A few cool Android Apps

You've gotta have these apps! Google them if you can't find them on Market.

1. Applanet - You won't find this on Market for sure. It's like Install0us for iPhone! Trust me, YOU GOTTA HAVE THIS ONE!
2. Dolphin Browser HD - Best Alternative to the traditional Browser.
3. Apps2sd - Transfer the apps that you can to your SD card.
4. Astro File Manager - A really good file manager.
5. Beautiful Widgets - A collection of really cool widgets for your home screen.
6. Instant Heart Rate - Monitor your heart rate using your camera!
7. CamScanner Full - Use your camera as a scanner!
8. mkRemote - Control your laptop's mouse and keyboard via Wifi.
9. Wifi File Explorer - Explore your phone's file system via your browser on your computer whilst connected to the same wireless network.
10. SoundHound Full / Shazam Full - Identify the name of the song by recording a part of it with your phone.
11. PingChat! - MultiOS chatting client that runs on Blackberry, iPhones and Android.
12. Quick App Clean Cache - Clear the cache of all the apps on your phone.
13. Dropbox - Really cool online file storage program. Check out www.dropbox.com if you don't know about it.

These are the few games I tried. Won't post a description - just check them out.

1. AngryBirds
2. Asphalt 5
3. The Sims 3
4. Paper Toss
5. Toss It Pro

Feel free to add your recommendations!

Maneck

I love contract upgrades!

I was due for an upgrade and got myself the HTC Desire HD for FREEEE! I love free stuff (who doesn't?).

Anyways..I'd given up on Android after my unsatisfactory experience with the HTC Magic. I hated the touchscreen keyboard (still do) and the laggy OS. But things have changed for the better! In fact a lot has changed with Android since then. The OS now runs smoothly, thanks to the HD's powerful 1GHz processor and 768MB RAM (full specs here).
The phone rocks an 8MP camera with 720p video recording. I think it truly trumps the iPhone 4 in every way. Yes, every damn way. Bigger screen, better camera and better OS.

Yes, the OS is better. I have used and tinkered around with iOS4 before and I must say it's smooth and user friendly and everything. But hey, lets cut to the chase. What do most iPhone users want to do with their iPhones when they first get them? Jailbreak. Why? To install homebrew apps that Apple won't allow on their Store. Well Android for that matter, is open source. Let me put it in an easier way for you -- Jailbroken iOS4 = Untouched Android Froyo. SO imagine what you can do with Froyo once you root it.

Rooting is basically the procedure of gaining SuperUser rights (admin rights) to the OS. You can do a hell lot more once you root your Android phone. Trust me on this. I've installed so many apps on my rooted phone that have extended the possibilities of the things I can do with it. It's really a lot more than I can ever do with an iPhone. And the camera is so good, I can actually use it as a scanner! It's just been a couple of days since I've had the phone but I'm already loving it more than the HTC Magic and the iPhone. Look forward to my next post where I list a few must-have apps that I really like!

Thanks for the upgrade, Vodafone!

Maneck

Blackberry OS6 on my 9700

I finally loaded OS6 on my Blackberry 9700 and I must say I'm quite impressed. It took quite some time for it to get leaked for the 9700, probably the last device for which the OS6 was leaked. For more details on the how-to go here. The Crackberry Forums are a good place to find all the info you need for this.

The OS runs pretty smoothly on the 9700. Some report it to be running smoother than on the 9800 (Torch). After installing the OS, you find yourself with lesser space than with OS5 but that's a price you pay for it's awesomeness. It's smoother, more reliable, love the new docks and the whole revamped UI. Don't have anything more to say. Will add stuff later if I find anything worth mentioning later.

Maneck

My all new Jaybird SB2 Bluetooth Headphones

My duplicate S9s that I bought earlier showed their true colours. The battery life doesn't seem to last for more than an hour now. That's not even half my workout - and your headphones/mp3 player/mobile phone dying out on you in the middle of a workout is the most annoying thing that can happen to you apart from dropping water all over your gym shorts right before your workout..

