Android phones are pretty versatile devices and you can get all sorts of software for them. Are you have heard, there have been incidents of malicious apps being downloaded onto these phones, although they tend to be blocked quite quickly.

So, what do you need to know to avoid finding yourself in a pesky situation. First of all, before any application gets installed on your phone, it asks for a set of permissions that allow it do things. It may sound boring, but it’s always worth reviewing these. If an application wants to access “services that cost you money“, then it has permission to make as many phone calls and make SMSes that can cost you money. Most applications are legitimate and the permissions requested should match what you expect the application to do.

But if you can’t be bothered checking, or you’re not sure if that app you got with the latest of those osprey packs you bought is fine or not; you can always download an anti-virus app to check for you. I currently run a free one from AVG which provides all the cover I need. It’s worth checking it out.

Hi there. I don’t believe there’s anything like a browser plugin you can you on the standard Android browser, but you may want to switch to look at Firefox for mobile and see if you can use your favourite plugins.

There is, as always, another options; but this is only available to you if your phone has been rooted. There’s a brilliant application called AdFree that block advertisements, not only in your browser but also the ones shown inside applications. I had played Angry Birds for months before I realised there were supposed to be adverts in the game! You can search for AdFree in the market or use this QR code:

The one thing to keep in mind is that sometimes these ads are the only source of revenue that plugin authors have. Just remember that before you block their ads. It may also be their only job; I have a friend, who although he got his online business degree some time back, still prefers to build mobile apps rather than work a 9 to 5 job (he sometimes works a 9 to midnight job)

There are a few options available to do this. You can always stick your phone in a docking cradle and find an application that will automatically synchronise when USB is connected, but there’s a cooler way to do it. Enter Sweet Home!, an Android application that keeps a look out for your home Wifi. When it detects that you’re home, it will automatically try to synchronise your photos folder with a share on your network. Here are the configuration settings to give you an idea of what it does:

I haven’t played much with it, but it’s a pretty sweet idea. It doesn’t matter if you only take a photo a month or have come from a disability appeal fund raiser with hundreds of photos to download, it’s always better if your backups can be done automatically. That way there’s no need to worry about it at all!

Download the app by scanning the QR code:

The user interface on the standard Windows Mobile Phone 7 build is called Metro. I can’t imagine why you prefer this, but hey, as they say de gustibus non est disputandum. I had a quick look around and it turns out that there are a couple of projects on XDA-Developers that may suit your bill.

The one that looks best is the WP7 Android Launcher. It’s still in development, but does mimic Metro pretty well. Here’s what it does:

Features (for long click on apps list or tiles):
- Pin/Unpin tiles
- Uninstall apps
- Exchange tiles position (just chose Move tile and then Move here)

Options:
- Change wallpaper (the launcher background is black, but it’s useful for the lock screen wallpaper)
- Use built in icons for some apps or use default app icon on the tiles
- Change the tile color
- Reset tile color to default
- Chose between opaque and transparent background (uncheck this if you want to see the wallpaper)

It’s worth a try, but keep in mind; just like tanning bed lotion doesn’t a perfect tan make, in the same way, this is a launcher that’s not “native” to Android, so may not do in the long term.

The short answer is yes you can. The long answer is that you couldn’t do this till only quite recently, but Google have overhauled the Android Market website so make this happen. Keep reading if you want to learn more:

First of all, head down to the Android Market. You can browse this without logging in, but if you do log in, the Market website will show you what is and what isn’t installed on your phone. If you find an app you like, click on the “Install” button next to it. You’ll be presented with a dialog box looking something like this:

Once you pick the phone to install on, just give it a couple of minutes and voila, your app is there for you to play with!

Funny that, I got caught by that one too. I found the answer right on Google:

The Google Plugin for Eclipse depends on other specific Eclipse components, such as WST. Your installation of Eclipse may not yet include all of them, but they can be easily installed by following these instructions.

Eclipse 3.6 (Helios)

1. Select Help > Install New Software…
2. Click the link for Available Software Sites.
3. Ensure there is an update site named Helios. If this is not present, click Add… and enter http://download.eclipse.org/releases/helios for the Location.
4. Now go through the installation steps; Eclipse should download and install the plugin’s dependencies.

