Hijinks Inc.

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  • Top 5 Android Apps – Part 2 – Stock Replacements

    Continuing on with my “Top 5” series, I’m going to discuss my top 5 favorite “stock replacement” apps.  These are applications that provide similar functionality to standard Android apps included on every phone, but in my opinion, are better than the standard app.  These apps may have additional customization features, or just plain work better than what Android came with.

    1. ADW.Launcher (Free) – I’ve written about this app before, but I can’t recommend it (or its competing app LauncherPro) enough.  Both apps provide so much more than the stock launchers for Android do.  HTC users with Sense UI may not need the change, but if you’re not running Sense, you should be running one of these.  I personally prefer ADW.Launcher right now thanks to the addition of themes.  There are many themes in the Android Market that range from free to a couple dollars, and can change the look of your setup drastically.  ADW also has many customization options that allow you to setup your home screens anyway you please.  If you’re a widget fan, LauncherPro Plus may be a great choice for you.  The developer has added a great widget set to his launcher.  Regardless of which you choose, I highly encourage you to try out one or both of these.  You’ll be glad you did.
    2. WidgetLocker Lockscreen ($1.99) – If you’ve ever wished you could put something on your lock screen besides the clock, you really should try WidgetLocker.  WidgetLocker allows you to add widgets and application shortcuts right on your lock screen.  He’s also added custom slider options, so you can move the sliders around, add multiple ones to perform different functions, or remove them altogether!  My screenshot shows how I like mine, but you can go wild with it!
    3. Beautiful Widgets (~$2.05) – If you’ve got an Android phone, this is a must-have application.  The developer started with the idea of re-creating the HTC clock widget for non-HTC devices, but he’s gone way beyond that now.  The main widget shows you the current date/time and weather for your location.  There are over 100 themes to change how it looks, and many customization options beyond that as well.  My favorite feature is the ability to launch any application by clicking on the clock, calendar, and weather sections.  If you like live wallpapers, he’s even created a live wallpaper that shows you the current weather.  Included with the main widget are several other widgets for your phone that allow you to toggle wifi, bluetooth, ring volume, etc.  I keep mine on my WidgetLocker Lockscreen so it’s there every time I wake up my phone.
    4. Handcent SMS (free) – I use Handcent primarily for the pop-up notification of incoming texts.  Beyond that, though, Handcent can do a lot more.  From that pop-up, you can type (or talk) a quick response without having to open up the full conversation.  When you do open up the full app, you can customize just about everything, from the theme of the app to individual ringtones for each person.  I’m amazed that this app is free – he could probably sell it for $5-10 and rack up a ton of sales.
    5. SwitchPro Widget ($0.99) – The Power Control widget is nice – allowing you to control Wifi, bluetooth, etc., but it’s not very customizable.  This is where SwitchPro Widget comes in.  It provides all of the capability of the Power Control widget, but is much more flexible.  Only want a couple buttons? You can create a 1×1 widget with 1-2 buttons.  Want a lot? You can add up to 7 buttons to a 1×4 widget.  SwitchPro also provides more options for what you can control.  It adds things like a flashlight, auto rotation lock, screen timeout, and more.  You can also customize the color of the icons and the background, so if you’ve got a theme, it’s much easier to make this fit. 

    While the stock Android system is pretty good, its real power lies in the ability for apps to customize and even outright replace the stock applications.  Android is very flexible in allowing users to change default applications – even without root access that everyone can “create” a phone experience that fits their needs.  I’d love to see some comments about your favorite stock replacement apps. 

    Next week I’ll touch on my top 5 favorite “unknown” applications – applications that aren’t famous apps like Beautiful Widgets or Handcent SMS.

  • iPad 3G Data Usage for September

    Despite my iPad crashing and needing to be restored, I managed to use 18.3GBs of data for the month of September. Bringing my total data usage for the year to 84.3GBs, I’m feeling pretty positive about breaking 100GBs total by the end of the year.

    It will be interesting to see if my data usage decreases now that I’m also using the Droid X, which depending on data speeds I will most likely be using to tether to my laptop instead of the iPad.

  • Minecraft (subtitle: I was one of those 143,932 people)

    Minecraft (subtitle: I was one of those 143,932 people)

    I’d heard about Minecraft through a few different avenues, but it took Penny Arcade making a comic about it to convince me I needed to try it. The first time I tried to play the website was down, replaced with a plain text explanation that amounted to “I’m making so much money right now, be patient.” I tried a couple days later and got through. I spent about five minutes in the free version before I spent the fifteen bucks to get access to the paid version.

    If you’ve never heard about or played Minecraft, here’s the summery: It’s Legos with zombies. You live in a bright and colorful world during the day, but at night zombies, mummies, spiders, and all manner of evil creatures come out, and you’re the only one on the menu. Come daybreak, all the bad guys exposed to sunlight promptly burst into flames and die.

    Allow me to explain. I spent the first half hour trying to figure out what the heck I was supposed to do. After I looked at the wiki, I was off to the races. I started a new world and immediately headed to the highest mountain I could see. I climbed all the way to the top, and started digging down through the mountain. I hollowed out a good sized room near the peak and set up a makeshift workshop. After fashioning a pickaxe out of the wood and stone I had procured, I started digging down again.

    After a few minutes of delving a winding stair into the depths of the earth, I broke through the ceiling of a huge underground cavern. After mounting some torches on the walls for some light, I was met by the denizens of the cavern: namely a giant spider and his three zombie buddies. After frantically trying to climb back up to my stairway, I was quickly caught and killed, and found myself back on the beach in another part of the world. And all happened in about twenty minutes of playtime.

    If you like sandbox games, or Legos, or creativity, or fun, I’d highly recommend at least trying the game. Looking around some of the public servers is fun too. People have created some amazing stuff.

  • Twitter is Down – Employees less productive than normal

    Twitter is fail whaling left and right, but I doubt that’s causing workers to become more productive. In fact, I would argue that those Twitter obsessed members of your staff are spending more time refreshing their browser/client/mobile app to get back to their social media life line than they would normally lose by Tweeting.

    Just a thought.



    Update: 16 minute outage or so, not terrible. Unless you’re a social media website with millions of users.

  • Mobile Browser Shootout

    Everyone is entitled to their own favorite smartphone, but I think we all can agree that some phones just do certain things better. Today, let’s take a quick look at how various mobile browsers fair in the Acid3 test.

    Default browsers for the platforms:

    Android 2.2

    93/100
    No screenshot, because I haven’t rooted my Droid X yet. I know, I know, I fail at life…

    webOS 1.4.2

    92/100

    webOS_1.4.2_acid3.png

    webOS 2.0 (developer beta)

    91/100
    Wait… the performance of the browser actually went down with a new build of the OS?

    webOS_2.0_acid3.png

    iOS (tested 3.1.3 through 4.2)

    100/100

    Third-party browsers:

    Skyfire 2.3 Beta (Android)

    93/100

    Opera Mini 5.1.21126 (Android)

    97/100

    Opera Mini 5.0.019802 (iOS)

    97/100