My Ten Most Useful Android Apps (and one Outlook Plugin)

The Samsung Moment is a good Sprint smartphone that runs on the 1.5 version of the new Android OS. One great function is that it offers direct syncing with the user’s Google accounts. However, for some reason, Sprint didn’t include enough applications on the Moment. It is fully functional off-the-shelf, but it just seems to be missing stuff that experienced smartphone users would want. Fortunately, the Android Market has more than enough apps to quickly add most (if not all) functionality that one might expect from an advanced smartphone.

This is my Ten Most Useful Android Apps for Samsung Moment (and really any other Android smartphones) in no particular order:

• Android Backup Tool by Marigold backs-up a multitude of data from the smartphone to the SD Card, including Contacts, SMS, browser links, settings, etc.

• Star Contact by StarObject provides advanced Contacts search functionally that is missing from almost all smartphones (even Palm).

• Easy Dialer Premium by UIP ($) does cost a small nominal fee, but it is worth the chump change! It provides a well designed speed dial interface that really should be the standard for any Android smartphone. There is a free version with small and unintrusive ads called Easy Dialer. Another free alternative is Speed Dial by CRinUS. There is no interface to speak of in Speed Dial. It simple allows the user to put speed dials directly on the home page as links.

• Where by where is highly rated and updated frequently. It provides up-to-date information and reviews about restaurants, movies, local news, weather, friends, etc.

• Dolphin Browser by MGeek is a great Android internet browser that has powerful and time saving capabilities.

• OI File Manager by OpenIntents is a good and simple file management utility for the SD Card. It allows for the renaming and copying of files.

• Wikidroid for Wikipedia by Sirius Applications Ltd is a rapid and simple alternative to just loading the Wikipedia website directly. It loads articles very quickly without all the extras that weight down Wikipedia in an internet browser.

• ASTRO File Manager by Metago is another powerful file manager. It has different functionality than OI File Manager, so I really recommend installing both until one app starts including the functions of the other.

• AirPlaneSwitch by C-LIS Crazy Lab. is a simple application that allows the user to switch their phone over to Airplane mode without having to navigate into the smartphone’s settings.

• TwitterTweet Twitter Client by MEDIAFILL LLC is an underrated app that allows the user to efficiently and simply sync their Twitter account and feeds to their phone.

Sync Android with Outlook

Right now, a PC application that syncs the Moment with Windows Outlook is not included. There is a fairly good Outlook plugin which will sync your contacts, calendar and notes with your Google account. The plugin works great as it allows your smartphone to be updated without ever attaching it to a computer! The plugin is called gSyncit for Microsoft Outlook by David Levinson. It is available at http://www.daveswebsite.com/. It costs $14.99 and does have unusually strict licensing for installations, so I will be keeping an eye out for free or more customer friendly licensing. For now, this plugin provides a much needed service, so I do recommend the investment if you have any Android smartphone.

Tuesday Two: Sponging up energy

Tuesday Two

Get nearly perpetual power with these little energy cells that can recharge by harvesting ambient energy, such as kinetic, electromagnetic, heat, radio frequency, and light. This may change everything from hand held devices to desktop computers.

In real life Star Trek technology news, there's a phrase (not phaser) translator called the Phraselator which will translate statements into one of several languages. It's one-way translation today, but with two of these, you just might be able to carry on a short conversation about the weather with just about anyone on the planet.

Epoch-Fail

To prepare you for your American Idol debut, the Perpetual Kid website (purveyer of many potential Epoch-Fail canidadates) has the Shower Mic Sponge.

Tuesday Two: Robots and Bacteria

Tuesday Two

In robot news, Josh Lowensohn explores the Rovio, a $250 robot that acts like an internet controlled telepresence guard dog. Let's hope they never hook this thing up to Skynet. Terminator's primitive cousin has been born!
On the biotech front, the cleverly named Institute of Food Research made an announcement about genetically engineered bacteria that does what it is told to do just by eating a rare sugar called xylan. Sounds just tasty. I'll have two!

Epoch-Fail!

Tesla Motors has been trying to give themselves a lot of press. Their desperation lead them to submit a couple of cars to the British show Top Gear. Bad move! Well, let's be honest, an electric "sports" car that only has peak performance for a 100 mile radius before needing a 2 to ..umm 16 hour recharge? Well, Top Gear's review may not have been 100% fair, but they make some very important points. Here's the video.

Epoch Fail (special edition for Fox "News")

Tuesday Two: Snap Cracke Pop

Word First

Welcome to the first day of Fall 2009. I have something called Tuesday Two on a professional technical website that I maintain. I will be reposted some of those here from time to time. These will include brief showcases of two noteworthy inventions (maybe more sometimes, maybe less). In addition, I may also highlight an epic fail invention. Hmm, I don't know about that word epic fail. It's too much en vogue right now and will likely not be used in a couple years. Let me make up my own derivative.

