The brilliant jump list feature which was introduced in Windows 7 has been included and tweaked in Windows 8. The number of items in the Windows 8 jump list can be now controlled which is quite useful as at times I feel that the default value of 10 is not adequate for users like me.

Manage the Number of Items in the Jump List in Windows 8:

1. Right Click on the Taskbar > Properties > Jump list tab

2. Change the number of recent items to display in the jump list. The default value is 10 and you can choose the value that you intend to use. You can also opt to disable recently opened programs and disable recently opened items in jump lists under the privacy header.

Google Chrome is a brilliant web browser and I have been using it as my primary browser. The sync feature of Google chrome is something which I like the most as I use different computers running different operating systems with Chrome as primary browser.

How to sync bookmarks, apps, extensions, preferences, passwords and etc in Google Chrome?

1. Open Google Chrome and then look for the ‘Wrench’ button towards the top right of the screen as shown below:

2. Choose the ‘Options’ button from the dropdown.

3. Now choose ‘Personal stuff’ option and you then select ‘Set up sync..’ option.

4. Now the Google Chrome will prompt you to login with your Google account credentials, use your Google account to sign in.

5. After you sign in the Chrome will offer you the items that are available for sync. You can also opt for Sync all or choose the ones that you intend to sync. You can sync Apps, autofill, extensions, chrome preferences, history, themes, bookmarks and passwords. Chrome also offers encryption options for the data that would be synced, you can choose encrypt the passwords or encrypt all of the data that is going to synced. I personally prefer to encrypt all of the synced data. The data will be either encrypted using your Google account password or you are free to choose your own passphrase.

6. After you have made your choices the Chrome will sync the chosen data across all Chrome instances that you use if you enable the sync feature. In future if you intend to disable the Chrome sync then just go to Chrome Options > Personal Stuff > and choose ‘Stop syncing this account’

In case of any questions post in the comments.

Windows 8 developer preview can be downloaded and then burnt on a DVD and installed. I prefer creating a bootable USB as it is faster to install from a USB drive and I don’t have to waste a DVD, this also saves money and is eco friendly.

Windows 8: How to create a Windows 8 bootable install USB

Precautions:

1. Backup all the data in the USB drive as during this process all the data in USB drive will be erased.

Step 1:

Download the Windows 7 USB/DVD tool from here.

Step 2:

Install the application and run it and you should see the screen as mentioned below.

Step 3:

Now using the ‘Browse’ option point the application to the Windows 8 Developer preview ISO file and click the ‘Next’ button.

Step 4:

Choose the ‘USB Device’ option in this screen.

Step 5:

Make sure you choose the correct USB drive and then hit the ‘Begin copying’ button.

Step 6:

The Windows 7 USB/DVD tool will now format and start copying the contents your USB drive. This will take a couple of minutes based on the write speed of your USB drive.

Step 7:

After the copying is complete the application will notify you.

Note: To create a bootable USB drive of 64 bit Windows 8 you will need to run this tool from the computer that has 64 bit Windows running i.e. you can’t create a 64bit bootable Windows 8 USB from a 32 bit Windows.

The Windows 8 developer preview that was recently made available comes with Metro Start Screen which is quite good but it is really not comfortable to be used on desktop with mouse. The Metro UI is most suitable for touch enabled computers and tablets but not for regular desktops.

The Classic Start Menu and Metro Start Screen can be toggled using a simple app that has been made available now. To switch between the Classic Start Menu and Metro Start Screen all you need to do is a simple registry change, but this can be done by the app called Windows 8 Start Menu Toggle.

Download the app and run it as administrator if you UAC enabled and click on the use Classic Start Menu button to switch to Classic desktop.

If you plan to use the ‘Metro Start Screen then use the ‘Metro start screen’ option.

The classic start menu looks exactly like the one on Windows 7. The ribbon UI, task manager etc get disabled once you switch to Classic start menu.

Download Windows 8 Start Menu Toggle

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 a.k.a Galaxy Tab 750 in India is a tablet running Android Honeycomb from Samsung stables to take on the hugely successful Apple iPad. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 comes with 800×1280 pixel screen with PLS TFC screen, powered by Dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor, ULP GeForce GPU, Tegra 2 T20 chipset, with 1GB RAM, 16GB of internal storage and etc.

