Humble Bundle for Android 4

There's six more days left to get six Android (and PC, and Linux, and Mac) games for whatever price you want to pay! Pay above the average and you'll even get five bonus games!

Setting up custom Gmail notification sounds in Android

I recently found out a way to customize the email notification sounds of the Android Gmail app based on the Gmail labels. For example, I have set my Gmail account to apply a label "Geocaching" to those email messages from Geocaching.com that inform me about new geocaches. There's a semi-serious "competition" going on between geocachers on who's the first one to find new caches (FTF, First to Find), so I wanted to distinguish those geocaching emails from other messages that don't require you to urgently rush outside. ;) So, here's how you do it (at least on Android 2.2.2 -- there are instructions for Android 4.1 as images later in this post as well):

1. Open your Gmail application, then press the menu button of your device, and then find "Settings" from the menu that opens.
2. You should now see a dull screen with just "General preferences", your email address, and an "Add account" option. Click on your email address.
3. Click "Sync inboxes and labels", then find the label for which you want to select a special notification tone and click on it, then select "Sync last 4 days".
4. Now return back by one menu, locate the "Labels to notify" option and click on it.
5. The label you just selected to sync should appear there, with notifications set "Off". Click on the label.
6. A new window opens. Check the "Email notifications" checkbox and the option to choose a ringtone becomes available! Now choose a tone that you wish would play when you receive an email that matches the label. You may also untick the "Notify once" checkbox to get a separate notification for every email instead of just the first one since the last time you read your mail. Then click OK and then return to the app or exit it.
7. The next time you receive email that matches the given label, your phone will emit the sound you just chose. :)

Finally, I managed to take screenshots of the process on my new Nexus 7 tablet, which runs Android 4.1 and thus has a bit (but not too much) different menus:

First, locate the settings of the Gmail app:

Then click on your account (blurred in this picture): 

 Now click Manage labels:

You'll get to this view where your labels are on the left and the settings on the right. Click the label for which you wish to set a custom tone -- here I've just picked "Starred". Set Sync messages to "Last 30 days", then make sure Email notifications is checked. You'll probably want to uncheck "Notify once":

Now click Ringtone and you can select the notification tone for these kind of email messages:

Voilà!

More good Android apps

It's been a few months since my previous post on good Android apps and since then I've discovered more great apps.

First, WhatsApp. WhatsApp is an instant messenger that feels just like sending free SMS messages. It's a cross-platform software, so you can communicate with your friends even if they are using iPhones or Windows Phones. You register to WhatsApp using your phone number, and the software finds everyone else who is using WhatsApp based on the numbers in your phone book. In addition to text messages you can also send images and videos. WhatsApp is free for the first year, then it's $0.99 per year.

Then, Pocket -- formerly known as Read It Later. The former title actually tells you what this app is about: it's about saving articles from the web to be read later. Sounds simple, and it is, but Pocket does it really well. Once you register to the service, you can start adding articles (or videos, or anything else) to your Pocket. There are bookmarklets you can install to your browser for saving any page with just one click. In Android, Pocket registers itself as something that shows up when you select "Share" from any application. Pocket strips ads, menus and side bars from the web pages and only shows you the article main content in a really clean way. Pocket even handles seamlessly those multi-page articles where you'd normally need to click "Next" every few paragraphs. You can also adjust the text size, screen brightness and such features easily when reading the text.

Finally, BaconReader for Reddit. Reddit is a "social news site" to where users submit links and the best links get voted up and show up at the main page. By default, the main page consists of links that mark the lowest common denominator between all Internet users, i.e. 75% of the links direct to funny images. But Reddit contains hundreds of sub categories, or subreddits, for every imaginable topic. Whether it's astrology, programming, bicycling or cooking, there's a subreddit for it. The TrueReddit subreddit contains long, serious articles, whereas the lolcats subreddit contains cute pictures of cats. With BaconReader you can choose which subreddits to follow and always get the newest links to your Android device easily.

Instagram

The popular photography app Instagram was recently released for Android. Previously it had only been available for iPhone, so I decided to give it a try.

