Technology Guides

If you have been reading this website, you will realize that I finally bulked up (or bulked down, depending on how you view it) from my Blackberry 8820 to a superphone, the Samsung Galaxy S II. When I was walking to the store to pick it up, I had butterflies in my stomach and I could not wait till it was in my hands. I did a lot of work to acquire this phone and so I was overjoyed to finally have it. With that being said, here’s my review and I’ll try to be as unbiased as possible .

The Device

When people first saw my new phone, the first thing that people said was “Isn’t that phone big?” or something along those lines. I was completely blown away as to how many people said that. In retrospect, yes it is big but isn’t size relative? I mean, when the first iPod Touch came out, wasn’t that a big mp3 player compared to the norm? Yes it has a 4.3″ Super AMOLED Plus screen that provides amazing clarity but to me, it’s not big. In fact, this phone is the thinnest and lightest in the Canadian market coming in at 8.49mm and 117g which in my opinion, makes up for the “bigness” of the phone. To put that into perspective, the iPhone has a 3.5″ screen and weighs in at 137g with its thinnest point being 9.3mm. To the casual observer this may not be a striking difference but compare it side-by-side and you’re looking at apples and oranges. They’re both fruit but strikingly different qualities.

I’ll admit that at first it was a little awkward to handle, but like transitioning from a physical keyboard to a virtual one, the end result has left me with no regrets. The ironic thing is, when I go back to my iPod Touch, it feels incredibly small but when I go from my iPad to my Samsung Galaxy S II, I don’t get that same feeling.

Another major difference between the Samsung Galaxy S II are the buttons on the bottom. Most Android smartphones have 4 buttons compared to the SGSII’s 3 which usually goes Menu, Home, Search and Return. I prefer the 3 button scheme that Samsung used on the GS2 because it’s less cluttered and there’s a definable center to it.

Software

I haven’t used the first iteration of the Samsung Galaxy S, but supposedly the new interface, TouchWIZ 4, is a drastic improvement from its predecessor. Most notably, the aesthetics and performance have been improved. I can’t speak much to this because I don’t use the default interface as I have installed an application called GoLauncher EX to replace it. I am currently fiddling with it and finding it quite versatile so I will keep you up to date on that one. Just recently though I updated my SGS2 from the stock 2.3.3 that Bell provides to a custom ROM called Sensation ROM 1.9 that has upgraded me to 2.3.5. The most notable improvements are the battery life (very significant) and when you scroll to the top and bottom, it flashes to let you know it’s reached the end. The call screen is more refined and allows for easier access to contact information. Overall, I’m in love with the software and thus the interface.

Battery Life

As I mentioned above, I’ve upgraded my phone and with that upgrade has come significant battery improvements. Before it would last me from about 10am-2am and the battery would be in critical mode. Thus when I would be heading out that night without my power cord I would recharge it before hitting the town. Now with the upgrade I have no worries as to whether it will last the day or not. On a power hungry day I’ll be down to 25% and on regular days it’ll be closer to 50% battery life left.

Features

Building on the software aspect of this phone, I was surprised to learn with the release of ICS, that a lot of the features that were innovative on it, were already a part of the SGS2. One feature was the “Reject a call with a text message”. This is a really cool feature and was already on my phone when I got it. It comes in handy for sure. I also enjoy the screen after the end of a call where it gives you the option of sending a message or calling again to that same contact. Another “cool” feature in ICS is being able to uninstall apps from the launcher. On my SGS2 I can do hold the apps and click uninstall. I can also drag apps from my home screen up to the top to remove it from the home screen.

Conclusion

Overall I am very happy with my SGS2. The only problem I had with it was the battery life but since that’s been resolved it’s been a dream to have. I still use my iPod Touch as it’s a great music player which I do believe Google still needs to improve on but since I like having two devices anyways I’m happy. Google is making strides with this, with the introduction of Google Music and so it will be interesting to see how it shapes up in the future.

If you have any questions about the SGS2 please don’t hesitate to ask and if any of you have comments about your experience with the SGS2 add them here. Until next time…

Popularity: 9% [?]

Many people know how to make your own ringtone for the Apple iPhone when you have a Mac. You just use GarageBand by adding a song and clicking Share–>Share as Ringtone and voila, your done, but for Windows users it’s a little harder but still very simple. This little tutorial will help you create a free ringtone in less than 2 minutes.

