Category Archives: Android Corner

Audiogalaxy Music Streaming App

I’ve tried a few different apps for streaming music from my computer to other devices.  The latest is Audiogalaxy.  Once a file sharing peer to peer service, Audiogalaxy now offers what some are incorrectly calling a cloud music service.  What Audiogalaxy does is stream music files from your computer to any remote device, such as my Android phone.  How does it compare to the others?

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Dropbox: Sync, Share and Backup Your Files

Dropbox - Secure backup, sync and sharing made easy.Dropbox has proven to be one of this year’s best utilities.  In my increasingly hectic life, I’ve found that I need access to certain information whether I’m at home, at a shared computer, or on the road.  Thanks to the Android phone, I have access to all of my email and messaging, and with Dropbox I am now able to have important files of mine available for access anywhere I go.

Dropbox is an online service that gives you a small but usable amount of storage space to store your computer files.  You can purchase a larger account that holds up to 10GB of files, but even with a basic free account, you can earn additional storage space for referrals, or other tasks such as installing Dropbox on additional computers.  Even if they began charting a small amount for their basic account, it would be money well spent.

So, how exactly does Dropbox work?  And what can you do to make the most of it?  Read on…

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How Your Google Account Empowers Android

For the most part, I’ve heard very few complaints about the way Google’s services tie into an Android phone.  Some of the complainers, in fact, don’t even own an Android phone and claim, “Hey, my phone can use Google Maps, and I can get my Gmail.”  Talk about missing the point!  On an iPhone I looked at recently, Google’s “apps” were nothing more than a menu of Google shortcuts to mobile versions of their various sites.  They work, but they don’t integrate.  At any rate, I’ll give you a rough outline of how your Google account ties into the Android phone, and how it makes the platform easier to use overall.

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Motorola Droid: Four Month Update

The Motorola Droid has been an intresting experiment.  Basically just a small handheld computer, an Android phone loads a very small version of Linux, upon which you load all of your apps.  Part of it reminds me of the old days of DOS, when you had to watch your memory usage and fit as much as you could onto a floppy disk.

Android phones are no different than those old DOS computers I mentioned: you have to be careful to not overload your phone with too many apps, and not to run too many processes that could drag your phone down.  That old excitement of trying different combinations of applications and experimenting has returned!

Read on to share in my adventures with the Droid over the past few months.

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The Bloom Is Off The Rose For Apple

While I normally don’t call out companies in my posts here, I can’t help but comment when a company completely falls all over itself trying to correct an issue.  As many know, the recent iPhone 4 debacle involves poor antenna reception when the phone is held normally in a person’s left hand while making a call.  Apple’s response for awhile was, “Well, don’t hold the phone that way.”  That’s like telling someone whose feet hurt, not to walk by using their feet.  Apple’s latest trick is to find any competing phone (read: Android, which has already surpassed them in activated units) and knock it down several notches by claiming these phones, too, have issues with reception if you hold them a certain way.

Well OK then, Mr. Jobs, don’t hold the Android phones that way.

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