Must-have Android apps

A few months ago I traded in my Windows Mobile phone for an Android device. From the research I did back then, going over to the Android platform seemed like the most natural thing to do, given my requirements. And I haven’t regretted it since.

Sporting a fantastic user interface, spiffy response, plenty of great apps that can be downloaded and installed over the air, and the ability to synchronize all of my contacts and calendar information with the Google cloud makes it a very compelling proposition indeed. I’m also pretty happy with the capabilities and features on my Samsung i7500 Galaxy (5PM camera, LED flash, WiFi, Accelerometer, GPS, 3.2-inch AMOLED screen et al), though support is a different issue altogether—Samsung seems to have completely forgotten about this phone in their firmware update strategy. Be that as it may, Android is a great platform and one that I think I’ll be with for a while. Going by the industry and consumer support, and the strides they’re making with each release, Android is certainly in it for the long run.

I’ve tried out numerous apps from their store—some great, some that I disposed of not long after using them. So in no particular order (and in debatable classification), here are the ones that are on my phone to stay:

Fun

Shazam: Undoubtedly cool: can’t recall the name of that song on the radio? Shazam it!
Layar: A great augmented reality browser—you’ve got to use it to experience it
FxCamera: Fun image effects with your camera phone
Google Sky: Totally awesome—point your phone at a star and it pulls up info on it!
Foursquare: The social networking app that’s making waves—especially useful if you’re a party animal/pub crawler/foodie
Facebook: If you have a Facebook account (what? you don’t??) you’ll need this on your phone
10001 Cocktails: ‘nuff said
Barcode scanner: Works with most barcodes—fun to show off with
Fartdroid: Yes, it is. Loads of laughs, and with timed release!
Schottgunn: A fun, senseless shotgun simulation app
AK-47: Like Schottgunn: a fun, senseless AK-47 app
Tesla sparks: Touch the screen and see groovy tesla sparks. Pointless. Fun.
The Schwartz Unsheathed: The glory of the Jedi light sabre in your Android phone—complete with cool sound effects!
Air horn: Great for waking up your colleague dozing off in the next cubicle at 3PM!

Productivity

Fring: A VOIP telephony app that connects to MSN, Google, Skype etc
K9 Mail e-mail client: A pretty feature packed and capable POP/SMTP mail client
AK Notepad: Great notepad/reminder application
Voice Recorder: Turns your Android into a dictaphone
Thesaurus: Never be at a loss for words
Wapedia: Wikipedia on your phone

Utilities

SlideIT: An excellent, intuitive alternative to Android’s default on-screen keyboard
Wifi Static: Switch Wi-Fi profiles, along with your phones’ IP configuration
Locale: Auto-switch features of your phone (ringer, Wi-Fi, bluetooth etc) based on your location
Astro file manager: Must, must have file manager
Opera Mini 5 Beta: An Android port of the browser you know and love
Dolphin browser: A pretty cool browser; try it and you might like it
Ringdroid: Intuitively slice MP3s files right on your phone, then save them as ringtones!
Google Translate: Very handy if you’re travelling, or want to impress your better half with a pseudo-knowledge of French of Spanish
Photoshop for Android: A very scaled-down version of the bloatware imaging app we all know and love. No, it’s actually pretty nice.
MyBackup: Backup all of your Android’s data—great when flashing your phone
Android Agenda Widget: A neat widget that puts important calendar entries right up there on your home screen

Games

Poke-a-mole: Totally fun and very addictive
Trap: A very neat, and very addictive game—hard to explain, easy to get the hang of. Try it!
Hit the Penguin: If you’ve played the online Flash version, you’ll love this one
Abducted: Nice time-killer, uses your phone’s tilt sensor
Replica Island: Great 2D-side scrolling adventure game with neat graphics
Throttle copter: A fun side-scrolling ‘copter game
Paper toss: My favorite!
Chess: Uses a pretty challenging engine
Pinball: Yep, a classic way to kill time
Labyrynth Lite: A fun maze game that uses your phone’s tilt sensor

