How you use a tablet if you are in India?

It is almost seven months after I got my first tablet. Ya, true to my fascination about Android I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab and fell in love with the little monster right away. I use it, and use it all the time.

The other day a friend of mine on Facebook was seen asking a question - iPad or Tab, which is more useful? I would say, after using a the Tab for these seven months, if you are in India both have very limited uses.

Why do I say that? I am just wondering how I use my tablet. I use it most for reading. If you check my most used apps list, you will find that I use a browser and an RSS reader the most. Then I use it to search for things or look up places, when I am in doubt. Sometimes, I import my documents to the tab so that I have them at my finger tips when I need to refer them. Sometimes, very rarely, I create a spread sheet or edit a document. And I write this bog on the tab. And oh ya, not to forget I have set up my corporate email on the tab so that I can access my office mail on the go.

I know you are wondering now, why, in spite of using the tab for doing these great things on the go, do I say that they have limited use if you are in India?

Now, when you talk about editing or creating a document, I find that tablets are not so great to do hardcore editing work. It is good enough for some light typing. Like, if you suddenly come up with some idea and you want to put it down before you forget it you can use your tablet. If you are in a meeting or some lecture and you want to use the tablet to take notes, good enough! That's where you will stop. Because complicated document creation is not easy if you are using a tablet. OK, so that is an issue everywhere and not something specific only to India.

You are right. Creating a document becomes a hard nut to crack on tablet computers every where. It doesn't matter you use an iPad or a Tab. Now, that brings us I to the actual use of a tablet.

What is the primary use of a tablet? Like Amazon figured it out, and like most of you have already figured out, people use tablet computers to consume content. Stream and listen to music. Watch videos. Read books. Play games. Browse web. This is where a tablet has a limited use if you are in India. If you are living in India and you own a tablet, it is quite possible that you end up doing only one of the things on your tab completely and two of the things partially.

A friend of mine was telling me the other day he bought a tablet only for one reason - so that he can read when he is relaxing on his couch. If you are in India, browsing the web is the only way of reading for you. You will not want to read books as the books that are available on different platforms are mostly free, out of print books you read long ago. The new books available in the markets are books you need to pay to download. And none of the Book applications out there are Indian User Friendly when it comes to paying for books. Most of them have this scary dollar signs that make you hate to sign up. Not because you hate dollars or Americans. Simply because you don't use dollars in your day to day life and you have to check the conversion rate to figure out how many dollars are how many Indian Rupees and that is such a task.

Now, even if you don't mind the idea that they ridiculously display dollars, and want to really sign up, comes the second problem. You have no idea how to sign up or what will happen even if you sign up. So you don't. You see, most Indians are very careful when it comes to signing up for digital services. Often we prefer not to pay for digital services. Even if we prefer to, these vendors make it so difficult to sign in and buy. This is the issue not just about buying books. It is an issue about buying games, apps, videos or anything that can be bought online.

A month ago, I met an Indian man in a train who was proudly playing around with his iPad. And I was playing around with my tab. As usual for Apple Fanboys, the man wanted to show off his Apple device to an Android user and we got into this conversion. True to the Android Fanboy that I am, I did everything possible to make his iPad look like a piece of closed junk. That apart, what struck me the most in our conversation was how he downloads paid apps. He is using the account of his daughter in US on his iPad to download what ever paid thing he wants to. Look at that, an Indian man uses a US bank account to dowload stuff on his iPad. Not bad, right? So if you want to download paid stuff make sure that you have a benevolent relative in US.

There is no point in blaming that Indians don't buy stuff online. We will buy if you make that process easy for us. We will buy if it looks to us like we are buying from India. So take that dollar sign off the money and put our newly designed Indian Rupees Sign - it is cute. Another thing, not many of us have a credit card. Many of us will not have a credit card for a long time. So you better enter into some agreement with our banks and allow us to use the debit card. Better still, allow us to use our credit in the phone to buy stuff. If you do not do that, Indian market will keep downloading your free applications. If you do not do that, we will not find any other use for a tab than to browse and slowly we will grow weary of the entire idea of tablet experience.

The best Android Browser so far

The best thing about Android is the options that are available in the Market when it comes to Applications. You come across a variety of Applications for the same purpose. Browsers are on of them.

I have tested all the browsers available for Android so far. I download every new browser that is available in the market and try them for sometime. However, I always find myself going back to the stock Android Browser because I see no point in using the browsers available in the Market - they all have similar or lesser features than the stock Android Browser.

Firefox and Opera for example, the leaders in the desktop browser war, suck big time with their Android Browsers. Browsing with Opera Mobile or Firefox makes it look like you are using a feature phone and not a smartphone.

Dolphin on the other hand has some cool features and great functionality. But Dolphin sucks when it comes to looks. The user interface of Dolphin used to feel like the work of some kindergarten kid, until Webzine came along.

Then there is Miren. It looks good. It has some great functionality built into it. It feels like you are browsing on the desktop when you are using Miren. But I have not seen an update ever since I downloaded Miren. So it always comes across to me as an abandoned project.

Thinking about Miren made me feel that, perhaps, this is where Android Browser innovation ends. Now Android Browser will ever go beyond what Miren has done with browser functionality. Then Dolphin came along with Webzine, confirming my belief that innovation ended when it comes to browsers. Now, Webzine is a reader. I cannot understand why it should be the feature of a web browser. We have plenty of RSS readers out there if we want one.

As usual, I was proved wrong. I stumbled upon Sleipnir in the Android Market. I think Sleipnir is the best browser  have come across in the Android Market so far. Why do I think so? Let me give you my reasons:

• Sleipnir has a very innovative user interface. I used to think that Life Browser is the best user interface available so far. But after I started using Sleipnir, I realized that Life Browser is just a user interface gimmick. The ability to see screen shots of your bookmarks is what makes Life Browser different. But you kind of find it useless when it comes to other browser features. Sleipnir's user interface is a different one. Sleipnir has taken tabbed browsing on smartphones to the next level. You can have as many tabs as you want open on the browser with Sleipnir and you can have different layers of tabs. Sleipnir has six layers on which you can organize your tabs for easy access.  And the tabs and layers are just a swipe away, at the bottom of the screen.
• A major issue I have with all the other Browsers on Android was the fact that they open mobile version of sites, if you have Android as your default user agent. Ya, that is good. I like reading the mobile versions of sites than the original versions sometimes. However, the problem with most of the mobile sites is the font size. Most mobile sites have their font size below the level of human capacity to read. How I used to wish if I could zoom some of the mobile sites to make them readable. Not all eyes are as powerful as mobile site developers eyes. Sleipnir allows you to tap or pinch even mobile site to zoom. This is the best feature I loved about Sleipnir.
• Sometimes you wish you did not have to tap the tabs to go from one tab to another. It makes me feel so good to swipe on the readers to go to the next page. That is so intuitive when you are reading. It is like turning the pages on the book. Sleipnir allows you to do that. I heard that the feature is available on Dolphin Browser for Android Honeycomb Tablets. But I like the fact that Sleipnir does it for all the android versions it works on.
• Swipe down on the tab to close it is another feature I liked. I think this feature has a little problem as you swipe down to close a tab. Often you end up pressing the home button as you are swiping down to close a tab and close the browser. But, as you get used to the browser I am sure you will be careful not to do it.
• It has some useful gesture features that allows you to search, refresh or stop a page from loading. Some of you may like it. However, for me it is not very useful as many gestures on most browsers are not an intuitive feature. The fact is, I forget to use them. But if you are someone good at remembering your gestures, you will love the gesture features of Sleipnir.