Instagram is similar to another highly popular app called Hipstamatic. The idea is that you take a photo, crop it into square format and apply a filter that makes the photo look "vintage" or "retro". The analog-world counterpart of these apps is often called Lomography, after the cheap Soviet Russian camera Lomo LC-A. Why would anyone want to have their photos artificially aged? Others have discussed this elsewhere, so see, for example, this study or this essay.

Instagram is very intuitive to use: snap a photo, select a filter, write a caption, upload. You apparently cannot save any photos to your device: if you want to keep a photo you must upload it into the service. So Instagram is not only an app but also a service that hosts your photos. You can also find you friends there and subscribe to their feeds to get their latest photos on the main screen of the app. Or you can just browse the most interesting photos from all users.

There's something in Instagram that appeals to me. It sort of fills a need that I didn't know was there. To Flickr, I only try to upload my best and technically flawless photos. To Facebook I upload photos of events with my friends. But to Instagram I can upload any random photos. It couldn't be easier and you always have the camera (your smartphone) with you. Some people are into taking a photo every day, and I think Instagram is quite perfect for this kind of a project. In fact, I'm going to try it! Instagram doesn't have its own web interface for browsing the photos but an external service called Webstagram fills that void; see my photostream here.

Coincidentally, about five hours ago (as of writing this post) Facebook announced that it is going to buy Instagram for 1 billion USD. The figure is ridiculously large and I believe Facebook is never going to get their money back from that purchase, but hey, if they happened to have an extra billion lying around then why not buy Instagram with it. Molly Wood from CNET also questions the price tag, and some people believe that Facebook will now ruin Instagram, although Mashable's Chris Taylor says Facebook could actually improve Instagram. What happens, remains to be seen, but I'm not too concerned.

The Humble Bundle for Android #2

Again, it's time for yet another Humble Bundle. That's five or six games that work on Windows, Linux, Mac and Android, for whatever price you want to pay! There are just seven days left of this offer, so go to humblebundle.com and act now!

The Humble Bundle for Android

The Humble Bundle is a concept that I've written about several times already. In short, they publish a few cross-platform games and let you pay anything you want for them. The newest addition to the Humble Bundle series is the Humble Bundle for Android which contains four different games that work not only for Android but also for Windows, Linux and Mac! As of writing this post there are still eight days left for you to grab this offer. The games are Anomaly: Warzone Earth, Osmos, Edge and World of Goo.

Good Android apps

A few months ago I blogged about the best Android apps and the runner-ups for that list. Since then I have installed some new software so I figured it would be a time to give an update. So, here are a few of the best apps I've installed within the last couple of months.

Wordfeud is a clone of the Scrabble board game that you play against other people. In it you try to form words out of random letters and a new word you play must touch a previous word on the board. I wouldn't play against random opponents as they may cheat, but it's great fun to play against trusted friends. The games are 1 vs 1 and you can move as seldom or as often as you please -- the game notifies you when it is your turn in any of the games you are currently playing. You can also chat with your opponent using the built-in chat function. The free version displays adds somewhat annoyingly after each move but you can get rid of them by buying the full version in case they bother you too much.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary. A very comprehensive and easy to use dictionary app. Goes well with the Wordfeud game when you need to know what that "word" means that your opponent just played. ;)

Unified Remote turns your phone into a remote control for your Windows PC! You just need to install a server program into Windows and voilá, your Android phone turns into a remote control device. The most basic remote controls keyboard and mouse, but there are dedicated remote controls for individual programs such as Spotify and some web browsers. The full version has more different kind of remotes than the free version.

Finally, Aldiko is a solid, easy to use, nice looking ebook reader. You can import your own ebook files or you can use the built-in interface to the Feedbooks site and download new books. Feedbooks contains both free and commercial books. Start filling your virtual bookshelf now. :)

TED: Ideas worth spreading

TED is a non-profit organization arranging conferences where the top experts of various fields give short, 10 to 20 minute talks on all kinds of topics. TED is short for "technology, entertainment and design", but the scope has expanded vastly since the original conference back in 1984. I have been watching the TED talks with my smartphone using the TED Air app, but they are viewable at the TED website as well.

