PocketCloud Explore

"Search, view and organize files on your computers from your Android device"

This is what the developers say. Well I really needed an app like this, so I gave it a try. It's quite easy to set it up, and very easy to navigate and grab the files from your PC.
After you install the app on your android device, you will get a link to the PC companion. Install this, log in with your Gmail account and you are ready to go (just don't forget to play a bit with the setting on your PC: start the PC companion, go to folder settings, and then ADD the folders or drives you want to make accessible). <--- otherwise you will only be able to access "desktop" and shared files. After that step you are DONE. Now you can access all your files from your computer on the go.

"Leave the laptop behind and don’t be concerned with copying or syncing files – just grab anything you need whenever and wherever!"

I have to say that it works really well. It's still an early version, has a few bugs, but it's working and it has decent speed. I even tried to pull a 700MB clip from my PC, and the transfer rate was quite good (my PC's upload speed is fair/good).

"With PocketCloud Explore you can:
• Securely access your content without syncing or paying for extra cloud storage
• Open remote files with any of your Android apps (e.g. QuickOffice, DocumentsToGo)
• Search for files across your computers
• Unlimited video, photo, audio and file transfers: upload pictures to your desktop
• Simple file management: create, rename and delete folders or documents"

Now there are some drawbacks, like you can only access 1 PC (2 if you buy the app now, and more if you get the Premium membership), and you can't set the link to the transfers. All files will be on external storage in a folder called "PocketCloud".
Not that bad, maybe they will fix it in the near future, as the SGS2 has a built in "external storage" and I would like to save the files to my memory card (external-external storage :D ).
Not to mention that it would be GREAT to have the ability to push files from your phone to your PC.

The price is ~1$ for now, and will go as high as 5$ in the near future (it's a special launch price). No more syncing and uploading to cloud services, just leave the PC on and grab what you need wherever you are. IMO this app is worth the 1 or even 5$.

SoundWire for Android

Long time since I reviewed an android app. That's because I had some issues with my phone. But I'm back now :)

Today I'm going to talk about an app named SoundWire.

SoundWire is an app that lets you send any sound from your PC to your Android phone. With this you can use your phone as a way to listen to music (or movie audio) from your computer anywhere in your house.

"Unlike Apple's AirPlay you can use any music player on your PC or laptop like Grooveshark, Spotify, YouTube, or iTunes and feed the sound directly to your Android device. SoundWire lets you listen to the free versions of Grooveshark and Spotify on your phone."

SoundWire has low latency (audio delay), which means you can use this app to listen to movies or youtube videos (**Note you must adjust the buffer size in app settings for low latency).

Features:
- Real-time audio capture and streaming
- Not locked to one music player
- Excellent sound quality (44.1 kHz or 48 kHz stereo 16-bit PCM)
- Low latency
- Easy to use
- MIPS and x86 support, send music from PC to PC running virtualized app

I have used this app at work (have no speakers there) and it really works. Had some issues setting it up (it's very easy once you test it), but worked flawlessly after that. Tested with some youtube videos, and the sound was synced (but you need to tweak the buffer size for this - another easy step from the options).

What more can I say... I recommend this app because it's simple and it does the job well. It's streaming audio from your PC or laptop over WiFi or 3G/4G to your android phone.
There is a free version of this app, so you can test it before you buy it.

Evil android app part 2 - WifiKill

I remember that a few months ago I've heard something about an app that can disable internet connection for some devices on a network. So I downloaded the app but had no place to test it, thus it ended up in the "recicle bin". A few weeks ago a friend of mine (from work) started to listen to this really annoying song (was nice the 1st time) over and over again, streamed from youtube to his phone. At first it was all OK, but when she hit the replay button the 5th time, I felt like I will go crazy... So I re-downloaded this WifiKill app again, and fired it up. To my surprise it worked really well! It disabled her phone's internet connection (over Wifi), so there was no 6th time replay. OFC I went a step further and disabled every PC that was connected to the Wifi netword I was on. The app disabled them all :D I could hear cursing from the other room. It was hard not to laugh... So I though: this app is gold! when people will annoy me with  songs, when they will steal bandwidth with torrents and other stuff, BAM, I will disable them.