You can donwload Sleipnir  from here. Let me know what you think about the browser after you use it. 

Best reminder app for Android

If you are someone like me who keeps forgetting things that need your immediate attention, you defenitly need an application that reminds you to do them. Now, setting up your calendar is good enough for scheduling. Calendar on your android phone is not good enough to help you manage your daily to-do stuff. Though there are plenty of Applications out there, most of them fail when it comes to reminding you to do stuff. Either you need to create an alarm or you need to put a widget on your home screen so that you are remineded.

Now, the problem with alarms are, they go off once. After they go off once and you forget to snooze them, you are going to be in  trouble, forgetting what you were upto.

And the problem with a widget? Widgets are good if you put them on the screen that you always go to. Considering that most android phones have almost seven homescreens and you always don't go to all homescreens often, keeping a widget may not always help. And considering that most to-do applications out there in the market don't have an alram function built into them, widgets are the only option. But then, as I told you widgets often fail to grab your attention.

If widgets don't help, then what helps? Which application helps us to set todo reminders and see them when we have to? There is an application that allows us to create reminders without wasting the real eastate of the home screen and to keep them in a place we will never miss. This application I am talking about helps you keep your reminders in the notification tray.

Ya, that is right. Notification Notes, a very useful todo reminder application for android uses your notification tray to display your reminders. You can either create sticky notifications for your tasks and keep them displayed in the notification tray till you are done with the thing or you can set alarms for a task so that it displays exactly when you have to do it.

Let me give you an example. You are in the middle of something and you get a mail that you need to meet your boss for something very important after half an hour. All that you need to do is type the reminder into your Notification Notes and set an alarm. Your reminder will pop up on your notification bar exactly after half an hour. Is that not cool?

The great thing about Notification Notes is the fact that it allows you to create more than one notification reminder, unlike some notification reminder apps that are available in the market. It also comes with icons that you can change for each reminder. Now, if you want to downlaod Notification Notes, the application that allows you to set reminders on your notification bar, you can download it from here.

Which is the best keyboard for Android?

So far, after buying my first Android Phone, I have tried more than ten versions of keyboards for Android. As usual, the pre-loaded stock Android Keyboard always comes with a lot of limitations. And this leads us to the search of a better keyboard. It led me too. And I have tried many of them. From Swipe to Swiftkey X, I have tried them all.

What do you look for when you download a keyboard? If you are like me, I am sure you will look for a keyboard that will help you make less mistakes as you are typing. The issue with most touch screen keyboards is that we end up pressing the wrong key or the screen reads our tap on the keyboard wrong. Stock Android keyboard's ability to predict what you will type and auto-correct is very limited. That is how many of us end up making frustrating and embarrassing  epic auto-correct bloopers. The more accurate the auto-correct, the better.

However, not many Android Keyboards have the ability to predict what you are typing as accurately as possible. Swipe got it right to some extent. But the problem with Swipe is that it is available mostly on Samsung Phones and even if it is available you get tired of swiping after some time. I still use Swipe to show off the ability of my Android phone and not to do my day to day typing.

SwiftKey X got it almost right. After using it for sometime, I realized that SwiftKey also fails me in this accuracy department sometimes. Sometimes it comes up with these autocorrects that you cannot change no matter how hard you try. You keep typing one word and SwiftKey changes into something else. Frustrated, you have to go back to the stock Keyboard to type it the way you want.

So does my search for a keyboard that allows me to type accurately on my Andoid phone end there? Thankfully, no! Like I always say, there is an App for that too - AI Type Keyboard.

AI Type Keyboard alows you to type faster and without much mistake. It does not autocorrect irresponsibly. Everytime AI Type Keyboard autocorrects you, it notifies you with a sound. Otherwise, it predicts what you write and predicts so well that you may not even have to review what you type. You can set the keys to make a pop sound when you type. And the keys that you touch pops out allowing you to  keep track of which key you are touching. Over all I will give a 9 out of 10 for AI Type Keyboard. You can download AI Type Keyboard from here if you are using an Android Phone. You can download the tablet version of the App from here. 

How to make Android Applications full screen on Tablets?

You download an application to your tablet only to find it that it does not fit full screen and there is this ugly black boarder around it. This ugly black boarder and the small screen size of the App makes you not want to use the Application however good it actually is. This is a usual problem with most first-generation Android Tablets. Many of the old Applications that are developed for the small screen of a smart phone does not look well on the tablet. People who use Samsung Galaxy Tab, the beautiful seven inch one from Samsung, are aware of this issue.

What can you do to make your Android Tablet display all Applications in full screen? Usually, you have to edit the manifest file of each small screen app to make it full screen. Most of us do not have the time to do that kind of work for all the applications we download.  Even if we have the time, we may not have the know-how to do it. There is actually an automated way of working around this issue. Well here is what you need to do to make otherwise small screen Android Applications look full screen on your Tablet:

• Go to Android Market and download Spare Parts. Spare Parts is a settings application for Android. It allows you to tweak a few settings that are otherwise not available on many phones or tablets. The developer ripped these settings from the Android source repository and put them together to make an Application. You can download Spare Parts from here.
• After downloading Spare Parts, open the application. You will find a list of settings. Go to compatibility mode in the list of settings. You will find that compatibility mode is checked. Uncheck the compatibility mode and reboot the tablet. Note one thing here - Spare Parts is not a full screen application when you download it. 
• Once your tablet is switched on, go to Spare Parts again. If the change worked, you will see that Spare Parts has turned into a full screen app.

How to copy and paste text on an Android Phone?

One of my readers asked me how to copy paste on a touch screen phone. Considering that I write a lot about Android Phones these days, I am assuming the reader wants to know how to copy and paste text if you are using an Android Phone.

Is it not obvious? Many of you may think. Well, it is not that obvious. I have come across many people who find it difficult to figure out how copy and paste functionality work on a phone. Now, let us figure it out.

