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Visiting The Market! #1

noreply@blogger.com (Frost Leopard.) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 21:10:00 -0700

This marks the first post of "Visiting The Market!" where I shall recommend application from the Android market. The Android Market is a goddamn jungle, it is impossible to find good quality applications without searching hard for it. Here, on the other hand, shall round up a list of applications that would probably appeal to all. (Even better, all applications stated will always be free :D)

1. Roaring Skies.

This is a bird-eye view aeroplane game. If you are a fan of high quality application, this game should pander to your needs. It features you piloting a plane. being a single touch game. No tutorial needed. I'll not spoil the game anymore, download and try it for yourself ;)

Good : MUTIPLAYER over network! 3D engine.
Bad : Touch control does not work well.

(Market Link)
(Qr CODE)

2. Instinctiv.

In short, this is a music player. You might ask, "Why do I need another music player"? Instinctiv does not boast of any other features over the stock player except for music recognition, automatic album art selection, Shuffle "SIMILAR TO", Custom Music Lock screen and Sync. What are you waiting for?

Good : Whole host of features. Constant updates.
Bad : No Equalizer.

(Market Link)
(Qr CODE)

3.QuickPic.

And I thought this application was famous enough by itself. Apparently not. ( I have yet to see one person having this fantastic application ) This is a simply a media gallery. But it is smaller, quicker, faster and cleaner. The entire interface, while seeming plain, is buttery smooth. The app plays videos as well, no need for another application to process your clips.

Good : Plays Animated-Gifs, No advertisements. Exclude photos.
Bad : Cannot display 3D photos, does not show TIFF format.

(Market Link)
(Qr CODE)

4. K-Adroit.

A seemingly innocuous application by a fellow XDA member. This is a nifty little application, allowing you to check the specification and more about most phones. It also comes with rumored phones, for all those who can't wait to land their paws on a more powerful gadget. It also comes with prices and reviews of phones. If you find yourself needing to visit GSMArena once too often, perhaps this application is for you.

Good : Classified to sell or advertise your device. Reviews of many phones.
Bad : Does not give more in-depth specification such as sound card etc.

(Market Link)
(Qr CODE)

5. Seesmic

Chances are, if you own a smart phone, you have a pretty social life. Most people I know have Twitter and Facebook as the main application. Seesmic, however, integrates this two into one application, allowing quick access. You can enable multiple accounts. It also supports Google Buzz and Salesforce Chatter. Simple said, it merges all social networking sites so you need not have multiple application.

Good : Clean interface. Supports conversations.
Bad : No integration with Google Plus. No sync of contacts.

(Market Link)
(Qr CODE)

There you go, five amazing applications among the many in the Android market. Bookmark this page for "Visting The Market! #2" next week :D (Cltr-D). Happy downloading!

The battery drain issue.

noreply@blogger.com (Frost Leopard.) — Tue, 6 Sep 2011 05:32:00 -0700

Please Connect Charger : The Battery Is Getting Critically Low.

Chances are if you are reading this, you own an android powered device which sucks the life of the battery. And you hate it. You hate owning an android device. You still wondered whatever made you moved from the good ol' Nokia 1100 to a behemoth of a phone, perhaps the Samsung Galaxy S2II. And so you want everything to last as well as before, days of usage without charge. Well, i can't guarantee you that, but i can point out ways to try an extend it a little longer then before.

1. Wallpapers.

While wallpapers are nice to look at, they can be quite heavy on the battery. The introduction of Live Wallpaper furthers worsens this. Despite it consuming little battery, it would be good to turn it off. To do this, simply save a transparent image and set it as your wallpaper. As an added benefits, your system should feel snappier (Especially without live wallpapers, unless your phone is top-tier) and boot up time should be minutely faster. If your phone is LED powered instead of LCD powered, you will notice the most improvement in battery life. LED turns the pixel completely off whereas LCD merely darkens it. This is coined "True Black" in the mobile industry. Moreover, some Live Wallpapers are also quite rogue in their CPU and battery consumption. The same applies for WIDGETS.

2. Sounds.

Sounds, or haptic feedback, could drain electricity. Unlikely as it is, if you are really looking to maximize battery life, turning haptic feedback off and silencing your phone could possible help.

3. Connections.

This is possible the culprit for short battery lifespan. With the advancement of technology such as the H+ and LTE4G, you might think our batteries would have become more efficient too. Sadly, this is not true and hence, it would be wise to cut down on such usage. Android does not have a shortcut to enable/disable 3G and 2G natively. One could get an app, such as CurveFish's app. Or if you are feeling hardworking, you can try to see if there are development on CyanogenMod for your mobile which has this feature inbuilt. Do not use apps like JuiceDefender. These apps work only when one's phone switch to standby mode and will still drain battery on normal use. The best way to toggle this is to hold down the power button and click "Enable /disable data network". This dies not require external applications and can be launched from anywhere, irregardless what you were doing before and now. Turning off WiFi and GPS when not in use is also advisable.

4. Deleting useless bloatware.

The first day you attain your phone, you might felt it was snappy. Quick as hell and blazing fast. But as you used on, it became sluggish and crashes often. This is often the case of a bloated Operating System.

