filter to transform the look and feel, send to Facebook, Twitter or Flickr – it’s all as easy as pie. It’s photo sharing, reinvented.
Oh yeah, did we mention it’s free?

There has to be more to this that meets the eye but their website doesn't offer it up. Nothing in that introduction gives me anything more than what I'm already doing. Android already has lots of really cool apps to edit and transform photos, and sharing them on Twitter or Facebook is also just a click or two away. Seriously, am I missing something?

Box app cloud storage app not improves and simplifies.

Free cloud storage: good. Very good.

If you have an active online life (computer, smartphone, photography, social networking), then you hopefully know how important it is to back up all your stuff. Awful things can happen. Your hard drive fries; you lose your SD card; your Smartphone gets stolen; some idiot with a crappy TV show in Las Vegas mistakenly reports you to Google and YouTube for stealing their video content when in fact the content was yours to begin with and they were essentially using it with your permission but Google didn't question the dufus ass and cancels your associated accounts (Google and YouTube) making all of your emails and videos inaccessible forever. Do I sound bitter about that last one? :)

The point is, you don't want to lose your history because, at some time in the future, you may want to revisit a lot of that stuff.

A few years ago I sort of  created my own cloud-like universe with the help of Gmail. Since they give you so much free space on a standard account (currenly more than 8 gig if I'm not mistaken), I just started emailing all of my digital stuff to myself which I could then access from anywhere that had Internet access. That works very well unless it's actually Gmail who shuts down your account, then you're screwed.

Flash drives became very helpful in my back-up life, but now my backpack has about 15 or 20 of them (2 gig to 16 gig) stuffed in a pocket and there really isn't any way to identify what's on them until you plug them in and look. Annoying!

Then, I discovered A-Drive, a free online storage, cloud site which give you 50 gig of space for free. I love it, and sometimes actually remember to upload to it.

Enter Box. Box is an online and Smartphone app which allows you to access your cloud from your desktop, laptop and Android device (or Blackberry and iPhone). They also give you 50 gig.

What makes using Box over ADrive (or many of the cloud storage sites) better is convenience. The app that you download on your device (iPhone or Android) makes it easy to upload on the fly, and if you want to do multiple files at once, you just log into your account on your desktop/laptop and upload away.

With Box you can also allow access to others and they can download and add to your folder.

A feature that I love is about the mobile app is that you can upload multiple files to your Box cloud at once. Here's how you do it: Open the folder which contains the files you want to upload (pics, music, docs, whatever). Then click on the Menu and select Share. Choose Box (download the app first, of course) and then check off the boxes you want to upload.

I'm sure there are many other applications for this application. I'll have to start thinking outside the Box.

READ MORE - Instagram is coming to Android and I don't care. Box cloud storage is a must have app.

App Development Tips & Tricks

Here's a few tips and tricks in developing Android apps using Eclipse.

1. Don't try to run a project while you've got an XML file open and active - Eclipse will create an *.out.xml file and fail to run. Delete the out.xml, close (or make inactive) the XML file you had open, then run the project again.

2. Eclipse usually rebuilds a project when you edit any aspect of it. but it will only recreate the apk file when you run it in the emulator (or on an attached device). If you want the recreate the apk without having to run (as I do sometimes when I've made minor changes and I just want to update the apk) there's an option in Eclipse for that: in Eclipse --> Preference, search for Build. You'll see Android-->Build, and uncheck the Skip Pacakging... option.

3. If you don't use a version/source control system, you can revert to a previous version of code by using the Local History option. Right-click a file within a project and choose Replace With --> Local History and browse for the file. Otherwise install something like Subversion.

READ MORE - App Development Tips & Tricks

Calibrate your battery for extended life - should work on Android, iPhone or Blackberry Smartphones

Ever since getting my HTC Thunderbolt 4G I've been battling to figure out ways to extend my battery life. I've covered a number of those issues and alleged solutions here, including: Juice Defender and turning off 4G. Both are pretty effective, but when you have a fast processer in a tiny phone it's still gonna suck the power quickly.

The most effective thing to do is simply change your Smartphone lifestyle and keep a charger with you everywhere you go. Even so, you might find yourself out of juice. In that case I strongly recommend getting a Duracell Instant USB Charger with Lithium ion battery / includes universal cable with USB and mini USB, or another such device. That way you don't need any other power source.

Another way to help your battery hang in there longer according to some "experts" is to calibrate your battery on a monthly basis. I'm not sure if it's effective yet, but it's worth a try. Here's what you do:

1) Turn your phone ON, charge it until fully charged (the light turns green, or goes off, or whatever your phone does).
2) Unplug your phone from the charger and turn it OFF. Immediately plug it back in (with the phone OFF) and charge it to full charge again. This usually takes less than one hour.
3) Unplug your phone and turn it ON. Once it is fully booted, wait two minutes and turn it OFF.
4)  Plug it back in, charge until fully charged again. (Again, it won't take too long.)
5) Unplug the phone, turn it ON and see how things work out.

Let me know how it works for you.

READ MORE - Calibrate your battery for extended life - should work on Android, iPhone or Blackberry Smartphones

Top 10 or so Android Apps

I was asked for my recommendations on the top apps a new Android user should install. So here they are (in no particular order)!

1. FreePower Widget (free). Home screen widget that lets you toggle on/off key settings like Wi-fi, GPS etc. Nicely customisable. Every phone needs this on the home screen.

2.1 QuickPic (free). I've never been satisfied with the stock photo galleries. QuickPic is a great little galley app with a host of options.

2.2 Photo Days (free). Another gallery, but what I love about this one is that it groups your photos by date. A godsend when looking for specific photos for a particular month.