Automating your Web browser

These days, finding ways to be more productive and efficient is key to staying ahead. When it comes to general office work, browsing the Web or working on online forms and Web sites takes up a significant part of our working hours. In the normal course of working on Web sites, you'll notice a large amount of repetition in the tasks you do--logging into your favorite sites, entering registration information into online forms, transferring image and text data between your computer and the Internet... this list goes on. So how does it sound if I told you there's a way to automate these repetitive tasks, so that they can be performed with a single click? For starters, it would save a heck of a lot of time each day, and accrued over days and months it would translate into considerable savings and higher productivity, leaving you with more time for stuff you like doing!

I use Firefox as my primary Web browser, and have been using a great little Add-on called iMacros to automate many things I do on the Web. From doing something as simple as logging into my Gmail account, to rebooting by DSL modem at specifics time each day (I'm on an Internet plan that offers unlimited data transfer between midnight and 8am, but I need to restart my modem at these times), I've created macros that have enabled me to free up gobs of time. Here's a brief walk-through for automating your Web browser:

First, download the iMacros Add-on for IE of Firefox from here. After installing it, launch it by clicking on the toolbar button that shows up in your Web browser. Hint: Click the images for a larger view.
You'll see several demo scripts in the sidebar--double-click one and you'll see it launch into action using demo scenarios. If you're so inclined, you can click on a preset script, then click the Edit Macro button to view the code that drives the script. Reading these lines should give you fair idea about how it works.
If you don't want to be bothered with writing code, you can simply have iMacros record your actions as you click through Web sites and enter information--the relevant code gets created automatically. To record a new macro using this method, click the Rec tab in the sidebar, then click the Record button. Then use your browser as you would while performing a given task--iMacros records your actions such as information typed in, and buttons, tabs and links clicked. Click the Stop button when you're finished. Rename the new macro that appears in the side bar to something indicative of your recorded task.

The next time you want to run that task, simple double-click on the macro name, and watch as iMacros launches and does your work for you--in record time!

To help you get up to speed, see the iMacros support page for tutorials and code samples.

Next up, I'll write about how I created a script that reboots by DSL modem at specific times, enabling me to better utilize my unlimited night time download bandwidth.

Setting up your own Web site: Part two

When it comes to setting up your own Web site, this much is clear--it's easier than you think. It all begins with getting a firm handle on the focus and intent of your Web site, and pulling together compelling content (see my earlier post here). The next step is to shop for online services that will help you book your domain name, and actually host your Web site. Let's see how this works:

Booking the domain name: Quite simply, the domain name is the name of your Web site. The first thing you'll need to do is check whether it is available. To do so, you can head over to one of hundreds of available Domain Registrars--these are authorized services that sell domain names. Some of the more popular ones are Network Solutions, Act Now Domains or Register.com. All you need to do is type in your preferred site name in the search field, and you'll find out whether it taken or not. When you find a name that's available, you choose the duration for which you want to book the domain name (ranging from a couple of months to several years--the longer you book it for the cheaper it works out). All domain registrars accept payment by a secure credit card transaction.
While deciding a domain name, remember to keep it short, simple and easy to remember. Also, you should preferably to choose a '.com' URL instead of '.org' or '.biz', as most people are accustomed to remembering the former.

Hosting your Web site: You will now need to select your Web site's home! Web hosting providers offer several plans (just like your cell phone operator, for example), that consist of a selection of hosting specifications. Just like a home maker shopping for a house, you'll need to consider these specifications before deciding on where you want to host your Web site. These factors include:

