Essential Android Apps
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Doubt it, I have handwritten notes that I made on my old WinMo phone and none of the notes apps I tried from Android will even import them from Outlook, let alone make new ones
(I tried the evaluation versions of CompanionLink/DejaOffice, Nitronotes and OI Notes - the latter will make you make voice notes though!)
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Need an app where I can remotely shut off my PC.
Go
i used to use TweetMyPC
http://tweetmypc.codeplex.com/
then you need the twitter app and an account so thats the let down.
Soldato
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That is an awesome free app. Thanks!
widgetlocker - definitely a great app for customising the lockscreen
I always thought FTP etc was not available in the free license, I've been using Dropbox.
Yes, I edited my post a few moments ago to say that I'm now using dropbox.
I think it's just a function that's unavailable with the android app. I'm going to install Teamviewer on another PC tomorrow if I get time and see if I can transfer from PC to PC using that.
Go Launcher EX really is amazing, smooth too. I love the app tray with the tabbed running/recent list and the way you can add folders for similar apps, means I can ditch gesture based smart folders in conjunction with the SmartShortcuts app in Launcher Pro and make way for alt gesture actions 
Will use this for now, go back to LP when the rewrite is out.
Will use this for now, go back to LP when the rewrite is out.
Go Launcher EX really is amazing, smooth too. I love the app tray with the tabbed running/recent list and the way you can add folders for similar apps, means I can ditch gesture based smart folders in conjunction with the SmartShortcuts app in Launcher Pro and make way for alt gesture actions
Will use this for now, go back to LP when the rewrite is out.
I'm loving it too. Have most things in the dock/hidden dock so my desktop is minimal.
Having a slight problem as I can't get the notifications for Handsent SMS to work. Any ideas?
If you have rooted, personally I would put the latest CM 2.2 ROM on as it is very snappy and smooth on my mobile or put on the latest FE 9 beta 1 release with intercept 3D and 2D drivers (2.1 ROM).
And if you haven't rooted and flashed a custom 2.1/2.2 ROM on, then this is what you are missing out on:
- Multi-touch
- Much better drivers for everything, audio, graphics, GPS, battery etc.
- 2.2 ROM
- Themes
- Better camera/video recording
- Loads of other little mods
Also, it's nothing to do with the CPU as the CPU is very good just not as good as the 1Ghz snapdragon etc. it's more to do with samsungs **** drivers that are ruining the mobile especially the 3D/2D drivers as they determine how smooth the UI is.
So if you have rooted or you are interested in it, have a look at these ROMs here:
FE 9 beta 1, should also install the under-voltaging and soundfix patch, graphic drivers, this is the best 2.1 ROM:
http://forum.samdroid.net/f55/samdroid-turbo-1301/
Even though it says that the 2D drivers aren't compatible with FE releases, for me it worked perfectly, so do what you want:
http://forum.samdroid.net/f55/graphic-drivers-mix-3574/
And the 2.2 ROMs:
Stock CM 2.2 ROM:
http://forum.samdroid.net/f53/cyanogenmod-6-1-1-spica-alpha8-3-a-3913/
This is CM 2.2 ROM but with other little extra mods that improve, speed, battery life etc. this also includes the latest 3D drivers:
http://forum.samdroid.net/f53/frozengingerv3-stylz-3971/
At the minute I am using this one and have not had any problems with it at all, will upgrade to the next release of CM 2.2:
http://forum.samdroid.net/f53/cm-6-1-1_alpha8-2-1-one-package-stylz-3890/
Also, even though it's still an alpha release, every thing is working now, apart from divx, but then again, I don't think there are any other mobiles that can even play divx yet apart from samsungs mobiles (without the need for a 3rd party app).
Personaly for me CM 2.2 is much better than any 2.1 ROM and I have not encountered any bugs at all, also the nexus S audio driver that you can only get on 2.2 ROMs is amazing, the audio is so much more clearer, sharper etc.
With hotmail syncing every 1 hour, screen brightness on 40%, snowstorm weather widget syncing every hour, wifi on 24/7, texting, phone calls, couple of youtube videos, about 15-30 minutes on emulators, general messing around with the mobile and apps etc. browsing net for 30 minutes to 1 hour each night, 30 minutes of music, taking photos/videos, GPS is on 24/7, I get 3 days of battery life.
Also samdroid.net is the home for the development of the spica/portal.
I am sticking with LPP forever
, best launcher there is at the minute and will be 10 times better once the re-write is done.EDIT: Also don't forget to convert file systems to ext2 if you put a 2.2 ROM on.
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Caporegime
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Reinstall? Mine works fine.
Do you know how to get the widget to display more than just the latest single message?
Thanks for the informative post!
I have't rooted her phone, just did the offical update to 2.1 hoping it would be much better than it is.
