Top 5 Android Apps I Can't Stop Using

I've been fiddling around with my HTC Tattoo for close to a month now and have had a chance to experiment on it in the last few weeks. Just like the way I distro-hop from one Linux distro to another, I just had to try and look for Android apps that would fit my needs. Here are 5 free apps that I have found useful for my mobile needs:

ASTRO File Manager- Just like FileZ on my Treo, I find I must have some sort of file manager to see what's taking up space, delete file I no longer use. ASTRO is a lot more useful than your vanilla file browser because of one simple feature -- cut and paste! I can cut (or copy) a file and move if somewhere else. Even more useful is the ability to choose multiple files to cut (or copy) and paste. It just makes managing files on the phone itself a whole lot easier. Another feature I appreciate is it's built-in ability to zip files. Makes emailing multiple files all the more easier. And yes, it supports attaching files to email, too!

Aldiko - An eBook reader is a must for me. I had 2 on my Treo (Adobe Reader for Palm OS and eReader) and I would be damned if I can't haz my eBooks. Aldiko has a a good interface that displays a visual bookshelf of the books that I have on my phone. Features that I find useful include the ability to change the reading into day and night mode (black text on white or white text on black) in 2 taps. It's the same with the Table of Contents, 2 taps. Another 2 taps takes me to a link to download books from Feedboks. 2 taps to a feature is always handy, don't ya think? There are some things I still need to get used to. In .epub books there are no page numbers. If I need to skip to a different part of the book, I need to move a bar that shows percentage or (if the book was formatted with chapter info) at the start of each chapter. Not that accurate if you're looking for a particular part of the book. I've started using bookmarks to get around that problem. Another niggle I have is that I have to import books into Aldiko. To import books I need to save them into a specific folder in the media card (ebooks/import). After that, I need to launch Aldiko and import the books before they can be listed in my bookshelf. Kind of tedious. Still, I'm starting to get used to it too.

Seesmic - I Twitter, so I must have a Twitter client. Seesmic has 3 features that I want and need. I can set it up to use my bit.ly account so I can track the links that I shorten. It also integrates posting pictures to Tweetphoto, yFrog, MobyPicture and Twitpic. I can also tweet my location, as it can use the phone's GPS. All three I can do while composing a tweet. That's a compelling enough reason for me to use it over Peep, the default Twitter client on the Tattoo. It also supports linking to videos using a Google/Youtube account, useful if your not shy about sharing your videos.

Handcent SMS - SMS is a given in any phone. Most phones already include the option for threaded conversation-style displays. Handcent ups the ante by giving me more customization options. I can send SMS to a group,very useful when optimizing Unlitext or sending out announcements. It has a handy pop- up that appears over the home screen that allows me to reply right away without going into Handcent itself. I can perform a search for text in messages. The shortcut on my home screen can display how many unread messages I have. It comes with it's own (optional) T9 keyboard. It even has a blacklist function, one feature I wish I will never have to use ;-). Overall, it has very useful features, it's customizable and it looks pretty just doing what it does.

ConvertPad - Who doesn't need to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius or MPG to KM/L from time to time? This app exhaustively covers every possible conversion that I've ever imagined myself asking about, including currency conversions (this requires internet access to update the rates). Kudos to MathPad.com for this great app!

Moving from Treo to Droid is about as harrowing as moving from XP to Windows 7. You stay with what you have because you've grown attached to it despite its age. The heir apparent doesn't offer much. You wait for the next compelling thing to come along. It eventually arrives after a long time. You hold back, thinking twice about moving on. Eventually you make the jump. So my experience has been limited mostly to finding Droid apps that mirror how I met my needs using my trustworthy old Treo. And that was what I was after, waiting all these years. I'm not regretting my decision to go for a Droid phone one bit. I have just what I need and more. The only thing I miss from my Treo use would have to be HomerSays :-)

Top 5 Linux Apps I Can't Do Without

AWN (Avant Window Manager) - is a slick-looking animated dock that you can customize to show shortcuts to your favorite apps. Most apps will have their own AWN icons, so don't worry about any apps you might want to add. It also displays shortcuts to any open application, so if you have apps open in different virtual desktops clicking will immediately take you to the desktop where that app is active. Depending on what animation style you choose, the icons will twhirl, throb or twinkle for you when you hover a cursor over them. It also works well with Compiz, so much so that if you have Compiz on, your AWN icons will turn 3D! By default, the dock also has a mini-terminal, good for squirting those quick one-line commands. To find out more about AWN, go to http://wiki.awn-project.org/

Shutter - a screenshot program that takes it to the next level by including simple editing features to make creating screenshots a one app affair. One common example is blurring your personal information (IP address, email address, IM handles) when you intend to post a screenshot of your desktop online. This is quite common for anyone blogging HowTo's and reviews. You can take screenshots of different windows and it will arrange them in tabs until saved. You can crop, resize, blur, add lines, shapes, highlighting and text to the pic. Shutter is so good on features, it can even take a screenshot of itself. How cool is that?! To find out more about Shutter, go to http://shutter-project.org/faq-help/.

