Category Archives: Technology

My favorite Android apps

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I have been an Android enthusiast since I got my first Android phone, the HTC Legend. Even though I am a big fan of Apple computer hardware, I have found that Apple’s iPhone and iPad a little less inspiring. As for smartphones in general, though, it is the apps that makes a platform useful and usable. I would like to list some of the apps that I use often. I will list them here, but not in any particular order.

  1. Facebook A lot of my friends are on Facebook so it makes keeping in touch and staying social an easy task. It has gotten a little faster since the last update, but it used to be infuriatingly slow, especially for photos.
  2. Facebook Messenger If a lot of your friends are on Facebook, there really is no point in finding out their phone numbers and then sending them text messages. Why not just use the Messenger as your text message replacement. It will also save you money if you text a lot, as long as your phone or tablet has a reasonable amount of data included per month.
  3. Chrome One of the things I really liked about Android was the ability to have your bookmarks synced across the different devices. Using Chrome, I can have my bookmarks synchronised across my Windows 7 desktop, Macbook Pro, Macbook Air, Android Phone and Android Tablet. I can discover an interesting resource while I’m on the move and I can bookmark it for reading later when I get home. The other thing I like about Chrome is its speed.
  4. Evernote Do you need to keep a note of things on a regular basis? Evernote is the application that I use on a regular basis to keep track of little tidbits of information. If there’s anything that is a little sensitive, you can also encrypt them for extra security. This app can keep text, recording, images and just about anything you throw at it as notes that get synchronised to all your other devices. I can write a shopping list on my Macbook Pro and then walk out with my phone to use the list which auto-magically appears on the Evernote client on my phone.
  5. Skitch Is a useful app for making diagrams, notes and other graphically-oriented notes. You can annotate images, screenshots or acquire an image using the camera. I have used it to explain concepts, create simple flowcharts, wireframes and other graphically-oriented tasks.
  6. StumbleUpon A perfect app for those who like to discover new websites. This app will take you to many different sites recommended by other uses in categories. All you need to do is create an account and pick your categories. It is much better in app form than as a browser toolbar.
  7. Autodesk Sketchbook Express If, like me, you like to sketch on the go or when inspired, you can use this app to create your sketches. It supports layers (like photoshop) and it has support for many different types of brushes. The only thing that it does not have is pressure sensitivity, due to the nature of the touchscreen on the devices.
  8. Astro File Manager Unlike IOS devices, Android devices have an actual file system, which is Unix-like in structure. Astro has a lot of tools to help you move, copy or organise your files on your device. It also has support for Samba shares, FTP and Bluetooth transfers through extensions.
  9. Barcode Scanner This is one of the basic apps to use for scanning barcodes and QR codes. There are plenty of them in the Google Play Store, but this is one of the better ones (ad free and no nagging).
  10. Google Drive I use Google Docs a lot for writing documents and sharing them with people. I use Google Drive on the go so I can read, edit and maybe write a little on my tablet or smartphone.
  11. Dropbox I use Dropbox to set my photos to upload as I take them on the phone. This is also a handy way to move files if you absolutely have to only use network connections.
  12. WordPress Wordpress is very useful for updating your WordPress blogs on the go. What more can I say?

The end of the netbook: it’s been here a while

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hp 2133

The end of the netbook is already here. The Guardian has posted a nice piece here about the stats and the numbers pointing to the fact that the end for the computer format is already here. This question has been much discussed ever since the explosion of the market for consumer tablets, heralded by the birth of the first iPad.

When the first iPad was born in the marketplace, my main tool for working on the go was actually a netbook. I still own this netbook, an HP Mini Note 2133 with the VIA C7M ULV processor and its accompanying chipset. It was quite interesting that HP decided to use the VIA processor when everyone else was going the Atom route. This resulted in some interesting experience trying to install Linux over the shipped Windows Vista Business OS.

Overall, I found it quite frustrating to work on the small screen, cramped keyboard and the 3-cell battery (lucky to last more than two hours). Taking it to a cafe to browse on their wifi connection was quite painful at best, but luckily, or unluckily, the woefully inadequate battery life makes the experience quite short. I hardly ever tried to write articles or code on it as it did not give me enough working time away from the power point. This problem was somewhat alleviated by my splurging on an extra large battery (6-cell model).

