25 really useful Android tips and tricks

Dell Streak 2.1 update leakedAndroid 2.1 for Dell Streak update arrivesGoogle ready to sell its final Nexus OneUPDATE: If you have Android 2.2, check out our 20 handy Android 2.2 tips and tricks.Android is a great little mobile operating system for the modern smartphone, but it can feel a little bewildering and complex to the newcomer.Google's quest to make everyone feel at home by providing layer upon layer of option screens and hundreds of tweakable settings can leave people a little lost, plus there's your widgets to worry about, the Home screen layout and much more hidden beneath Google's green bonnet.10 best tablet PCs in the world todaySo here, to make things a little easier for Android newcomers and those seeking a few more power tips, we present 50 essential Android facts and techniques.These tips are mostly for the 2.1 version of Android, which is by far the most common form of the OS out there today - but much of the advice will also work on older and newer versions and those boutique varieties skinned by some hardware makers.

1. Activate the Android Power StripThe single most important feature in Android 2.1 is its built-in power strip widget. Here, you're able to quickly disconnect all the phone's battery-destroying features, like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and the Great Batter Killer that is GPS. Long-press on the screen and install it via the widgets category.

2. Android call screeningIf you're a paranoid call-screener, Android is there for you. Open up the Contacts listing of the person you're currently avoiding, then select Menu > Options. From here you're able to ping all incoming calls from this person directly to voicemail. Give people the brush off with Android.

3. Set up custom caller ringtonesAlternatively, if you like talking to people, the same screen lets you allocate a specific custom ringtone to each caller stored in your Contacts directory.30 best free Android apps

4. Add your alarm clock to your task killerA classic mistake, this. We're constantly being told of the (debatable) importance of using a task manager to maximise Android battery life, and if you want to go down that route you're welcome. However, when killing all your tasks to save battery life, remember that your alarm clock is a task in itself - kill that and you'll wake up in a panic at 10.15am tomorrow morning.

5. Organise things into foldersWhile Steve Jobs may have recently made quite a big deal about letting iOS users organise things into folders, Android's been doing that for ages. Fancy a quick Home screen shortcut to your starred favourite contacts? Long-press the Home screen and make it so.

6. Rename Android foldersAnd, once you've done that, to customise things to perfection it's possible to rename folders. Simply open the folder, then long-press on its name in the top bar to bring up the Top Secret renaming field.

7. Check the datePossibly one of the tiniest undocumented features is the date-checking facility. Press the Notification bar at the top left of the screen. It tells you what the date is. Go on, try it. It will.

8. Mount your SD cardAlso accessed via the Notifications field is the "Mount" option. Many an Android newcomer has failed at this hurdle, as mounting your phone's SD card is an awkward step that needs to be taken before it'll appear as an external drive for data copying. Plug it in, mount it, then copy.

9. Set up your keyboard launch shortcutsOne of the reasons many people still love their QWERTY keyboards is Google's inclusion of the reliable old keyboard shortcut system in Android. The phone has a completely customisable collection of app launcher shortcuts, which are found under Settings > Applications > Quick Launch.

10. Download more Android live wallpapersOne thing that makes Android 2.1 a little more swish and exciting than the rather dull earlier versions is its support for Live Wallpapers - the animating image format that brings your Home screen to life. There's a negligible battery life hit for doing so, but in return you get a phone that looks cool. Which is what life's all about, right? Search the Android Market for Live Wallpaper - there are loads.

11. Easy zoomA teeny little feature, this, but one that's super-useful if you're using all five of your Home screens - or a custom user interface that offers even more. Tapping the dots beside the dock at the bottom of the screen brings up a mini thumbnail list of all Home screens, allowing you to get from Screen 1 to Screen 5 without wearing a groove into your screen surface.

12. Add a Navigation shortcut to AndroidAndroid 2.1 lets users set up local short-cuts to the Maps Navigation satnav app. As long as you have one of the latest Google Maps updates, you're able to select one of your Navigation routes and attach it directly to a shortcut on the Home screen - creating a one-press launcher for your favourite trips.

13. Set your double-tap zoom levelOn phones that don't support multi-touch zooming, you can take more control of your web browsing zoom via the browser's setting page. Change your view to "Close" if you want the page to fly right into extreme close up when you double-tap the screen, or leave it to "Far" if you're happy to have text only cropping in a little closer when you double-tap.

14. Change Android browser font sizeFrom the same menu you're also able to select your browser font size. Your personal ideal settings will vary depending on your screen size, resolution and eye sight, but a few minutes getting it set up so pages are instantly readable will save many cumulative hours of resizing over the coming years.

