CASES

Using cases is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to provide a new funky look to your device. There are multiple variety of cases in the market which you can select from depending upon or need for protection or looks and creativity. These cases are usually cheap and easily available on amazon or ebay, although there are number of renowned case makers in the market.

• Hard cases: Mostly available for smartphones as well as tablets. Creative design available. Makes the phone quite heavy though maximum protection. Some of the nice cases can be found by an easy search on amazon or ebay or vendors like casemate.

• Leather cases : These are the cases preferred by people desiring a simple , plain, professional look. Available for almost all phones. Most common colour being black leather.

• TPU Rubber cases : These cases have become quite popular. With low cost comes low protection but the cases which are in the market are amazingly creative and beautiful. One can find a sprkled designer case to a shiny bright case to a plain, sober one.

• Silicon Cases : These are the cheapest of the lot and available for most of the phones. Though they offer least protection and durability but well worth the cost. Started out with plain single colour cases but presently numerous arty cases are available.

 Although, it is easier to find cases for popular smartphones such as iphone, samsung and HTC android phones whereas it is tougher to find creative cases for other devices.

SKINS

Skins are newest adoption by users instead of cases. These offer minimal or no protection but mostly serve the glam role of a cover. Though, in terms of jazzing up your phone these are way better than any covers.  These are also available for your other devices such as tablet, mp3 players, ipods, laptops etc.

• Vinyl Skins :These are vinyl based skins for your phones, tablets, laptops etc. The provide effective resitance from scratching but a hard impact on your device will render any protection from a skin useless. They have ultra thin removable adhesive-backing that contains non-visible air release channels to assure a bubble free application.

• Gel Skins :

Gel Skins give your device a completely custom 3-D look. Gel skins offer more protection to your device but they are also slightly higher priced. Gel Skins are created by applying a clear resin coating over the skin to enhance the graphics and creating a eye-popping more attractive appearance to your device.

 A number of websites have come up which provide you some wonderful arty skins. Users can also  design their own skins. Also you have access to skins designed by other users and can easily browse through some of the most popular skins. Some of the websites to checkout for skins are www.gelaskins.com and www.skinit.com 

View some of beautiful skins below.

Look out for a new post on some amazing ipad skins, soon.

Most of us used to taking screenshots have rooted their phones to enable taking screenshots. But many still would like to have an option to take screenshots without rooting their phones.

There have been apps which have worked on non rooted phones but depending on the phones, they work on some and don’t work on some non-rooted phones. Here is an app which has been around for a while which works on all non-rooted phones : ‘No Root Screenshot It’

Obviously, as the name suggest the app allows you to take, edit, and share screen captures from your Android device without rooting it first. But you would need a desktop utility which is provided by the developer ( Windows and Mac supported) You would need to pair up with the desktop utility and once connected, you are good to take screenshots.

Negative: If you restart your phone, you would have to reconnect to the desktop app.

You can set timers for screenshots to allow menus to be captured, shake the phone to get captures, annotate or crop screenshots and share the shot to web, email and other apps.

Price: $4.99

Some of the other screenshots apps which may or may not require your phone to be rooted depending on your phone model : Screenshot it, Shake to screenshot(Galaxy series only), Screenshot UX, X-Shoot

When you access a website through Opera, it first downloads the page on its server, compresses it there and then redirects it to your phone. Thus your browser downloads lesser amount of kb for the same page. Opera has been claiming that using Opera reduces the page size by 80%, thus directly reducing your data charges. Though, there was no verification offered for the same.

But with the newly updated Opera browser, you can have exact idea how much data you have downloaded during your browsing session and how much you have saved using Opera as your browser. It also keeps track of total data usage, enabling you to translate your usual monthly internet activities into a data usage figure. Thus, allowing you to choose an optimal plan or reduce usage.

To view the data usage using Opera : Launch Opera and click ‘data usage’ under ‘help’ section.

Opera can, obviously. track only the data passing through your Opera browser. There are other apps which may be used to track the entire data usage, including data used by apps : eg : 3gwatchdog, netcounter, TrafficInfo, Onavo and more.