Well you don't have to worry about dropping water on or sweating on this must-have thingamajig. It's a bit heavy on the pocket but I got a sweet deal from www.iheadphones.co.uk. They cost me about £75 with delivery but with a lifetime warranty against water damage and 1 year manufacturers warranty (for any other defects) I think they are a bargain if you spend as much time as I do at the gym.

The sound quality is excellent and the fit is really comfortable. The swivelling ear-pads are really handy for guys like me who have weird ears that pop right out. They tend to get a bit uncomfortable if you have them on for too long (2 hours or so at a stretch) but I'm sure that's just due to my elephant ears. Other than that I've got no complaints. They're the best damn headphones I've ever bought in my life and are surely one of my wisest investments.

Back from a hiatus..

Have really been out of touch with blogging. Gone through a lot in the past few months and will try to blog as much as I can - preferably everyday. All about the new gadgets that I want to make (and already have made) a part of my life and about the spontaneous geeky endeavours I tend to go on when I'm bored :P

Maneck

Working on dual-booting Mac OSX for my Alienware

Well I was a bit busy and hadn't done anything geeky in quite a while (except for my normal research) but I'm glad to say that I've been working on dual booting OSX on my Alienware. It's certainly not easy but I know for a fact that Snow Leopard 10.6.3 works like a charm on the m15x..Follow my progress here : OSx86 on Alienware m15x. I will put up pics and videos once I've got it to work completely. Patience pays..

Maneck

The fake S9 shows its true colours..

Just a couple of charges later (literally a couple) the charger of my S9's is spoilt. I tried charging them in so many ways but it just wouldn't charge! Finally I had to plug them into my laptop via USB to charge them and I wasn't even sure that'd work - but thankfully it does. This has been one of the worst things I've bought off ebay!

They've arrived..

The Motorola S9 headset that I ordered 10 days back finally arrived on Saturday morning ... It wasn't a pleasant experience at all! I ordered them from Hong Kong off ebay and as soon as I opened them, I noticed something was wrong. The box looked worn and shabby. On opening it I find that it only had the headset, the charger, and a small booklet. Absolutely nothing else! No packing material of any sort, nothing!

They're fake!! A quick Google search and you come across these:

1. http://reviews.cnet.com/headsets/motorola-s9-bluetooth-active/4864-13831_7-32363768.html?messageID=2545758

2. http://www.motorola.com/content.jsp?globalObjectId=8627-10942

The best part is that after a couple of days of me buying the product, I got an email from ebay saying that the item listing had been removed due to undisclosed reasons and if you haven't paid for the item don't do so. So I emailed the seller stating that they were fake and that I had received an email like this from ebay and now I know why the listing was removed. I told her very plainly to give me a refund or I'd have to open a Paypal dispute (which I anyways did). She offered me a refund after a bit of consoling to tell me to try the headphones (which at first I couldnt get to work). So I got a refund and was left with a pair of fake faulty Moto S9s ... or so I thought. After fiddling around a lot with them I finally got them to work! They're not bad as long as they're free! They're totally not worth £15 but hey! I always love electronics, original or not, when they're FREE!!

Set up a blog for my friend..

Did something completely new today...thought I'd never be able to pull it off.

I've only got basic knowledge about web designing and HTML so I had to follow quite a few FAQs and tutorials online to setup Wordpress for my friend on his domain. It's finally up and running and I hope he puts it to good use.

Click here to have a look.

Why the new iPad is a glorified iPod Touch...not even an iPhone 3GS!

Right, so Apple announced the "all new and completely awesome" iPad which is supposed to be somewhere between an iPhone and a Laptop and is supposed to be really good at it!

But here are a few reason why I think that it's nothing but a glorified iPod touch (apart from the fact that it just has a bigger screen and has the same design):

1. It's got no camera of any sort. And I'm not saying it needs to have a camera to take pictures but it should atleast feature a 1.3MP camera for video conferencing.

2. No multitasking. It's using the iPhone OS 3.2 for gods sake!

3. No USB ports. Come on! If it's a tablet atleast put in a USB port!

4. According to initial reports, the keypad isn't too good either.

So all it succeeded in doing is making the iPod touch capable of reading ebooks ... and this isn't innovative at all. Come on Apple! People HAVE heard about the Amazon Kindle!