Now, Android lets you select text, cut or copy and pate it else where. Let us go step by step, to figure out how to copy text in one application and take it else where, to another application:

• Decide what text you want to copy. Long press that part of the text with your finger. To long press is to touch the screen for a longer time than usual, until some action happens. When you long press on the screen a menu will pop up.
• The menu on the Android Phone that pops us when you long press on text will have the following options
• Select Word
• Select All
• Cut
• Copy
• Paste
• Once the menu pops up, you can select all the text or select a word to start with. Select a word if you do not want to select the entire text on the screen.
• When you select a word, Android 2.1 or above will show an orange select highlight with two markers at both ends of the highlights. Now you can click on the markers and drag them to select which ever text you want to select. If you are using Gingerbread or above you can do it like a breeze. If you are using the older versions of Android, it becomes a little difficult. However, you can touch the highlight and drag you fingers on the text you want to choose.
• Once you select the text, long press on the highlighted part again to open the menu. And cut or copy as you please.
• After the text is copied to the clipboard, press the home button to leave the application. Open the application where you want to paste the content. Long press the text box where you want to paste the content and open the menu. And click "Paste"

If you could not make figure out how to do it after reading these instructions, here is a video that will help you:

Alternatively, if you want to use the clipboard on your phone in a more advanced form and want to keep a record of what you copied and pasted for future reference or use, you can go to market and download Clipper. In other words, clipper is a clipboard management app for android. You can download Clipper from here.  Clipper allows you to access your clipboard and get what ever you copied.

What are the different touch commands on Android Phones?

So, you got your first touch enabled Android Phone? Good. Now you are wondering what are the different kinds of touch commands available on your Android Phone. Most of us figure it on our own, because touch is intuitive. We are designed to touch. But some of us find it difficult to figure out how touch commands work on a phone when we are interacting with a touch screen phone for the first time. Here, let us explore different ways in which we can touch a multi-touch Android phone and make it listen to us.

Tap: To tap is to touch. Just touch your phone once. Tap will help you do a lot of things. You can tap to open a link or dial a number. You can tap to interact with a submit or login button. Most buttons and keyboards ract to taps. You tap to type. Some phones have multi touch enabled and you can tap two or three buttons at the same time. This allows you to play games on your phone effectively.

Double Tap: Certain applications allow you to double tap. If you double tap on a browser, you will zoom in or out. You need to double tap on certain applications to interact with certain buttons. Photographs too respond to double tap. When you double tap, photographs zooms in or out.

Long Press: You can press for a long time on the screen when you are interacting with an Application. Long press usually brings up a menu. This menu usually contains copy, cut and paste functions. You can long press on  certain applications to select all text. In a browser, you can long press to open a link in another tab or a new window.

Pinch or Spread: With two of your fingers you can imitate the action of pinching to zoom in or out. If you pinch in, it zooms out. If you pinch out or spread, it zooms in. You can pinch pages or photographs  to zoom them in or out.

Swipe: Android allows you to swipe horizontally or vertically on the screen to interact. Usually, you swipe to unlock the phone. You can also swipe to move things around. You can swipe on certain applications to go from one page to another.

Flick: Flick is like you flick a page in a book. It is a short swipe. When you swipe you move your finger from one end of the screen to other. When you flick, you swipe for a short period. You can flick on the screen usually to move from one page to another. 

Is there an App like Photoshop for Android?

Do you like to draw pictures and paint? Are you painter who wants to try every medium possible to express yourself? Or are you a person who wishes your smart phone had the ability to let you draw or paint what you like? Or are you a person like me, who wish you had a Photoshop like App for your Android? Well, Android will not disappoint you.

There are plenty of Apps available in the Android Market, that allows you to paint or draw. There are plenty of  apps that allow you to insert photographs from your Gallery and draw circles and letters on it with your finger. But there an App that will help you do all that, and do it like you do on Photoshop. 

Adobe is yet to come out with an Application that resembles Photoshop for Android. Apparently, they are getting ready to launch one. But we cannot wait that long right? Ya, nobody waits when it comes to technology. It is all about getting what you want where you want it as quickly as you want it. And I know, we will jump at the opportunity of an App like Photoshop for Android. Yes, there is one!

SketchBook Mobile Express is an App like Photoshop for Android. If you have Android 2.1  or above, you can go ahead and download SketchBook Express for free from Android Market. Yes, it lets you draw and draw like a pro. If your device has 512 MB RAM and a 1Ghz Processor SketchBook Mobile Express will work like magic on your device. What I liked most about Sketchbook Mobile Express? Well, the ability to draw using layers like the layers on Photoshop. If you want to give it a shot, you can download the App from here. 

If you do not mind paying and you are really a pro painter who will settle for nothing other than the best features available, they got a paid version for you. They got SketchBook Mobile, that comes with more features. You can download it from here. 

If you are using a Hioneycomb Tablet like Samsung Galaxy Tab, you might want to try the Tablet Version of SketchBook. They call it Sketchbook Pro. SketchBook Pro is specially designed for Android Tablet. Well, here again, you need to pay for this App. You can download it from here. 

The truth behind "Shocking Video From Steve Jobs’ Last Business Meeting"

Shocking Video From Steve Jobs' Last Business Meeting from The Final Edition on Vimeo.

I am sure you have come across this video on your Facebook or Twitter or any other social network you are on. It is shocking as the title says. It show Steve Jobs, one of the greatest men ever lived on the face of this earth, slumping on his chair during his last business meeting. 

This video was uploaded on Vimeo on 31 August 2011. Later, it was uploaded on YouTube on 6 October 2011. Original and gripping as it may seem, this video is fake. Why do I think this video is fake?

The video about "Steve Jobs' final meeting" is fake for one simple reason - this video has the same red chair from Walt Mossberg's AllthingsD interview with Steve Jobs. And one of the clips or many clips in the video is from that famous interview. See the video for yourself and find out that line in the shocking video that Steve says is from AllThingD Video. 

Now, the website that made this video, The Final Edition, is a parody website, whose only intention is to poke fun at The New York Times. They probably made this video to drive traffic to their site. Now, you decide if you want to take a parody website seriously!!

What are the new features in Ice Cream Sandwich for Android?

Google unveiled Ice Cream Sandwich [Android 4.0] today. Let us take a quick look at what are the new features in Ice Cream Sandwich:

• Flick away Notifications: You can individually manage notifications on Ice Cream Sandwich. You can flick away the ones that you do not need or finished taking a look at. You can keep the ones you want to take a look at later. Now we are going to see a lot of Reminder Applications using the Android Notification System in Ice Cream Sandwich. 
• FaceUnlock: Android used to let you unlock in three ways. You could flick it open. You could draw a pattern to open. You could use a pin to open. Now there is a third way to unlock your phone. You can take a picture of your phone to open it. Think Visidon Applock if you are using Gingerbread or less and you can download it from here
• Enhanced Keyboard: Ice Cream Sandwich key board just got better. You can now do inline spell check, cut, copy, and paste better and drag text for easy input.
• Android Beam: Ice Cream Sandwich is going to use NFC or Near Filed Communication through Android Beam so that you can share contacts, Apps, Websites, Directions and videos on Youtube from one Phone to Another by tapping the phone. If you do not have NFC enabled on your phone, think Bump. You can download Bump from here. 
• Easy Screenshots: The most difficult task on an Android Phone is to take a screen shot. By the time you press the back button and power button, the screen reaches home. In Ice Cream Sandwich you can take a screen shot pressing the volume up button and power button together. And press those buttons and it comes up with a polaroid animation to highlight the action.
• Enhance Browser: No more horizontal tabs. Now you have vertical previews of tabs. And if you want to shift between a desktop and mobile view all that you need to do is to long press on the tab to bring up the menu. 
• Mobile Data Details: You can now set up mobile data usage details directly on your phone without having to rely on a third part App. Think of 3G Watch Dog and you can download it from here. 
• Panoramic View: Now on Ice Cream Sandwich you can shoot pictures in Panoramic view
• Photo Editing: You can now do some basic photo editing within the phone, like cropping etc. 
• People Section: Contacts is enhanced to People. Now Android will bring together all the social networks a person is on to one place. And you can check that persons updates right from the People App.
• Swipe away tasks: You can go to your task manager and swipe away running Apps to close them.
• Context Sensitive Options: No more menu buttons. You have options that are context sensitive
• Folders: At last! Now you can put Apps into Folders. Think Go Launcher or Launcher Pro. And of course think iPhone.
• Calendar Zoom: On Ice Cream Sandwich you can pinch and zoom your calendar.
• Voice Typing: I am not sure how well this is going to work. But to compete with Siri on iPhone, Ice Cream Sandwich has enabled voice to text functionality. 
• Roboto: Ice Cream Sandwich has a brand new font - Roboto. Think about Windows Metro