15. Search web pagesMenu > More > Find on Page lets you search for specific text terms on web pages, if you can't be bothered reading the thing properly as the author intended.

16. Practise your robot voiceAndroid 2.1 features voice-input for every text field. Which is nice, although the delay for "processing" - and often rather left field results - mean it's usually quicker to just bite the bullet and type things. Remember to say "comma" to tell it to insert a comma. Full stop.

17. Add words to the Android dictionaryThis is such a useful feature it ought to be screamed about via a sticker on the phone when you take it out of the box. If you've been labouring through life with a difficult-to-spell surname, type it once into your Android phone's text field - then long-press on it in the suggested word field. This adds it to the dictionary, so you'll never have to type more than the first couple of characters of your stupid name again.

18. Sign up for a Picasa accountGoogle's online image-sharing tool may have failed to capture the public's imagination in the same way as Flickr, but there's one good reason to register yourself one - Android 2.1's 3D gallery can auto-sync your photos with your Picasa account. Photo sharing works both ways, so you'll have to deactivate sync if you don't want your entire web gallery popping up on your phone.

19. Download web imagesIf you've seen one of those funny photographs on the internet, long-pressing on it lets you download it to your phone - and it'll pop up in your Gallery for easy sharing.

20. Manage your Android call logIt's very easy to delete individual items from Android's log of made and received calls - simply long-press on an item and delete it. Then sleep easier.

21. Facebook your Contact photosIf you combine Android with the official Facebook Android app, it's possible to automatically pull in photos for your contacts through Facebook. You're also able to create a specific Facebook Phonebook folder on the Home page, keeping internet and proper friends separate.

22. Browser combo buttonThe Android 2.1 web browser features a clever multi-function button beside the address bar. While a page is loading it turns into a "X" to cancel loading, but once a page has finished it transforms itself into a bookmark adding and history management tool. It's always there for you.

23. Android web history shortcutAlso, further speed up browsing by holding down the Back key - this is your shortcut to your internet History. Ideal for navigating those complex browsing sessions - and also cuts down on unnecessary reloading.

24. Use browser tabsThe standard Android browser offers tabbed browsing, it just doesn't do a very good job of advertising it. Long-pressing a URL lets you open web links in a new tab - you then switch tabs by pressing Menu and selecting the Windows option. Not that user-friendly a system, but it works. Just remember that quitting to the desktop may automatically close everything in the middle of a tab-heavy session.

25. Multiple Gmail accounts in AndroidAndroid 2.1 added support for multiple Gmail accounts. Add a new internet identity to your phone by opening the Gmail app, then pressing Menu > Accounts > Add Accounts. Then remember who you're pretending to be.

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Android Task Killers Explained: What They Do and Why You Shouldn’t Use Them

Android task killers improve your phone's performance while also boosting battery life—or at least that's the much-debated promise. Here's a look at how task killers actually work, when you should (or shouldn't) use them, and what you can do instead.A task killer is an app from which you can (sometimes automatically) force other apps to quit, the hope being that the fewer apps you have running in the background, the better your Android's performance and battery life will be. Not everyone agrees with this premise, though. The argument about whether task killers are effective rages all over the internet: Android forums are full of threads with constant bickering and conflicting anecdotal experience, making it difficult for most users to make sense of the situation.Below, I'm going to dig into the truth about Android task killers: that apart from maybe some older phones, Android manages tasks fairly well on its own, and how task killers present quite a few problems. I'll also take a look at the rare occasions when they're useful, and offer some alternatives you should try to improve your phone's performance and battery-life quirks.Before we dive in, here's a quick overview of how Android handles process management by default.

How Android Manages Processes

In Android, processes and Applications are two different things. An app can stay "running" in the background without any processes eating up your phone's resources. Android keeps the app in its memory so it launches more quickly and returns to its prior state. When your phone runs out of memory, Android will automatically start killing tasks on its own, starting with ones that you haven't used in awhile.The problem is that Android uses RAM differently than, say, Windows. On Android, having your RAM nearly full is a good thing. It means that when you relaunch an app you've previously opened, the app launches quickly and returns to its previous state. So while Android actually uses RAM efficiently, most users see that their RAM is full and assume that's what's slowing down their phone. In reality, your CPU—which is only used by apps that are actually active—is almost always the bottleneck.

