Notes for noob Android users!

I've had a slew of new Android smartphone users around me, including my mom! So imma share a few things I end up repeating and have experienced with all of 'em on the qwerks of Android.

The keyboard is switchable!

Long-press a blank text box to access Input Methods and see what options you have. I highly recommend getting Swype. On most new phones it's available in Input Options, you just have to enable it. It will take you a few minutes to get used to it, trust me. You'll spend much less time typing, and correcting what you type. If it's not on your phone, get it off Swype.com as it doesn't appear on Google Play (at least for me).

When adding contacts, choose to store them in your Gmail account:

This way, it auto-syncs (provided you turn on the phone-wide sync once in awhile, if you leave it switched off). You don't need to use backup apps included by the phone manufacturer this way. If you're using a Nexus phone this would be the default, this one's more for the rest of us. Also, it is easier to sort your contacts, as you can open up Gmail on your computer and sort it there, and it would sync to your phone. If you're importing contacts from another phone, if you can figure out a way to get it into Gmail, then you've got it on your phone too!

Same goes for Calendaring, I prefer to use Google Calendar, or an app that runs on top of Google Calendar. This way, you only need a browser on your computer to access it. You get the drift, use the services provided by Google, it's easier on the phone, while syncing and backups become a non-issue.

There is more than one button! 

This is mostly for the Apple people. In addition to the Home button, there is a Menu button, usually a hardware or (more elusive) touch button, which will reveal much when pressed! Many apps have no indication that there is a menu with awesome options hidden away inside it. So remember, you have a Menu Button!

Most phones will have you signed in to Google Talk, and you won't know this. People will message you, and you might not know this also! So do remember to check, or sign out of it.

Tips for saving battery: 

- Explore apps on your phone and see what else you're signed into or which apps you don't use are running in the background. Turn them off or remove them altogether.

- Turn off sync: You can switch it off for your entire phone, or selectively turn off certain apps under Settings, if you really need your email but want to avoid things like Facebook, for example.

- Adjust your screen's brightness settings. Large screens can drain batteries real fast.

- 3G/4G connections will use up the most amount of battery. Switch to Wi-fi or 2G for a longer battery life. Or turn off all data connections for a way longer battery life and some notification-free silence!

- Get an app like Juice Defender which will help you conserve battery.

Security-wise:

Lookout is one of my favourite apps. It keeps bugs out of your phone, and in the event of a lost phone it can help you out. And if you've synced everything to Google you'll never have to worry about losing much with a dead/lost phone.

I know I haven't gone in to detail on the how-to's, but now that you know what to do, you can refer to your manual or look it up!

New Homepage test design by Google is a #Fail

Well in the above screenshot you can see that Google is testing a new homepage design. Personally I prefer the current minimalist fade in homepage. And I am not liking this design very much. Cause not only this new design has way too many words for my liking but also the words are repeated. The words "Privacy" and "Copyright 2010" are repeated twice. I see no reason for those words to be that important to be repeated twice. Whereas I cant find the link to perform "Advanced Search" and the link for "Language Tools".

On another note, I am not sure if anyone else is getting the same view. Feel free to leave a comment if you have anything to say on this new design.

Upload JPG files to Google Docs

I actually came across this accidentally. I was actually trying to upload 2 PDF files into my Google Docs. But by mistake I chose the JPG version of them to upload. Well, GDocs doesn't allow uploading of JPG files. So technically I should have got an error message saying something along the lines of "File type not supported" (which I did get later when I tried to upload a PNG file).

But instead I got an error message saying something along the lines of "The file size is more than 500KB". Seeing this message I assumed that when you upload a JPG file of size <= 500KB, GDocs would create a new document and add the JPG file as an image in the document file. The mentioned size 500KB caused me to make such an assumption. Another option I hoped for was it would let me store JPG files of size <= 500KB. I really wanted it store the JPG files as I have been wanting this feature for quite some time now especially with all the news/rumors of Google Drive.

So I actually found an image file (a PNG file this time round) of size <= 500KB in my computer and tried uploading to GDocs. As mentioned above the attempt failed with an error message along the lines of "File type not supported".

Hence I decided to hunt my computer for a JPG file of size <= 500KB. After finding one, I tried uploading it. And voilà it worked as I had assumed (Added the JPG file as an image in a new document). Here is the screenshot of uploaded JPG file.

I haven't got the chance to test other image file formats such as BMP, GIF, etc. If any of you do, feel free to post the results in comments.

Google Apps vs. Microsoft Live Workspace

GApps is basically Google's version of a productivity suite online and Live Workspace is Microsoft's version. (You should look them up, this is going to be a very rough post).

Both Google and Microsoft offer e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets, presentation slides and websites, as productivity and collaboration tools (packaged differently of course).

Google has some great extras. Postini is one of the industry's leading security and archival solutions. Everything in GApps runs in your browser. You can install Google Gears and GApps can run offline in your browser. GApps also has API access (paid version) plus thousands of applications written on Google App Engine can be thrown in. The Salesforce CRM tied up with Google too.

Workspace uses Office for editing. I think it's an 'ok' assumption since most people do use MS Office. What's good about that is your formatting is preserved. Google's formatting is pretty barebones.

Overall GApps has more features while MS who has a stronghold on the offline market is moving online. Google rules the online space but it will be interesting to see what Microsoft does.

Google still has a few things to iron out. It goes crazy sometimes when too many people are editing one file. The calendar refuses to save stuff sometimes. My mouse gestures in Gmail stopped working randomly. But those are all small issues.

Microsoft is really working on the usability of their new Live suite. It sounds promising. I tried the new MSN but I didn't like it, only because it's damn slow. The Photo Gallery uploads straight to Facebook and handles tagging as well, that's pretty cool I thought. And they're supporting Mac as well now. Nice of them.

Google is hitting the enterprise market online while the enterprise giant Microsoft is just starting to get online. Lets see how this turns out!

GApps Standard - Losing Count of Free Accounts?

Google Apps came with a 100 free accounts per Standard installation, up until late last year, where they reduced it to 50.

At the same time I came across some interesting figures in some of the installations. Wonder who's playing with the free accounts at Google eh?

I got Chromed

I got a rather interesting warning message while I was on a Google site using Google Chrome. Ya ya I know it's still in beta, but I was amused!

Gmail login problem

If you've had problems logging in, through the website or through an email client and you're positive you've got all the settings right AND you're positive you've typed and retyped AND retyped your username and password correcctly and it STILL doesn't work... here's something you should try.

Remember to close all other online and offline email activity related to the account in question first.

For Gmail users...
https://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha

For Google Apps users...
https://www.google.com/a/[your domain].com/UnlockCaptcha

Give it a few minutes and retry. It should be up and running.

Google Trick

Step 1: Goto www.google.com (not www.google.com.sg or any other local google)

Step 2: Delete everything in the address bar, then copy paste the following:

javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.images; DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5; DIS.top=Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5}R++}setInterval('A()',5); void(0);

Step 3: Press Enter

(Source: mvzone.blogspot.com)