Iris vs Vlingo vs Speaktoit

After Siri is out on iPhone, there is such a rush of people to capitalize on the Siri Effect and earn some quick money or popularity. It sounds and feels like the Gold Rush. Everyone, is making a Virtual Assistant Application. Out of all the Virtual Assistant crap that is coming to Market, three key players stand out - Iris, Vlingo and Speaktoit. I have used all the three and would like to give you an idea about how I felt using the three Applications.

Iris

Iris is a clever play on the word Siri. However, it is an Application made in a rush. The developer says it was hacked together in 8 hours. It is still in beta and it is too early to pass a judgement. For 8 hours of hack, it is a good product. Otherwise it is not that great. Use Iris a couple of times and you will go away feeling that your phone does not like you. Iris is actually trying to be funny. But it ends up being sarcastic. Not many people will like a sarcastic virtual assistant. The point is, this sarcasm or humour is to cover up the fact that Iris is incapable of doing certain tasks it is supposed to do. It can not send an SMS. It cannot update your status on social networks. It cannot set a reminder. All that it can do is to pull up answers to your questions from Wikipedia. Ya, Iris does that well. It pulls out answers and reads it for you better than any other App in the Market. So if you want to play Quiz with your Virtual Assistant, you can download Iris from here.

Vlingo

Vlingo is in the market for sometime now, much before Siri came along. It is a direct Application. No cleverness. No fun. You give a command and Vlingo does it. Vlingo is better at capturing your voice command and executing it. But it is boring. Because it does not have a conversation mode. It sounds like you are talking to a robot and you are a robot when dealing with Vlingo. Otherwise, Vlingo does many of the tasks in a breeze. It can even capture your vague mumbles and execute an action. It is integrated to the search button and you can make it your default action for long pressing the search button. It can send SMS. Search the Map. It can voice dial. It can search the web for you. It can do many tasks. No fun and all work. Vlingo gets confused if you ask her any crooked humane question. If you are someone who likes to get your work done straight away in few words, you can download Vlingo from here.

Speaktoit

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy - that is exactly what will happen to Vlingo. All fun and no work makes Jack a useless boy - that is exactly what will happen to Iris. Speaktoit is the only App that I have seen in the market so far, that is almost equal to Siri. It does all the work. And it knows to be funny. It knows to have a conversation with you. As I understand, it will take years for a Virtual Assistant to become a utility. Till then people are going to have fun with it. People are going to use it to just show off for a while and then are going to forget it. Speaktoit will be a good App to show off. It does all the work it needs to do or can do. And it lets you have some fun on the sidelines. I have written more about Speaktoit here. Speaktoit is the best Android Virtual Assistant you can download to show off to the Apple Fanboys who wag their Siri on your Face and smirk. If you are someone who likes to get the work done and at the same time have some fun, you can download Speaktoit from here. 

Search button on Android is not working

Android is because Google is into search. Otherwise, why would they spend all these resources to try and make a world class mobile operating platform and give it away for free? They do that hoping that they are going to make money when people search on an Android phone. That is exactly the reason why,  in spite of the OS fragmentation that Android Phones are cursed with, you will see a dedicated search button on almost every Android Phone and it works the same way on every phone.

You press the button and pop opens the search bar for Android. You long press and you voice search.
Now, the search button is a utility. You don't use it unless you need it. Imagine the search button not working when you need it the most. You press and press and only what seems to be opening is the voice search. What do you do when your Google Search bar does not pop up when you press the search button?

Following are some of the things you can do to correct a search button that is not responding to a single click on your Android Phone:

1. Make sure that it is only the single click that does not get you a response. If a long press opens the voice search and single click does not yield any result at all, be sure your hardware is fine. The problem is with the software. If the search button does not respond to both short and long press, it is time to take your phone to a service guy.
2. If the issue is only with the single press, go to your Settings >Applications > Application Manager and find out the Google Search Application from the list. Open it and click the button for clearing data.
3. If clearing data does not work, switch off the phone and switch it on. Take out the sim and battery once and insert it back before you switch on.
4. If reporting does not work, download Android Assistant from the Market and use that to clear the cache. Sometimes Android does not clear all that you have inside the cache when you clear data.
5. If Android Assistant does not help, see if you have the search widget on your home screen. Search Widget is this little bar you tap on when you want to search. The probable reason is that the search widget is not responding to the command from the search button. Delete the search widget and try the search button.

The search button must work now. If it does not, perhaps it is a problem with a recently installed Application. Take some time to figure out which Application is causing the issue and delete it.

How to make an Android Phone look like an iPhone?

Android Users usually do not want their phone's user interface to look like iPhone. They are Android Users because they wanted to be Android Users. But some of us are Android Users because of the freedom that Android gives. We like the iPhone User Interface, but since iPhone is so closed and restrictive we chose to go with Android. Or still, some of us have just moved from iPhone to Android, are just getting used to Android Way and we want time to get used to the whole Android Experience. Or some of us just want to try something new for the kick of it without having to pay Apple. That is when we start searching for ways in which we can make our Android look like iPhone.

Is there some way in which we can make our Android Phone look and behave like iPhone? There are many options to make your Android Phone look like an iPhone. The most popular way is to download Go Launcher or Launcher Pro and get one of their many themes that look like an iPhone. But the problem here is, Go Launcher or Launcher Pro themes do not keep two key things that differentiate an Android from an IPhone.

What are those key things that differentiate the iPhone User Interface from an Android User Interface?

One, iPhone does not have widgets. Android has plenty of them. Widgets are one of the reasons why people love Android. So if you want to make your phone look exactly like iPhone, you need to forget having Widgets around. [On second thought, the only widgets that I use are the Clock Widget and the Search Widget. But you miss the widget functionality if you do not have it around. ]

Two, iPhone does not have an App Drawer like Android. In Android, you have a home screen and then you have an App Drawer. This helps you have all your Applications in one place. And then you can have your widgets and short cuts to applications organized on the five to seven home screens that you have. For iPhone, it is all applications on that screen of yours and nothing more. And then, if you want to categorize your applications, you can create folders. You can not create folders for Applications in your App Drawer for Android, in the stock Android. [If you really want to create folders for your Applications, try Go Launcher on Android]

Now, Go Launcher or launcher Pro themes that promise to make your phone look like iPhone, do not take away these two key functions from Android - the App Drawer and Widgets. That is where you need to try out this new kid in the block from China - Espire Launcher. You can downlaod Espire Launcher from here.

