HTC Desire V - User available memory

As always, HTC doesn't advertise user available memory so when you have bought the original HTC Desire from 2009, you WANT to know that before making the mistake to buy a phone that will force you to choose which apps can be installed because memory scarce.

So here it is for HTC Desire V:

Good news? I think so! Installed tons of apps and I'm confident it'll take a long time to run out of memory space!

How to use two Google Account in Chrome

I don't know about you but I've got more than one Google account. Therefore, I often switch between one and another.

However, how do you do it without log in / log out all the time... Answer is simple: Chrome users!

You might have seen this new feature appearing in the version 15. You might have heard bad things about it. Well, like using a computer, or a car, it all depends on how you use it.

Obviously, you can use the functionality Chrome users if you are not using your own personal computer... You wouldn't want someone spooking around your personal DATA. SO, only use this on your personal computer(s)!

If you meet that criteria, then let's check it out!

So, go to "chrome://settings/personal".

There, you see a section "Users". By clicking "Add new user", it'll open a new window where you are asked to sign-in.
Signing-in syncs your DATA between two personal computers. You don't need to sign-in if you have only one.

From there, and if it is the first you use it, you'll have two users:

• The default one that you have been using since the beginning
• And the new one.

You can edit the user by double-clicking it.

You'll be able to give it a name and avatar.

Each user is independent from another. History, bookmarks, Google account, everything is kept inside its bubble.

So default user can be signed-in to "example1@gmail.com" and new user can be signed-in to "example2@gmail.com.

A few remarks though:

• Sync doesn't work with Business Account... Don't know why but Google has kept the Business account kinda behind the personal ones...
• If you delete a user, all the user DATA will be deleted.

Well, I hope this is of any use to you and happy browsing! 

Learning a language for free

Fancy learning a language for free? Want to help translating the web?

Here is the answer: Duolingo! 

From Wikipedia => Duolingo is a free language-learning website and crowdsourced text translation platform. The service is designed so that as users progress through the lessons, they simultaneously help to translate websites and other documents.^[1][2] Currently, the site offers only Spanish and German courses for English speakers, though it has plans to expand to French, Italian and Chinese in the future.^[3] Duolingo launched in private beta on November 30, 2011, and has accumulated a waiting list of more than 100,000 users.^[3] As of January 19, 2012, the service has translated over 45,000 sentences.

I'll try it to learn spanish and hopefully, what they say will be true: you can really learn a language via Duolingo!

Screenshot App for Android devices

While searching on Android market for an App that takes screenshots directly from your phone.

Somehow, I have always thought that you had to have a rooted phone to do so. Apparently, things have changed (not surprising when you consider how fast Android OS is evolving.

So, here it is: Screenshots UX Android App. There is a trial and paid version. They give enough to play around with the trial version. I think I'll buy for the FULL app once I've used up the trial version.

Using the App is very easy. There is different modes to take a screenshot:

• Shaking the phone
• Some kind of notification in the tab bar... Not really good to take a quick snap.
• Finally, the best of all is the small camera icon that you can place anywhere and that displays constantly as lon as the service is running. I love it cause you can resize the icon, stop the service by pressing a few seconds on it and obviously take a screenshot with a single tap.

Obviously, there is plenty other options like what to do after taking a screenshot, what format the screenshot must be saved, crop the screenshots, etc...

By default, it saves the screenshots in the folder DCIM/Screenshots of your sdcard.

To end this quick review, this App seems to work on non-routed phone (the list is available on Android market). So have a try and download the trial version (Only 14 screenshots available)

Screenshot of my home screen (HTC Desire Rooted)

How to optimize your SD-Card for Offline maps

So, I took a while to do it but here it is since I've just formatted my card today. This is a follow up from this post.

This process will improve the efficiency of the memory of your SD-Card. I don't want to go in too much details but to store 100.000+ of tiles from Google Maps or OSM, you need to use small clusters to make sure your card doesn't fill up to quickly.
The smaller the cluster, the more efficient the tiles storage on your card will be. By default, a card is formatted with 32K clusters (if my memory is correct... :-) )

Find out the smallest cluster size you can use by checking this formula:

FAT: Number of clusters <= 65526 FAT32: 65526 < Number of clusters < 268435446

Concretely, here the smaller size for the following SD card sizes:
16GB=4096
8GB=2048
4GB=1024
etc...

Here are the steps to format your SD-Card:

Step 1: do "Windows key+R" and type "cmd".
Step 2: type the following command line


{Volume letter}: /FS:{format chosen} /A:{cluster size}


NB: this example works for 8GB SD-Card.