• How much and what type of content do you plan to host? Depending on what your Web site consists of, you could require a few megabytes to several gigabytes of storage space. Look out for how much hosting space is offered and compare this with your requirements.
• Do you know how to design and build a Web site, or would you like to work with pre-created templates? If you have Web design and coding skills (knowledge of Microsoft FrontPage or Adobe DreamWeaver, HTML programming, CSS, PHP and the like), you will most likely be designing your Web site on your computer, and then uploading it subsequently. If Web designing is new to you (and  you don't want to be bothered with the nitty-gritties), look for a hosting provider that offers 'Site Design' or 'Site Builder' capabilities. Here, you can access hundreds of pre-created Web site templates, where all you need to do is dump your content into these canned Web sites and you're ready to go. While this approach might limit your customization options, it is the quickest and simplest way to get up and running. Also remember that this convenience might come at a price premium.
• How much site traffic do you expect? If you're setting up a commercial Web site that you plan to promote heavily, you will most likely have plenty of traffic coming to your Web site. hosting providers offer different 'bandwidths', which is the amount of data transfer they allow to and from your Web site per month. The greater the bandwidth you need, the  more you'll need to pay.
• What other functionality do you need on your Web site? Many hosting providers offer basic extras like e-mail addresses, blog capabilities, spam filtering and programming language support, you can also select value-added services including SSL support (for securing communication between your Web site and its visitors), VPN access, video and audio streaming support.
• What kind of support does the hosting provider offer, and how reliable are they? This is an aspect that's easily overlooked--there's nothing more frustrating than your Web site being unavailable when you need it, and not being able to reach its helpdesk quickly. The best way to check this is to actually make random calls to their helpdesk at odd hours, and ask them basic questions such as help on what hosting plan to choose, special offers running etc. The quality and timeliness of their responses will be an indication on your experience with them later on.

Some of the more popular hosting providers include Host Monster, GoDaddy, DreamHost, and Media Temple. Glance through their hosting plans and you will get an idea about the facilities offered. Note that several of these Web sites offer both domain registration and Web hosting services as a package--it's up to you to take these services from the same provider, or from separate ones. At the end of the day, it's about finding the right blend of price, features, reliability and support. Happy hosting!

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2: Development workflow

I recently had the opportunity to put this fine photo editing application through its paces--one of my cousins got married a couple of days ago, and I shot about 350 RAW images across the different marriage ceremonies (you'll find some on my Flickr Photostream). Faced with the prospect of churning out high-quality images from these RAW images in record time, I happily dug into the famed Lightroom 2 workflow. After several bouts of trial and error with color configurations and tweaking sequences, I arrived at the following workflow which I believe enabled me to extract the maximum quality from my RAW images in the shortest possible time. Remember that I already used Presets and Default settings to bring my photos to a more natural, higher-quality level before performing editing individual photos using the following steps.

1. Crop the photo: The crop tool can spell the difference between a good photo and a great one. While in the Develop module, hit [R] on the keyboard or click the Crop overlay icon indicated in the adjoining screenshot. Use the mouse to draw a box that defines the crop you need, or simply drag the control points of the crop box and pan the image until you're satisfied with the most interesting frame. Hit [Enter] to apply the crop.
2. Adjust White Balance if necessary: From the Basic settings in the Develop panel, click the dropper icon (indicated), and click on a gray or white portion of your photo. This will fix any color cast that might exist. Alternatively, you can intentionally invoke a color cast by playing around with the Temperature slider (labeled Temp) to impart a warmer or cooler color tone to your photo.
3. Adjust Exposure: Now begins the meat of your editing. For the majority of your images, you can move the exposure slider until the Histogram graph spreads evenly, without clipping in the highlight (right) area. 4. Adjust Blacks: Adjust the Black level until the left side of the graph tapers off without bunching up against the left edge. 5. Adjust Fill Light: Fill light refers to the light in the shadows of your image. Increasing this slider value will bring out some detail in these darker areas of your photo. 6. Adjust Recovery: This refers to highlight recovery, and is used to recover detail from highlight areas that might be blown out. Be careful with this setting--increasing it too much might make your image appear unnaturally flat. 7. Adjust Brightness/Contrast: Play the Brightness slider against the Exposure slider to get the colors and balance your image just right. Remember that the lower the brightness, the better will colors show through.

