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.

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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. 

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Thuuz is a must app for any sports fan - Android app review



Not long ago, I blogged about an app that claimed that you could Make Money to Download Apps. Frankly, most of the apps that I downloaded to make a few bucks weren't kept any longer than I needed to to collect the 17 cents or whatever. But, as was probably the whole point behind this marketing method of paying people to download apps, I did run across a couple that were keepers.

One of them was Thuuz, a sports app which sends you updates on your selected sports and notifies you when there are really good games going on. They also rate the games on a 0-100 scale and tell you where you can watch the game live if you're so inclined.

I'm not a sports fanatic by any means, but if I'm going to watch a game that doesn't involve one of my home teams, it damn well better be a really good game.

So, after downloading Thuuz as part of the get paid to download apps program, I took a few minutes to enter my faves and must admit that I enjoy the ocassional notifications of great games in progress.

The app is available in the Android Market and has about a 4.5 star rating, or check out their web site at http://www.thuuz.com/.



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Google Currents App Review - news reader better than Pulse?

I discovered the Google Currents news reader application for Android while browsing the Technology area of another news reader app, Pulse.

Because I was using Pulse, it's obvious that I like it. It's a really easy to navigate interface that categorizes your personal news and information preferences. Sometimes I'm in the mood for technology, other times I'm in the mood for stupid entertainment gossip. Pulse provides this very nicely. Read more about Pulse here.

So, I was thrilled to see that I may now have a cool alternative. And one created by Google to boot.

The good news is: it's not bad. The bad news is: it's not great.

For me, the attraction of Pulse is that there are a lot of options on the screen, and you can scroll through a number of articles, from a variety of publications conveniently from each screen.

On Google Currents, you choose from the Library listing, which has a scrolling list of the individual publications that you added to your personalized preferences; or you click on Trending which provides all of the hot stories of the moment.

So, let's say you click on a story about Gabby Gifford leading the pledge of allegiance, it still takes another couple of screens to get to the story you want. Then, once at the story you selected, you can continue to swipe sideways (a feature I like much better scrolling up) to continue reading, and if you swipe again it will take you to another article about the same subject. I like this feature when I'm in the mood to read a lot about a particular story, or if you want to get more than one perspective on a particular topic.

Google Currents ends each article with a few Suggested Articles, another feature that fits nicely in my life when I'm in the mood to explore the article's subject more.

Both applications load the articles in their own "reader" format which is definitely more aesthetically pleasing than an RSS feed. And both apps also offer you the ability to jump over to the original article in your preferred Android browser. One thing that seemed a bit odd to me was that if you load the Original Article (into the Currents interface, not on the web), you now need to scroll down, as opposed to the page-turning scrolling on the original article.

My recommendation: download both apps and decide for yourself. If you're a news and info junkie you'll probably be like me and use each one depending on your mood and appetite.

READ MORE - Google Currents App Review - news reader better than Pulse?

Groupon stock sinks below initial offering - What? No more cheap facials?

Even though I delete 99% of all of the offers I receive form Groupon, Living Social and Moolala, as a consumer I find that the ocassional opportunity to save a bunch of money very appealing and, in this economy, necessary. But, it comes as no surprise that Groupon's (GRPN) advertisers are dropping like flies and their stock has dipped below it's initial offering.

[NOTE: Both Groupon and Living Social have Android apps available in the Android Market. Click on the links above to set up your free account, then download the apps.]

Over the past year I have had a few conversations with advertisers (mostly restaurants) who are using these daily deals programs to get the word out about their food, products or services and every one of them bitched that it was costing them too much money to get customers to come in once for the amazing discount and probably never come back again.

With restaurants, the whole purpose, from an advertising standpoint, is to get customers to try their fare, and if they love it they'll come back. Reality check: they're not coming back because they're down the street at the competitor's place eating their cheap Groupon food deal.

Groupon's stock has now dipped below its initial IPO opening price. And studies show that advertisers aren't re-upping with Groupon because they feel that they are paying a premium to get the customer to come in, but they never come back. It just isn't a good advertising/marketing move.

It seems that if these daily deal programs want to survive, they're going to have to make it more appealing to advertisiers (ie: cheaper), while still offering great products and services to the consumer.

In the meantime, grab those deals while you can.

READ MORE - Groupon stock sinks below initial offering - What? No more cheap facials?