The India package contains:

• Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 a.k.a Galaxy Tab 750 GT-P7500
• Charger
• USB connector cable that also doubles up as charging cable.
• Headphones with ear buds
• USB on the go connector

(Click on images to enlarge it).

I have been using Samsung Galaxy S II for the last 3 months and it is a very fast and powerful phone. The Galaxy S II comes with a 1650 mAh which is quite adequate for day today usage but if you are power user then the stock battery might not be adequate for you. There are few aftermarket extended batteries that offer extended battery with higher capacity and Mugen Power is one of them.

Mugen Power were very generous to send me a review unit of 3200mAh Extended Battery for Samsung Galaxy S II. The 3200 mAh extended battery offers nearly 2 times the capacity of the original stock battery and with additional capacity come additional weight and thickness. This review will focus on whether this battery is really worth the additional thickness and weight that it adds to your Galaxy S II.

(click pic to enlarge)

What is in the box?

• 3200 mAh battery.
• Replacement door for the phone.

(click pic to enlarge)

Specifications:

Design and Ease of Use:

(click pic to enlarge)

The battery pack comes with nearly twice the amount of stock battery but now it is twice as thick. You get a battery cover with this battery pack as you cannot use the original cover due to increased thickness of the extended battery. The battery cover that comes with the battery is of good quality and looks like quite durable. If you had used the Galaxy S II without any external case you would feel that the phone keeps slipping away if you have a sweaty palm as the phone is very slim. As the phone’s thickness increases due to the thick battery and this results in better  grip over the phone.

(click pic to enlarge)

The above pics give you a idea on how the phone looks with the extended battery installed in it. When using the Galaxy S II I always felt that I might scratch the camera lens as it was not recessed. By fitting the battery cover that came with Mugen battery the phone camera is now recessed and it won’t get scratched even if  phone is placed camera facing down. You won’t be able to use any of the external cases that you might have got if you install the Mugen battery. Fitting the battery door was easy as the battery cover fits nicely over the phone without any gaps. On the lighter note I felt that Galaxy S II has a hump like the camels. The additional bulk is well worth the extra battery backup that you get.

Size Comparison with and without extended battery:

View 1:

View 2:

View 3:

View 4:

Battery Performance:

After you install your battery to get optimum performance it takes a couple of recharge cycle as with any other lithium ion battery. Mugen power gives detailed instructions on how to condition the battery initially. I was able to pull 1 day 8hours with moderate to heavy usage and 3 days 5 hours with light to moderate usage.

Moderate to Heavy usage: 1 Day 8 hrs

• 3G always ON.
• Brightness to set to Auto mode and in moderately bright environment.
• Gmail, whatsapp, facebook and Twitter for Android sync always ON
• 2 hours browsing using stock browser
• 2 hours of reading articles using Google reader
• 20-30 whatsapp messages.
• 20 photos clicked with Flash ON
• 25 mins of watching video using stock video player.
• 60 mins of Air Attach HD.
• 120 mins of voice calls.
• Phone signal strength varying between at –78 dBm to –111 dBm (Airtel Carrier in Chennai city)

Note: The phone is awake most of the time and screen as well.

This is bloody awesome when compared to the battery life of around 15-16 hrs that I used to get with stock battery. This means with my moderate to heavy usage I can easily pull nearly 1.5 days off with this battery.

Light to Moderate Usage: 3 Days 5 hours

• 3G always ON.
• Brightness to set to Auto mode and in moderately bright environment.
• Gmail, whatsapp, facebook and Twitter for Android sync always ON
• 2-3 hours of reading using Google reader
• 2 hours browsing Dolphin HD browser
• Reply to couple of emails using exchange mail, Gmail app and Yahoo mail
• 20 mins of Google maps.
• 2 hours browsing using stock android browser
• 60 mins of voice call.
• Phone signal strength varying between at –95 dBm to –111 dBm (Airtel Carrier in Chennai city)

Phone used as primary computing device:

I used the phone as primary computing device i.e. I was using the Galaxy S II as phone and as my personal desktop where all my computing needs like email, browsing, listening to music, downloading files over 3G and watching videos etc were done using Galaxy S II. All this was done over 3G mode and wifi was not used at all and the phone lasted me 13hours 35 minutes which is impressive.

