The New and Improved MyDigicel App

The new and improved MyDigicel Apps now give you more information than before. Their quick and easy sign up process give you access to Top up, Credit U, it even tells you when you activated your Sim Card.

Check it out!!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.digicel.selfcare.mobile

Google Now TV Episode Reminder

So here you are again trying to remember when the latest episode of your favourite TV show is to be on TV, and little did you notice that the device to help you with that is in the palm of your hands. Android Devices has a handy little feature that many don't make use of and that's the Google Now Reminders.

Now to use this simply fire up your Google now, by saying "OK Google" or opening the Google Now app directly and speak the name of your TV show. Once the result comes up scroll down and select "Remind me about new episode" and that's it, Google Now will remind your once new episodes are release so you never have to worry about missing an episode.

Buying New vs Used Android

So here we are at the fork in the road..... new android or used android. Well it depends on the individual's pocket doesn't it?

Let's start with the new android:

Firstly, it's new...duh. Fresh out the box never used before, no scratches, earphones (maybe) and will 'maybe' get a whole year or two worth of updates. You will also get the latest hardware and software to date.  Lastly, new phones costs more, especially in Jamaica.

Now the used android:

Firstly, its used...duh. You'll be lucky if you get a box. All you will mostly likely get is the phone and the USB cable/charger. Your used phone will have scratches and it really depends on how the previous user cared the phone. Your phone may be at or getting close to the end of getting updates, not that you cannot get updates via custom ROMs if you like. Your hardware will be a little dated, mostly in terms of looks (slightly... maybe). Also, you would be in a position to get a flashed/mod phone. Lastly, used phones depending on condition and actual age of the phone will cost less.

Let's break it down:

Internal parts vary depending on the brand and what's hot at the moment. For example the snapdragon 400 processor is common amongst smart phones and the latest version is the snapdragon 500. Now we all know that the iteration will more than likely have some enhancement that utilities the processor the best way possible but the question is, is it worst chucking your older smart phone or buying new vs used?

Example: I have a 1.2ghz quad core processor. There are phones with 1.5/1.7/2ghz etc processors which are technically faster but does that mean my current phone cannot manage the same tasks? Will I actually feel the speed? If you do a comparative test using for example the 'quadrant standard' app, my phone will score less that a new phone but it doesn't mean my phone isn't powerful.

In my opinion, you will hardly notice the difference if any at all. The biggest factor should be whether the phone has enough memory. That's where the problem usually resides. 1gb of memory is the current base standard for smart phones, so getting a phone with anything less is ludicrous. Don't purchase a used phone more than two years old to the current date. That is, its now 2014 so don't buy any lower that a 2012 phone.

I know this seems like I'm promoting used over new but it was necessary to focus on showing that used/a little older phones are worthy of purchase and there nothing wrong with saving some money and getting a cool smart phone.

Motorola Moto G

Specs:
5 MP, 2592х1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
Corning Gorilla Glass 3
Quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7
8/16 GB, 1 GB RAM
Android OS, v4.4.2

Great phone for a great price, that's simply what this phone is. After spending a few weeks playing with this device I must say its pretty good. With its 1.2 Quad-core processor you can just about anything without much lag, the material gives a nice feel in the hands so you wont feel like its about to fall every time you take it up. The sound quality on this device is also pretty good and its very loud (frightened me a few times when ringing).

The 1GB memory does its job but once you have a lot things up and running you might feel it lag every now and then but its not a deal breaker. The camera is not really the best thing in the world but it does take good pictures. After comparing the camera to a Blackberry Bold 9780 5MP camera I must say the bold takes better picture especially at night, but none the less if your moving up from a Blackberry such as a Bold and don't care much for a slight difference in the quality of your pictures the Moto G is a good starting point.

To sum things up the Moto G is a good phone without breaking the piggy bank, you wont be disappointed with the performance and for all those persons making their transition from Blackberry to Android its a good start.

My favorite games

We all have spare time or at least make some during the course of our day. In that spare time some of us play games, weather it be on our mobile device or gaming console.

