Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Uploading photos


My phone has a great 8 megapixel camera. This morning I took a photo of the dawn sky, and of course I wanted to upload it to my blog.

My HTC Evo phone has a "Gallery" app for viewing photos, but I suspect it's part of the Sprint or HTC factory load. Whatever way you view photos, you should have a "share" button to upload.

Uploading to Flickr.com was a snap. The first time I needed to login to my Flickr account. You can add a description or upload multiple photos, and then the photo uploads in the background.

I was surprised the upload took 2 minutes 15 seconds, using Wi-Fi. I tried 3G and the upload only took 1 minute 25 seconds! I don't know if that was network speed, or possibly load on Flickr.com. (I don't have 4G at my present location.)

I wanted to try Google's Picasa to compare speeds, but I hit a roadblock http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=349bad9bde5c6278&hl=en. Apparently there is a bug if you do not have Picasa setup when your phone is initially setup. When I try to upload to Picasa, it wants me to login or create a Google account, I login, but then I'm just stuck in an account screen. In a forum there was a recommendation that you had to do a Factory Reset, something I don't want to attempt now. I don't know what data I would lose . . .

Here's another blogger's comments on uploading pictures:
http://www.androidcentral.com/android-101-social-networking-pictures

Friday, June 25, 2010

Find a movie and show times on your Android phone


Yesterday I wanted to see a movie, and my Android phone was a lot of help.

First, I grabbed the "Movies" app (from Flixster Inc.), which seems to be the top rated movie app (4 1/2 stars).

It quickly showed me the theaters, sorted by nearness to my current location. I picked the closest theater, and got a great list of movies, including show time and Rotten Tomatoes critic score for each show. Open the movie and you can see the cast, comments from critics, or link to iMDB.

I can even watch preview trailers on my phone! Helps make up your mind. Most of the trailers downloaded in 30-60 seconds ( Wi-Fi), but one took over a minute, so your luck may vary.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Android's Speech to text works surprisingly well


Whenever I enter text on my Android phone, there is also a microphone icon. I didn't even try it at first because previous speech-to-text products I've tried were not worth the effort.

To my surprise, Android 2.1's speech-to-text works well enough to be useful, and is even kinda fun and impressive.

I even use it to show off my what my new phone can do.

Naturally, it works better if you speak clearly and not too fast. With a little practice, you get better at it. You can only enter five or six words at a time, but that probably helps keep the accuracy high.

Sometimes it captures the text exactly right, other times you have to fix a word or two. But, it might be the fastest way to enter text!

Here's a 3 minute video showing Android Speech-to-text on the Nexus One.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Stretching your battery

Claim code: T8S5R5BAWHBC

My phone is fast, can run multiple processes, do 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth, and has a big bright display.

Of course, all those things suck down the battery.

Here are some thoughts on stretching your battery.

Charge
  • Charge every night so you start the day with a full charge.
  • Turn off GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 4G (for Evo) when you're not using them.
  • Have a car charger, and use it whenever you'll be in the car for a while and your phone is not fully charged.
  • Keep your phone cool (avoid sun, warm car, etc.), heat reduces the current charge.
  • Keep the screen brightness as low as is comfortable.

Battery Life
  • Myth: "Fully discharge your battery to avoid 'battery memory'." This was advice for Ni-Cad batteries. Lithium-Ion batteries actually do better keeping close to a full charge (but fully discharge it about once a month to calibrate the batter level meter).
  • Keep your phone cool. A hot phone both reduces the current charge and degrades battery life.
More info at: Tips to extend Android battery life and How to prolong Lithium based batteries.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

870 contacts imported in about a minute


I would die without the information in my old Palm organizer. Phone numbers for all the friends and family I want to keep in touch with. Email addresses for colleagues and companies. Websites. Notes. Everything I need to remember.

One of the reasons for getting a "smart phone" is to move all that info into my phone so I've got one less thing to carry. As an added benefit, the info will also be sync'd with gmail contacts so - shudder - if the phone is ever lost or destroyed, my info will be safe.

But how to do it? Before shoveling all my data into the phone, I wanted to get it syncing with gmail. I googled around looking for what I needed to run to make that sync happen, and I couldn't find anything.

Reason: I didn't have to do anything. Eventually I realized I just needed to check "Settings" "Accounts & Sync". Sure enough, "People" on my phone and "Contacts" on gmail were already automatically syncing without me having to do anything. The nice folks at the Sprint store probably set that up for me, and probably told me, along with a million other things.

Next, how to get the info out of the Palm organizer and into the phone? I was worried I would spend days manually copying because I'm running very old Palm software that isn't supported anymore.