Wifi Tethering:

Wi-Fi tethering of 3G connection puts tremendous pressure on battery. I used the phone in Wifi tethering mode and in 1 hour 42 minutes the phone lost 14% and if I go by this rate then it means that for every 7 minutes we lose 1% of battery and this means the phone will last 700 mins i.e. 11.6 hours which is very impressive.

Conclusion:

The extended battery gives excellent battery life when compared to the stock battery as it has twice the capacity; with the additional capacity comes additional thickness, weight and charging time. When weighing all these factors I feel that the battery life that you get out weighs the cons that come with this battery. As Galaxy S II the dual core beast is my primary phone and I end up using the Mugen battery as primary battery as I can do more with my phone now.

The extended battery costs USD 98.95 which does seem pricey but I would say it is worth the price and I highly recommend this if you are using Galaxy S II.

I have been using Google Nexus S for a while now and it is a very good phone. Like most big screen smart phones the battery hardly lasts a day with stock battery and due to this I have to carry around spare batteries whenever I am away from mains supply for long duration. There are few aftermarket extended batteries that offer extended battery with higher capacity and Mugen Power is one of them. Mugen Power were very generous to send me a review unit of 3300mAh Extended Battery for Google Nexus S.

The standard battery that comes with Nexus S is of 1500mAh capacity and the 3300mAh extended battery from Mugen Power offers twice the amount of capacity when compared to the stock battery but the battery adds additional weight and thickness to the sleek Nexus S. Let us see how the massive 3300mAh battery fares during the daily use.

What is in the box?

• 3300mAh Extended Battery
• External door for the phone with NFC chip.

Specifications:

Design and Ease of use:

The 3300mAh battery packs 2.2 times the amount of the capacity when compared to the standard battery but this makes the extended battery twice as big. This means that you cannot use the battery cover that came with your phone and you will have to use the battery door provided by the Mugen Power. The battery door provided with this battery is made of plastic but it is quite good and also comes with NFC chip so you will not miss out the NFC feature even if you don’t use the standard battery cover. The battery cover fits very nicely over the Nexus S and it doesn’t seem to be a misfit over the Nexus S. The slots for camera, flash and external speaker provided and none of the functionality seems to be affected after fitting this battery cover. If you are using standard battery cover there chances that your Nexus S camera might get scratched but if this is not the case with Mugen Power battery door as camera gets receded once the door is installed.

When holding the phone in your hand you get good grip over the phone even though the phone is now bulky. If you are using any external case for Nexus S then after fitting this battery you will not be able to use it as the phone size gets changed. People who are used to the sleek feel of the Nexus S, will take a few days to get used to the additional bulk and thickness after fitting the battery. I would say this is a small price to pay for the benefits that you get by using this battery.

Size Comparison with and without extended battery:

View 1:

View 2:

View 3:

View 4:

Battery Performance:

After you install your battery to get optimum performance it takes a couple of recharge cycle as with any other lithium ion battery. Mugen power gives detailed instructions on how to condition the battery initially. I was able to pull 1 day 13h with moderate to heavy usage and 2 days with light to moderate usage.

Moderate to Heavy usage: 1 Day 13 hrs

• 3G always ON.
• Brightness to set to Auto mode and in moderately bright environment.
• Gmail, whatsapp, facebook and Twitter for Android sync always ON
• 3 hours browsing using stock browser
• 1.5 hour of reading articles using Google reader
• 20-30 whatsapp messages.
• 10 photos clicked with Flash ON
• 30 mins of Angry birds.
• 30 mins of voice calls.
• Phone signal strength varying between at –95 dBm to –111 dBm (BSNL Cellone Carrier in Chennai city)

This is bloody awesome when compared to the battery life of around 13 hrs that I used to get with stock battery. This means with my moderate to heavy usage I can easily pull 1.5 days off with this battery.