3. RemindMe (free). A very simple reminder app. Nothing fancy, just does a good job of reminding you!

4. WhatsApp (free for a year). Multi-platform messaging app.

5. QuickSettings (free). Quickly turn on/off important settings.

6 Dolphin Browser Mini (free). A nice, simple, tabbed browser.

Getting more technical now:


7 Tasker. This task manager lets you automate the process you'd otherwise have to manually do. For example, I've set it to dim my screen around 6pm, turn on Airplane Mode at 11pm, turn the volume to vibrate at 8pm, and send an SMS to my bank every morning. Though it is a paid app, it's worth every penny.


8 Go Launcher Ex (free). This home screen replacement lets you discard the often limited or staid home screen functionality for something far more productive.

9 Ed's Backup Utility (free). Lets you backup your phone's SD card to your PC. An absolutely brilliant app that lets you schedule the copying of (new) photos over to your PC when you're connected to a particular wi-fi network. A little tricky to set up (since you'll need to know local and remote folder paths) but well worth the effort if you value your photos.

And finally, a couple of essential apps for a rooted phone:

10 AdAway (free). A very effective ad blocker.

11 ClockSync (free). I don't know why my provider's clock is always a couple of minutes off, but this fixes it by querying atomic time.

READ MORE - Top 10 or so Android Apps

Count that baby and a foul! Android basketball games app reviews.

Just because you like a particular sport doesn't mean you'll like the games associated with that sport. And visa versa. I'm not a big golfer, but I love golf apps like Let's Golf 2. On the other hand, I love baseball but have yet to find a computer game or Android app that can keep my interest.

But, when it comes to basketball games and apps, I seem to love them all. For different reasons. So, let's take a look at three of them, and you can check them out yourself.

Basketball Shot - DroidHen Casual

Basketball Shot is basically the same game that you might play in an arcade. A basket the either moves or doesn't, and you keep shooting trying to beat the clock and score a certain number of points for that round. Simple? Yes. But, a fun time killer. Users give it about a four and a half star rating.

Basketball Lite - Ellis Markov

This was the first Android basketball game app I downloaded, and it's still pretty good. Rather than swiping your finger to shoot (like in Basketball Shot) you stretch and line up a trajectory line, and release to shoot. There are five different game modes, but for the most part you are trying to score as many points as you can in a pre-determined amount of time. Basketball Lite gets 4.2 stars and would have been worth downloading, had it not been for......

Tip-Off Basketball - IOPixel

This is the latest (and might I say, greatest) of the basketball games that I've tried so far. I noticed on the Basketball Lite page in the Android Market that it made a reference to check out the sequel, Tip-Off Basketball. They seem to have different developers, but there are certainly similarities.

The way you shoot is similar to Basketball Lite, using the trajectory technique and a time limit. But, that's almost where the similarities end. In Tip-Off Basketball you are given a variety of specific tasks that you must complete before moving on to the next level. Things like making 12 baskets, making a bank shot or even throwing an airball.

I'm still new to the game, but you get points or coins or something and you can buy stuff with them to make the game more interesting or fun or something.

Maybe it's because it's new to me, but this game seems to be the most fun of these three. And the accuracy of the shooting is much better. I give it five stars. It averages 4.7 stars.

READ MORE - Count that baby and a foul! Android basketball games app reviews.

Reasons to Choose Android Development

The present era is the ear of mobile technology. More and more people are switching to mobile phones to accomplish even the smallest of their tasks, thanks to the apps or applications that are now readily available. Applications are software in a mobile phone that either pre-loaded or are downloadable. The apps make day-to-day tasks like taking notes, tracking weight, managing shopping list etc. easier for the users. Owing to the ever-increasing popularity of apps, these days the android development industry is flourishing like never before. More and more business owners are trying to ‘go mobile’ and thus turning towards android development for aid.

The popularity of Android as a mobile application development tool is increasing with every passing day. There are arrays of benefits that Android provides to the mobile application developers. It easy to use and implement Android.  Moreover, it is an open-source system which helps the developers to perform error-free development. The Android development software development kit of SDK helps the developers to start developing apps in an instant and quickly implement them too.

Gone are the days when people used to stick to their chairs to work on their PC’s. Even laptops have become old-fashioned now. Thanks to the advent of operating systems like Google’s Android, mobile phones have become the new PC. Android is a Linux Kernel based development platform. It assists a hassle-free application development for Smart phones. A high ROI is also involved due to which application developers agree to offer Android development services at competitive prices.

Reasons to Choose Android Application Development:

Some main reasons why developers choose Android development are as follows:

1.    Android operates smoothly and there are minimum chances of it crashing down as it is based on Linux Kernel which boosts its security and performance.

2.      Android is an open source development platform. This allows the developers to spare more time for understanding client’s needs.

3.      Linux-based Android allows developers to access a rich development environment.

4.      With Android the developers can develop application in lesser time with comparatively low investment.

5.      Accurate information can be gathered swiftly with help of Android.

6.      Porting the application is a hassle-free process in case of android app development.

7.      The development tools in android app development are very simple to use.

Technicalities Involved in Android App Development:

Android applications are developed through JAVA programming. To send and receive data from different platforms, Android takes help of several technologies including EDGE, GSM, Wi-fi, Bluetooth, EV-DO and UMTS. Both 3D and 2D graphics are utilized in Android app development process. Several features of the development include video camera, GPS and accelerometer. 

To take advantage of Google Android application, you can take help of an average app developer or professional android app development service providers. It is; however, better to hire professional developer to get the best results. Hiring average developer may lead to wastage of time, money and resources. All in all, with the help of Android development framework an application developer can create innovative apps that can facilitate the users in performing their day to day tasks with ease. 

READ MORE - Reasons to Choose Android Development