Very effective little app for WiFi network hogger. Some people really don't get it that we have a relatively slow internet connection at work, and if they download, they make it even slower (a lot of times crash the WiFi router...).
So this is my secret little app that I keep on my phone and maintain the balance with it :D

This app wasn't made for abuse, but for network control.

I quote the developer:
"Well, with this app you can disable internet connection for a device on the same network. So if someone (anyone) is abusing the internet wasting precious bandwidth for a Justin Bieber videoclips you could just kill their connection and stay happy with a full bandwidth just for yourself."

Head over to XDA and read about the app + get the free version (with ADs), and if you like it, consider buying the full version for about 3$.
Link: click here

You won't find this app on the android market as google pulled it down. They considered this app too evil! :D
Have fun with it!

Evil android app - DroidSheep

What is DroidSheep? It's a one-click session hijacking app for your android device. In other words, you can capture cookies that other PCs, laptops, etc. send over WiFi. The developer has a pretty good example on his site, allow me to copy paste it, because it's very well explained:

Maybe you know Bob. Bob is a wellknown person and Bob loves coffee. Every morning, he takes his laptop and visits one the famous green coffee bars, has a “grande vanilla latte” and writes messages to his facebook friends. For doing that, Bob uses the coffee bars WiFi – because it´s free and fast.
One Morning, Bob is just writing a message to his girlfriend, Eve enters the coffee bar. Eve has an Android phone and Eve uses DroidSheep. After ordering a “venti caramel macchiato”, Eve sits down, takes her phone and starts browsing facebook. Using Bobs identity. She can watch at his friends. Read his messages. Write messages. Write wall posts. Remove friends. Delete Bobs account. Without getting ever in touch with Bob.
What happened?
When Bob is using the WiFi, his laptop sends all the data intended to be received by facebook, over the air to the coffee bars wireless router. As “over the air” means “captureable by everybody”, Eve (or her phone) can read all the data sent by Bob. As some data is encrypted before being sent, she cannot read Bobs facebook password, but in order not to make Bob enter his password after each click, facebook sends Bob a so called “session id” after logging in, which Bob sends with each interaction, making it possible for facebook to identify Bob. Usually only Bob knows this id, as he receives it encrypted. But when Bob uses the coffee bars WiFi, he spreads his session id over the air to everybody. So Eve takes this session id and uses it as hers – and facebook cannot determine, if Bob or Eve uses this id.

To start the "attack", just start DroidSheep and click the start button. Then you wait. Wait until someone uses one of the supported sites (facebook, yahoo, twitter, wordpress, etc.). If the session appears, and if you click on it, you will jump on his session (aka. internet browser will open the page with him logged in)

To see all the cookies you have to enable generic mode. If generic mode is disabled, you will only see profiles that DroidSheep recognizes.

To run this app, you need a rooted phone and android 2.1 (I think every phone has that already).

Also take note, this app is NOT for stealing other people's identities. It was made purely to troll around people and to demonstrate the weakness of social networks and WiFi networks. This will not break Wifi passwords! You need to be connected to a wifi hotspot to use this. I use it for pure fun, to give a "like" on some pictures, or simply to see what other people do on the network.

This app is so evil that google banned it from the android market :)
But you can visit the developers site and download it for free. Also donate and support the developer if you like the app. Link to the website is HERE.

Best weather app for your Android device

I have tested many weather apps untill I came across BeWeather. They all where eighter bad looking, or gave inaccurate data, and in some cases, they hogged the CPU (sorry to say this: GoWeather and Palmary Weather).

So for a short time I gave up on looking for weather apps, and just checked it from the phone's browser. But after a while I wanted to have a cool looking weather widget on my homescreen, so the hunt began again. Untill I found BeWeather...