VirtualBox - my favorite virtual machine software because it's not as resource-intensive as VMWare and it's compatible with VMWare images. My computer only has 2GB of RAM and rather limited hard drive space (too many old pictures and media files -- LOL), but I can still run VirtualBox with a browser, chat and torrent running. It's quite lean, if you asked me. To find out more about VirtualBox, go to http://www.virtualbox.org/.

Deluge - a BitTorrent client with extras. Most distributions include Transmission by default now. Some include the main branch BitTorrent. But I like this one because of the extent of features it has. Its based of Python and GTK, making it lightweight, as opposed maybe to Azureus. It's also intuitive (for me) to configure features, three of which I most often use -- encryption, blocklists and the tray icon that allows me to change bandwidth allocation easily and on-the-fly. It also has a single-window interface that shows all your torrents and clicking on any torrent plus the tabs below allow you to check on any number of details -- how may peers you're connected to, what percent each file is at, how fast uploads and downloads are per peer, etc. I guess comparing it to Azureus, it's interface is as informative but not as heavy on system resources. Compared to Transmission, it displays a lot more information and a lot more tweak potential. It's good middle ground. To find out more about Deluge, go to http://deluge-torrent.org/.

BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) - a computing platform that large science projects can use to harness the potential of distributed computing. Basically, distributed computing uses volunteer computers and it starts using your computer's spare processor cycles when you're not using it. BOINC provides a platform for these science projects to just plugin. Since I sometimes leave the computer on for large downloads, I turn BOINC on and it crunches numbers for science projects like Rosetta@Home (protein folding), SETI@home (analysis of extraterrestial radio signals) and ClimatePrediction.net (climate prediction models). There are alot of deserving science projects that you can certainly participate in. You just have to find a cause that you're willing to support. I encourage anyone out there reading this -- if you leave your internet-connected PC on for extended periods of time, consider donating your spare CPU cycles to these projects. Don't let those processor cycles go o waste! Go to http://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php to find out more about active projects you can support.

Top 5 Free Windows Apps I Can't Do Without

USB Guardian - it does one simple thing really well. It stops self-executing files on USB drives you connect to your computer. Most viruses and trojans bypass anti-virus programs by being faster. Auto.inf and .exe files launch faster than your anti-virus can say 'Gotcha!'. USB Guardian stops any executables, giving your anti-virus precious millisecconds to react and can. It's not fool-proof, but together with fast proactive anti-virus software it's a potent line of defense. Download USB Guardian from: http://www.usb-guardian.com/downloads/usb-guardian-setup.exe

7-Zip - not all zippers are created equal. This free and open source tool gives me 2 extra features that other zip software will ask me to pay for -- self-extracting zipped volumes and password protection. You will have to zip using the 7-Zip format, but if you create a self-extracting folder it turns into an .exe file instead of the default .7z. That means recipients don't have to have 7-Zip installed in their computer. I've already shared large photo packages with family using public services like Sendspace without fear for privacy because I can set a difficult password on it too. If you do it the same way, just remember to get them a password in a safe way like through SMS. Start using it today by downloading the latest version from: http://www.7-zip.org/

ImgBurn - free and one of the most reliable burning software I have used, this one has all the features that  I need. I use it mostly to burn images files to disc, create data backups, the reverse. I mean create images of discs and copying data discs, that is. It doesn't suffer from the bloat of some other burning software and it's lightweight. It comes with a few extras that I need, like verify mode and reading information off blank discs. That's useful when your scouting for reliable media -- yes, Taiyo Yuden DVD-R's are still the best! Try out ImgBurn and let me know how it goes for you. Get it here: http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

TeraCopy - Need to speed up your file copying from drive to drive? This is the app for you! So named because it was created to maximize copying speeds for large files, TeraCopy just maxes out whatever available speed there is on your drives. It has made copying large folders a breeze for me. Very useful indeed for that Terabyte of data you've been itching to move from a friend's PC to your portable drive [Seagate FreeAgent, anyone?] ;-) So hurry up and download it already, it's free for home use: http://www.codesector.com/download.php

VLC (VideoLAN Client) - originally intended for streaming media to other computers in the same network, VLC is just as capable as a media player. I like to call it 'codec-agnostic'. Well, not really. But it will play practically anything you throw at it. Mostly because it already includes most codecs in it's plumbing. No more codec hell. Don't let the traffic cone throw you off. This is one very capable media player. Certainly the best media player that I've used in the past 10 years. Go download it now at: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Missing Your menu.lst? You've Got Grub2!

If you're like me, you'd have been taking advantage of the popularity of Virtual Machine software to try out new Linux distributions. Or if you have a dual-boot (with Windows on one end and a Linux favorite on the other), you've been content at upgrading Linux from version to version without doing a full reinstall. Then there comes the confusion when doing a fresh install and you realize you don't know what that heck happened to the /boot/grub/menu.lst file on your Grub.