The first thing you will notice about Espire Launcher is the fact that it removes the two key features of Android temporarily, while you are using it as your launcher. Oh ya, it apes the shiny look of an iPhone user interface. But then you will not have access to widgets or App Drawer. You can manage multitasking by swiping up from the bottom of your screen to bring up the multi-task or recent app tray. You can put your Applications in folders. You have your search function on a single page. And you have notifications popping up on the Application Icons like you have in iPhone. Ya, it looks good. It gives you iPhone OS for Android.

It looks good. It looks shiny. It looks exactly like the iPhone OS. But, then you start missing your widgets. Then you start missing your App drawer. If you are a real Android Fan, you will try Espire for a while and then go back to your most comfortable Android Interface, like I did.

Now, if you liked the iPhone OS and do not want to go back to the Android Interface, I suggest that you do one more thing. Read my post on MagicLocker from here and get an iPhone Screen Lock Theme to complete your masquerade. See, that is the freedom Android gives. 

Want to change the screen lock on your Android?

Android allows you to have variety! You can use an Android Phone almost any way you want. This is true in terms of the kind of Applications we can use on Android and the way we can make the user interface look. Ya, if you go the Android Way, you do not have to stick to a pattern your gadget maker asks you.

Ya, you can change the way the User Interface looks and behaves if you are using Android. You can make it look like an iPhone. You can put the new Windows Phone interface on you Android Phone. There are hundreds of themes and user interfaces available for Android.

Till now, making your User Interface look the best possible way you wanted it to was limited to what you saw on the screen after you woke the screen up from sleep mode. There was nothing much we could do about Android's lock screen. It used to be that boring slide to open lock screen or a pattern or pin lock screen. Perhaps, the slide to open lock screen differed from one Android to another, based on how the device manufacturer clocked their user interface with their own. Otherwise, all the lock screens are pretty same on Android. Pretty boring same, after the first few months. How we wished we could change the lock screen on Android!

Now, is there some way we can play around and change the way the lock screen of our Android Phone looks? Yes, you have a way to change the Android Phone lock screen without having to root it. They call it, MagicLocker! You can download MagicLocker from here.

Download the main MagicLocker application first. It allows you to download different kinds of Android Screen Locks and use them on your phone as you wish. Now you can make your phone open like an iPhone or a Windows Phone or you name what ever style you like! You want to try the Honeycomb Lock screen on a Gingerbread phone or Froyo phone? Go ahead and download MagicLocker. And download any theme you like!

As usual, because of Android OS fragmentation, some of you may have some difficulty making the App work the way it should. The usual complaint is how the App behaves when the battery is low. Having said that, I know most of us are willing to forgive Android OS Developers as they give us what we want in the best possible way they can. And MagicLocker may have a lot things it need to change to be better. But something is better than nothing.

What to do when Apps installed from Android Market Web Version do not get installed on phone?

One great thing about Android Market is the fact that you can install an Application from your phone and from your computer. You are working on something online and you stumble on an Application that you think will be great to have. If you are an Android user, you do not need to go back and look for it using your phone. You can straight away install that App from the Android Market's Web Version. All that you need to do is sign into Market, choose your device and click install.

All is good! Android released a new version of Android Market in July 2011 and it hoped to make App discovery a breeze. They revamped the whole UI and Market on your phone looks good now. But the recent release of the Android Market on your phone is too buggy. It has all sorts of issues that previous versions did not have. For example, the Market will tell you there is an App that has an update. But when an excited you head over to the App's page to update, all that you will find is an option to open or uninstall the App. That can be frustrating! This problem gets solved after a few hours and you will be ready to download the App again. But that is not all! The new Android Market has another issue that is much more serious than this!

I am sure most of you who use Android market Web version to install an App on your Phone would have faced this issue one way or the other. You find a great App. You want to install it. You sign in and click install. You wait for the App to get installed on your phone. Nothing happens! You wait, wait and wait! No App gets installed on the phone. What is the problem?

The issue is with the Market's ability to sync with the servers. If the Market Application on the Phone does not sync with the servers where Android Apps are stored, the Application will not get installed. All that you need to do is get the Market to sync back again. What can you do to sync the Market App with Google Servers and install the App you tried to install from the Android Market Web Application? Following are a few things you can do to make that sync happen:

• Open and close your Market App for a few times. Try opening the "My Apps" tab from the Menu. Or open a few App Pages. If you do this a few times, the Market on your phone will sync with Google Servers and your App will get downloaded.
• If opening your Market App does not help, go to Google Talk. Open Google Talk on your phone. Sign out of Google Talk and sign back in. The moment you get signed back into Google Talk you will see that the App is getting downloaded. 

How to deal with force closes on Android?

Force close is a serious problem on Android.  No matter what hardware you are using, many Apps end up getting force closed the moment you open them. Usually force closes happen after updates. You update your firmware and reboot to see that some of your favorite Apps are getting force closed. You update an App only to see that it force closes everytime you open it.

What can you do when an Android Application force closes on you? Following are some of the things you can do if an Application force closes:

• As usual, reboot the phone! Switch off your phone!Take out the battery, sim card and replace them! Switch the phone on! And go back to see if the force close problem is solved.
• Go to your Settings - Applications - Application Manager and clear the cache and defaults of the Application that force closes. Reboot and see if the problem persists.
• Sometimes an Application force closes because of faulty updates. Uninstall and reinstall the application to see if that solves the force close issue.
• If it is a stock application that force closes and you cannot remove that application from your phone, uninstall any recent updates you have made to the application. 
• Sometimes, Applications may force close when recently installed Apps clash with the Applications that force close. Figure out which recently installed Application triggered the problem and uninstall that Application.
• If you have recently updated your firmware and that is causing the issue, you may need to go back and reinstall the firmware to solve the force close issue.
• Sometimes the issue is with the slow internet connection you had for your phone while you were updating the application. Because of the slow connection, the application might not have been downloaded properly to your phone. Here wifi comes to your help. If you can get on to a wifi network and download the application again, it may not force close. 
• Sometimes doing a Factory Reset, if nothing works, will help you solve the issue of forced close.
• Often, it is the fault of the developer that an Application force closes. Head over to the market and see if other users are facing a similar issue. If it is an issue with the update, you may have to live with the force close until the developer comes up with a bug fix for that. 

[Note: There used to be a Force Close Finder Application in the Android Market. However, I find that it is not there anymore. That tells me, perhaps, the Force Close Finder App was some sort of malware or crapware or something!]

Let me know, if you have figured out any other way to solve the force close issue. 

There is an App like Apple's Siri (voice action assistant) for Android

Apple released IPhone 4s and Apple fanboys are so desperate already to find out what makes it different from iPhone 4. They talk about internet loading speed of Iphone 4s, but their own test videos show how some of the new Android phones match it in terms of speed. The next thing they talk about is Siri.