Step 1

Firstly, open iTunes and select the song (preferably mp3) you want to use as your ring tone. Pick your favourite part because the ring tone is only allowed to be a max of 30 seconds. Once you’ve found the part you like, right-click the song and click Get Info. For this tutorial I have used Ghosts N Stuff by Deadmau5 featuring Rob Swire.

Step 2

Now hit the Options tab and check off “Start” and “Finish” and enter the section you want the ringtone to be.

Step 3

Once that’s done, you can go ahead and start converting the file. Right-click the song and select Create AAC Version. If you can’t see this option, go to Edit–>Preferences–>Import Settings and make sure AAC Encoder is chosen.

Step 4

iTunes will now start converting the song, but only the snippet that you selected for your ringtone. Next step is to go to the file location of this new file. It usually will be in My Music–>iTunes–>iTunes Media–>Music. Once there you’ll want to rename your file so iTunes recognizes it as a ringtone. Right-click the file and hit rename, changing the file extension to m4r. If you can’t see the file extension, you’ll want to go to Tools–>Folder Options–>View (tab) and scroll down to Advanced Settings. Uncheck, Hide extensions for known file types.

Step 5

Once it’s renamed, you can import it your iTunes library and then sync it to your iPhone. Just remember when you sync it to check off Ringtones and you’re good to go.

Popularity: 27% [?]

With the year coming to a close I thought it would be good to update the my list of some of the top apps you can get for free at the Apple App Store.

Productivity

For productivity there are a ton of different apps you can get for free that would be useful. There are three that I’d point out and one that is under productivity but not as useful as you may think (still it’s a neat app so it’s worth a mention).

Expense2Go

This app is great because I can easily enter a few of my expenses as I pick them up and easily track it. I find it comes in even more use for students like me who have to borrow money and keep track of how they spend their own money. All you do is create different reports for various things and enter each expense including the date, type of expense, amount of expense and any notes that may accompany that expense.

Evernote

After registering on the site, Evernote, you can easily add notes that can be viewed on your device, your desktop or the internet. You are allowed to create text, camera, or voice notes that can be emailed as well. It is a very versatile application and I highly recommend it.

Awesome Note Lite

This app is also a note taker but it also has other features that make it a good download. It separates your notes into: My Ideas, Study, Shopping and To-Do List. I like this because it combines a to-do list and a note taking device that also includes a shopping list because I always forget to stop and buy the milk.

Writepad

If you can master this app it may be a savior if you have bad handwriting like me. It is like a small tablet PC as you just write with your finger and it translates it into text but you only write one word at a time and there is a bit of a lag so it’s not really the most practical thing.

Games

I like strategy games so I chose a couple other than Sudoku.

Airline USA

This game involves directing the different forms of aviation from their origin to their destination and making sure each of their routes don’t crash. So at the beginning you have regular planes, then you get jumbo jets which travel slightly slower, and then blimps and then jets. It’s harder than it sounds . Let me know if you beat my high score of 69.

Traffic Rush

If you can’t tell by now my love for all things transportation then this will solidify it for you. This game also involves trying to make sure the cars don’t crash. The games setting is an intersection and the cars come from all sides and you speed up and stop them to make sure they don’t crash with one another. My high score for that is 129.

I don’t spend too much time on these games so I wouldn’t at all be surprised if you beat me.

Utilities

Flashlight

By far the best app in this department is the flashlight app. It is just as bright, if not brighter than the flashlight that comes on the Sony Ericsson phones and just as good as a regular flashlight. It’s very handy and has helped me in numerous situations.

Communication

Ping

This would be my favourite app if I knew more people in my area with Apple iPod Touch’s or Apple iPhone’s. Regardless I know many people will find pinging other Apple users for free very useful.

Popularity: 40% [?]

Google and Apple have just started competing with each other and things started warming up with the release of the Google Android smartphone but now things may start to heat up with the release of an Apple search engine to compete with the cash cow leader in that department, Google.

This makes total sense for Apple as its brand is gaining ground whereever it enters including a market share in the smartphone industry that has doubled since 2008 from 5.3% to 10.8%. (Nokia has a 41.2% share and RIM has 19.9%). Now it’s rumoured that they’re going to release a search engine.