I have Froyo on my Desire, but it is SO much smoother than her Portal.
Rooting still seems bit complicated (compared to the ease of installing new ROMs on my old WM6.5 HD2), does Odin and any other needed software work fine with Windows 7 64-bit?
No problem
Ah right ok, I thought that, but wasn't too sure so...
Yeah, the spica really is **** when on stock ROMs, this is where rooting and flashing a custom ROM really does give you a massive upgrade and is essential for this mobile tbh.
Plus kind of hard to compare the 2 when the spica is on 2.1 and your desire is on 2.2 as 2.2 has much better memory management etc. than 2.1, massive speed difference pretty much between the 2 OS, also due to 2.2 having JIT and other little tweaks and when you convert the file types from rfs to ext2, it will also give a speed boost and if you put them to ext4 then an even greater speed gain, but there are some problems with ext4 on 2.2, so personally I recommend not to use it, although ext4 is used for the gingerbread ROMs iirc hence why the nexus S probably looks so quick and smooth, but that is also down to the hummingbird processor and the GPU being utilised more etc.
Yeah, when you read through all the guides and everything it does seem rather complicated but once you get it done, you think to yourself "wow, that was really easy actually and plus pretty quick as well" (well that's what I thought when I done it
)I use windows 7 ultimate 64 bit and didn't have any problems at all, although it took a while to actually get odin to recognise my mobile when it was in download mode etc. but that is normal enough though.
Also if you do want to root the spica and flash a custom ROM on, then this here is a very good guide, nicely laid out, it's the one I used, didn't have any problems:
http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-spica/124299-root-me-baby-one-more-time.html
And if you want to go further and install custom ROMs, most likely CM 2.2, there will be instructions on what to do for installing it on the official page of the ROM release.
Also if you upgrade from 2.1 to 2.2 you will need to do a factory reset.
Plus we also have gingerbread ROMs, but they haven't got all the features working yet as the developers have encountered a bad bug (sleep bug), so once they fix that, the rest of the development will continue:
http://forum.samdroid.net/f62/
Also there is a developer called tomq3, who is rewriting the graphics drivers completely from scratch and has been working on it for quite a while now, there nearly done, but he has exams, so he hasn't been able to spend as much time working on them for a few months, but they will soon be over and he will then start to finish them off
. These will give an even greater increase in speed and smoothness etc. as well as being able to play pretty much all 3D games etc. smoothly with the textures working (although the 3D/2D drivers from the intercept that are being used in the CM 2.2 builds and other ROMS allow you to play most of the 3D games smoothly now anyway as well as the textures etc. being render correctly, it's only the really demanding ones that people are having problems with, the drivers from the intercept also increase the speed/smoothness of the UI as well), also he stated that even in the early stages of development, they are showing a much better result than the stock ones and intercepts drivers , so should be really good, when he releases them.So pretty much with the samsung galaxy spica i5700 running the below and file types converted to ext2:
http://forum.samdroid.net/f53/cm-6-1-1_alpha8-2-1-one-package-stylz-3890/
My mobile feels just as fast/smooth, actually probably even faster than my brothers and my friends desires on stock 2.2, granted though if they where to root and flash oxygen or some other custom ROM and other extra mods etc. it would then be even quicker and smoother than my spica on that configuration due to the better hardware etc.
Also you will get apps2SD using the ext partition on your SD card (faster and better than native froyo Apps2SD) or you can use native froyo apps2SD if you want.
I am using the ext partition on my SD card (8GB class 6) and I have got 46 apps installed with 68MB left and if I cleared my market, youtube etc. cache I would have about 75-80 MB internal memory free.
But the best thing about this mobile and custom ROMs is the battery life (even on stock ROMs, the battery life was great, with the same usage in my last post, I would have got about 2 days of one charge) as stated in my previous post, haven't come across many android mobiles that can have that uptime with that usage, on my brothers desire with wifi on constantly, his battery would barely last a full day let alone half a day iirc.
For me the biggest battery killer is having the mobile network on constantly, although it is mainly due to poor reception therefore, the mobile is constantly searching for a signal and switching from H to 3G etc.
Not bad for a £200 mobile or whatever it costs now with a 800MHz processor (which can be overclocked to 1GHz iirc) and 146MB or 256MB of RAM compared to £400-500 mobiles with 1Ghz snapdragon, 512MB - 1GB RAM etc.
Just have a look around on samdroid.net and see all the stuff that you will be able to do once rooted.
Just for information, you can do file transfers from PC to PC with the free windows app and it's not crippled in any way, just a free non-commercial license. And to confirm, dropbox is probably the best way of transferring files from a remote PC to the phone as the android app doesn't have any in-built transfer capabilities. I can now uninstall logmein!!
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