Why Task Killers Are (Usually) Bad News

Apps like Advanced Task Killer, the most popular task killer in the Market, act on the incorrect assumption that freeing up memory on an Android device is a good thing. When launched, it presents you with a list of "running" apps and the option to kill as many as you want. You can also hit the Menu button to access a more detailed "Services" view, that lists exactly which parts of each application are "running", how much memory they take up, and how much free memory is available on your phone. This set-up implies that the goal of killing these apps is to free up memory. Nowhere on the list does it mention the number of CPU cycles each app is consuming, only the memory you'll free by killing it. As we've learned, full memory is not a bad thing—we want to watch out for the CPU, the resource that actually slows down your phone and drains your battery life.Thus, killing all but the essential apps (or telling Android to kill apps more aggressively with the "autokill" feature) is generally unnecessary. Furthermore, it's actually possible that this will worsen your phone's performance and battery life. Whether you're manually killing apps all the time or telling the task killer to aggressively remove apps from your memory, you're actually using CPU cycles when you otherwise wouldn't—killing apps that aren't doing anything in the first place.In fact, some of the processes related to those apps will actually start right back up, further draining your CPU. If they don't, killing those processes can cause other sorts of problems—alarms don't go off, you don't receive text messages, or other related apps may force close without warning. All in all, you're usually better off letting your phone work as intended—especially if you're more of a casual user. In these instances, a task killer causes more problems than it solves.

What You Should Do Instead

That said, not all apps are created equal. Many of you have used task killers in the past and actually found that after freeing up memory, your phone works a bit better. It's more likely that this is because you've killed a bad app—one that was poorly coded, and (for example) keeps trying to connect to the internet even when it shouldn't. Any performance increase you experience is more likely because you killed the right app, not because you freed up loads of memory (or, in many cases, it's just placebo). Instead of killing all those apps, find out which ones are actually causing the problems. If you really know what you're doing, you may benefit from using a task killer to stop the one or two inefficient-but-loved apps on your phone.Note, however, that this is still a contested notion. A lot of developers (including ROM builder extraordinaire, Cyanogen) will not even look at your bug reports if you're using a task killer. In this humble blogger's opinion, your best bet is to stay away from regular task killer usage entirely. If you absolutely have to have that one battery-killing app on your phone, though, kill away—just be aware that when you experience a recurring Android bug later on, the task killer may be at fault. Of course, you can just stop using it to determine whether that is or isn't the case.With task killers firmly in the better-off-without box, there are still a number of other things you can do to fill the void, improving your performance and battery life:Watch for Runaway Processes: Previously mentioned Watchdog is a slightly different kind of task killer, in the sense that instead of telling you your phone's out of memory and it's time to go on a task killing spree, it alerts you when the occasional app starts eating up CPU for no reason. You can then kill the app with Watchdog and get on with your day (though honestly, at that point, I usually just reboot my phone). If it happens often with the same app, however, you may want to move on to the next step.Uninstall Bad Apps: Worse than the occasional, one-time runaway app is the poorly coded, always-eating-CPU app. If you find (with Watchdog or through some other method) that a particular app seems to drain CPU and battery life whenever it's running, confirm your suspicions by uninstalling it and seeing what happens. If an app is causing problems on your phone, you're probably better off without it.Root Your Phone: We advocate rooting Android devices a lot at Lifehacker, but that's because it really is as useful as everyone says it is. You can over- and underclock your phone with SetCPU, install custom ROMs that noticeably improve performance and battery life, and use the ever-useful, crapware-thwarting Autostarts utility to stop apps from starting up on your phone in the first place. Honestly, with one-click rooting apps like previously mentioned Universal Androotavailable for most phones, rooting only takes a few minutes to do, and you'll be much happier for it.Update: Many of you also mentioned the root-only app Titanium Backup, which will help you get rid of the pre-installed crapware that comes on most phones, which are one of the worst offenders of phone lag. Thanks to all of you that sent this in!Seriously, Use the Power Control Widget: This may sound ridiculously obvious, but if you aren't already using some form of the Power Control widget, you should. The things that drain the most battery on any smartphone are Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and your screen. Turn them off when you don't need them and you'll find that you can eke out considerably more battery life.Charge Your Phone: Even more obvious yet rarely heeded advice: Charge your phone often. This isn't as hard as it sounds for most people. While you're sometimes stuck going out for 14 hours with no place to charge your phone, the majority of us spend our days in our homes, our offices, and other places rife with electrical outlets. Buy a few extra chargers and place them strategically around your home, car, and office. Whenever you're sitting around at home or working away at your desk, you can use that time to dock your phone and give it some extra juice without worrying about battery or performance drains. Before I upgraded to Android 2.2, my battery life was pretty awful, but just having a charger in my car and next to my computer made a huge difference in how often I got the dreaded "low battery" message.Task managers are a controversial subject in Android-land. We've done our research and this is what we came up with, but we're always keen to hear how similar or different your experience is, so share with us in the comments.