Now let’s try and figure out if this makes sense when you break down the numbers. Currently Google is the reigning king in this department by a long shot with an 83% market share but this is largely because everyone associates search with Google and so naturally people go there to do their searches. Increasingly though people want services that are more convenient and thus they are searching on the go with their Blackberry’s, iPhones or other mobile devices.

Now this is where it gets complicated because all the major search engines (Bing by Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and possibly Apple) are promoting their respective sites very hard and with Google launching its browser recently and it rumoured OS, Google is continuing to strengthen its lineup to protect its search engine and revenue stream. Microsoft on the other hand will make its own search engine the default on IE and the default search engine on Windows is, you guessed, it IE. Both these platforms have a stranglehold on their respective market and thus it makes easier for users to use Bing and you should see a steady increase in its usage over the next bit. Apple on the other hand is slowly gaining market share in the OS department where Safari is the default, but where the growth can occur is the smartphone department and that’s where this battle will be won or lost.

The key thing to note is whether or not Apple can continue to grow the iPhone and knock down Nokia and keep up with RIM. If that happens Apple has a serious chance of gaining some huge money because then the default search engine on the iPhone will be Apple’s version instead of Google. Where Google can gain is if the Android takes off and what RIM decides to do. Whether they go with Google, Apple or even Microsoft as their default search engine may determine how far Apple gets.

There really is so much at play here for Apple and in the end there’s too many variables for Apple to worry about to even think about entering but knowing Apple they want their own stuff and so I would not be surprised if they release it anyway. That’s my take and let me know yours.

Popularity: 7% [?]

The media has been abuzz lately about a new version of the Apple iPod Touch. Now in all honesty it’s nothing we haven’t seen before but what Apple is doing is trying to revolutionize the mp3 market by adding cellphone specs to a mp3 player such as a built-in camera and microphone. Obviously those two features aren’t something new and it will probably be the highlight of the new features packaged with the new Apple iPod Touch but what it will do is allow Apple iPod Touch users to download apps only useful to iPhone users such as Shazam. Granted, users will need to be in a WiFi zone but what’s stopping people from subscribing to personal hotspots offered by companies like Rogers and Verizon that will allow them to be always on the grid.

TruPhone

Now what might even further revolutionize the mp3 industry is the fact of the availability of some applications such as Truphone and Fring which allow Apple iPod Touch users to call other users with the same application for free once they are in a WiFi zone and with the built-in microphone you’ve now got a working phone that makes VoIP calls.

Now all of you must be asking when will this new Apple iPod Touch be coming out? Sources say the timeframe would be around the next two to three months which matches up with the new releases of other Apple products. This is all just around the time when school starts and students, who are usually the trend setters, go back to school and want to have the newest gadgets. Look for this mp3 player to change a small part of the world.

Update: Not only will the Apple iPod Touch have a camera but the Apple iPod Nano will have one too. “My company had got full information and dimension,” wrote a Chinese distributor in an email to a U.S. reseller. “Enclosed some image and instruction for your reference. Most of the sample available now. If you need some sample check quality please freely let me know.”

The cameras on the Apple iPod Nano will be placed in the bottom left corner whereas the Apple iPod Touch’s camera will be surprisingly in the center of the device at the top (not dead centre which I first thought when I read it). Going with what Apple traditionaly does, it will be a safe bet to say that both these devices will get double the storage at the same price.

• iPod Nano (fifth generation): 16GB for $150; 32GB for $200
• iPod Touch (third generation): 16GB for $230; 32GB for $300; 64GB for $400

Apple iPod Nano 5th Generation

Now although the Apple iPod Nano looks the same there are small changes it will have. There will be a slightly wider screen with a 1.5:1 aspect ratio up from 1.33:1 (I know, a small jump) and a smaller click wheel that will move down the device.

On top of that, I just found out that the Apple iPod Touch will most likely be able to take video whereas the Apple iPod Nano will not. Even so, with the Apple iPod Touch being such a huge success, it will deal a blow to the compact video recorders like The Flip (My review on The Flip) but it’s not like they were that great to begin with.

Popularity: 20% [?]

When I first heard about this update through my friend, I questioned it because why would Apple jump from firmware 2.2.1 all the way to 3.0? Well in fact, when I looked it up, it was dead true. Now I’m here to tell you about it. Apple is planning a major revamp of its OS which includes many cool things that might just blow your mind when you put it all together. There are loads of features, 100 last time I counted but these are the ones that I decided to highlight.

iPhone 3.0 Software

Push Technology

Apple was late to the push technology game and so when it released it, it basically killed the battery life. Now, it’s reconfigured its system so that it eliminates background processes and thus improves battery life. This makes the iPhone more business friendly because it automatically updates you if you receive new mail for instance even when the application isn’t running.