Here is the full documentation if you need more:


FORMAT volume [/FS:file-system] [/V:label] [/Q] [/A:size] [/C] [/X]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q] [/F:size]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q] [/T:tracks /N:sectors]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q] [/1] [/4]
FORMAT volume [/Q] [/1] [/4] [/8]

volume	Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon), mount point, or volume name.
/FS:filesystem	Specifies the the file system (FAT, FAT32, or NTFS).
/V:label	Specifies the volume label.
/Q	Performs a quick format.
/C	Files created on the new volume will be compressed by default.
/X	Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary. All opened handles to the volume would no longer be valid.
/A:size	Overrides the default allocation unit size. Default settings are strongly recommended for general use. NTFS supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K. FAT supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K, (128K, 256K for sector size > 512 bytes). FAT32 supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K, (128K, 256K for sector size > 512 bytes).Note that the FAT and FAT32 files systems impose the below restrictions on the number of clusters on a volume: FAT: Number of clusters <= 65526 FAT32: 65526 < Number of clusters < 268435446 Format will immediately stop processing if it decides that the above requirements cannot be met using the specified cluster size. NTFS compression is not supported for allocation unit sizes above 4096.
/F:size	Specifies the size of the floppy disk to format (160, 180, 320, 360, 640, 720, 1.2, 1.23, 1.44, 2.88, or 20.8).
/T:tracks	Specifies the number of tracks per disk side.
/N:sectors	Specifies the number of sectors per track.
/1	Formats a single side of a floppy disk.
/4	Formats a 5.25-inch 360K floppy disk in a high-density drive.
/8	Formats eight sectors per track.

How to save battery on your Android phone

This is the big question! How do you improve your Android phone battery life?

Well, the answer is simple: Battery Defender! Available on the Market, it's free, has good reviews and actually work (at least I think so).

How does it work? Basically, you setup a night mode, a period of time during which the app will deactivate all networks while screen is off. When you switch on the screen again, network come back on.

Also, it does switch off WIFI when not using it or when screen is off. That way, no wasting battery life while searching for WIFI networks when you don't need...

I use mostly my HTC Desire for GPS tracking and for a 32km commute everyday, it uses about 10-15% of battery. So far, I've almost reached 3 days with no WIFI but mobile network on to receive calls and texts.

I see a big difference but unfortunately, it doesn't do anything screen sucking up the battery life when it is on!

Mobile Atlas Creator removes Google Maps tiles download...

In version 1.9.1, I have discovered that downloading Google Maps tiles is become history...

So, for those who still want to download those precious tiles, try here.

Google not allowing Google Maps tiles download anymore?

Today, I've just downloaded the Mobile Atlas Creator 1.9.1 version and Google Maps has disappeared from the list of map sources.

It looks like the same thing for the Android App Maverick. In the version 1.95, caching (or tiles download  onto the phone memory) is not allowed.

So, offline GPS maps with Google Maps is ancient history? I'll investigate and hope it is not!

Offline GPS Tracking on your Android phone

Hello,

I have recently bought a great app, Maverick Pro (its review on this blog) that allows to cache automatically Google Maps or any map sources available in the app itself. This is great as I am a big cyclist and I love discovering new roads around Dublin and I don't want to pay the DATA charges to download the maps.
However, while it's caching it automatically when connected to a Wifi AP, you have to browse around the area you want to be cached. And this needs to be done for every zoom level... So you can imagine how painful it can be...

So, I've found a JAVA app (working across Windows, MAC OS-X., etc..) that allows me to download the tiles from Google Maps from a selected area.

The interface is pretty simple. I'll come back to a more detailed review this JAVA app (Mobile Atlas Creator)

Once you have finished downloading the tiles, before you copy them on your MicroSD card, you need to prepare it.

Because the tiles are very small (with Google Maps Street), between 2KB and 12KB, you need to have your MicroSD card to be set with the smallest clusters possible.

For a 2GB card, the smallest is 512B

For a 8GB card, the smallest is 2KB

By default, clusters are usually set to 32KB which with 100,000 tiles can waste a lot of space.

In my case, I have downloaded 686,020 tiles on a 2GB car with 512B clusters, the tiles use 1.14GB of space. On a 8GB card with 2K clusters, all the tiles use 1.94GB of space. You could double that if the 8GB card was using 32K clusters... You can imagine how useful it is if you have only a small MicroSD card.

I'll explain later on how to format a MicroSD card with a different size of clusters.

So, with all those downloaded tiles, you can open Maverick Pro, without any WIFI or 3G connection, and browse around Google Maps like if you were connected to a network. It is really a good app for that which really worth the money.

I'll fully review the app later.

Cheers!

First impressions - Google Sky Map

Hi,

I have just found this app available on the Android Market. I gave it a shot and I am nicely surprise!