A review of best data tracking apps soon.

1. Set up your work email

Android has a built-in email app which is although a bare minimum but still serves the purpose. You can also install better email apps on your android. Setting up an email account of a email provider like google, yahoo etc. is quite simple and I believe you must have done it by now. But you can also add your work email account to the email app to regularly get updates of your work email.

You’ll have to get few technical details from your IT department in your office and then you can easily setup your work email account. You can alter settings to change the notification and message checking. It is very useful as most of the office email servers do not offer a version which is mobile friendly.

2. Make sure ‘Data Roaming’ is off

If you do not want to incur heavy charges for using data transmission while on roaming, adjust this option to be off. It can amount to huge charges if you are on an international trip. To adjust this setting :

-Tap on menu while on your home screen

-Choose Settings , then tap ‘Wireless and Networks’. Go to ‘Mobile Networks’

- See if data roaming is disabled. If not, disable it by taping the option.

3. Voicemail

Voicemail is also a feature which is missed by many android users. You can allow Google to handle your voicemail

Go to google.com/voice and register for the free service by Google 9but only for the voicemail feature)

You can now have computer generated transcripts of your voicemails delivered to your phone. You can also download mp3 version of your voicemails and explore all other options to integrate your voice mail with your android phone.

4. Install Dropbox

You might be using dropbox on your computer. Now, use it on your phone. Dropbox is a great service which provides you with 2 Gb of space on the cloud. Now you can install dropbox on your phone and now you can easily access the files from your computer. Just upload files from your computer to dropbox and using dropbox on your phone access them easily.

Go to Market app.

Search for dropbox and install it.

5. Add contacts to your home screen

You can easily add contacts to your home screen, so that with 1 tap you can call, sms, view facebook profile and do other task with your preferred contact.

- Press and hold your your finger on an empty spot on any of your home screens.

- Choose ‘Shortcuts’ from the pop up menu.

- Select ‘Contact’ and scroll to find you preferred contact.

Now you can get in tough with your contact with just 1 tap.

6. Install a better music player

Although android native music app is decent but there are wonderful apps in the market which you ought to try out. Some of them are : Tunewiki, doubletwist, etc.

You can search for the app in the market and install it. You’ll definitely prefer the new app over the native app. Another option could be to try out services like grooveshark, spotify etc. which stream music over the internet. (but these are paid apps)

7. Create a link for Directions Home

- Press and hold on a spot on your home screen.

- Choose ‘Shortcuts’.  Pick ‘Directions and Navigation’.

- Enter your home address in ‘destination field’.

- Name the shortcut as ‘Home’ or any other name you deem suitable

Now if you are lost and need directions back home, it is just 1 tap away.

For further exciting apps and tips and tricks for android , check out our android dedicated site androidhub

There are some known modes of sharing links from browser to your android device but if you have any other smart phone, this is the perfect option for you. It supports all major OS as well as supports all major browsers.

1. Phone Set Up

- Go to site to phone from your laptop and click setup with your phone.

- The site will generate a unique link and ask you to visit the link using your phone browser.

- Follow the instructions on the page which are adjusted as per you smartphone OS.

- After completing the setup, click on Complete Setup.

2. Browser Setup

There are two ways of sending links to your phone. Either you can go to site to phone website and use Quick Send and send the links to your phone. You don’t have to install an addon or create an account in this case.

Second method involves installing a plugin(IE 8/9 and chrome) or a bookmarklet(rest of browsers).

- Click on setup browser.

-Follow the instructions.

3. Sending the link to your phone

-After  completing the setup, whenever you are on a site the link of which you want on your phone. just right  click and select the option ‘Send Page to Phone’ or click on the icon in menu bar.

- Go to your phone’s app launcher and open the bookmark you created earlier.

- This will launch the webpage, the link of which  you just sent to your phone

You can also view the history of the sent links.

For some this might not be an interesting tool, but for some who are plagued by this issue this might be a welcome cure.

Read the rest of the post at our Android Focused Blog.