So here are a few of my favorite mobile games (In no particular order):

1. Reaper: RPG coolness. Days of game play. Upgrade your armour, swords etc and kick butt while exploring the map. Game story is cool in my opinion.
2. Dead Trigger:  Cause blasting zombies is awesome and scary (whats with the zombie fascination lately though).
3. Fruit Ninja:  This is a classic fruit cutting game on the Android OS (Warning: you will rub your finger tips off lol).
4. Real Boxing:  Boxing game...duh.  You can customize your character and work your way through three championship belts.  Pretty decent when you get the hang of the fighting style.
5. Real Racing:  Racing game...duh.  This game is cool, your achievements are saved to your Google account (if activated) and tells you when a friend beats your time on.  Plenty of tracks and cars to purchase.  Modify your car, get an agent and make money to unlock new tracks and cars.
6. Totem Runner:  This game is a runner i.e. your character runs without your assistance, you just tap.  Story is, the world has been corrupted and your aim is to run through the level bring back life to the world.  You've got 2 animal forms you can take to help you avoid obstacles.
7. Clash of Clans: If you've ever plays age of empire, settlers, warcraft or any strategic games similar to those Clash of Clans is a good way to spend your free time building your base and taking on other player worldwide. I've personally spent month playing this game and definitely recommend it.
8. Zenonia : Good RPG game to button smash some monthers and upgrade your avatar with the good gears.
9. Plants vs Zombies 2: Its free and its plants vs zombies and its addictive what more can i say.
10. Angry Birds Go: This is a fun racing game from the makers of angry birds.
11. Major Mayhem:  Nice shoot-em-up runner.  Rescue your girlfriend and save your country against ninjas.

Well that's that for now in the games category.

Google in your Audi

Google has linked with car company Audi to place Android tech inside their automobile. The dashboard will sport a 10.2 inch modified tablet-like interface and works with the already on-board systems e.g. Navigation.

This is apart of Google's Announced "Open Automotive Alliance".

Source: AndroidCentral

Google to buy the company "Nest"

Google is shelling out some serious coin again. This time they are going to purchase “Nest” for $3.2 billion dollars (Austin Powers’s accent included).

Nest is the maker of smart thermostats and smoke alarm systems. Nest will keep their current leadership with co-founder Tony Fadell and work as a separate unit. Integration with Android OS will be a part of their later plans.

Source: AndroidCentral

Waze

Free navigation app easily providing updates you make your daily commute on the best routes, accident updates, and police notifications. You guys should note that these notifications are provided by other waze users so do your part in letting people know what's up as they make their way around town.

Download

My Fav Apps

My fav apps

These apps are available on the Google Play Store

Yahoo weather: one of the best free weather app you can get. It's simple beautiful and provides a lot of info. 

Bbc news:  News around the world, enough said.

Zedge:  Cool website I found years ago and they have an app in the google play store.  You will find tons of cool wallpapers, message tones and ringtones with this app, plus games and themes.

Smart tools:  This app will allow to calculate height, distance and it has a couple other utility tools such as flashlight, compass etc.

Photo studio:  The picture viewer already has a couple photo editing feature but can be lacking.  Photo Studio gives you all those fun editing features plus a lot more.

Battery doctor:  You may notice that after months of use your device may get a bit sluggish.  This could be because there are a lot of programs running that are not needed and just simply eating away at your battery usage.  This app allows you monitor the apps that start-up when your device is turned on and also to kill apps/tasks with the exception of a white-lists that you create.

Es file explorer:  Neat file explorer to browse through your device.  Without a file explorer you are most likely going to plug your device to a computer each time you need to search through your file system.

Ringtone maker:  Easily select any song on your device and select the exact part of the song you want as your ringtone.

TeamViewer:  This app was mentioned in a previous post.

HTC lost trial against Nokia. Sales in Germany halted

HTC takes a serious hit as Nokia won a patent infringement trial on the way data is transferred on HTC android devices using android beam i.e. Bluetooth/NFC.

This means there is a ban on all HTC android  phone sales in Germany. Most likely HTC will appeal this ruling and its even more likely that Nokia wouldn't mind if they were offered some "incentive" to halt this ban.