Light to Moderate Usage: 2 Days

• 3G always ON.
• Brightness to set to Auto mode and in moderately bright environment.
• Gmail, whatsapp, facebook and Twitter for Android sync always ON
• 3 hours listening to music using stock android music player
• 2-3 hours of reading using Google reader
• Reply to couple of emails using Gmail app
• 30-45 mins browsing using stock android browser
• Phone signal strength varying between at –95 dBm to –111 dBm (BSNL Cellone Carrier in Chennai city)

I can now pull off easily two days with my light to moderate use without being near to a mains supply. You should also note that the Nexus S comes with a 0.7A rated charger and it takes around 6 hours to completely charge this battery on Nexus S charger. I would recommend that you use other 1A rated chargers that are available in market as it can speed up the charging a bit.

Verdict:

The extended battery does add additional bulk and weight to the phone but it is definitely a small price to pay for the amount of the battery life that you get over the standard battery that comes with Nexus S. I would recommend this battery just for the sheer amount of battery life that I get and people who travel frequently will love this batter a lot. The Mugen Power 3300mAh battery for Nexus S is available for 99 USD with worldwide shipping.

Now that you are using Google+ and there may be many times when you would like to share the Google+ post in Facebook and Twitter. If you are using Google Chrome then you can post your Google+ status directly to Facebook and Twitter using the extension Extended Share for Google Plus. To get started, install Extended Share for Google Plus. The extension is easy to use as there is no need of any configuration. Once you have installed this extension head over to Google+ Plus, now you will find a ‘Send to…’ option in each post.

Click on the ‘Send to…’ option and you will be presented with a  popup with options to choose either Twitter or Facebook to share the post.

If you choose Twitter then you will be directed to the Twitter page, where you can share your Google+ post. You will have to login into to Twitter to post the message.

If you choose the Facebook option then you will be directed to Facebook where you can post the message to Facebook. You will have to login into to Facebook to post the message.

Note: The URL of the Google+ plus will be posted in Twitter and Facebook but if the Google+ plus post is NOT public then URL will not be accessed. This should not be a problem as the text from the Google+ plus gets copied to the text box.

Google+ Plus is awesome but one of the most annoying things, was that I was receiving many emails with regard to the Google+ notifications. There is an easy way using which you can configure the email notifications that get delivered or you can stop them altogether.

1. Login to your Google+ account and then towards the top right side of the screen click on the ‘gear’ like button. You will now see a dropdown menu and choose ‘Google+ settings’ there.

2. Now you will be taken to a page where you can choose the events for which you will receive notification in email and SMS.

3. Select the events for which you want to receive an email or SMS notification. In my case I disabled all the notifications as I don’t want any emails or SMS as I get notified by Google+ Android app.

Do any of you prefer to receive Google+ notifications in SMS? I felt that until there is a way to post to Google+ via SMS there is not point in receiving notification via SMS.

Now that you are active on Google+ and have been using it for a while, let us find out how to delete a comment that has been posted on your stream. It is useful to know this as there might be cases when you might want to delete a comment from one of your posts.

How to Delete a User Comment from your Google+ Plus Stream?

1. Open the post from which you intend to delete the comment. Then towards the right side there will a small dropdown button which looks like an arrow head, click on it. Now you will find a menu popping up, here choose the ‘Report or remove comments’ option.

(click image to enlarge)

2.  Now you can see two buttons appear for each comments in the post. Use the cross button to delete the comment but if you intend to report the comment for abuse then use the flag button.

(click image to enlarge)

3. After you hit the cross button, Google+ will ask for your confirmation. Hit the delete button to delete the comment.

The comment should be gone now.

Samsung Galaxy S II is the current flagship Android device from Samsung stables, this phone has been the most sought after phone and has drawn lot of attention to itself . In this review we shall see whether this phone lives up to the attention and coverage it has got in the tech world.

What is the the box?

• Galaxy S II GT-i9100 phone.
• 1650 mAh Lithium ion battery.
• Portable travel charger rated at 0.7A.
• Stereo headset with ear buds.
• Micro USB data cable
• Leather Pouch.
• User manual.

(click image to enlarge)

For more pics of Galaxy S II refer to the unboxing post.