Fortunately, more googling indicated that I could import a vCard into gmail's contacts. My old Palm desktop software could export contacts as a vCard! Then, I went to gmail and did the import. It happened so fast, I wasn't sure it worked. But gmail told me: "870 contacts imported".

A couple minutes later, I checked my phone and the contacts were already there. (It was only 160K of data.)

So easy. So painless.

Does Android make a "better" Kindle?



I almost got an eBook reader (either Kindle or Nook) because piles of books have taken over my bedroom.

Surprisingly, I've discovered my Android phone beats out Kindle and Nook, at least for me. I'll explain why in a minute.

It all started when my Twitter account, @BryanJacobson6, picked up a new follower @CristynWest, who is tweeting about her new (and first) book, Plain Jane, available in eBook form from Smashwords for $2.99. Cristyn will DM you a discount code that gets the price down to $1.50! (Probably a limited time offer.)

Once I got the eBook, I needed a way to read it. This took a bit of hunting.

There was no Kindle for Android. Apparently it's coming this summer (which does me no good now).

Searching for "eBook" in the Android Market gave me hundreds of eBooks - but not a reader.

So I googled for "best Android ebook reader" and found Kobo and Aldiko. Kobo was only rated 2 1/2 stars with reviewers complaining you don't automatically return to the last page you were viewing.

But Aldiko was exactly what I needed. Aldiko has a huge catalog of free eBooks, and their website also explains: How can I import my personal eBooks into Aldiko? It's simple and just takes a couple of minutes. Books need to be in the ePub format, which is one of the most popular.

Reading an eBook with Aldiko was easy on my eyes, with crystal clear black letters on a white background. You flick or tap your finger to turn pages forward or back.

I'm five chapters into "Plain Jane: Brunettes Beware". It's a cop & serial killer book, a genre I read sometimes. I'm starting to care about the characters, and the story is building some tension with the "murderer on the loose" theme. It is doing a great job mixing action, dialogue and gradual revelations about the characters. It does feel like a first book. Good luck to Cristyn West, I hope she gets a lot of readers, and even makes some money.

There are two big reasons why Android + Aldiko makes a better Kindle (for me):

1. It's free! (Since I already have the Android phone, and the Aldiko reader is free). It galls me to spend $259 for a Kindle or Nook, devices intended to make me spend more money on eBooks from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

2. The Android phone is with me wherever I go. A Kindle would be one more thing to lug around. Also, I do a lot of reading waiting in line or during other bits of spare time. My Android phone is there with me, the Kindle wouldn't be.

Science Fiction and Fantasy are my first love and Aldiko has a surprisingly large catalog of free titles. The Baen Free Library also has over a hundred free SciFi eBooks, many of them recent best sellers. Baen also sells their current titles as low cost eBooks, and the Free Library is simply great free advertising.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Why an Evo phone running Android?


After two weeks waiting, I got the call. My new Evo had arrived. I dashed over to the friendly Sprint store and picked it up.

Now I can experience the joys of the mobile internet.

Why an Evo phone?

- I wanted a phone running Android because I'm a programmer (among other things) and I want to write apps for Android. Seems like I should start by becoming an Android user.
- I wanted Sprint because I believe they have the cheapest unlimited data plan. I expect to need a lot of data because I'm a technophile.
- This is my first Smart Phone, so I wanted a good one. HTC's new Evo, released June 4th is a great one.

The folks at the Washington Square Sprint store (next to Nordstrom!) were great to work with. They put up with me calling (nearly) every day to see if my phone had come in. They called me when it came in Friday. The store manager proudly told me all about his new Evo phone while we were waiting for my number to port over from my previous cell carrier.

LaDeene spent nearly an hour giving me a guided tour of the Evo and some of the things it can do. The folks at the Sprint store seemed to be having a lot of fun getting me (and two or three other folks) up and running on their new, amazing Evo phones.

Seriously, if you get a chance to buy a phone from LaDeene at the the Washington Square (Portland / Tigard, OR) Sprint store - you should.

First impressions:
- Screen is beautiful.
- The phone can do so many things. (This blog will be digging into that.) For example, when it wakes up, it shows you the current time and weather with a cool animation (often clouds swirling around or rain drops falling).
- Finding and adding Apps is quick and easy. I've already added: Color Notes (for ToDo lists), Dolphin Browser, Solitaire, Black Jack and several other games.
- Typing in text using the touch screen is faster and easier than I expected.

On the downside, later in the day when I tried to play a video from YouTube (just to see how it would work) the download from YouTube was very, very slow. However, I don't know if that's the mobile network or YouTube's fault.

I'll have lots more to tell you about the phone later.