I will sometimes highlight an epoch-fail invention. That's likely a safe term that won't get over used by the likes of G4 and other "we are cool gadget geeks" media outlets. Epoch-fail also out-does the term epic fail because even an epic is only a short period when compared to geologic time frame of an epoch. Epoch-fail inventions will be (in my opinion, as always) failures that can be registered in terms of how long the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, or when we last had a comet (or was it an asteroid, or huge broken-down alien space ship) smack into the Yucatan Peninsula.

Also, it should be noted that by "invention", I also mean innovation, device, gadget, idea or any other unique real world or conceptual imagining. Normally, I will stick to recent news, but don't be surprized if I honor the axle or deride the idea that UFO's helped Egyptians build the Pyramids.

Tuesday Two

Kindle gets nod for living up to the hype. Recent study shows that it is indeed more environmentally friendly than paper books. This, combined with its new lower price should turn some green heads and open their pocket books.

Do dogs go to heaven? Regardless to one's beliefs, there is now a service available to take care of pets left behind once the Rapture happens. It's billed as,"The next best thing to pet salvation in a Post Rapture World"

Epoch-Fail

1. This week's first Epoch-Fail award goes to the beloved iPhone 3GS, based on reports from France that suggest it is exploding and cracking without warning. Yikes!
2. A second Epoch-Fail award goes to those who have been trying to link the good ol' meat and potatoes diet with bad things. Recent studies have not shown a link between meat and dairy products with breast cancer in women.
3. Yet a third Epoch-Fail award goes to Bank of America for not cashing the check of a man who was born with no arms because he was unable to provide a thumb print.
4. This week's final Epoch-Fail award again goes to Apple, but this one is directly granted to Steve Jobs for his alleged lie to the New York Times about why the new iPod Touch doesn't have a camera.

Santa Clara Forty-Niners

On June 2, 2009 in a televised Santa Clara City Council meeting, the Term Sheet for the potential 49ers football stadium was approved. The wheels of bureaucracy are in motion. The (hopefully) inevitable outcome is one step closer to being a reality. I don't know what the 49ers will be called when they move to Santa Clara, but they will be moving.

Sorry City of San Francisco. The real engine of the San Francisco Bay Area (Silicon Valley) is getting the prized possession that you took for granted for so long. The 49ers will be moving to the metropolitan area of the nation's 10th largest city (San Jose).

The 49ers will play their games in the heart of their fan base! Only 8% of session ticket holders currently live in San Francisco. It has been suggested that the majority of the 49er's session ticket holders are actually from Silicon Valley, including support from corporations.

Should their name be changed to Santa Clara 49ers, or even Silicon Valley Chips? I'm inclined to say no. I suggest they change their name to San Francisco Bay 49ers. This way they can continue the 49er traditions. Also, they can be said to represent the whole area while still sporting their famous SF logo.

It is my hope that the measure for public approval of the new 49er stadium will be on our ballots in 2010, and that the stadium can be completed for the 2014 session.

One of the bonuses to having a new, well designed stadium is that it will be a likely candidate to host the Super Bowl! If they finish the stadium soon enough, Santa Clara city may be the host city for the Super Bowl before 2020! Even the City of San Francisco will benefit from that, despite their own laziness.

"Mommy, what's a keyboard"

Even with the explosion of the QWERTY keyboard being plastered on to almost every type of electronic device these days, I’m going to go out on a limb here and now to declare that the QWERTY keyboard will be obsolete within my lifetime. This prediction is not limited to the keyboard device I’m using to type this article. I’m referring to any type of letter based data input that takes the form of QWERTY. The beginning of the end for QWERTY is not the Dvorak keyboard. Nor is it speak [mis]recognition technology. In my view, the signal of the end is predictive text input.

Predictive text input is where a person enters there first couple of letters and then is presented with a word or list of words that most likely match the author’s intent. The author keeps typing until the correct word appears, then accepts the entry. On a cell phone number pad, each number represents 3 or 4 letters. Predictive test input can quickly find the desired word, often with the push of only a couple of numbers. In addition, more sophisticated systems will learn which words are most commonly used by the author and present those as first choices to the author.

With predictive text input, a person can drastically increase their typing capabilities. I’ve seen individuals text with cell phones numeric pads faster than what is even possible on a smartphone QWERTY keyboard. In fact, I would suggest that average wpm speeds of numeric pad texters with predictive text input even exceeds that of experienced typists on traditional full size keyboard devices. That’s not hyperbole, and I’m not kidding. The QWERTY keyboard’s current Golden Age will be over soon enough.