There are 2 versions of this app, one is free and the other is a payed version. Currently I'm using the free version and it suits my needs. Good looking homescreen widget, and once you click on it, it will open the app and you will see a nice weather video background (current weather). The good part is it looks very good, almost as good as the HTC Sense 3 weather effects. The "bad" part is it needs an additional 25MB to download those HD video files.

Other than that it's a simple weather app with daily and hourly forecast, and sun/moon "timer". It shows everything I need: temperature, "feels like" temperature, wind speed, humidity, pressure and even dew point. It has temperature notification in statusbar, but I don't use it. Also, it is fully customizeable with icons, fonts and colors.

I really recommend this weather app, as it looks gorgeous, it's not a battery drainer, and has everything you need. Like I said, I use the free version and it never failed me. For extra features (and no ads) you can buy the pro version.

So if you want a nice looking (and effective) weather app on your phone, look no further, check out BeWeather!

Wireless file transfer apps for your android device

Today I'm going to present you 2 wireless transfer apps that I use on my android phone. They are both very popular.

The first one is for Cloud service, and I use this for long range file transfers. That means store your files on an online server, and retrieve them later on any device. It's a dead simple and effective app named: Dropbox.
An example of how this cloud service works:
When you install Dropbox on your PC, a folder named "Dropbox" will appear on your desktop. Now everything that you copy in this folder will be uploaded to your dropbox account. After you install dropbox on any other device (android in our case) you will see the content of your Dropbox folder, and can navigate, view, share and download those files (to your current device).
Once you install Dropbox on your android device, the option "send to -> Dropbox" will appear. So if you want to share some pictures or simply store them in the cloud for safety, simply select the picture and send it to your dropbox. Once you do that it will appear in your PC's dropbox folder too. So it's pretty cool and useful.

Dropbox is free to use, and when you register you get 2GB of storage (you can get extra space for money). After you register and complete a few tasks (install dropbox, transfer 1 file, and so on) you get an extra 250MB. Also for every friend who joins and installs Dropbox, they will give you 250 MB of bonus space (up to a limit of 8GB). Here is a video of "What is Dropbox?".

So if you want to join (and I don't see why not :D ) here is my link: http://db.tt/OY5tS3JR  <-- register here and you will start with 2.5GB space (2GB for the free account + 250MB for clicking on my link + 250MB for completing a few basic steps).

The other app is for short range file transfer using WiFi. It's called: WiFi File Explorer (Pro).
With this app you can browse, download and upload files to your android device from your PC's browser.

First you need a PC with WiFi. Then you connect the phone to the PC's WiFi and start the app on your phone. If everything is ok, the app should give you an IP adress (takes just a few seconds to appear). Then type that IP adress in your PC's browser (Opera, Firefox, Chrome, etc.) and you will see everything that's on your phone.

 

And that's it. Now you can download, upload, explore, delete and rename files from your phone. Very simple and very fast. No need for cables and drivers. Just an app on your phone and a PC with WiFi.

There are many negative reviews about this app on the market, but do not trust those people. I have been uning this app for quite some time now, and had 0 problems with it, and I transfered both small and large (few GB) files.

Now the "bad" news is that this app is not free (there is a free version, but that is limited), it costs 1$. But trust me, it's a dollar well spent.

I'm still experimenting with wireless file transfer apps, so this post may get edited if I find something better. I am not sure that Dropbox is the best cloud service for me, but at the moment it is good (very simple to use).

Missed Call Reminder for Android

I just came across this simple, small and cool app. It simply reminds you of missed calls, SMS and/or MMS. Very useful in so many cases.

It's customizable, so you can select the ringtone for missed call reminding, and set a separate ringtone for missed SMS. You can also set it to vibrate, and if you have a LED on your phone (my Galaxy S2 has no LED :( ) you can set it to blink in a specific color for SMS and another color for missed calls - or simply use the "screen on when reminding" feature of the app.

You can set the reminder interval (I've set it to 1 minute, so it will remind me every minute) and the duaration of the remider (Max time - I've set it to 10 minutes, that means it won't notify me about missed calls or SMS older that 10 minutes).