Using drippler.com

1. After registrations, click the tab ‘My Gadgets‘ on top left of your page.

2. Click on the button indicating ‘Click here to stay updated‘.

3. Choose the gadgets you want to be updated. You’ll now be informed of any update released for your gadget.

You can also connect to facebook to be regularly notified of the updates for your gadget. Just click on the connect to Faceook button for linking to your facebook account. You’ll receive weekly about your gadgets.

It has upt o date and detailed information on the the gadgets it displays. One of the disadvantages of the site is that it does not have comprehensive list of gadgets. Thus it might be a case that some of your gadgets may not have been listed on the site. Also another feature which is not likable is that in spite of your gadget having a new software update or not, the site sends a weekly email notifying you about news about your gadget.

To send the SMS , enter the gateway address in the sender’s email id box similar to as you would send an email to someone. Then compose your message and send it as a normal email.

Very shortly the SMS will be delivered to the recipient.

The SMS gateway listing is as follows :

Enter the 10 digit mobile phone number for the person you are sending a message to in front of the appropriate address (e.g:8888888888@vmobl.com)

The list of gateway addresses can be found in following links :

List of SMS gateways (wiki)

List of Gateways

SMTP email

NOTE: The carrier may charge the recipient for the SMS. So the process might not be free totally. Take care of the fact.

[via: howtogeek]

Here, you put your source and destination addresses. Usually Google maps gives you text directions and highlighted directions on the maps, here you see a autoated navigation system which takes you through a street view as if you are actually charting through the city in real. It is like the service stitches the street views of the location which fall in the path from source to destination addresses. Thus you navigate through different street views to your destination.

You can also select the speed of transition from one street view frame to another. It also gives you the road name as it navigates through the street view, so you are aware of what different streets look like which you are actually going to take.

Although, as expected this service is not perfect. The transition between 1 street view frame to another is not seamless and you sometimes notice a stark change in two frames. Also the fact that street view images taken by google of different places is at different times of the year, so it sometimes seems odd to see the change in street view frames. But the concept is nice and further work on it might lead it to become a nice utility feature where one can navigate through a video like street view navigation to reach the destination.

Here is the link to the page : http://gmaps-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/streetview/streetview_directions.html

1. Hard Candy Cases – Bubble Slider Soft touch – $34.95

This is one of the case you would like to see as well as feel. The case offers a bubble design which tends to improve grip and gives a unique look to the iPhone as well. The case lightweight ploycarbonate shell type case. Although the case may not be high in designer patterns and colourful but it is effective in safety and feel. You have option of choosing from colours like Black, White, Red, Pink , chrome White, Chrome Gold, Chrome Black.

2. Marware Sports Shell Convertible Case – $44.99

This is not a run-off the mill desing for a case. This unique design is a 4-in-1 design with armband case, shell case, clip case and a viewing case. This is aimed for sportsperson with a easy to attach armband which prevents perspiration coming in contact with the phone. The case contains a hardshell case, back piece with a clip and an armband.

3. Bamboo  iPhone 4 Case – $89

This case focuses more on aesthetics and design. The bamboo design combines the stylish look of the iPhone with something rustic. It features a metal bezel and gives easy access to all physical buttons.

4. CrystalRoc Swarovski Cover – $288.7

Well this cover is not for everyone. Only if you want to indulge in something special and have a deep pocket for it, then you can go on for this one. Covered fully in 1000 pieces of Swarovski Crystal, the case looks magnificent and provides you another reason to show off your iPhone.

5. CaseMate Gelli iPhone- $19.99

Case-Mate is one of the popular cases for iPhone. The case is made of engineered lightweight thermoplastic and the patterned design is available in shades of tomato, aurora, clear, gray, pink, teal blue.

6. Gresso iPhone 4 Case – $3000

If the Swarovski case wasn’t expensive enough for you, this might be. Truly this case is expensive than the iPhone itself. The case is handcrafted from 200-year-old African Blackwood and the Apple logo is made of 18-karat gold on the back panel. Swarovski crystals incrustation is seen on the ladies version.

These are some of the cases which I liked. Although there are many more which I would have wanted to include, these are the ones i could. With many more stylish and designer cases coming out, it would be interesting to look at new cases some time soon.