Push Notification on Apple iPhone

Cut, Copy & Paste

This to me is one of the biggest improvements for the iPhone after preserving the battery. How many times have you had a URL or some sentence that you wanted to copy and paste but couldn’t? I know I have many times. Now you’ll be able to use it with text messaging and even in Web pages and photos from the camera album. With this feature, you’ll be able to move the copy points and shake to undo. Now why did it take so long to do something so simple? My take is that Apple as we know them likes to control as much as possible which is why they delete apps with no warning. There excuse is that they wanted to deal with the security issue and make it work well with the touch screen.

Undo Paste on Apple iPhone

Real GPS Capabilities

Now you’ll be able to get applications that will have turn-by-turn directions making it a fully capable GPS with the free upgrade for iPhone users. The bad thing is because of licensing issues, the Google Maps app will not be used in conjuction with the GPS so developers will need to get their own maps which leads to the fact that these applications will probably cost users money.

Peer to Peer Connectivity

This is big as well for me at least because I remember I could play Worms on my Sony Ericsson phone with my friend who used to have a Sony Ericsson phone and it’d be great. We’d be sitting like 5m apart and be playing against each other. I was totally surprised to find that the iPod or iPhone could not do this. I’m an iPod Touch user and I was delighted to hear that the Apple iPod Touch does in fact have Bluetooth but Apple kept it locked. Now with this update, both the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch will have Bluetooth so you’ll be able to use this feature. Apple will build upon the original framework of the iPhone Bluetooth system and unlock the iPod Touch system. On top of that, Apple will have add onto the peer to peer system by putting in “in-game voice communication”.

Spotlight

This isn’t huge but it’s still nice. Before you could only search one area of your iPod/iPhone, but now Apple has designed this nice feature that will allow you to search everything at once including mail, iPod library, notes, contacts and calendar. What Apple has done is unique in my mind because it’s very easy to access this feature. Go the home screen (which you can do by clicking the home button anytime) and swipe left and then search away.

Landscape Keyboard

You may ask, we already have this? Well you are technically right but what about when you’re in an app such as Mail? In that situation you can only use the portrait keyboard which can get tiring. The landscape keyboard will now be accessible in any app which to me is long overdue. If you don’t know already, the landscape keyboard has larger buttons, more buttons and the buttons are more spaced out.

Landscape Keyboard

Multimedia Messaging

This is such a basic feature yet it was not apparent to Apple to include it on the iPhone. Many of the basic cell phones have it yet one of the most sophisticated phones doesn’t (most sophisticated can be argued). If you bought the basic Apple iPhone, then you’ll be out of luck since it does not carry the required radio to run MMS on it.

Upgraded Bluetooth

If you own the newer version of the Apple iPhone you’ll now have the opportunity to buy wireless headphones/earphones to use with the upgraded bluetooth. Listening to music with Apple’s version of bluetooth headphones may be closer than you think.

Conclusion

The strange thing about this software is that for the people that would want it the most, it costs $0, or free, whichever way you flip it. For the people who might not need it and has less benefit, the Apple iPod Touch users, it costs $9.95 which makes me wonder who the sales and marketing department are.

Popularity: 10% [?]

I’m not an expert at this subject but I’ve been through the whole struggle and now my battery life can only last about 10-20min give or take. Now the sad thing is, there is no Viagra type solution for these issues but there is a way to prevent your laptop battery from deteriorating at the beginning. I did not take any of what I’m about to tell you into consideration but I hope when you get a new laptop you take these seven things into consideration when you’re traveling and one thing that will extend the life of your battery.

• Turn Down Your Screen Brightness - Screen brightness is not a big deal yet it takes away a lot of battery power that can be put to better use (like playing games). This is very easy to do. All you’ll need to do in Microsoft Windows Vista is go to Control Panel–>Hardware & Sound–>Power Options and then on the left sidebar, click Adjust the display brightness. Here you can also tell the computer when to turn off the display and power off depending if you’re plugged in or not.