It is very light, does not consume battery (I have it installed since I got my new phone, and I have monitored the app with System Panel). I recommend this app because it's simple, easy to use and does exactly what it says.
I reall don't know what this app would need to be better. Maybe the option to set a custom vibration pattern for missed calls and SMS. Other than that, it has everything a reminder app needs. And of course, it's FREE.

If you are a Gamer, you need to have this on your phone - Chainfire3D review

Chainfire3D is an OpenGL driver that sits between your apps and the graphics drivers. So this cool app can intercept and/or change commands between the two. It has some nice  built-in functions, and can be further extended with plugins to provide extra functionality.

Some phones don't support som of the games that are out there. Let's take the Samsung Galaxy S2 for an example. It has a pretty powerful Mali 400 MP GPU, but few 3D games are available for it. So this app emulates (if that is the right word for it) other GPUs. Normally when you install a game that is made for Nvidia Tegra phones you will get eighter a force close or the game will start, but you will see missing shaders, textures, etc.

But with this app (and the plugins installed) you can play them without any problems.
There are 2 versions of this app out there, the Free version and the Pro version. While the free version works as fine as the pro one, the pro has some nice features that make it worth the 5$.

In the free version you can only select 1 plugin at a time (eighter nVidia plugin, Qualcomm or PowerVR). So when you are done playing the game, you need to switch back to default OpenGL driver. But the pro version has the "Per-app" function that allows you to set a separate driver for each game you play. That way you don't need to switch around before and after every game. You just need to set it once in the setting, and the app will remember to switch to nVidia when playing X game, and switch back to default (your phone's driver) when the game exits. Also the pro version allows you to set MSAA (MultiSample Anti-Aliasing). This will greatly improve image quality (PC gamers know this :D ). This way lines/edges become much smoother. The options are automatic (the app decides - but most apps don't enable MSAA themselves at all). The ARM Mali 400 MP (used in the Galaxy S2) can even do 4xMSAA at no performance cost. But if your GPU does not support the level of MSAA requested, the app will likely not start at all.

Setting up Chainfire3D
Very easy to do this. In the free version you can only play around with default openGL driver. First you need the plugins for nVidia, powerVR and Qualcomm drivers. You can download them by clicking HERE.

Plugin installation
Simply put these zip files on your /sdcard (root of your SDcard), and use the "Install Plugin" option in Chainfire3D. Re-open Chainfire and go to "Default OpenGL Settings" and select "Use plugin" with the plugin you need.

After you finished playing (and you use the free version of Chainfire) I strongly recommend to switch back to DEFAULT openGL driver. It will be better for system performance.

Setting up the PRO version is the same as above, except you don't use default openGL but PER APP settings. Like I said before, this will let you set up a driver for each game individually, and will switch back to default driver when you are done playing.

Requirements to run Chainfire 3D:
- OpenGL ES 2.0 (every 1ghz+ phone has this)
- SuperUser / Root
- Writable /system (it will try to remount system as read/write when needed, but the changes need to stick between reboots)

This is another app I highly recommend. Not only to Galaxy S2 users, but to all Android gamers (because you have the ability to reduce textures to speed up the game, to enable AA, and so on). This app is very good, and it will keep getting better and better.

Birthdays - great birthday app for Android

Useful birthday reminder app. I tested quite a lot of birthday apps and widgets, and IMO this is the best. It has a lists of all contacts with birthdays, so you don't have to search anymore. You can even import birthdays from facebook.

It includes a few nice widgets, so you will be up to date on who's birthday is next, + a status bar notification for maximum visibility. There are 2 versions of this app on the market, 1 is Free, the other one is payed. The payed one costs about 3$. I use the Free version of "Birthdays"and am very satisfied with it. So if you need a cool and good birthday reminder app, look no further; I already did that for you, and found this to be #1.
It looks simple, it's lightweight and I haven't noticed any battery drain (using it since a few months now), plus it is free.