Siri is an application available in iphone 4s that allows you to use voice actions. You say it and Siri will do it for you. Want to send a text message to someone? Just tell Siri. Want to find out which is a good seafood restaurant in Bangalore, ask Siri. Ya, all that is good only till you know that these capabilities are already built into Android and all that you need is an application to do it.

No! Don't expect Google to do it for you. Google is not Apple. They did not create Android so that they can create all cool apps themselves. They let the developers do it. And one of the Android Developers have already come up with an App that matches Siri in terms of functionality.

Speaktoit Assistant is the Application that gives you what you ask for on Android. You can download the app from here. Speaktoit Assistant is closely integrated with the voice recognition and voice action technology already available on Android.

What can you do with Speaktoit Assistant? You can do pretty much anything that you do with Siri, if you are using Speaktoit Assistant for Android. You can update your Social Network Profiles. You can open websites. You can send text messages. You can open applications. And based on your gender preference you can have a guy or a girl assisting you with Voice Actions as you go about asking your Android Smartphone to do things for you.

The best thing I like about Speaktoit Assistant is that it uses the voice action language on your phone. For example, I speak Indian English and Speaktoit Assistant understands Indian English as that is the default voice action language on my phone.

Speaktoit Assistant is closely integrated with the browser and search function of Android. So you can make it your default voice action assistant. A long press on the search button will open Speaktoit Assistant after you make it your default voice action application on Android.

Update: Like me, if you have the habit of trying several Applications for the same functionality before settling with one, Vlingo Virtual Assistant is another voice action assistant  you have. You can download Vlingo Voice Action Assistant from here. What can Vlingo do for you? Vlingo follows your voice commands for a number of functions like sending text messages, calling someone, searching, updating social networks, opening applications, getting directions on you map and to hear incoming messages. Like Windows Phone proposes to do, Vlingo has an InCar Beta. Vlingo In Car beta is integrated into your Vlingo Virtual Assistant and you can use it when your drive. It also has an automatic listening mode.

Feedback Update: I tried both Speaktoit and Vlingo. Speaktoit feels more like Siri because it answers your questions in a conversation mode. Vlingo feels like a skinned version of Google Voice Actions. Though, like Siri, Speaktoit gets confused with certain things you say, it does a good job picking out things for you from the web or sending a message or updating your social network actions. I have been hearing about the funny things that Siri says when you ask funny questions to it. From the look of it, I think Speaktoit gives funnier answers to the same questions. Vligo, on the other hand, is a little dry as it just executes voice commands.

Now try Speaktoit and Vlingo and let me know which of those you liked!

Update: A recent software update got Speaktoit, the ability to remember your name. It also has options of using a Male or Female Voice. So, all you girls out there, if you want a Male Voice Assistant, Speaktoit is the App. 

Rename files on your Android Phone or Tablet

One thing that you cannot do on Android? Most of us will say, well, you cannot rename the files on an Android. Right? Wrong! You can rename the files on Android.

Yes, you can. You may not be able to rename your files using your normal Android stock file manager. Often you hook up the phone to a computer near you when you want to rename a file on your Android phone. But that is not the only way. You can directly change the name of a file on your Android phone without hooking it up to a computer.

See, if Android can allow you to create documents from the phone and name them as you like using a document writer,it can allow you to rename your file too. As I understand both functions use similar api. All that you need to do is to find an alternate Android file manager in the classic Android style. Yes, there is an App for that too! Literally! Actually there are many Apps for that!

Well, I use Astro File Manager. You can download Astro File Manager from here.All that you need to do to rename a file on Astro File Manager is to long press on the file and click "Rename" from the list that pops up. You can even copy files from one place to another like you do on your computer if you are using Astro File Manager.

Now, when you are renaming a file you need to be a little careful. You need to remember the file extension and add it to what ever you have renamed the file to. For example, let us say that you want to rename a .jpeg file. So when you are renaming the file remember to add that extension to the new name.

For example if the file is "yourname.jpeg" and you are renaming it to "myname", make sure that you type "myname.jpeg". Otherwise, the file readers on the phone may find it difficult to identify which application to use to open that file.

How to handle the Android Market Application force close?

We all love Android Market. I am sure all of us visit the Android Market on our Android Phones at least once a day, to install new Apps and to update the old ones. And we love it when there is an update for the Market itself, when it surprises us with a new look when we launch it sometimes. However, for many of us a new update can be often frustrating. Many users are complaining that the Android Market tends to force close or crash every time after a new update.

Yes, you get that frustrating message about the forceclose. Processs.com. android.vending force closes on your face. And to think about a life without the market! Now, what can you do when Android Market crashes after an update? Following are some of the things you can do, when Android Market force closes on you:

• As usual, reboot your phone. Switch off the phone, remove the sim card and battery and reboot. Try the Market to see if it is working!
• If reboot does not work, head over to your settings! Go to Settings > Applications> Manage Applications and find out Android Market! After you find out market, clear the cache and remove data on the Application. Reboot and see if  the market is working!
• If clearing the cache and removing data do not help to revive your Market, head over to settings and go to Android Market again. There is a button to uninstall updates. Uninstall updates and reboot your phone. This helps 99% of the time. Android Market will install the updates later.
• If uninstalling the updates does not help, you need to find out a wifi network you can use. Once you are near a wifi network you can access, turn on the wifi for your phone and use your phone for sometime. The issue is with the Market downloading a faulty update file because you have a slow network connection. Reboot the phone after sometime and see if Market works!
• If none of these are helping, you may need to do a Factory Reset! Head over to your Settings> Privacy and do a Factory Reset and hopefully this will solve the problem. But remember to remove your sim card and memory card when you do this as Factory Reset will wipe all your data.

Update: One of my readers pointed out that, you can try changing the language of your phone to stop Android Market Forceclose. [Thanks for the tip]

How to install Android Applications on your Windows/Mac Computer?

I know! How we wish we could use our favourite Android Apps on Windows or Mac, right? We, people who love Android, love world without borders and technology without operating system boundaries. For us, an ideal world will be a world where we can use any application on any operating system. Like I said in my last post, we love Android because of its openness. But Android is as open as only Android can get.

What if we could use some of the Android Applications on our PC or Mac? That World would be an ideal world. Hopefully that world is yet to come. Until then, we need to rely on emulators. They did it on Blackberry Playbook once. If you are an Android geek, i am sure you remember how someone created an Emulator for Android on playbook. There was also news of someone installing Gingerbread or Honeycomb on a Linux system.

But that is Linux System. Most of us use Windows. And we do not have the tech background to install Android OS on a Windows PC without killing it. The only hope we have is an Android Emulator for Windows or Mac. And the hope is finally here!

Bluestacks! Blustacks allows you to emulate Android Apps as they are seen on an Android phone. Is that not cool? Yes, it is! I tried the emulator and the first thing i tried to emulate was the app that is so popular - Pulse. Though I do not like Pulse much for eating all the battery on my Android phone, I love its design. And I was absolutely stunned to see that Pulse looks and feels the same way on your PC when you emulate it using Bluestacks as you use it on your Android phone.