If you now got even slightly interested I recommend starting with a short talk and a familiar topic. I'll make it really easy for you and post a suitable video right here. The talk is called Doodlers, unite! and it's just six minutes long:

Now, I haven't watched that many talks yet but they have all been very fascinating. Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight, for example, is, as far as I understand, regarded as one of the best TED talks ever. I'm tempted to give more suggestions on what to watch but as I haven't watched even ten talks myself I'll just give you a link to the most viewed TED talks which should be a good starting point for finding some interesting ideas worth spreading.

The best Android apps: runner-ups

A while ago I posted my own top 5 Android apps list. Of course, there are more great apps than just those but I wanted a comprehensive list of apps that would benefit everyone while still keeping the list short. Here are the other apps I considered for inclusion to my list of best Android apps:

• Locus, another map software. I use it at least as often as OsmAnd, but I chose OsmAnd to the top list for the easier, built-in vector map downloading feature and routing/navigation. Locus contains good features for geocaching once you just load a GPX file of caches into it. It even seems to have an addon for online geocaching.

• SoundHound & Shazam. What's that song playing here right now? These programs can answer this question by listening to the music and comparing it against their music databases. I haven't decided which one of these is better, but SoundHound is apparently more tolerant to background noise.

• Gesture Search. This app allows you to search apps, contacts and music tracks on your device by writing their names on the touch screen with your finger. Much more convenient than trying to hit those small buttons of the on-screen keyboard. Especially useful if you install a shortcut into the app drawer of GO Launcher EX, where it is always available.

• imo. Do you use any instant messaging software, such as Messenger, Skype, ICQ or Google Talk? This app can handle those and some other protocols as well. Very simple and clean yet effective interface.

• KeePassDroid & Dropbox. I have written of both KeePassX and Dropbox in the past so it's excellent to have them on Android as well.

• Bump. Quit messing with Bluetooth when you want to share files to another device, just bump the devices against each other in your fists and that's it! Bump magically transfers files between Android devices. They also claim that bumping between an Android device and an iDevice works as well! Once bumped, you can also send messages to the other device even when the other device isn't anywhere near.

• Battery Monitor Widget. Does what the name implies and does it well. Keeps a history of the battery usage data and shows calibrated estimates on the run-time that's left.

The best Android apps

When you google for the best Android apps you get a huge number of lists, each list with a large number of apps. In addition to those lists usually containing way too many apps to be really that useful, the apps are often US-specific, being of no use to 95 % of the world's population. Here's my take on the top 5 Android apps -- these are the apps that I think every Android user would really benefit of:

5. GO Launcher EX. You might not have thought about it, but pressing the home key of your Android device doesn't just "take you to the home screen", it actually launches a home screen program, also known as a launcher. So in your Android device even the features of your home screen are not statically defined but can be changed by installing a new launcher. GO Launcher EX is a versatile launcher program that contains many improvements over the default launchers. For example, GO Launcher EX allows you to resize your widgets to any size you like even if they don't support those sizes out of the box. It allows you to add multiple shortcuts at once and also contains a nice scrollable and customizable "app drawer" at the bottom of the screen. GO Launcher EX also supports scrollable widgets, so Launch-X becomes even more useful. With Launch-X widgets you can squeeze more shortcuts into a smaller space, saving lots of precious screen space. Use, for example, one Launch-X widget for all of your games and another for your best apps, and you'll still have plenty of room for widgets in your main screen!

4. Tiny Flashlight. Ever been in a room with little to no light? Yep. This app lights and keeps on the bright flash light of the camera of your device. You can even install it as a one click widget to your home screen. Always have a flashlight at hand with this app. And even if you don't have a camera or a flash light for it in your device, this app can turn your screen to white and to maximum brightness allowing you to see in its light.

3. OsmAnd. One of the best map programs available. As the name suggests, OsmAnd works primarily with OpenStreetMap (OSM) but also supports Google, Microsoft and Eniro tiles, for example. OsmAnd is special in that it also supports navigation and can even speak the route directions using a speech synthesizer. The program can also download OpenStreetMap vector maps into your device's memory so that you can use the maps offline, for example when you are abroad. Yet another very useful feature is that you can easily find points of interest based on a category. Where are the nearest restaurants or gas stations, for example? OsmAnd can show you. I recommend getting the latest version for free from the OsmAnd homepage.