I decided to replace this woeful machine with two different devices. One was a Macbook Air, which took care of all my writing and coding needs, while for other things, I got an Acer Iconia Tab Android Tablet. The tablet is an excellent tool for browsing, writing short emails or comments on blogs, updating facebook, and many other light tasks. It is quite easy to operate for short periods of time, but it also has the stamina to sustain a five to six hour browing or movie session.

I am not sure if I should have gone for an iPad to accompany my Macbook Air, but I definitely see a place for a tablet in my gadget bag. I did not choose the iPad at that time because I had an Android phone and I thought giving up Android’s configurability was not an option (maybe it is now?). I chose the Acer tablet because it had a MicroSD card slot, full-size USB slot (yes, I can plug in a portable HDD into it) and it was running Android.

So from a personal standpoint, the netbook certainly has had its day. I have not used my HP Mini Note 2133 since I got the Acer tablet and Macbook Air last year. Do you still use your netbook?

 

Chrome for Android helps accessibility of web pages

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Although it’s not my main occupation, I have dabbled in front-end development for sometime. I have enjoyed working with new front-end techniques, such as those provided by features included in the HTML5 and CSS3 specification. Compared to the way things were 10 years ago, these features look like designers’ dreams. They greatly simplify the development of front-end interfaces that are not only easy on the eyes, they are also more mobile-friendly with some great features added for accessibility.

However, I am beginning to see a trend with front-end designers trying to apply too rigid a control on their designs, resulting in the loss of accessibility for the end users. While it might be fine for twenty-something designers to use 8pt text to render a whole article in a web page and then disable zooming so that their layout can “look good”, it is not fine for everyone, especially those over the age of 40.

When smartphone browsers (starting with mobile Safari) implemented a “pinch to zoom” feature to allow people to view web pages with larger text (which is then reflowed), I thought that this was the beginning of an accessibility trend which would allow people to view hard to read text a little bit closer. However, it seems that a lot of designers responded to this by disabling the end users’ ability to zoom the viewport, supposedly to maintain the layout. While I understand that need to maintain a layout, I don’t think that sacrificing usability is the answer, In the end, the content that is supposed to be delivered to the end user does not get the message through, because the layout might “break” if the user zooms the page in. This is why I have enabled the “force zoom” feature in my Chrome for Android browser, so that at least I might have a chance to read what’s on the page, rather than looking at a pretty layout and not being able to read the article.

Twitter’s new feature was not requested by their users

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Twitter’s latest addition to its feature list is its ability to censor tweets that run afoul of a country’s restrictions on speech. Why is this being touted as a feature? To answer this question, one must look at the wider implication this new feature might bring.

This is certainly a great news for so-called “regulators” in countries that are still controlled by military regimes and those who are opposed to free speech. Although Twitter only mentioned countries such as Germany and France, featuring laws prohibiting pro-nazi speech, the feature will be warmly welcomed by many other regimes around the world. While stopping pro-nazi hate speech might be a worthwile feature in the social network, the feature certainly has other uses, just like anti hate speech laws could be used against people advocating social change.

The changes in Twitter is clearly a move to appease speech regulators around the world, which once again poses the question of public needs vs private ownership of networks such as Twitter.

Why I got an Acer Iconia tablet

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For quite a while now, I have been taking my trusty Macbook Pro everywhere I could. I always felt that there might be a time when I would need to pull my Macbook Pro out of my STM backpack in some public place to quickly work on a document or to write an urgent email or something. However, this scenario never eventuated. As it happened, most of the things that I needed to deal with on the run, were mostly emails that I could easily reply to using my Android phone.

As time went on, I realised that most of the places that I visit during my work routine allowed me computer access as well as wifi. After weaning myself off the laptop and the backpack idea, I slowly was able to go to work with just a USB stick and a portable Hard drive. Even though the phone was great for firing quick emails here and there, I felt that I needed something that could function like a computer if I needed it to, light enough to carry around all day and has the battery life to last all day.