Grieving family faces more trama

A recent story in the news has caught my attention. There is this family whose daughter died in a traffic accident a couple years ago here in California. As standard practice, the CHP had photographed the accident, including a shot of the young woman's nearly decapitated body. Unfortunately for that woman's family, the CHP officers leaked the gruesome photo some days later, and they ended up all over the internet. As reported, "Even Nikki's grieving father couldn't avoid the pictures. Days after the crash, the real estate developer opened an e-mail he believed was a property listing and found instead a grisly photo of his daughter's body." Ever since, the family has been fighting to get the photos removed, first by going after hosting sites, then by going after the CHP itself. All attempts have failed, thankfully.

Now, I do sympathize with the family for their lose. However, the photographs taken by the CHP are a matter of public record. The CHP actually doesn't have any right to hide those photos from any citizen who requests them. Nor can the law prevent their unlimited disclosure. We live in a free society where the government cannot be allowed to keep information from the public (except for matters of National Security). There are pluses and minus to this, but if we wish to keep our society free, we must prevent the government from hiding any information.

Additionally, this is not a matter of privacy at all. The woman died in an auto accident, which is a public incident. Privacy does not hold any priority in public events. First, I (and every citizen) have the right to photograph anything I wish in public (again, except or matters of National Security). The CHP actually had a responsibility to photograph the accident scene. They actually would've been negligent in their jobs had they not.

So, although privacy is an important right, it is a right that is limited to private acts. With the exception of creative works (protected by copyright), any public incident is a matter that is in the realm of public domain. Side note, in the course of an investigation, any record of evidence collected (photographs of the scene, written reports, etc) by the CHP or any public service is public record.

Expert's Prediction about Italian Earthquake

The central Italian earthquake was apparently predicted a month in advance by Gioacchino Giuliani, an employee at a physics institute at Gran Sasso, near the badly-hit city of L'Aquila. His warnings where scoffed at by Italian authorities. They even forced him to remove information about his prediction from his website. I can see why someone would be ignored, but in a free country, it seems a bit extreme to inhibit one's basic freedom of speech. He's now demanding an apology for the legal assault upon him.

From my memory, there seems to be a series of solo scientist that are able to score one accurate earthquake prediction. Sometimes, they kinda get a second prediction right too. However, I've never seen these scientist able to continue their predictions accurately in a way that can usually save lives. Gioacchino Giuliani feels like he could've saved lives if the authorities listened to him. The problem is that even if his method proves to be repeatable, this is the first successful prediction he has made, at least that I've heard about. First time for anything is an occurrence; second time a coincidence; the third time is a pattern. For him to be recognized, he's got to get it right three times in a way that is repeatable by others and useful to authorities.

The difficulty with this is that earthquakes happen very infrequently in any one location. The factors that lead up to earthquakes vary from region to region and even quake to quake. What may be an indicator for an earthquake in one location may not work in another location.

In my opinion, I do think the authorities owe the expert an apology for violating his freedoms. However, it is understandable as to why they ignored him. There's a lot of crackpots out there making predictions all the time. The authorities have no idea who to listen to until some method (not a particular person) provides to be successful repeatably.

Drug Pushers

I used to be in favor of allowing drug companies the right to directly advertise their products to consumers. However, the more time that goes by, the more I realize the misguided ideology of this line of thinking. History now bares witness to the facts that reveal several truths about this matter.

Pharmaceutical companies do not do nearly the research that they need to in order to determine the effectiveness of their drugs before they start selling them to customers. Also, when such research is not favorable, they delay the release of the information to the public in order to drive more sales. The most recent example of this is Vytorin (and its component Zetia). These drugs were proven to reduce bad cholesterol. However, a dangerous assumption was made that this inherently also reduced the risk of heart attacks. The fact is that the drug does not reduce the risk of heart attacks. The drug companies of Schering-Plough Corp. and Merck & Co. marketed this nearly useless drug for two years after they knew it did not work for the purpose it was intended, according to AP in their article.

Pharmaceutical companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing campaigns. This is taking money way from research and development. In my opinion, it is also likely the major reason that drug costs are raising drastically since the band on drug advertisements was lifted.

Advertising drugs directly to the public encourages self-diagnosis. People are trying to be their own doctors. Advertising, along with the establishment of the Internet has given hypochondriacism new life and even legitimacy. Self-diagnosis is very dangerous.

Given these reasons, I am now in favor of re-establishing the restrictions on advertising for proscription drugs. This will help reduce the chances that corporate greed will take advantage of Americans. It will help reduce the cost of drugs. It will help provide for more R&D funding into new treatments. And, it will help reduce dangerous hypochondriacism and self-diagnosis.