2. Opera Mobile. A blindingly fast web browser at best, it beats the default browsers in all aspects hands down. Opera Mobile is easy and intuitive to use. It supports multiple tabs and contains a Speed Dial screen to which you can set visual bookmarks to nine of your favorite web pages.

1. Llama. Llama is a Location Aware Mobile Application. Llama introduces profiles and location based events to your device. For example, you might have a profile called "Home" in which the WiFi would be turned on, the ringer volume would be set to medium and the vibration off. Then you might have a profile called "Outside" in which the WiFi would be off, vibration on and ringer volume set to maximum. Llama then knows your location based on the phone masts: you only have to tell Llama that "I'll be in a place I call 'Home' for the next hour" and Llama starts learning the masts. When the learning is done and your phone then connects to a mast Llama doesn't know, it triggers the event "Left home" which switches to the profile called "Outside". Similarly, when you get back home your phone connects to a mast that Llama has learned in the past, triggering the event "Enter home", which switches to the profile "Home". In addition to location, actions can be attached to events such as plugging the device into a charger, entering a certain WiFi network or just on certain times. For example, Llama can be told to automatically completely mute your phone for the night. This is how it should have always been and I find Llama an innovative and extremely useful tool that everyone should have.

This concludes my list of best Android apps. I hope at least a couple of them were new to you and that you find all of them useful. :)

Edit/Add: For some more great apps check the runner-ups I considered for this list!

Furlongs per fortnight: Comparison of unit conversion apps for Android

The Android Market contains software for almost any purpose you may think of. Usually when you search for a program to do a given task you even get multiple hits. The programs can be rated but that doesn't tell much about their features. So, I now present a comparison between free unit conversion programs for Android. All of the programs were downloaded on June 30, 2011 and they are presented in a random order.

First there's Unit Conversion gratis version. The program's main menu has the categories presented in a large and clear light gray font on a black background. The program has a good numpad of its own and doesn't use the default virtual keyboard provided by the system. What bothers me, however, is that when you enter a category there's no usable default conversion selected. Instead the selected conversion is something like "km -> km", i.e. it does nothing. You also need to press "convert" instead of seeing the conversion result change as you type in more numbers. So, all in all not too good.

Second, we have aUnit Converter Free. It also has got a keypad of its own but in addition to that the default Android virtual keyboard pops up if you click the number field. The program is green text on black background -- some people apparently think it's cool but I'm not too fond of the scheme. The program does neatly operate in just one screen as there's first the category selection drop-down box, then the number field, and then the input unit, converted value and ouput unit. So, OK.

The third program is ConvertDroid. Compared to the previous two programs it boasts a way larger number of unit categories: 46. There are, for example, typography, fuel consumption and radiation related units available. The user interface of ConvertDroid feels rather crammed as it tries to display all available conversions at once. You don't select the input and output units from a list but instead just click on the number field for the desired input unit, begin typing and see the result of all conversions immediately. The program uses the default Android keyboard and as a slight annoyance it displays it in the letter mode by default, forcing you to tap it once to switch to the numeric keypad. The program does have a reasonable selection of default units visible in each category and you get less often needed units by clicking "Show all". Not too bad, but the keyboard-thing is annoying.

Next on the list is the cleverly named Unit Converter. The program has a very polished look with green "Web 2.0" icons and black text on white background. As the only program in this selection it has got a button for swapping the input and output units, which is a nice feature. You can also save your most often used unit conversions in the program's Favorites category which is shown at the top of the list. The program also converts currencies, loading up-to-date information from the web on the fly. I like this program, and the only annoying thing is that you have to hit enter or "Convert" to see the conversion result, i.e. it doesn't convert as you type. I might also want to have the categories as a drop-down list at the top of the screen but I'm not too picky on that.

Then, the pithily named Converter. The program operates as pithily as it is named: there are three drop-down boxes, two number fields and a "Clear" button (if you so choose -- you can also hide it from the settings). There is also a separate view for the categories as well but that's not needed at all as you can change the category from the main view as well. I like this one as well. It's simple and plain but has a very decent selection of categories and units. It even does number base conversions, which many of the other programs don't do.