Swiftkey X - A.I. keyboard for your phone

Swiftkey X is probably the best android keyboard. With this keyboard you can use up to 3 languages simultaneously. It works so good, that I managed to write a full page of text (microsoft word) on my X10 mini pro using the onscreen keyboard; and the X10 mini has a 2.5” screen!
All this with very few mistakes (come on, you make mistakes even on full size PC keyboards, let alone on a 2.5" screen).

How does it work? It auto corrects your typos and automatically suggests some words as you type. So you can type “hpusw” and it will spell out “house” when you hit space. You don’t even have to focus on the buttons, just type and the words will appear.
This app can learn from your online profiles such as Facebook, Gmail and Twitter, and will continue to learn from what you write on your phone. The language engine that runs under SwiftKey X is smart, but it’s not complacent. It is continually learning from the way you write to give more accurate predictions. This means a typing experience that just keeps getting better. It can even predict your next word before you press a key.
Swiftkey X features world-leading language technology: "based on the new version of TouchType's advanced Fluency language inference engine... the world's most accurate prediction and correction technology".

The supported languages (so far) are:

US English
UK English
Afrikaans
Basque
Catalan
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
French (CA)
French (FR)
Galician
German
Hungarian
Indonesian
Italian
Kazakh
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese (BR)
Portuguese (PT)
Romanian
Russian
Slovak
Spanish (ES)
Spanish (US)
Swedish
Turkish

Like I said, you can enable up to 3 languages at once, and it works VERY well (I say this from personal experience). Also support for QWERTY, QWERTZ, QZERTY, AZERTY, Scandinavian and Russian layouts. It also has support for themes, so you can personalize it to fit your phone's current theme.

This is another app that's worth every penny. Especially if you type a lot on your phone. It will seriously boost your writing speed. Just give it a little time to learn from what and how you type.

Tasker – Artificial Intelligence for your Android device

This has to be one of the best apps for android. I strongly recommend this application for all android devices. What does it do? It is an application that performs tasks/actions based on contexts (time, date, event, location, application).

For example: automatically turn GPS on, data traffic on, and max brightness when you launch Google Maps or any navigation app. Once you exit that prticular app, it turns the GPS and other things you set to turn on, off. And the best thing is, it doesn’t drain the battery.

 

Very handy little app. So far I only use 3 tasks: the first one is the Google Maps setup (GPS and all the things I need for navigation turned ON), the second one is for brightness level when phone is running low on battery (It turns the brightness to 25% when battery drops below 10%), and the third one is for night mode (flight mode from 01:00 untill 08:00, and brightness down to 10% so it won't burn my eyes if I wake up at night and look at the time).

Here is a list with SOME of the things you can do with this app:

- passcode-lock sensitive applications (e.g. for child safety)

- change phone settings by

* application: long screen timeout in a book reader

* time: screen brightness lower in the evening

* location: ringer volume high at the office, turn off ke yguard at home

- wake up with a random song from your music collection

- Text-to-speech; read out loud: incoming SMS/ phone number, WiFi/Bluetooth status, when it's time for an appointment, when the battery is low etc etc (Android OS 1.6+ only)

- launch a music application when your music SD card is inserted, otherwise a file browser

- start the day with a particular application showing

- change all your home icons and wallpaper every day, or in particular locations

- turn the phone upside down to return to the home screen, tilt 90 degrees to the left and back to toggle speakerphone during a call

- remap camera etc buttons to other applications, or show a menu of applications and/or actions

- make a regular backup of a file on the SD card

- extend the use of the media button on your headset: take a picture from a distance or go to the previous media track with a long press

- record call times and destinations to the SD card

- show a popup when an SMS arrives from a particular phone number

- setup a birthday SMS to be sent months before it happens so you don't forget

- during the night, turn on airplane mode to conserve battery/reduce radiation, but turn it off every 15 minutes to check for SMS/voicemail.

- setup a vacation SMS message, with different messages for different callers

- launch a music application when headphones are connected

And many many more. You just have to mess around a bit with this app to get the hang of it. Also if you have any questions you can post on the developer’s site (http://tasker.dinglisch.net/index.html -> go to forum) and they will reply shortly (tested and confirmed).