Originally, my thoughts went straight to the iPad2. However, I soon realised that the iPad2 had quite limited utility for my purpose. Its lack of expansion options and the lack of USB ports and the marginally useful camera had pushed it down my list of tablets. The tablets that were near the top were the Asus Transformer TF101 and the Acer Iconia A500. After a few days of agony I decided to go with the Acer A500 simply because it had a full-size USB port which makes transferring files to a work computer a breeze.

A couple of years ago the top of the list would have been filled with netbooks, but after buying one which was bundled with a 3-cell battery (lasting a lengthy 1.5 hrs–I am looking at you HP), netbooks just didn’t do it for me anymore. I just found the idea of having to wait for a netbook to boot into either Linux or Windows XP kind of took up more time than the short task that you wanted to do with it in the first place. Plus, the short battery life on offer in the netbooks just did not fit into the idea of all day mobile computing. I decided to go with a tablet because of the instant-on nature of both Android and IOS.

A few days after I got the Acer tablet I decided to put it to work. I would go to work with my bag filled with the following items:

  • USB stick to carry small files
  • A Western Digital 1TB portable hard drive
  • Acer tablet
  • A Ricoh GX200 camera
  • A USB to micro USB cable for transferring files
  • A Huawei wifi modem for internet connectivity.

I would fit all the above items in a small shoulder bag which barely strains my shoulder.

After a few days, I found that I did not need a notebook at all. I found that my notebook was sitting idle for a few days, not seeing much use at all, other than for heavy-duty typing of documents. Even the USB stick was becoming marginally useful when I could use Google Docs to work on various files on the tablet and continue it on the desktop computer at work.

The only problem that I have encountered so far was the fact that one of my workplaces still used Internet Explorer 6 as the standard browser and that made me bring my notebook to work once a week to be able to edit files on Google Docs.

It’s good to travel light. Plus, Angry Birds and the comic reader software keep me entertained on long bus and train rides.

 

 

Connecting Android Tablet to the TAFE wireless network

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Well, I must say that working with an Android tablet poses a lot of challenges. Firstly, to get my tablet to connect to the corporate Wifi network at a TAFE college was a serious challenge for my sanity. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why anyone would want to ship a tablet operating system without any configurable proxy setting. Most tablet users would want to take their tablet to work and connect to a wireless network that uses, guess what, proxies.

Luckily, my sanity was saved by the ability of Mozilla Firefox (for Android) to have a proxy setting (via an Add-on), but the method that I had to use to connect to the wireless network at TAFE is so bizzare, that it defies any logic (this same craziness applies to using my Mac laptop as well). Unless you are using Internet Explorer on Windows, then your milage varies quite a bit.

The procedure on the Android tablet goes like this:

  • Start Firefox mobile, then turn off proxy settings in the proxy add-on
  • Type some random URL in the address bar
  • Authentication page will come up.
  • Authenticate
  • Go to Add-on setting and enable proxy.
  • Close the browser
  • Open the browser
  • Authenticate again
  • Browse the internet
  • After an hour, repeat all the above steps.

Bizarre or not?

Getting an Android tablet

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Ever since the idea of an Android tablet started floating about on the internet, I decided that I was going to get one. First there were the cheap and nasty Android tablets coming out of some previously unheard of Chinese manufacturers, but I held on to my money. Even though I wanted an Android-powered tablet that could rival the iPad, I did not want to blow my money on a device with Android 1.6 and no market access, plus one with a cheap resistive screen coupled with flaky wifi and no GPS.

I waited a long while before Samsung brought the 7-inch Galaxy Tab to the market, but, alas, it was only powered by Android 2.2 (Froyo) and it was also a phone which made it a little awkward and after a few hands on time, I decided it was lagging a little in the normal operations of the UI. It was only when Google released Honeycomb that other manufacturers started to come to the tablet party. HTC released the Flyer, although it was only running Gingerbread (2.3), while Samsung promised the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which in Australia manifested into the 10.1v sold through Vodafone.

While I liked the HTC Flyer, no one in Australia was selling it (except for a few on Ebay) and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1v that I managed to look at in a Vodafone store, has no expansion slot whatsoever, with a steep price of $729 outright. I was then hoping that I would be able to find an Asus Transformer TF-101. I looked everywhere around town and no one had one. Furthermore, I found out that to have access to the USB port and HDMI, one would have to plug the Transformer TF-101 onto its keyboard dock. I mean, if I wanted a netbook, I would get one! So in the end I went and bought the Acer Iconia A500.