These steps will get you off to a good start with bringing your images to a high-quality level. Next up, I'll focus on some Lightroom 2 tricks that will help enhance specific photos, like those of people, landscapes or food.

Update: Head over here to learn tricks for creating portfolio-quality portraits using Lightroom 2!

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2: Initial configuration

Ok, it's official: I'm hooked onto Lightroom 2. The sheer power of this program, its slick interface, and brilliant attention to user interface makes this the best imaging application I've ever used for my photographs. If you haven't read my initial experience with Lightroom 2, you'll find it here.

The groundwork 
Lightroom 2 offers several methods to help you streamline your photo processing workflow. The following steps will help you set up your Lightroom 2 environment with pre-defined settings that will lift the quality of your photographs during the import process, even before you begin tweaking them! This will let you reach your final result faster. You only need to perform the following actions once--they will subsequently invoke automatically each time you import your photos:

1. Define a camera profile: When I first started using Lightroom, I noticed something strange while importing photos--when each photo first flashed on the screen during the import process, it appeared to have nice, vibrant colors. But after getting imported into Lightroom, they appeared rather dull and faded. I needed to do a fair amount of tweaking with the saturation, highlight and black level settings before I was satisfied with the result. I later discovered that I wasn't using my camera's profile. Lightroom lets you define a profile that is specific to your camera model. Using this profile delivers a significant improvement in color rending, resulting in more vibrant and balanced images, so you'll need to do lesser work to bring your photos to the final satisfactory level.

First, head over here to download the camera profiles installation file from the 'Downloads and Installation' section (free registration required), then install this file. You will now be able to see the camera profile in the Camera Calibration section from the Develop module of Lightroom 2. Click the Profile drop-down at the start of this section, and select Camera Standard beta 2 (I found this delivers the most natural colors).

2. Assign default settings to your specific camera and ISO: In Lightroom 2, click Edit, Preferences..., and select the Presets tab. Ensure the 'Make defaults specific to camera serial number', and 'Make defaults specific to camera ISO setting' are selected. The significance of these settings will become apparent in the following step.

3. Define sharpening presets: Lightroom 2 features powerful sharpening and noise reduction tools to help you bring out image detail and clean up photos shot at higher ISO settings. The cool thing about Lightroom 2 is that you can create setting presets and bind them to specific ISO settings for your particular camera. This means you could define noise reduction presets for each ISO setting (where you would generally apply more noise reduction for photos shot at higher ISOs), and you can automatically invoke these presets while importing new images: the appropriate sharpening levels are automatically applied to photos according to their ISO. Cool, huh? This capability saves you the time you'd otherwise require for applying noise and sharpening tweaks to your newly imported photos. Here's how you create these presets:

Start by opening a photo shot at ISO 400, for example. Apply the sharpening and noise reduction settings until you are satisfied with the reduction in noise in your photo. The adjacent screenshot shows the settings I use to reduce noise at ISO 400 for my D40. View the photo at 1:1 zoom to be able to see the effects of the noise reduction.

To to save this sharpening preset, click the 'plus' symbol from the Presets section on the left panel. In the box that pops up, make sure to check only the relevant sections that you have modified. Note that besides the Sharpening and Noise Reduction settings, I've also selected the Calibration option so that the camera profile will also be saved in this Preset. Finally, to set this preset as a default camera setting, press the [ALT] key, and click the Set Default... button at the bottom of the Develop panel. A box pops up verifying your camera model number, serial number and ISO setting. Click the Update to Current Settings button. Now repeat this step for photos shot at different ISOs, each time saving your Sharpening, Noise Reduction and Calibration settings to a new Preset for each ISO setting, and updating the default settings.

That's it for the initial Lightroom 2 configuration. From now on, each photo you import will be automatically processed with the selected parameters according to your specific camera, and the photo's ISO setting. When working with tens and hundreds of photos, you will save significant amounts of time with these settings. Note that these are only presets: you are free to modify these settings while working on individual photos later on.