Now remember, you can emulate your Android using Bulestacks only if you are using Windows 7. You Mac Application is on the way. And Bluestacks is in Alpha, so do not expect bug free performance.  Now if you have an Android Phone, you can use Bluestacks Cloud Connect to transfer some of you favorite Applications to your PC. Bluestack Cloud Connect can be downloaded from here.

If you are someone who is thinking of moving away from iOS or Blackberry and want to see how Android Apps work, Bluestack is certainly  something you might want to try.

Troubleshooting: Remember that Bluestacks is in Alpha. In other words, Bluestacks is out in its most rudimentary form. Some of you may find that Bulestacks does not install on your Windows 7 PC. Do not panic! There must be some issues with the file you have downloaded. Reboot your computer and try installing Bluestacks again. If that does not work, download the installation file once again later and try to install Bluestacks on your PC

How to enhance Android battery life?

Batteries that drain so fast are always an issue when it comes to Android Phones. Most of us forgive Android the embarrassing battery life as it gives us the freedom and openness that other mobile platforms cannot give us.

They say Flash and Air are responsible for this pathetic battery life that Android phones have. However, Flash is something you cannot live without, at least till html5 hopefully becomes a standard across the World Wide Web. And for the sake of allowing developers to create apps that look good, we need to put up with Air.

So now that Flash and Air are out of the danger of being deleted, what is left that can save the battery life? You need to figure out which are the applications that use your battery heavily even when you are not using them. Multi-tasking capability of Android opens up another problem. It simply will not close certain applications that it thinks need to run in the background. And these applications eat up your battery. But how do you find out which are the applications that eat your battery in the most unacceptable fashion? How do you find out which application runs in the background and drains your battery drastically?

Android's built in power management and monitoring system has its own limitations and it does not show you which applications are draining the battery. So you have to look to other places for help. And help comes from Chinese Developer, NetQin Mobile. NetQin's Android Booster is available in Android market for free. You can download NetQui Android Booster from here.

 NetQin Android Booster makes your Android phone faster. Helps you save battery power. Monitors traffic your traffic use so that you do not use more data than you can afford.It helps you reclaim memory, save battery power, kill tasks and give you an easy way to uninstall unwanted apps.

Let me give an example. For a long time, after using several Android Booster Apps, I was not aware which are the applications on my phone that use a lot of power than necessary to run. I always used to clean the RAM, clear the cache and kill my GPS, Bluetooth and Wifi, hoping that will save me some power. After I downloaded NetQuin, and ran a scan to understand my battery usage, I was stunned.

We never expect popular Applications to run smoothly without consuming a lot of power after they are closed. Now, Pulse is a very popular Application. I am sure there is no one who uses an Android Phone, that does not use Pulse as their news reader app. What more should I say, even the great Steve Jobs showed Pulse as an example of a great Application. I was stunned to find out after I used NetQuin Android Booster that, Pulse uses 48% of my battery even when I am not using it when you compare it to Chat Applications like Google Talk that always have to be online and they use less than 1% of the battery when I am not using them.

Now, go ahead and install NetQin Android Booster and let me know which are the Applications you found eating up your battery.

How to solve Android dialer force close?

You take out your phone to dial someone and see that the phone dialer is not allowing you to go to your contacts. It simply force closes every time you click contacts. You see something like "android.process.acore" stopped working.

What can you do when your phone dialer force closes as you are trying to reach someone so desperately?

Here are a few things you can do:

Try rebooting your phone. Switch off the phone, keep it off for a few minutes and switch it on again. See if this solved the problem and your dialer is not force closing.

If this does not work, switch off the phone again, take out your sim card and battery and put them back again after a few minutes and switch on the phone.

Rebooting usually helps. Now, if it does not help, there must be some issue with syncing the phone contacts with your gmail. Head over to your gmail and see if there is a problem opening your contacts on a web browser on your computer. If there is a problem opening your gmail contacts on a web browser, the problem of your dialer force close is due to some wrongly entered field in your gmail contacts. Try and figure out which contact has a wrongly entered field.If you can resolve the issue with the gmail contacts, your dialer may start working again. Now, if you do not have your computer near you, disable syncing on your phone for a while, reboot your phone and see if the issue with force close is solved. If de-syncing solves the force close issue, you can go to your gmail contacts later and correct the wrongly entered fields.

Usually rebooting your phone or de-syncing your phone helps to solve the dialer force close issue. However, dialer force close or android.process.acore fore close issue is something related to the core processing of your phone. The issue must be because of an application you have recently downloaded. The android dialer is force closing because the new application process and the dialer process are clashing. Try uninstalling new applications that you have installed. Go back to your dialer to see if the force close issue is solved, after uninstalling each new application.

Usually, the issue is with a recently installed app that you downloaded from somewhere other than the Android Market. Remember that apk file you downloaded from somewhere because someone told you it is cool? Ya, go ahead and delete that from your system. In other words, try deleting applications that are not from trusted sources. (In my case it was the Google+ App for Ice Cream Sandwich that caused the issue. Google+ .apk for Icecream Sandwich was leaked recently]

And sometimes the issue is with applications that require phone permissions. If you can figure out which application is causing the dialer or contact force close issue, you may not have to uninstall every other new application.

Who invented email?

Who invented email? That is a question that many of us will not even think about as we enter the email addresses and click send to 'forward' those hundreds and thousands of cute and interesting emails that we receive on a daily basis.

Who invented email? If you do not know, email is 40 years old this month. The first email was sent in October 1971. Yes, 40 years old!

Like Internet, email too was invented by the US military. Bolt, Beraneck and Newman, a firm that was working on the military communication network hired Ray Tomilnson to work on Advanced Research Projects Agency Network or ARPANET. ARPANET was the earliest form of internet. His task was to figure out how to do a file transfer programme . Tomlinson was asked to modify a programme called SNDMSG. This was supposed to be a programme that allowed users of the same computer to send messages to each other. And in October 1971, Tomlinson figured out how to send messages between two computers. Actually, when he first invented it and showed it to a colleague, Tomlinson was told:  "Don't tell anyone! This isn't what we're supposed to be working on."

Tomlinson invented email! He did something else too - he popularized the use of "@"! He used the @ sign to separate the user and the network they were using.

It is important to remember that email was not popular untill the WWW became popular and it led to consumers embracing the internet. However, that @ sign Tomlinson used still stays on! Even on Twitter! 

Get great Themes for Android Phones, all in one place!

Are you a theme addict? Are you someone who keeps changing your phone theme on a daily basis? Are you someone who does not like your phone interface to look like the phone interface of your friend? Now, if you are you also know how difficult it is to get great themes for your phone from the clutter and chaos of themes in the Android Market. There are plenty of themes for Android Phones out there, themes that will make the UI of your Android Phone look sleeker and stylish and of course different. The issue is how do you get those that fit your taste, considering that with all the search capability that Google has, Android market search feature still sucks. What is the solution?