Why did I choose the Iconia A500? Well, one of the main reasons was that it was there in the stores that I went to. Hell, I even found one in Officeworks. Furthermore, it has a full-size USB port and expansion slots with an 8-hour battery life. The camera seems to be quite decent too. So without further ado, my money went to the Acer for availability and expandability.

Which Tablet?

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For someone who wants to buy a tablet right now, especially in Australia, the choices in the market are far from clear. If you fancy an Apple Ipad 2, you are guaranteed a great user experience, a good selection of apps and nice applications such as GarageBand and iMovie. However, if you look at the hardware, even though the dual-core A5 is a little powerhouse under that screen, the hardware list is a little disappointing. The camera is a disappointment and the lack of slots for expansion as well as being tied down to an iTunes only transfer can make things complicated under certain usage scenarios. Furthermore, even if you have cash burning a hole in your wallet, there is hardly any stock anywhere.

In the Android camp, at the moment there is the new Samsung 10.1v being sold through Vodafone. The tablet runs Android 3.0 Honeycomb and it has good specs, such as a nice camera, 3G connectivity and being an Android tablet, it can be used as a USB storage device. However, the Samsung lacks any expansion slot whatsoever. This makes it a slight disadvantage if you are one of those movie and music hogs who like to take a lot of media on the go.

Recently, I started to see some Acer Iconia A500 tablets around the shops. Yesterday, I looked at a couple in a JB-HiFi store somewhere in Sydney. The unit definitely feels nice to hold and amazingly light. It has a brushed aluminium back and the camera seems to be quite good. However, so far there is no 3G version available in Australia.

Dilemma is sometimes a wonderful thing, as I think I will wait until there is a tablet in the market that will fit in as a daily use tablet without being tied down to any particular device ecosystem.

 

Samsung galaxy s problem with juicedefender app

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Having recently acquired a samsung galaxy s android handset, I proceeded to install all the apps that I had installed on my htc legend. One of them was the juice defender app, which worked quite well on the legend.

Soon after I installed the app, I noticed that the battery would drain quite quickly. Within about 4 to 5 hours the battery would be totally flat. As soon as unplugging from the charger, the battery would be down to 80% within about 10 minutes.

Thinking there was a problem with my phone, I began to check all my settings. I then realised what the problem was when the juice defender app was starting really slowly. In fact, the app was causing the phone to really lag badly.

I immediately uninstalled the app and believe it or not, my
battery life improved after uninstalling Juice Defender.

You might want to try this if your galaxy s suddenly drains battery like there’s no tomorrow. Now my battery lasts 8 hours plus like it should.

Updating Vodafone Samsung Galaxy S to Android Froyo 2.2

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I recently acquired a Vodafone-branded Samsung Galaxy S GT-i9000 phone. Since I purchased it second-hand, it was not part of any contract with any carrier. However, I found out that it was locked to the Vodafone network as it would not accept a SIM card from Virgin. To unlock the phone, I just headed over to the Vodafone unlocking website and after entering the phone’s IMEI (found under menu > setttings > about phone), I was able to unlock it from the Vodafone network. In some cases, the unlocking could cost money, but in this case I seemed to just get the unlocking code straight away.

After the unlocking, I checked the version of Android installed and found out that the phone was still running Eclair (Android 2.1). Using the version of Kies (the Samsung Phone Manager) that came with the phone on two mini CDs, I was told that the firmware on the phone could not be upgraded. This was quite disappointing since I had just upgraded my HTC Legend to Froyo (Android 2.2) the week before.

A few Google searches later, I tried to use the Registry spoofing method that was discussed  on a few websites and it just didn’t work. In the end, the method that worked was updating to Kies 2.0 and it seemed to find the Froyo update for the phone straight away.

The update took quite a while, but it seemed to have done a proper job and restored some of my settings minus the apps that I have downloaded. So, if you want to upgrade your Vodafone Samsung Galaxy S to Froyo, there is no need to use any spoofing or custom-cooked ROMs, just update your version of Kies to version 2.0.