Technical Specification of Galaxy S II:

Hardware that Powers Samsung Galaxy S II:

Build and Construction:

Samsung Galaxy S II when held in hand feels extremely light and sleek. It feels so light that you never feel that you holding a big phone with 4.3” screen and the phone is super thin with only 8.49mm in thickness. If you have been using phones with 2” to 3.5” screens then you feel that the 4.3” is quite big. While holding the Galaxy S II you get good grip on the phone due to the textured rear cover.  The phone is sleek but it is entirely made of plastic hence it does give plastically feel but it doesn’t feel cheap. It is the use of plastics which makes this phone light weight. The phone just weighs 116 gms with dimensions 125.30 x 66.10 x 8.49mm and you feel intrigued when you look at the specs that how did Samsung fit all these within this frame. Holding this phone and using does initially feel little cumbersome as it feels huge and it takes a while to get comfortable with this phone.

(click to enlarge image)

The front of side of the phone houses the massive 4.3” super AMOLED plus screen covered with Gorilla glass coating. You will find the Home key (physical button) and two capacitive buttons towards the bottom of the screen. The ‘menu’ capacitive button is located on left hand side of the home key and on right hand side of the home button you will notice the ‘back’ capacitive button. To use the home key you have to physically depress it and it does feel slightly wobbly at times. I feel Samsung should have provided a capacitive home key instead of the physical key. I had got used to using Nexus One and Nexus S phones and I do miss the ‘search’ capacitive key which I have grown used to on these phones. On the top of the screen from left hand side you will find the front facing 2MP camera, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor and handset earpiece. The gorilla glass coating is a very useful feature as it protects the screen from getting scratched on day to day usage. Having gorilla glass doesn’t mean that screen is impossible to scratch but it is only resistant to scratches, If you don’t want to take chances then you can opt for aftermarket screen protectors that are available.

(click to enlarge image)

The right hand side of the phone has the power button and other than that no other buttons or controls are present.

(click to enlarge image)

The left hand side of the phone houses the volume rocker and the lanyard eyelet. The bottom of the phone has got micro USB port that can be used to connect it to the computer and also used charging port. You can find the mic next to the micro USB port.

(click to enlarge image)

The 3.5mm audio jack and the dedicated noise cancelling mic can be found in the top of the phone. The rear side of the phone houses the 8 MP camera with LED flash and the external loud speaker can be found towards the bottom right hand side. The camera assembly protrudes slightly and if not used with care can get scratched. The rear cover is very thin and flexible and gives an impression that it might snap if not handled carefully. On opening up the rear cover you can see the SIM card slot just below the camera assembly. The micro SD card slot is located just above the battery compartment.

The placement of the micro SD slot makes it impossible to hot swap the micro SD card, to remove or add micro SD card the battery would have to be removed. I felt that if the placement of SIM card and micro SD card could have been swapped as that would have allowed to add or remove micro SD card without the need to remove the battery. The other thing that I feel missed out here is the absence of a kick stand, the kick stand can be very useful for video calls/chatting and watching videos. Galaxy S II being the flagship device from Samsung the kick stand should have been nice feature to the phone.

Display:

The Samsung Galaxy S II comes with a gorgeous  4.3” Super AMOLED Plus screen (RGB pixel arrangement) with capacitive touch. The glass used is Gorilla glass which is scratch resistant and it also has got an oleophobic coating that resists smudges and finger prints. The screen resolution is 800×480 pixels which when combined with 4.3” screen provides good screen real-estate space.  The capacitive touch screen is very responsive and in my opinion the touch sensitivity is much better than Nexus S and iPhone.

The photos and videos look stunningly beautiful and rich with Super AMOLED Screen Plus screen. The display is sharp, crisp, screen looks good when viewed from many angles and the contrast is brilliant . The screen is usable in sunlight only when it is set to maximum brightness anything lower than that makes the screen very difficult to use and keeping the auto brightness enabled is very useful when moving outside so that the screen can switch to appropriate brightness based on the outside lighting.

Many users of XDA forum have reported about the yellow tinge issue which I can confirm exists but you will hardly notice it while using the phone and this issue is not a deal breaker.