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American Red Cross Releases Second App Following First Aid, This Time Dedicated To Hurricanes

Just under two months ago, the American Red Cross released a genuinely impressive app called First Aid. As you'd guess from the name, it's an app dedicated to helping you through medical emergencies; what you wouldn't guess from the name is just how good of an app it is.

Ditto for the organization's eponymous new app, Hurricane. Dedicated to helping you monitor and prepare for hurricanes coming through your area, the app looks every bit as well done as First Aid, and comes with a long list of features:

- Step-by-step instructions let you know what to do even if the cell towers are down and the power is out.
- Monitor weather conditions in your area or those of loved-ones with location-based alerts for the U.S. and its territories from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA).
- Let family and friends know you are okay with the customizable “I’m Safe” alert for Facebook, Twitter, email and text.
- Find open Red Cross shelters in your area when you need help.
- Stay safe when the lights are out with the Hurricane Toolkit, including a strobe light, flashlight and audible alert functions.
- Prepare for the worst by learning how to assemble an emergency kit for your family in the event of power outage or evacuation.
- Empower your family to stay safe and remain calm in an emergency by learning how to make and practice an emergency plan.
- Earn badges that you can share with your friends and show off your hurricane knowledge with interactive quizzes.
- See an illustrated history of hurricanes in your area.
- Learn the difference between a hurricane warning and watch.
- Know how to what to do about food and drinking water when your area has been impacted by floods and power outages.

  

Not only is the app well-designed and highly functional, but it's free of ads and comes in at the low, low price of $0.

Hurricane - American Red Cross

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Official Twitpic App Released For Android

Though the service's popularity has been waning since competitors sprang up (and Twitter itself jumped in the game), Twitpic remains a major host for images on Twitter. They're not going down without a fight, either, and the company has released its official Android app dedicated to sharing photos on Twitter. With a UI heavily inspired by the Twitter app itself (duh), it allows you to browse through photos hosted by Twitpic on your Twitter timeline, as well as edit and share your photos.

The first ever photo sharing site for Twitter comes to Android! Twitpic is the easiest and best way to share your photos and videos with your Twitter followers.
★ Quickly and seamlessly share your photos and videos with all of your Twitter followers
★ Edit your photos with beautiful filters and easy to use enhancement tools
★ Browse your Twitter photo timeline with photos from people you follow in a beautiful interface
★ Browse photos from the most popular Twitpic users
★ Manage your Twitpic photos and videos in your own timeline

  

The app was released a few days ago and has an average review score of 3.6 right now - not exactly great. Still, it's seen a huge number of downloads in the past few days, and about half of the reviews are 5 stars.

Twitpic

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30 BEAUTIFUL FREE ANDROID WALLPAPERS TO ENHANCE YOUR HOMESCREEN

Today we are presenting the 30 Beautiful Android wallpapers, designed by some of the finest and most creative artists around. Android Phones  are most popular and coolest Smartphone in the world. The only Smartphone which lets down the Apple iPhone to #2 and presently rulings over Smartphone world. Many people use android Smartphone for entertainment or work and has become a very nice gadget. Everyone that needs one a way to personalize so first step is a nice wallpaper that will decorate the screen. So we compiled the list of the best Android wallpaper that will help you in choosing the perfect one for your Smartphone screen.

The wallpapers have a 960×800 pixels in resolution and are usable on the all Android Smartphone. As every android Smartphone provides the feature to crop an image to fit the device I don’t think you will face and Smartphone resolution issue.

So, let’s begin our article with:

1. Open Those Doors

2. Looking for Higgs Boson

3. Halloween On a Little Planet

4. Eggs

5. Android Wallpaper

6. White Tree

7. Berry Wild

8. May Flowers

10. Autumn Leaf on Tarmac

11. Angel And Demon

12. Apple Vs Android

13. Fish in the Bulb

14. Starfish and Stone

15. Nature Color

16. Nuclear Water

17. Color Drops

18. Grasshopper

19. Infinity

20. Fire Abstract

21. Bass

22. Zippo Colors

23. Paradise

24. Dark Road

25.  iOS Android

26. Concha

27. Heineken beer

28. Milkyway

29. Beautiful Nature

30. Comaro 2

Note : Above shown wallpaper dimension is not actual, Simply click on the name of the Android wallpaper to get the original dimension which is 960×800 pixels.

We all know that there are thousand of Android wallpaper available over the web, but we gather some of the best under the same hood. And if you have any good wallpaper don’t hesitate to share with us.

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