Well, there is a solution. If you know where to get Launcher Pro, ADW Launcher and Go launcher EX, half your problem is solved. Go ahead and install all three of them if you want to have all your options of a cool UI open in front of you. Once you have these three launchers on your phone, you can go and download N3XGen Theme Manager

N3XGen Theme Manager takes the chaos of themes available in Android Market and organizes them in a way it is to easy to discover themes that suits your taste. It allows you to search themes. It categorizes themes into free and paid. It syncs your Application Data from the Android Market so that you know which theme you already have and which you do not. The App is in beta. There are more features to come.

Here is a video of N3XGen Theme Manager:

Unknown or strange URLs in Blogger Stats

You are a blogger of sorts and your favourite pastime is to endlessly stare at your Blogger Stats hoping that hits will keep on coming if you just sit there and look at it, like me! And as you are looking at your "countless" number of less than 100 clicks and hits and unique views on your blog, you come across strange URLs that claim to refer your blog to people. Not bad, you think and click on the referrer link to see which is this benevolent site that sends you a lot of traffic! Ya, referrer spammers win!

Referrer Spam, which is also known as Log Spam or Referrer Bombing, is the act of "using a fake referrer url that points to the site the spammer wishes to advertise." This practice started as Blogging became popular. Bloggers, in their endless quest for 'link love', started publishing the sites that send them referrals. Some of them automated the process and linked the referrer list to the Analytics they used. Now, that encouraged spammers to send referrer spam so that the link of the site they wanted to advertise gets listed in a Blogger's Referrer List.

Bloggers with a lot of visits to their Blogs may not see these Referrer Spam often, as Referrer Spammers or Log Spammers send less than 20 to 25 automated hits to a Blog so that they will not get caught by Spam Fighting Teams of different Tech Companies. But those of us who drive less than hundred people a day to our Blogs will notice them immediately and click  on whatever godforsaken links they are referring us to.

How can we prevent unknown or strange URLs or referrer spammers from attacking our Blogger Stats or Analytics Logs? Here are a few things you can do to keep referrer spammers at bay:

1. Hide your statistics  and list of top referrers so that referrer spammers look elsewhere for their link baits. This way you can save people who visit your blog from clicking on links they are not supposed to.
2. Use Web Analytics Sites you trust. Some of these Analytic Sites keep their stats open and help spammers analyze your web traffic to target you. They target you if you are a blogger who gets less than 100 visits a day
3. If you are using Wordpress as your Blog Platform, you can use a plug-in called Referrer Bouncer. You can go to the Referrer Bouncer from here. 
4. Those of you are using Blogger as you Blog Platform need to patiently wait and hope that Google will trace the Spammer one day and block him/her because he/she is sending too many automated requests to its servers. Until then, make sure that you do not publish your Blogger Stat and you do not click on any of those unfamiliar or suspicious URLs that claim to send you a lot of traffic. 

Play any video format on Android! MoboPlayer or QQPlayer!

Playing video on mobile phones can be a pain sometimes. You need to either stream video from the web or convert your video into mpeg4 or 3gp format to make it playable on you mobile device. Now converting a video is such a long wait. You need to wait as long as the video you are converting to get it right and it is such a painfully long wait. How we wish playing video on a mobile device was as easy as playing it on a PC or a laptop. How we wish we could save that favourite DVD of ours on the mobile phone - copy, pate and we are done like we do it on a PC. How we wish we could play any video format on a mobile device - DivX, VOB, AVI or MKV files! Now our wish is Android's command!

The best thing about Android, as I always say, is the freedom it gives you. It gives you freedom from ripping, converting or streaming videos too. It allows you to use video players that are specifically designed to play any video format on the go.

I have tried many video players, in my quest to find a video player for Android that can play any video formats. Copy the video from a DVD to the phone and play it, that is what I wanted. And I stumbled upon the best video player, that can play any video format on your Android Phone, the other day.

MoboPlayer from Mobo Team plays any video format the best way only Android Phones can.

Head over to market and download MoboPlayer and it does the rerst for you. You can download MoboPlayer from here.

Now, which video formats can MoboPlayer play? MoboPlayer can play .avi, .mp3, .rmvb, .rm, .3gp, .wmv, .mp4, .mov, .mkv, .flv, .3gpp, .mpg, .mlv, .mpeg, .m2v, .vob, .tp, .ts, .asf, .ra, .ram, .hlv, .ogg, .f4v, .m4v, and .divx video formats. Wow, now that is a lot of popular video formats you can play on your Android Phone.

What does MoboPlayer do to play all these video formats? Most cases, MoboPlayer decodes the software using its in built format decoding systems. It can do many other things for you too. It can decode SRT, ASS and SAA subtitle formats too. This means if there are subtitles available for formats like .mkv, .mov and .mpv formats, MoboPlayer will play them along with the video for you. You can also stream videos from the web.

Now, what are you waiting for? Head over to Android Market and download MoboPlayer. Connect your Android Phone via USB to your Computer and copy paste the video file from your favourite DVD to your External SD Card or Internal SD Card. And click play after you disconnect!

Update:
Now if you are someone who wants to have all your options open so that you can play a particular format that you cannot play on one player, on another, here is another player that plays all video formats for Android - QQ Player

QQ Player allows you to play almost all the formats that MoboPlayer does. Now between QQ Player and MoboPlayer, you can workaround the formatting differences that happen when they write a video file on a DVD. A great thing about QQ Player is that it allows you to move between sound tracks and subtitle tracks if they are available on the file that you are playing. Now, if you do not want to take a chance with not being able to play your video after you have transferred the file to your phone, I suggest you pick both QQ Player and Moboplayer and download it from the market and you are ready to go again. [Tip: Allen Reza] 

The origin of the word "Android"

Anyone with a little sense of technology knows that Android is the name of the mobile operating system, distributed by Google. It is developed by the Open Handset Alliance, formed by Google, HTC, Sony, Dell, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Samsung, LG, T-Mobile, Nvidia, and Wind River Systems. Many of us love Android!

If you go back a little to figure out the history Android, you will know that it started as a little company in Palo Alto in California in 2003, founded by Andy Rubin. Google acquired Android Inc in 2005, paving the way for it to become one of the world's best Mobile Operating Systems available.

Now, all of us are familiar with Andy, the little green guy who appears when ever Android is around. Ascender Corporation designed this logo. Most of us who are familiar with Android knows that it is a name we call robots. Ya, Android is a robot!

Android is a robot with a human appearance. I know, you are thinking what I was thinking - the word Android is a new word. We are wrong! The origin of the word Android dates back to the time of Albertus Magnus who lived between 1193 and 1280.

Albertus Magnus is a Catholic Saint. Albertus is recorded as having made a  brass head that would answer questions put to it. That is supposed to be our first Android. It was called Androides.  You find the word Android in Chapter XVI, Witchcraft and Spells: Transcendental Magic its Doctrine and Ritual by Eliphas Levi

French Writer Villiers popularized the term in his 1886 novel L'Ève future. The term "android" appears in US patents as early as 1863 in reference to miniature human-like toy automations.

Apparently, George Lucas coined the word 'droid' for the original Star Wars film. Philip K. Dick used the word "Andy" in his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

And now we have Andy and Android everywhere!