All in all, Apple is now just bringing out products and holding these events to manipulate their stock prices and to try and keep the Apple fanboys happy ... whom are you kidding Apple? Have you even put some thought into making this thing?!!

Newest Official Bold 9700 OS 5.0.0.442 released!

There is an update to the Blackberry Bold 9700 OS! For more details head over here ... http://forums.crackberry.com/f146/

As of now no specific changelog has been provided but RIM has seemed to solve the SMS bug in it's previous 5.0 OS releases..So head over, check out the new OS and let me know how it is - I'm still skeptical on updating my OS since I just recently did it and cant be bothered to do it so soon.

I just bought myself a...

Motorola S9 Bluetooth headset!

I've always fancied these but never really got a chance to buy one of them since the earphones I was using were in perfect condition! They still work like a charm but since they're the kinds that hook onto your ears, they worn and become loose causing them to fall off alot, which is very annoying especially when you're in the gym (you don't want to waste most of your time adjusting the damn things).

So back to the topic, this gave me a chance to consider buying myself new earphones - and since I've always fancied BT earphones, I thought I'd try out my friend's - Motorola S9 Beckham Edition. In one word, they're superb! Easy to pair, great audio quality, easy to learn (you need to memorise where the control buttons are on the earphones) and the greatest feature of all, they're wireless! This means no more wires coming in the way of my weights and I can finally listen to music while on the treadmill or while I'm cycling without the fear of the wire getting in my way.

After such a promising experience I found myself ordering this baby off ebay for £15 (from Hong Kong)! They've been dispatched and I'm hoping they get delivered in time.

Fingers crossed...

How's the world feeling right now?

Well, the answer to the question lies here. A simple yet brilliant idea but it's still got to catch on with the world. Looking at the bottom of the page I can quickly notice the lack of 1 country that's highly active on the internet but fails to show up on the list - India.

I guess this site has a lot of catching up to do - and can maybe even add a couple of more moods or the ability to capture the user's facial expressions using a webcam and display the pictures online...The possibilities are endless...

Check out the WorldMood.info button on the right side of this page and let the world know what your mood is :-)

Sharing files with your friends

My previous post about Online backup services reminded me of another recent venture of mine. A friend of mine, the complete Apple Fanboy that he is, wanted to share files with me remotely over the internet and had been using iDrive until his trial period expired. He wanted me to look for a free alternative to this.

My first instinct was to set up a shared Gmail account, which we could both access, and use it to store files via programs like Gspace, Gmail Drive, gDisk etc. But since Google's been working on a similar service of their own, they've changed the way Gmail work thereby rendering most of these services useless.

After a lot of 'Googling' I came across www.myotherdrive.com. A brilliant service that offers free user 2GB worth of space online, a Java desktop app that makes it easier to upload files directly from your desktop thereby eliminating the need of a browser, and the best of all, NO FILE SIZE LIMITS! This is the best service I found so far and if you and you friend have really fast internet connections, it's very very useful!

Give it a shot guys! It's totally worth the effort!

Hard Disk Problems

I bet everyone who's used an external hard drive, or any computer for that matter, has faced problems with their hard disk. It can be as small as a corrupt MBR or as big as the infamous and irreparable 'Click of Death'.

I've come across a variety of problems like a corrupt MBR, a faulty hard drive enclosure and finally the Click of Death.

Corrupt MBRs are very easy to identify - most of the times when you plug in the drive it asks you to format it even though there's data on it. This is a good sign because it shows that your hard drive is detectable and it's only a software glitch that can be fixed. The program I used to solve an MBR problem a friend's drive had recently was Partition Table Doctor. It was really easy to fix and took less than a minute!

On the other hand a friend of mine dropped his hard drive and now it won't even initialise. That's almost 1TB worth of precious data gone! What annoys me is the fact that hard drive manufacturers offer 3 to 5 years warranty but none of them recover your data for you for free! What's the point of the warranty then?! They just give you another hard drive as a replacement while you sit there wondering - what if the same thing happens to this one?