Eclipse 3.5 (Galileo)

1. Select Help > Install New Software…
2. Click the link for Available Software Sites.
3. Ensure there is an update site named Galileo. If this is not present, click Add… and enter http://download.eclipse.org/releases/galileo for the Location.
4. Now go through the installation steps; Eclipse should download and install the plugin’s dependencies.

Eclipse 3.4 (Ganymede)

1. Select Help > Software Updates…
2. Select the Available Software tab.
3. Click Manage Sites…
4. Make sure the Ganymede Update Site is in your list of Available Software Sites, and checked. If it’s not in the list, click Add… to add it. The Ganymede Update Site’s URL is http://download.eclipse.org/releases/ganymede/
5. Now go through the installation steps; Eclipse should download and install the plugin’s dependencies.

There you go, now you can write as many Android apps as you want and use the case to buy iphone 4 accessories

Your biggest enemies are GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Get Google’s Power Control widget and get in habit using it. If I’m travelling and I need to conserve battery, I only leave the services I use and usually all of these 3 bad boys are off (I don’t really feel any difference between wifi and 3g anyway whether I’m downloading a video or looking for the best fat burner around). It actually dramatically increased battery life on my phone so I definitely speak out of my experience.

There are plenty of apps on the market (search for power management) that are trying to be cute and provide you with various types of pre-set schema but I found that Power Control widget is simple, effective and infinitely more flexible (not to mention – free). If this sounds like a hassle to you – it’s really not. Maybe for the first few days, but after that is really becomes a second nature.

Also – once in the office I always connect my phone to the USB port, just to be able to access phone’s filesystem and recharge at the same time. I have a desktop charger that does the job perfectly

The great thing about Android is that the operating system on your phone is open up to any tweaking you might want to do. unfortunately, there is no UI for proxy settings for Android web browser. Instead the Android web browser will read the proxy settings in its settings database.

Here are the instructions to enable the proxy in the android web browser.

1. > adb shell
2. # sqlite3 /data/data/com.google.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db
3. sqlite> INSERT INTO system VALUES(99,’http_proxy’, ‘proxy:port’);
4. sqlite>.exit

You can talk to settings.db for more information.

1. sqlite> SELECT * FROM system;
2. sqlite> .tables
3. sqlite> .databases
4. sqlite> .schema table_name
5. sqlite> any SQL expressions to talk to the tables

Give it a whirl and see how you get on. Once you have the proxy set up, you can visit The Joke Shop, Free People or any other website you want to go to.

This question set me down the path of investigating ChompSMS and I must say, it’s an awesome little application. Not only does it let you manage and read your SMS messages in a really attractive way, but it also lets you send SMS message through an online service which can help you avoid costs if you’re roaming. It also has a feature that will read off the SMS to you, but that’s just me being geeky.

Anyway, back to the question at hand. I too had a similar problem with double notifications showing as can be seen here:

The reason behind this is that ChompSMS is raising a notification, but so is the default messaging app that’s part of Android. Solving the problem is simple, just navigate to your Messaging application, click on the Menu button and choose Settings. Scoll down to Notifications and untick the option to “Display Notifications in the Status Bar”

And you’re done, no more pesky double notifications. That’s much simpler than trying to program the VCR or record a program on one of these new fangled televisions isn’t it?

On a side-note, ChompSMS comes highly recommended. It will be my SMS messaging application of choice from now in.

This is one of the applications I love showing off on my HTC Magic. It’s called ShopSavvy and has made a pretty great splash, as it’s an excellent use of the device and it’s internet connectivity. Here’s how it works.

You start up the application and point it at the barcode of the product you’re interested in. The barcode scanner on the phone picks up the barcode and looks it up online to figure out what it is. Once it has the code, it matches it up against a product database and shows you prices of the product from a number of different locations.

But that’s not the end of the story. The application also looks up the price in any retails stores in your proximity to show you what shops you can just walk into and pick up the item. It means you always get the cheapest price for whatever you’re looking for. Great huh?