Source: androidcentral

Googleplay Yeezus free

If you listen to Kanye West and liked his latest album, well Google is giving away Kanye West - Yeezus free as part of their holiday goodies. For those of you who have a Google play wallet set up for purchases, you can follow the link below and get this album free for a limited time.

https://play.google.com/store/music/album?id=By5ojxdslc5zdiuflz25kgytgoi

Unlocking your Nexus 4 bootloader

Hey guys today we will be looking at unlocking your Nexus 4 bootloader. You should note that this will void your device warranty and we take no responsibility for any form of damage made to your devices. But if you have problems you can always drop us a comment and we will try to assist in any way possible. So with that out of the way lets get the party started.

First a few things you need to know:

What is the bootloader? Well basically its a boot component that is usual locked by the device manufacturer of the device to prevent you from messing around with the OS of the device. And that's the reason we need to unlock it to have access to do what we want to do. NOTE Unlocking your bootloader will wipe all data on your device including your internal sdcard. Please backup your files, photos etc.


Things you will need:

1. Universal Drivers  - Windows 8 users will need to disable Driver Signature Enforcement. (I've uploaded both the Drivers and the Android SDK files needed to this one link)

2. Download the Android SDK. Once that's complete the folder you need is the platform-tools located inside.

Steps:

1. Install the Universal Naked Drivers.
2. Backup your data, files, photo etc.
3. Make sure your phone is at least 50% charged.
4. Enable developer mode. Go to settings -> about phone and tap build number until it say your now developer. Head back to settings and you will see a new option "Developer options". Once you go in there you will see a USB debugging check box, select that then connect the phone.
5. Now head to the platform-tools folder inside the Android SDK previously downloaded. Once there hold shift and right click, you will see "Open command window here". Click that and you will have a new command prompt in the folder you are in. Once thats done we can begin the process.
6. Power off your Nexus 4, and reboot it into fastboot mode by holding the volume down button and power. You'll see a green robot, and the word "Start" at the top of the screen. Note the last line will read "Lock state - locked". If it says unlocked well lucky you. you can skip ahead.
7. Now enter the command "fastboot devices" and hit enter. You should see a list of devices including yours.
8. Now to unlock your bootloader enter the command "fastboot oem unlock". You will be presented with a warning message stating  that your device will be wiped so just use your volume keys to navigate to the "Yes" and press the power button to confirm your selection.
9. You have successfully unlocked your bootloader!

Now the approach to unlocking your bootloader my vary based on the brand phone, but these methods are guaranteed to work on nexus devices.

Also check out our earlier post about Rooting and Flashing Tools for users who prefer to have the tool do it for you.

Google fights back

Everyone has a clique, and a lot of the brands we know are no different.

Microsoft, Apple, RIM, Sony and Ericsson are a part of the consortium “Rockstar” and they own a bunch of patents which were gained from the dissolving of Nortel in 2009.  They have been hitting at the now popular Google, specifically Google’s bread and butter “Search” feature.

Google is defending their OS and Nexus devices did a “declaratory judgment of non-infringement”, in addition they pointed a finger at Rockstar for “trolling”.  Basically they are saying Rockstar has a bunch of people sitting around stalking any company’s products hoping to find anything they can use to sue their competitors.  Google has gripes that Rockstar is interfering with their business relationships, ie. Discouraging companies form working with Google.

Source: gsmarena.com

Weakness found in Samsung’s Knox

Knox knox, who’s there?

Ok, so Samsung in thinking about security for corporate users created “Knox”.  Knox was designed to beef up security for the Android OS for a more practical use in business environs.

It’s said that emails and data communication on Samsung devices running the Knox security software has been breached.  To make this worst, it’s believed that malicious code could possibly be inserted into the vulnerability found.

Of course Samsung has down played this hole in their software based on the grounds that the device which was tested did not have all of Knox’s’ security features installed.

With the Pentagon considering using Samsung devices, this could potentially be a huge lost for Samsung if the Government decided to go in a different direction.

Source: gsmarena.com

TCL 2ghz octa-core

TCL anyone....