• Adjust the Computer Performance - Depending on what you’re doing while traveling, you might be able to sacrifice some performance to save some power. Microsoft Windows Vista has three plans that you can utilize: Power Saver, Balanced, and High Performance. I use Balanced most of the time, but there are times when I use the other two. You can tailor each of these plans to best suit your needs, but the one you should be focusing on is the Power Saver. Configure it so you’re using the least you can.

• Turn off Wi-Fi/Bluetooth – If you have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, turn it off. In most cases, you don’t need either of these because we have the Blackberry/Apple iPhone to do quick checks of email and such. It can be a real energy saver and can be as easy as flicking a switch off.

• Watch Movies/TV off Hard Drive – One secret a lot of people don’t know or might know and not really act on it, is the fact that the CD/DVD drive takes much more power then if you download and watch it directly. Now I’m not encouraging downloading from illegal sources, what I’m saying is you should take this into consideration when you go on your next trip

• Take Out the Battery – The reason my laptop has very little battery life is I now have it plugged in 24/7. This destroys the laptop battery and speeds up the process of aging because then the battery doesn’t have the chance to discharge so it loses it’s ability to hold a charge. A way to prevent this from happening is when you have your laptop plugged in all the time you remove the battery as it is not needed. When you hit the road, make sure to put it back in as well as double checking the battery is still charged.

• Cool Your Laptop Down – To keep the temperature down on your laptop, clean your air vents but to go even further you should have a laptop stand when you are working at your desk. Laptops in general work better when they are cooler and so letting the laptop have a room to breathe only helps that. A laptop stand kills two birds with one stone (not that you should literally do that in real life) because it provides you with an ergonomic keyboard.

• Don’t Multitask – Even in real life, multitasking can put a strain on yourself such as doing homework and watching TV (I know, I love it too) but if you’re trying to preserve your battery life, only do one thing at a time.

Popularity: 10% [?]

How many times have you found yourself looking through a drawer and seeing charger after charger for your cell phone with no use at all? I know I have a bunch and I have no idea what to do with them. It’s the same with mp3 players and laptops. Every company has its own way of making chargers for its many products. Apple and Nokia, have always made their chargers respectively the same. It’s helped Apple become a major player, as its whole line-up is compatible with the same charger made over 5 years ago.

On Tuesday February 17th, 2009, a historic landmark was agreed on where 17 of the largest cellphone makers including Samsung, Nokia and Motorola, decided to work together to make a universal standard charging system for cellphones by the year 2012. This system will be identical to the trapezoid-shaped microUSB format used by RIM’s most recent devices, the Bold, Storm and Pearl Flip. Unfortunately, this standard will likely be released in 2012—light years in my mind. Nonetheless, it’s better than nothing. Apple will likely stick its trusty charging standard that has proven golden over the years.

At first glance you might think, oh why would these big companies change things that have worked for them for so long? Well this is a completely valid question because, like cheap printers with their more expensive replacement ink cartridges, cell phones have expensive replacement charging cords that see huge revenue. At the beginning of the implementation, companies will see slightly lower revenues but it will be made up later with lower packaging and manufacturing costs. Instead, companies will sell charging cords separately so big companies like Nokia will now not need to include it in their phone packages. Since it will save costs, these companies will also reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from 21.8 million to 13.6 million tonnes per year, as well as cut energy consumption globally by 50%. 

This might not be the biggest news though because as technology progresses, we will see more and more demonstrations of wireless charging. When Palm unveiled its Pre smart phone, it also introduced the Touchstone wireless charging adapter. 

Excerpt from wiredathome.blogspot.com

The power cord has long been the enemy of many people around the world. You always had to place things according to where the plugs were or you’d have some cord running all across the room. Nobody really notices or thinks about the power cord once it’s being used and has found its place. However, if it could be thrown away, it would make a world of difference.  Now there is a solution to get rid of some of those plugs, wireless charging. To get things straight, this piece of technology won’t replace all of your plugs but is a huge step in the right direction to making the power cord obsolete. Currently there are two ways to wirelessly charge a device, and they are being offered by two different companies. WildCharge will start selling a conductive charging pad and eCoupled will offer an inductive laptop specific pad with a compatible notebook all by the end of 2008. Both companies will offer adapters at a range of $30. If you are the type to enjoy science, then you’ll probably be able to guess the difference in technologies between the two. Conductive charging passes electricity when two objects come in contact. Inductive charging happens when there is a physical gap between two objects.

Popularity: 7% [?]