CPU, RAM and Storage:

Galaxy S II is powered by Dual core 1.2GHz ARM cortex A9 CPU called Exynos 4210 SoC and it uses the ARM Mali-400 MP GPU which handles the graphics chores. The phone comes with generous 1GB RAM that makes multitasking truly a great experience without any slowdown.  The presence of a dual core processor makes the phone very snappy and it seems nothing can slowdown the phone. You throw anything at Galaxy S II and it will gobble it up without any hiccups, this phone is truly a performance beast. It will put most of Android phones and iPhone to shame when it comes to performance. The brilliant performance of Galaxy S II is the collective effect of the superior A9 dual core CPU, 1GB RAM and ext4 file system that is used. Look at performance scores from various apps like Quadrant, CF-Bench and Linpack

(click to enlarge image)

I have installed close to 150 apps and the phone runs without any hiccups. All the games that I have installed run with blazing speed but the sad part is that you cannot run or install Tegra exclusive games but if you search around the XDA forums you can figure out how to run Tegra exclusive titles on your Galaxy S II.

The version of Galaxy S II comes with 16GB internal memory out of which 2GB is allocated for apps (/data) and ROM and 11.5GB is available for user to store music, videos and photos. If this space is not sufficient then you can pop in a micro SD card, the phone accepts micro SD cards upto 32GB.

Battery:

The Galaxy S II comes with a decent 1650 mAh lithium ion battery. Most of the Android phones come with 1300-1500 mAh battery capacity but Samsung has managed to stuff in a 1650 mAh battery which is appreciated considering the dimensions of the phone. The battery life is not best in class but it is quite usable and acceptable considering the hardware.

Scenario 1:

Conditions: Auto brightness ON, Gmail/Exchange email sync ON, GPS ON, 2 hrs browsing with 3G, 1.5 hour voice call, 25-30 mins Angry birds, frequent Twitter usage, 20-30 text messages, continuous running of whatsapp, Google maps usage for 25 mins and 3G data connection always ON and 3G using Wi-Fi tethering for 25 mins

With this usage the phone lasted me close to 12 hrs (11 hrs 42 mins to be precise) which is quite good for an Android phone.

(click to enlarge image)

Scenario 2:

Conditions: Auto brightness ON, Gmail/Exchange sync ON, 2 hrs browsing over 3G, 30 mins browsing over Wi-Fi, 45 mins voice calls, 50-60 text messages, continuous whatspp, Google maps for 10 mins, frequent twitter/facebook usage, Google Reader app usage for 45 mins and always 3G data ON with no Wi-Fi at all.

(click to enlarge image)

with this usage I was able to pull 1 day and 2 hours i.e 26 hrs 22 min with a single charge which is quite good.

Scenario 3:

Conditions: Here conditions are same scenario 1 but instead of 3G all data related activity was performed using only Wi-Fi and no 3G tethering.

With this usage the phone lasted me around 18 hrs which is quite acceptable.

Looking at these figures the battery life is quite good and one can easily pull a day off with Galaxy S II.

Connectivity:

The Galaxy S II comes with a wide range of connectivity options. The GSM module supports 850MHz, 900MHz, 1,800MHz, 1,900MHz 2G bands and 850MHz, 900MHz, 1,900MHz, 2,100MHz 3G bands. Galaxy S II comes with Bluetooth 3.0 and  WiFi: 802.11a/g/b/n with Wi-Fi direct capability. I could not test the Bluetooth 3.0 functionality as I did not have any Bluetooth 3.0 device with me for testing. The GPS functionality uses the A-GPS method and is very quick to get a lock on your position, it took around 30 secs to get a lock from a cold start and around 8-9 secs from hot start. I can say that the GPS performance of Galaxy S II is better than the Nexus S and Nexus One.

The micro USB slot which is provided can be used to the mount the internal memory and micro SD card in USB mass storage mode.  One of the most notable features of the Galaxy S II is it can act has a host to USB devices which means that you can connect USB devices like flash drives to phone, this is called as USB on the GO. However to use this feature you need to purchase a separate MHL adaptor but this is not included in the standard package. The MHL adaptor can be used to use the HDTV out functionality to connect to HDTVs. The Galaxy S II also comes with NFC connectivity but unfortunately this feature has been not provided for the Indian variant of the Galaxy S II.

The software experience, camera and other areas would be covered in another post in next few days hence stay tuned.

SD Tools is a free Android app which can find info about your phone’s SD card and you can also benchmark your SD card. SD Tools can give you the following details about your Android phone’s SD card- Total capacity, available capacity, Name of the card, OEM id, MID, serial number, CSD, CID and etc.