In my next post, I'll be talking about the basic settings and workflow I use while processing individual photos. Stay tuned!

Update: Click here for the Lightroom 2 development workflow I use while processing RAW images.

Become a human calculator

The one thing I detested about mathematics in school was the way the education system made it so theoretic. Learning trigonometry or Calculus was anything but fun, and it certainly didn't appear to be practical at the time. Even today, how many times do you hear kids say, "What am I ever gonna use this stuff for?" Math is, in fact, the most practical science there is--from calculating the curve of an aircraft wing (Fourier math playing a big role here), to modeling financial forecasts (mathematic extrapolation), math is the very foundation for almost every device and technology we use. But for the majority of us, it really isn't a cause excitement. So wouldn't it be great if there was a way it could actually help our everyday lives: like giving us the power to be the fastest human calculator at dinner with friends? That'd certainly beget admiration points! Well, there is such a field of mathematics that can help you do just that--it's called Trachtenberg Mathematics.

Trachtenberg Mathematics was invented by a brilliant Russian mathematician named Jakow Trachtenberg while he was imprisoned in a Nazi camp during World War II. He devised a simple set of rules that can help perform relatively large calculations quite easily. Sounds too good to be true? Check out this excellent Web site that explains this technique with lucid examples. After you're acquainted with the basics, there's a handy little software you can download here, which will help you get practice on this technique of speed math.

On a related note, you could also check out a similar form of speed math called Vedic math. There a ton of information behind this Wiki link. Also, here's still another really fun way to multiply numbers by simply drawing lines on paper! See the video below:

Finally, check out this excellent online resource devoted to speed math here. Hint: The tricks taught by these techniques are a great way to put an interesting new spin on teaching the subject to kids! Math? Fun? Who could have ever imagined?

A time-saving file management tool

More than any of office, e-mail or browsing software we use each day, a large part of our time at the computer is actually taken up by mundane file management activities. Tasks such as copying documents between locations on your computer, renaming them, creating folders, or zipping them for e-mailing happen frequently during the day. These tasks are so menial that we often discount the time we could save if there was a quicker, more effective way to do them. After all, immediate access to your files can result in spending less time housekeeping them and more time working on them.

I started using a tool called FreeCommander a little over a year ago. Initially, like most people who are about to leave familiar waters (Windows Explorer) and try out something new, I was sceptical. After all, doesn't Windows Explorer serve the purpose when it comes to managing your files and folders? In my opinion: a big, emphatic, NO.

FreeCommander's functionality is similar to several other file management utilities out there. However, the immensity of functionality it offers puts it right up there among the best, and it's free. This tool is designed on a simple premise--that every file operation has a 'before' and an 'after': copying files from a folder to another, selecting a group of files and compressing them to a ZIP file...the list goes on. The FreeCommander interface consists of two large panes that effectively give you a simultaneous view of any two folders on your computer or network. The drives, current path, tools and menus are all on a single screen; no need to switch between multiple windows. You can also create several tabs--much like you can do with Web browsers today--each one displaying a different folder. With all your important folders in a single view, it's a snap to drag and drop files between these panes. No more having to click through multiple folders each time you need to locate files.

FreeCommander's feature list is too immense to describe--it's best to experience its capability first hand. Some of my favorite features include:

• The Favorite Folder button that lets me define frequently-used folders, and reach them in two clicks.
• Clickable folder names in the path, enabling me to directly jump into folders in the current path.
• Powerful functionality to compare folder contents.
• One-click access to popular system folders and applications.
• Quick filters that let me quickly locate files within congested folders.
• An integrated FTP client that displays FTP folders as local folders.
• Powerful file selection capabilities (select all files with the same extension, for example).
• The ability to copy the application folder to a thumb drive and use it.
• Keyboard shortcuts for virtually every function.
• Plenty of customization options to suit individual needs.

Use this application for half a day and I challenge you not to get hooked!