Second to last, we have ConvertPad. The first thing you notice about the program is the insane amount of unit categories: 89! You can do conversions regarding viscosity, entropy, cooking and image resolution, to name just a few. This program would probably be your choice if you had a degree in theoretical physics, astronomy and some third subject as well. For anyone else it seems like an overkill.

Finally, there's another program named Unit Converter. Unfortunately this program also has the questionable honor of getting the last place in this comparison as well. It can only convert units from six different categories, not including such an obvious choice as speed. The Android keypad covers the target unit at least on my phone so at first you only see the "Value" field, "Convert from" text and drop-down box and the "Convert to" text, but not the drop-down box! The program also doesn't have any sensible default conversion values set but happily converts from, say, centimeters to centimeters. When you hit "Convert" the result slides in and you need to hit the Back key to get back to your number field and drop-down boxes. Due to all these little annoyances this program appears almost unusable to me.

There! Now the only thing left is to present the previous information in a nice tabular format. I hope this helps you pick a converter program -- or why not pick two: one for every day use and the other for the odd chance that your life would depend on correctly converting furlongs per fortnight to some sensible unit. ;)

Motorola Defy review

I recently switched from Nokia & Symbian to the Android bandwagon by buying a Motorola Defy smartphone. I got the phone for 261 euros when I also made a new operator contract -- the normal price would have been 299 euros. The price to quality ratio for the device is very good.

Defy is small (107 x 59 x 13 mm) compared to many smartphones, such as Samsung Galaxy S (122 x 64 x 9.9-14 mm) and thus fits nicely into your pocket. The 3.7" screen is also very sharp and clear with approximately 265 dots per inch (10.43 dots/mm)! What I was especially impressed by, however, was the fact that Motorola has made Defy a very durable phone. It is water, shock, dust and scratch resistant, as proven by these YouTube videos where the phone is abused but just keeps on going. Also, Engadget couldn't really think of any downsides in this phone, save for the Motoblur UI, which my version of the phone didn't even have in the first place. My version also does have Android 2.2.

As this is my first Android phone I cannot really tell the difference to any other similar phones, but to me the phone feels fast and responsive, although I have had to reboot it once when it for some reason became very sluggish. Other than that playing Angry Birds, for example, has been a pleasure. Only few levels in Angry Birds Rio, for example, have so much stuff around them at first that the game slows down a little, but that is fixed after you slingshot the first bird out and manage to destroy anything. :)

Multiple home screens is also a nice feature. I have my calendar and SMS information along with the most used shortcuts in the first, a Facebook and a Twitter widget in the other, etc. The pull-down menu at the top of the screen is nice and features many kinds of announcements (mostly just for new email and newly installed programs). In the app menu I would like to sort my installed programs into different folders but that doesn't seem to be possible, although there's probably an app for that too in the Android Market, and using the different home screens for different program categories has been working for me so far.

As nice surprises for me the phone also features a radio (once you connect any headphones to it using a standard 3.5 mm plug) and a magnetometer, which basically translates to an electronic compass. The phone also has a GPS receiver so it knows its location and orientation, allowing you to use cool apps such as the Google Sky Map which is basically a virtual planetarium where you can point your phone into the sky (or the ground for that matter) and it tells you what stars and planets are there in that direction. The phone also has WIFI so you can enjoy fast internet connections wherever you have a WIFI access point.

The virtual keyboard takes a little practice but I guess that's inevitable with the first virtual keyboard you have ever used. When you get used to it it's easy and has been called better than the virtual keyboard in other Android smartphones. Swype is also a neat method for entering text -- if nothing else then it at least provides amusing guesses. ;) A little drawback is that if you want to write an SMS message with the phone in a horizontal orientation (to get a larger keyboard), you don't see the amount of characters used until you exit the writing mode, so you risk writing too long messages and having to shorten them before sending (if you want to fit it all into one message). Even when using the phone in a vertical orientation, you need to write something like 40 to 50 characters until the area for the text is made taller and the character count becomes visible.

All this being said, so far I have been very happy with my phone and can recommend it for anyone looking to buy a new Android phone. :) It has been made durable so I would expect Defy to last more than the two or three years which has been the life time for my previous two Nokia phones.