Hard drive manufacturers should seriously think about providing free data recovery services. Or another suggestion (well I can't call it a solution) is not to store really important stuff on your hard drive - instead use online backup services like Mozy. This has saved my data quite a lot of times in the event of hard drive failures and system crashes and I highly recommend it! The free version provides 2GB worth of backup space which I can say is enough for me to store my really important files.

So there we go, those are a few of my tips and tricks I use to avoid major hard drive problems - oh, and one more, don't throw your hard drive around and treat it like shit unless it's a SSD.

BBM Problem

I have this weird problem that's been putting me off from installing new apps on my BB via the BB desktop manager. I connect my BB to my laptop, start the desktop manager and goto the applications section to install my app but alongwith installing the app I want, it gives me a choice to either downgrade my BBM or uninstall it - apparently the desktop manager has an older version of BBM than the one provided by the Blackberry App World - strange and highly frustrating! Anyone found a solution to this? (Click on the above pic to view the full bigger screenshots..)

Blackberry Repositories

Found a couple of sites to start off my Blackberry adventures:

1. http://icrack.info/category/cracked-blackberry-applications/ - Check out the blackberry unlocking tutorials as well :)

2. http://www.ipmart-forum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=403 - One of my all time favorite forums for mobile warez.

Hope this is useful ..

I Love Dogs :P

This is a bit off topic but over my Christmas holidays I found myself getting attached to dogs ... being the loving and loyal animals that they are, I've found myself badly wanting one! I went back home to my dad's village to his brother's place to fall in love with a Brown Labrador that they recently brought home. Bruno (that's what he's been aptly named as) is a very loving and affectionate dog that loves meeting new people and always greets people by pouncing on them and biting their forearm - this sounds scary but he doesn't aggressively bite, it's more of a harmless and playful bite.

The first time I met him I was affectionately greeted with a big pounce with his paws reaching my chest - I was completely caught off guard and never thought a dog could be that powerful and heavy.

He then continued to greet me by gnawing on my hand and slobbering all over it. He also had this funny way of grabbing someone's attention - he'd run away with your slippers and get him to chase you all over the place for them. I had a wonderful time with him and can go on and on about him..

After coming back from my short winter getaway, I was surprised by my friend with this cute little Pomeranian puppy named Enzo. 11 weeks old, this one's a hyper little brown fur-ball!! Not being trained, he pees and poops all over the place but is a real delight to play with.

He's extremely cute and looks like a fox the size of a hamster. All this just makes me say one thing ... Damn, I so wish I had a dog..

It's been a while..

Well, it's been a while since I last updated this blog...lots has happened technologically in my life..I gave my 5800 away to my sister and I guess that's what stopped me blogging about it. Since then I moved on to the HTC Magic but never found anything interesting to tweet about it.

I know, its Android and all but I never felt the desire to mess around with it, load custom firmwares and all that. I've been eyeing the Blackberry Bold 2 (BB 9700 Onyx) since the time rumors about it popped up and I finally got myself one about a week back...and it's been quite an experience for me since then! I've never been so connected to my friends and my little universe. It's truly an experience in itself.

I admit I loathed Blackberrys at first but come to think of it, my only complaint was the weird keyboard it used to have - the ones where each key had 2 alphabets. One of the major reasons I got myself a BB was BBM and the fact that most of my friends had gotten themselves BBs and so far, I'm loving the whole experience. I think Blackberry has gotten themselves another die-hard fan.

Talking about my technological upgrades, I GOT MYSELF A FUCKIN' ALIENWARE! It's been my dream machine since I was a boy and HOT DIGGITY DANG AM I EXCITED TO HAVE IT! The delivery and all is a story in itself ... let's just say I had to unbox it at the train station just before I left back home for Christmas..all thanks to my bro CP for bringing it to me in the nick of time! I've been enjoying working and gaming on it quite alot with my one and only regret being it's weirdly choppy and annoyingly sluggish trackpad - I simply can't use it without an external mouse. Other than that - it's awesome!

As of now, 2010 is turning out to be one of my best 'Gadget Years' and hope it continues to be this way :)