Since Ubuntu 9.10, Grub 2 has become the default boot loader. If you are looking for the menu.lst file that used to be what you edited to specify which OS to boot into by default, then I'm telling you it is gone. In Grub 2, the file that closely resembles its functionality is /boot/grub/grub.cfg, but that isn't supposed to be edited. You need to edit something else and then update grub.cfg. Here's how to do it in Ubuntu and Linux Mint, 2 of the distros I usually end up installing.

After installing Ubuntu or Mint and rebooting for the first time, take note of the menu entries. They usually follow the following pattern:

Ubuntu, linux *kernel_version_here*

Ubuntu, linux *kernel_version_here* (recovery mode)

Memory Test (memtest86+)

Memory Test (memtest86+, serial console mode)

Windows OS

Here's a sample of how it looks like on my desktop, Linux Mint as it were:

Now note that the default entry is "0", which points to the first option in the list above. That is to say your linux distro in normal mode is "0", your linux distro in recovery mode is "1" and so on. Counting from 0, Windows is then option 4 as listed above. Now as a sample, let's edit it so it boots to the Windows OS by default:

1. Open a terminal and type in "sudo gedit /etc/default/grub" (without the quotes). Type in your root password when asked:

2. Edit the entry GRUB_DEFAULT=0, replacing zero with the option you want to boot by default. In our sample way above, Windows is number 4:

3. Save the file and close it.

4. To update /boot/grub/grub.cfg with the new settings, go back to the terminal and enter the command “sudo update-grub” (without the quotes). Type in your root password if asked:

5. Reboot to test.

There you have it. Now if you'd want to go further and tweak the heck out of Grub2, you can go to the following links for very detailed instructions:

Ubuntu Grub2 Community Documentation - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2
Ubuntu Forums Grub2 Tweaks Thread - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1287602
Ubuntu Forums Grub2 5 Common Tasks - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1302743

Hybrid Drives - A Cost Effective SSD Alternative

I've posted before about SSD's as an interesting way to boost your computers performance OS-wise. Well, a lot of people scoff at the high price versus the actual storage that SSD's offer. Seagate just came up with a viable alternative to you speed junkies out there with a major upside -- substantial storage.
Hybrid Drives have been around for a while. Windows Vista was actually launched with this technology as one of its optimization features along with ReadyBoost. With ReadyBoost, Windows will use a USB or other flash device to boot up faster, storing frequently used applications and data on the flash memory to make Vista boot faster. Hybrid drives work in a similar fashion by allotting flash memory built-in to the drive to store and deploy frequently used data. The result is faster boot times and near instant response when launching applications. Recent developments it SSD technology have overshadowed that, as a pure flash-based solution is definitely faster.

So it was a pleasant surprise to find Seagate actually moved forward in R&D and produced the Momentus XT, a hybrid notebook drive that bridges the performance difference between SSD's and spindle (mechanical) hard drives. I first saw a reference to this in Anandtech and read the spec sheets at Seagate. I saw the drives were available at Amazon and thought Seagate is pushing a whole-hearted marketing strategy to niche the Momentus XT as a value proposition (at least performance-wise) to SSD's.

Reading the Anandtech article, I wasn't convinced it would be as fast. They revealed it was apparent from the first boot, as the drive had to "learn" what data the user usually launched to have that reside in the faster flash memory before you saw a performance boost. Seagate calls this Adaptive Memory technology. Anandtech’s testing revealed it really did perform halfway between a super-fast SSD and a mechanical hard drive once it "learned". Boot time increased and so did launching apps. The drive learned fast too. They tested its best speed just after 2 reboots.

But OverclockersClub.com posted benchmarks that really blew me away. They achieved near-parity performance with SSD's by RAIDing 2 Momentus XT drives. It makes a whole lot of sense once you think about it. Using RAID 1 to write simultaneously to 2 drives will practically double the speed of the whole set-up.

Now say you have a desktop that could use a speed boost. Get 2 250 GB Momentus XT drives, mount them using bracket adapter like the Silverstone SDP08 Bay Converter. That bracket allows you to mount 2 notebook drives and use just one 3.5 " drive bay in a desktop case. RAID the pair and use it as a boot drive and you'll have spent $223.23 on it. Compare that to $244.73 you have to pony up if you go with a Kingston SSDNow V Series 128 GB, one of the cheaper SSD options. That's almost equal performance speed and almost four times more storage for the same price. The price difference is even more obscene if you go for the 320GB or 500GB Momentus XT’s and compare that to equivalent capacity SSD’s.

These Hybrid Drives are definitely a win-win proposition for anyone seeking a performance boost on their computer without it costing a small fortune. All I need now is to convince the missus this is a ‘need’ and not a ‘want’ upgrade :-)