Like any computer, Android gets slow over time. Moreover, such slowdowns causes strain in processing, increasing battery usage. To deal with this, scan the QR code. The app here is Titanium Backup. It is an extremely efficient tool to backup your apps, restore them or uninstall them. While doesn't seem like something new, it allows you to remove apps installed by the firmware manufacturer or your telco. Such apps include Car Home by Motorola, and stock keyboard when you can be jolly well using Swype. Since some of these apps run as services with a low -oom value, they can be hard to kill. instead, remove this from your system so they will not be started, freeing RAM and precious battery. (Note : Titanium Requires ROOT. Don't get it? Google it.)

5. Sync.

Seeing how you are having a Smartphone, it is more likely then not you have an incredibly social life. Technology has acknowledged this with social network programs. Yet these programs have drawbacks. While cyberbulling and privacy issues take center stage, the finer problems with these is sync.

Sync means anything that happens there will be update here. Take Facebook for example. If someone was to add you, you would instantly know with Sync on. While this might seem fantastic, it does drain a little battery. Turning off Sync would do you good. if you are not one who constantly needs the internet, you might consider this as the notification would still be processed once you launch the app.

6. Undervolting.

If this term sound foreign to you, relax, you are not the only one. Undervolting is as it sounds like, giving less electricity, literally.

Mobile phone runs the CPU in steps. So if you have a 1GHZ mobile phone, the steps might be 100mhz, 200mhz, 400mhz, 600mhz, 800mhz, and 1000mhz(1Ghz). Each step are given a limit to how much mV they are allowed to drain. So perhaps 100Mhz, being the lowest frequency, requires only 800mV. 200Mhz requiring 900mV, and so on and so forth.

Undervolting comes into play by further lowering these limits. Your 100Mhz might now be limited to 725mV or so. This causes the frequency to take less battery. Sounds efficient? You run the risk of crashes and boot-loops with this, but not if you do it right. Grab a suitable kernel for your phone (Google it on XDA) and flash (Install) it. The kernel that your phone comes with will not allow undervolting (For stability purposes). But when done right, lowering the voltage will not cause a difference in phone speed, despite the lesser electricity. This is one of the "no-drawback" ways of reducing battery drain unlike the steps above since there is usually no performance lost.

There are still multitudes of ways to further cut down on battery drain but I believe these are more prone to others. Follow this, see if your battery has improved in any ways and report back!

EDIT : Place a chatbox so it's easier to address any inquires :D Feel free to ask away.

Dear Earphones...

noreply@blogger.com (Frost Leopard.) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 06:48:00 -0700

I've been wanting to sell you away.

It's been a good six month.

But what really pushed to me get a new pair was actually a company.


Apple

Yes, the company that I had always brushed aside.

Now before you Apple fans start tying me to the stake and prepare me for roasting, let me explain my rational.

If you get out of the house often enough, you will see the same humanoids over and over again.

These are what I deem people-who-use-apple-stock-earphones.

I cannot emphasize how much I detest those earphones.


You know what I'm talking about.

These are the poorest quality earphones I have seen ( Yes, including Ultimate Ears.)

They are easily broken. ( I believe this is Apple's way of a joke, look at the reviews.)

But that's not all.

No, no, no, that's not all.

Their SQ are unbelievable.

I played a song while having these on and the vocals magically blended in with the back ground music. I was no listening to a "minus-1" track.

It was that "fantastic".

I won't even mention the isolation.

Instead, empty your pockets for something that actually plays music.

I'm not asking you splurge hundreds on one.

Just get one with a reasonable SQ ( Most shop allow you to test drive it :D)

Heck, even the Panasonic In-ears in Popular will be fine if you are on a budget.

If you really are an hardcore Apple fan, these will do fine :


Look no different? They have two drivers in them.

So save your hearing ( I can hear those stock one's blaring "Written In The Stars" a mile away.), and spare your ears the misery.

I might even let you have a go at my dear earphones...

---------------------------------------------

In case you are wondering, these are what I'm thinking of getting. Opinions?

Fall 2011.

noreply@blogger.com (Frost Leopard.) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 04:24:00 -0700


Fall 2011?

Not much have changed.

This year will see the rise of some of the most anticipated games of the year.

Defense Of The Ancient, as we have all come to love, is currently in the making with their second version under Valve.

Apart from the upgrade in graphics and other tweaks, the very essence and core of this game remains true to itself. The very first DOTA players will not find themselves in a very different setting. This could bode well or bad for some. But that is how DOTA was meant, and it should stay this way.

Mean while a trailer for this has been released.

It doesn't show any game play, but we do see recurring characters in the game. Such examples include Razor, Morphling, Lina, Bloodseeker, Drow Ranger and many others.


"Give me a sitrep!", "I'm fucked up, but I'm up."

A new trailer for BF3's Multiplayer is out.

And by golly, does it look awesome.

I believe this is EA's response to Activition's Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3 trailer, released a couple of weeks ago.

Both looks equally awesome. However, Battlefield 3 has the new engine on it's side, FrostBite2, while Mw3 would most likely be reusing the Quake engine.

Apart from graphical difference, both games are highly different in the way they matched up. Battlefield's lead platform is PC, allowing up to 64 players while MW3 is on console. This would mean that Battlefield would most likely comprise of larger open landscapes with vehicles and MW3 closer isolated combat.

Both look equally attractive, with MW3 new survival game play looking enticing. I particularly liked the Attack dogs with EXPLOSIVES on them. They have also included features like chemical agents. Battlefield 3 introduced air combat with JETS. This should add a whole new dimension to both gameplays and it's up to you to decide. Personally, I would get both, seeing how I would like to finish the Modern Warfare series single player while still piloting a motherfucking jet in Bf3.

Which would you choose?