Hijinks Inc.

Category: Google

  • 60 Days Without Voice Service

    60 Days Without Voice Service

    Its officially been sixty days since I last made a phone call on my iPhone that wasn’t over VoIP and life is good. Not only do I have $200+ extra dollars in my bank account but I haven’t had a dropped call either. I’d say all things considered, my iPhone 3G is aging rather well.

    Since my last update, I’ve used 803 minutes of talk time and 649 text messages. 90% of my calls were incoming, so I wasn’t really bothered by the indirect method required for placing a call. The only real change I’ve made to my setup is I’ve switched over the to G.729 codec for calls (both over WiFi and 3G) with good results, though it does require an in-app purchase from Acrobits Softphone but it seems to be worth it so far.

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  • To Root, or not to Root?

    SuperUserOne of the biggest questions that Android power users must face is whether or not to root their device.  The majority of Android devices have been rooted, and those that haven’t will probably be rooted soon.  Rooting your device can be risky, but there are several benefits to doing so.  These include themes, screenshots, backups, wireless tethering,  overclocking, and custom ROMs.  Read on past the break for more details.

    Disclaimer: Rooting your device is risky.  It may void the manufacturer’s warranty, and may ruin your device – even if done properly.  Hijinks, Inc. and myself take no responsibility for any damages that may occur by doing so. (more…)

  • What You Need to Know About FroYo

    Android 2.2The talk in the Android world right now is about Android 2.2, codenamed FroYo.  FroYo will build on the improvements made in the last major release, Éclair by increasing speed and adding some great new features.  More on that in a bit.

    Google has been releasing builds to Nexus One owners already, but as for the rest of us, we’re still waiting for phone manufacturers to build their versions and release the official builds for our phones.  The source code was released a few weeks ago, so we should start seeing releases by the end of the month.  There are rumors that the release for the Motorola Droid will be coming as soon as mid-July.  The Droid should be one of the first phones to receive the update as it doesn’t require any major changes to the interface.  In contrast, HTC has said that they will have FroYo released to all of their latest phones by Christmas, so you Sense users have some waiting to do. [Phandroid] (more…)

  • Google Me

    Google Me - A Facebook Killer?The internet has been abuzz ever since Kevin Rose drunkenly tweeted that Google was launching a Facebook competitor and was going to call it Google Me, though still no confirmation from Google, but that’s not really very surprising.

    My knee-jerk reaction to this “announcement” was something along the lines of “WTH, Google?!”. Have they so quickly forgotten just how successful their Twitter killer, Google Buzz was? Seriously,  hasn’t Google already made enough failed attempts at social networking? Let’s review… Orkut (fail), Google Profiles (meh), the afore mentioned Google Buzz (eh), and to a degree Google Wave (blah). Name one of those products that’s successful by any stretch of the imagination. And no, just because Leo Laporte uses Buzz does not make it successful.

    Currently Google does one thing well in the social scene, and that’s aggregate your social content. For example, Social Circle (beta) is a nice feature added to the results page which displays your friends tweets and blog posts that might be related to your search, they also have fairly robust support for importing your content from various sources into Buzz, though that’s still not enough to get me to actually use Buzz.

    There’s also some speculation that Google Me will just be a more robust version of Google Profiles, building off the existing profiles that users have setup and expanding their functionality, which would make sense. But at that point why bother renaming it. And would really compete with Facebook?

    Bottom line here, I agree Facebook needs to die and Google might seem to be the best company for the job, but I don’t think given their track record of late that they’ll be able to pull it off.

  • Android App Review: QuickDesk Beta

    My QuickDesk
    My QuickDesk

    Publisher: Faruq Rasid
    Platform: Android (All versions)
    Cost: Free! (Donations Encouraged)
    [AppBrain Link]
    Release Date: June 20, 2010
    Version Reviewed: 0.2

    As an Android user, I rely heavily on my home screens to launch and switch between applications.  While this works well, I’ve often wondered if there was a better way to move between applications.  One trick I use often is to hold down on the home button; this will bring up a list of the most recently used applications.  While this feature is nice, it is very limited.  Thanks to the creative mind of Faruq Rasid, there’s now a better way: enter QuickDesk.

    QuickDesk is not a home screen replacement, it’s an add-on that allows you to launch an app or even use a widget from within any application in Android.  It’s a semi-transparent screen that you can pull up from anywhere by simply double-tapping the home button or long pressing the search button.  On this screen, you can add app shortcuts, folders, and widgets in the 5×4 area.  It’s a great place to put settings widgets, direct call links, or anything you use frequently. (more…)