Well TCL (aka the Alcatel brand outside of China) has announced their flagship phone the "Idol X+"

The Idol X+ will rock a 2GHz octa-core (yes...that's eight (8) cores) chipset with 2GB of RAM, a 2,500 mAh battery, 5 inch 1080p IPS display and 13mp camera.

Since most leading phone brands are now pushing wrist watch variants I guess TCL say "why not" and added what they call a "Boom Band" with the phone.  It's basically a wristband with Bluetooth that comes in handy for fitness purposes and alarms to help you locate your phone.

This phone will hit shelves January 15th unlocked at $330 but availability outside of China is still unsure.

Source: gsmarena.com

CyanogenMod (CM)

Ever since they dropped CM 4.3 I've been waiting on a 4.4 release.  With Nexus devices getting the latest updates so quickly it's easy to feel a little left out but it goes without saying that flagship devices will always be the first to get the latest update.

CM has been very busy lately sourcing funding for their various projects and their mainstream venture with partner Oppo and release of the Oppo N1 (which made its debut this Christmas Eve).  Wonder what they got planned for 2014?.....

Paranoid Android 4.0 KitKat Beta Release

A lot of persons including myself have been waiting patiently for the new release of Paranoid Android 4. But the wait is over at least for the most part as the guys at Paranoid Android (PA) has released a new BETA version for PA 4.0 KitKat as a Christmas Gift.

Check out the new release by going to the link below

ROM Download

Be sure to get your latest GAPPS here

Happy Holidays All!

Free Remote assist app for your android phone or tablet

Remote into your computer at home or even assist someone on their computer by using teamviwers remote assist app. One of my #1 recommended apps!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teamviewer.teamviewer.market.mobile

Android Device Manager

Can't find your phone? Lost? Stolen?

The Android Device Manager app lets you know where your phone is and if needed cranks up the volume so you can find it under your sofa.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.adm

Rooting and Flashing Tools

I've been around the net a lot trying to find the easiest way to flash my phone namely the Nexus 4 and I've found a few useful tricks to help you guys along the way.

SKIPSOFT ANDROID TOOLKIT (Nexus 4 toolkit)

By far the most useful tool I've got to help in those time where I think I have completely FUBAR my phone.

Hit the download link below and if you like it support the developer and buy the full version.

FUNCTIONS OF UNIFIED ANDROID TOOLKIT V1.2.0 [04TH DEC 2013]* Install correct adb/fastboot drivers 
automatically on Windows xp/vista/7/8 32bit+64bit

* Backup/Restore a single package or all apps, user data and Internal Storage
* Backup your /data/media (virtual SD Card) to your PC for a Full Safe backup of data
* Unlock/Re-Lock your Bootloader
* Root Stock builds
* 1-Click For All to Unlock, Root, Rename the Restore File
* Perform a FULL NANDROID Backup of your system (Boot, Cache, Data, Recovery and System) via adb and save in Custom Recovery format on your PC which can be Restored via CWM Recovery
* Pull /data and /system folders, compress to a .tar file and save to your PC
* Dump selected Phone Partitions, compress to a .zip file with md5 and save to your PC 
* Install BusyBox on your phone
* Extras, Tips and Tricks section
* Auto Update ToolKit to latest available version at startup (professional only feature)
* Program up to 10 Quickpick slots and run them very quickly (professional only feature)
* Mods section to automatically perform certain tasks on your phone
* Download Google Stock Image directly to correct ToolKit folder for extracting and flashing (no need to move it manually anymore)
* Check md5 of stock image to make sure downloaded file isn't corrupted before flashing
* Flash Custom Recovery or Google Stock Image to phone
* Rename the Recovery Restore File present on some Stock Roms
* Boot into CWM Touch, TWRP or Stock Recovery without Flashing it
* Boot or Flash .img Files directly from your PC
* Install a single apk or multiple apk's to your phone
* Push Files from your PC to your phone
* Pull Files from your phone to your PC
* Dump selected LogCat buffers to your PC
* Dump BugReport to your PC
* Set Files Permissions on your phone
* Open new Command Prompt for manual input
* Reboot Phone to Fastboot Mode or Android from fastboot mode
* Reboot Phone to Fastboot Mode, Recovery, Android or Download Mode from adb mode
* Display Important Information about your device

Download