If your compass works ok (which is not the case for everyone...), as you move, the sky map does too.

You can limit the info shown with a menu appearing when touching slightly the screen.

Searching for something? Press "Menu" and then a search section pops up.

Just type one later a list of hints appears. Very nice feature!

Then select a result and a cycle will appear with an arrow pointing to the object searched. When you point at objet, you can see it highlighted.

Pretty cool, isn't it?

Other features are available: photo gallery from hubble (no personal upload avaible yet), Time Travel (didn't really test), a night mode (will test when it's dark)...

I'd advice google to use real HD images (if possible) for galaxies, planets, sun, etc. The app would become very attractive then!

Review - HTC Desire

Review: HTC Desire

Ten years ago, computers were big, limited in Memory and not the fastest… If you wanted the best, you had to have the cash for it. Within years and now months, price has dropped considerably and computers become incredibly faster.

For a few year now (it’s safe to say about 2007-2008), smartphones appeared, then touchscreen (TS) and now, you can find the latest HTCs or Samsungs as powerfull or more than PCs from 10 years ago… And it’s going to go even further.

However, I’m not going to review the latest handsets but just one: the HTC Desire Bravo

This was my first TS phone and I have to say I’m pretty pleased.

The device looks good and is light enough. The screen has good proportions and the sensitivity is amazing compared to the Samsung F480 that I tried once upon a time.

So, here is a list cons and pros:

Cons

-       After a few month of usage, one main drawback has been revealed: lack of memory, more specifically the ROM. With 512Mb split between the system (250mb), the user cache (40mb) and the User data (147Mb), you have much for your apps. But where are 75Mb missing to get the total of 512Mb? Good question! I frankly don’t know and would need to investigate. I’ll keep you posted I found out!

Now, every time I download an app, I check straight after the app is installed if I can move it to the SD-Card. If not, I rethink twice before keeping it.

-       In relation to that point, I found very annoying that some build-in Google apps can’t be moved to SD-Card: GMAIL, Google Maps… When you know Google are built Android and they made available for developers the “Move to SD-Card” option, you wonder why they didn’t implement it on their own and very popular apps…

-       Battery life: one of the biggest problem for every HTC Desire user. I use WIFI a lot and if I don’t leave the phone plugged in all day, the battery would die several times… So, when I don’t use it, I deactivate! Same regarding the 3G/EDGE.

I am a big cyclist and I love the GPS system though it is also a source that drains the battery lifetime down… I managed to reach 8 hours while recording a track via RunKeeper App, display off most of the time, some offline map browsing via Maverick App and most importantly in “Flight Mode” (e.g. no network connection at all!).

-       Lack of a build-in SD-Card browsing app. I found one very light and nice looking but when most of the DATA are stored on SD-Card, you would prefer not to install another app…

-       Camera isn’t impressive. The lack of stabilisation is a shame…

Pros

-       Excellent UI from HTC!

o   The seven desktops represent plenty of space to put you widgets and app shortcuts. I personally use only 5 of them. I like the two-fingers drag down to get display all desktops like Spaces on MAC OS-X!

o   Like I said above, the Touch Sensitivity is pretty good. You don’t need to press like a mad person. The accuracy is good too, even with big fingers!

o   Build-in widgets from HTC are pretty handy, especially the power controls to manage Flight mode, GPS, Wi-Fi or 3G/EDGE. When you want to switch in a pinch between Wi-Fi and 3G, that’s the best!

-       Speed!

o   512Mb of RAM! That’s the stuff! Never blink, no system crash so far…

o   Gaming feels neat (ex: Angry Birds) and Asphalt 5 from Gameloft.

-       Audio: good speakers and sound pretty good.

-       Video in the dark with the LED light!

-       I like the messaging app. It feels very “chat-like”.

Regarding the application coverage, there’s plenty available for almost any needs. I personally use the following:

-       Chordbot: very useful app for songwriting experiments! The pro version is definitely worth it and you have much more choices of pianos, guitar, organs or synths.

-       Tuner – gString: really cool app to tune any musical instrument.

-       Mini file Manager: to browse inside the SD-Card.

-       SmartMonitor Lite: give essential system info.

-       Dropbox

-       Documents To Go 3.0: edit, create and view any .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx and pdf documents!

-       Gauge Battery Widget

-       Maverick: very nice offline map app with plenty source from Google Maps to OSM and Bing

-       Google Sky Map: locate stars, planets on your phone very easily!

I’ll give an indivual review for some of them. When done, just click to the App name to view it!

So overall, the HTC Desire is a really nice phone. If only the internal memory wasn’t that small, it would be one of the best!