(click image to enlarge)

SD Tools can also benchmark your SD card by performing read and write test. The result is displayed as read/write speed in MB/s. For the speed test to be performed, your SD card should have alteast 190MB free space. The app allows you to upload the results to the internet so that app developer can build a database. The speed test results can be saved as a screenshot from within the app itself and the screenshot is stored in /sdcard/SDTools.

(click image to enlarge)

The app is very useful as you can benchmark and find the performance your SD card from your phone itself without removing the SD card.

Download SD Tools

Greenshot is a free lightweight screenshot taking utility with loads of features. Greenshot when run sits in Windows system tray and you can invoke the app with shortcuts to take screenshots.

When you right click on the Greenshot icon in the system tray you see the various available options.  Greenshot can capture screenshots in free region mode, capture a window, capture full screen and capture the last selected region. All these screenshot taking modes can be invoked using the keyboard shortcuts.

Once the screenshot is taken you can add the following effects:

• Draw a rectangle – the line thickness, colour can be adjusted.
• Draw an eclipse – the line thickness, colour can be adjusted.
• Draw an line – the thickness and colour of the line can be adjusted.
• Draw a arrow- the thickness, colour of the line can be adjusted and the arrow heads direction can also be altered.
• Add Textbox- you can add text box and enter desired text.
• Highlight a particular area in the screenshot.
• Blur some area of the screenshot selectively.
• Crop the screenshot.

The only thing that I felt was missing was the ability to undo a effect using a single click. The developer should consider the option of ‘undo’ in future updates.  The screenshot can be saved as a file, sent as an email attachment, can be printed and copied to clipboard using the options available within the image editor for Greenshot application.

The Greenshot app just weighs close to 6ooKB but there is no option to run the app without the installer. The developer should consider releasing this app portable version so that it can be run straight from a USB drive. This app was tested under Windows 7 and it ran without any issues.

Download Greenshot

Folder Axe is a free software that you can use to split a folder into multiple small folders based on various criteria. This can be quite useful if you are organizing files from a large folder with huge number of files.

Features of Folder Axe:

The following split criteria are available in Folder Axe to split a folder:

• Split by amount (Specify the number of files each resulting folder is limited to)
• Split by size (Specify the size limit of each resulting folder)
• Split by name (Created folders based upon the first x number of characters in file names)

To split a folder by number of files for each resulting folder go to the ‘By Amount’ tab and enter the number files per folder you want in resulting folders and hit the ‘Split’ button and the existing folder would be split into smaller folders.

To split a folder by specifying the resulting folder size choose the ‘By Size’ tab and enter the size limit for the folder either in KB,MB or GB. Make sure you don’t enter the folder size limit less than the max individual file size. The program is smart enough to alert you the minimum  size that you need to enter. After you are done with choosing the max folder size hit the ‘Split’ button and the folder would be split into smaller folders based on the folder size that you specified.

To split a folder by name go to the ‘By Name’ tab and enter how many characters in the file names (from left) should considered. The folders would be created based on the first x number of the characters in the file names. Don’t forget to the enter the Folder naming scheme.

We tested this software under Windows 7 and it worked fine without any issues. To run this software you need to have .NET Framework 4.x.

Download Folder Axe

CF-Bench is a CPU, memory and disk benchmark tool which can test both single core and multicore android devices.

(click image to enlarge )

CF-Bench runs CPU tests like MIPS, MSFLOPS, MDFLOPS, MALLOCS test one natively and other with Java code. To assess memory performance memory read/write test is performed natively and using Java code. CF-Bench also measures disk read/write performance to arrive at the final score.

The results of the benchmark are divided in two groups they are Native score and Java score and a Overall score is given based on these two scores. CF-Bench doesn’t perform any test to assess the GPU performance of Android devices and I hope this will be added in future updates of this app.

The app displays your phones score comparatively to performance scores of the following phones Samsung Galaxy S II, HTC Sensation, Motorola Atrix, Google Nexus S and HTC Hero.  This gives a overall picture about your device where it stands when compared to these phones. CF-Bench is a free app supported by Ads and can be downloaded from Android market for free.

Download CF-Bench

Via XDA Forums