There are virtually endless possibilities of things you can do with Tasker. The only limitation is your imagination. Tasker can do to your device what minecraft does to gaming. It seems a bit complicated at first, but once you master it, it will change the way you use your smartphone.

The price is 6.50$, but trust me, it is worth every single penny. Instead of using sms schedulers, location and time based profile switchers, call and SMS reminders, etc. just get this app. 

This is one app to rule them all. :)

SystemPanel - Heavenly manna for Android phones

This is one of the best apps I have on my phone.

SystemPanel is a monitoring application, that monitors CPU usage, RAM, battery, etc. This is 100x better than a Task Killer (and it also works as a manual task killer - you can see live how much CPU is the app using and used over time, and another bunch of useful things).

You can solve your battery life problems with this app, by enabling the background monitoring service to record long-term CPU usage by individual apps. This way you can see what happens to your lovely Android device overnight, and delete the applications that go wild (sometimes you go to sleep with 100% battery and wake up with 80% or less.. this happens because some apps are badly optimized and for no reason start to eat CPU).

Now with systempanel you can see how intensively your CPU was working at night. (Mine is below 2%)

Ok so let me teach you how to use this app.

 

This is the start screen. You can disable the system monitor from the settings (the bar with the Pie chart of the CPU, RAM and storage).

Ok, so under that system monitor are the apps that are running. And before each app icon there is a bar that shows how much CPU is the app using at that moment (live monitor).

You can also hold your finger on a running process and select End task to kill it.

To set this app up for monitoring, you need to go to settings, and then check the "Monitoring enabled" option.

Now you need to leave it like that over for a minimum of 2 hours. (you can close the app as it will run in the background and will use approximately one minute of CPU / battery time PER DAY of operation - so this means very very little power)

The app will only run in the background if the monitoring is enabled!

Now I will teach you how to check the History.

 

On the start screen bring up the menu, and select "Monitor". Once there, you will see a live view of what your device is doing now, Battery state, and even battery temperature.

Now press "History".

Before I start to explain what is what, press the "1 Day" button and change it to "2 Hours". This means you will only see what happened in the last 2 hours. (you can change it back to 1 day or even 2 days if you like, but 2 Hours gives you a better view of whats going on)

Here you will see 3 categories. Battery, Device usage and CPU. The battery will show you when was the last time you charged your phone (the green bar under the time stamps) and how long was it left in the charger.

Device usage: no comment here, it shows how intensively did you use your device and at what time. When you unlock your phone and navigate it's usually 50%-75%. Gaming is about 100%, and so on.

CPU Activity: this shows you how hard your CPU was working. Overnight you need to have it under 3%. It is related to Device Usage, so whenever you have high device usage, you will have higher CPU activity under it.

Now press the "Plot" and select "Top Apps". This will show you a list of the apps that used your CPU.

Here you can see that System Process is the most consuming app (it is normal). That consumption is shown based on "8 hours" interval, aka. the top consuming apps that ran in the last 8 hours.
In other words, if you played a game at 12:00, and is now 15:00 the game will not show up if the interval is "2 Hours". Setting it to "8 Hours" will make the game and whatever you did before 12:00 show up. You can click on an app to see a detailed chart of how much CPU did the particular app use.
Ex. from the picture: System Processes was running 22m14s in the last 8 hours. Music was running for 1m3s in the past 8hours. (the % is average consumption).

Happened to me that I went to bed with 100% battery and woke up with 60%. I didnt know what was draining my battery. So I left systempanel overnight, and the next morning I checked the history, and saw that the weather app used a lot of CPU power. So I uninstalled it and battery drain was back to normal.
It is really simple to use and way better than a Task Killer, and as I already told you, you can use it to kill apps that do not respond (instead of killing every running process...).
CPU is the real battery and performance killer. So do not use a Task Killer, use this app instead. It is way better, and can also serve as a task killer when needed.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments. I will be happy to reply.