Top 5 widgets for Android 2.2

This is a list of top 5 widgets for samsung galaxy ace running on android 2.2.  All of these are available for free download in the android market.

Widgetsoid2.x

This is the best system widget I have used so far. It brings virtually every setting to the home screen as a toggle widget and is customizable in a lot of ways. Read the full review of widgetsoid2.x.

Battery Widget

Battery indicator of android phones in general and samsung galaxy ace in particular is erroneous.
Battery widget provides a way to see the actual battery power remaining in exact digits rather than assessing from a graphical representation. Read the review of Battery Widget.

Power Control

One of the best comes-with-the-box widget of samsung galaxy ace. Power control widget provides easy one click access to GPS, Wifi, Bluetooth, Sync and Scree Brightness.

Program Monitor

This small widget gives info on all opened programs and their processor usage status.

 

Flashlight

A small widget which enable to use the mobile screen or the flash as a torch light. It is a nice and simple widget that does the job perfectly. 

DNBT Series - Panasonic Cordless 3600 phone review

Learn about the Do Not Buy This series here


Product : Panasonic Cordless Phone 3600


This is a basic and the cheapest cordless phone from Panasonic. Here is a quick round up of Pros and cons of Panasonic cordless 3600.


Cons: ( This is a do not buy series remember)

1. The base unit has no battery: This is the most tiring of all problems. In a country like India where there is no guarantee of continuous power supply, this is a big problem. You won't be able to take a call during a power outage and if the power goes out while in a call, it gets immediately disconnected.
2. No LCD display: There is no LCD display on the handset so you cant be sure about the numbers you are punching in. Of course no basic phone has this funcationality but it feels kinda awkward on a handset may be because of the resemblance to cell phones.
3. Ring volume too low : there are very few incremental steps for the ringing volume and even the topmost one isn't particularly loud.
4. Virtually no feedback on the buttons : keyboard feels more like a cushion than a button. No clicks,
5. no sudden resistance nothing.
6. Loudness of the headpiece: speaker in the headpiece is not much loud. You might get trouble hearing clearly in a busy room or outside home.

Pros of this product include its low price and good build quality.


If you are planning to buy this phone, do yourself a favor and find another one. I got mine as a gift from EBay so I didn't lose any money on it. I think panasonic cordless 3600 does not qualify as a product you can spend your money on.



Price of Panasonic cordless 3600 in India ranges from 1300 to 1700 INR.

6 tips on improving battery life of an android phone

Android phones are notorious for their poor battery life. They do the intended job exceptionally well but at a higher cost.

In the Nokia era, a phone lasting 4 or 5 days was a normality than a deviation. We had to think about batteries no more than twice a week. But that golden period of long lasting batteries is gone. Now in the smartphone era a phone which can squeeze the juice to stand a second day is considered relatively good. Android is the most blamed OS among all for its poor battery life.

Best feature of an android ecosystem is its seamless connectivity. Android phones loves to be online. Some might consider it as an agenda being injected to us. But connectivity is the deal of the decade so I don't care, its just freedom for me. Problem with this continuous connectivity is the heavy drain that the connectivity produce on the battery.

The following post is a guide to improving battery life in the least inconvenient way.

Use the android power widget

Power Widget in android 2.2

 Power widget is the most useful widget in terms of power saving in an android phone. The power widget controls Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS, Sync and brightness.

• Wifi - Switch it on only when you need it. Otherwise it will search for a wifi network every 10 seconds or so. This will dry the battery in a matter of hours.
• Bluetooth - Not as strong a battery drainer as others but keeping it off will definitely improve battery life
• GPS - The ultimate battery killer. Never leave it open unless you want a dead battery in 4-5 hrs or less.
• Account Sync - This syncs all or the chosen account with the server. The power widget toggles the mail sync.
• Brightness - Controls the brightness in three steps. Lowest one is more than sufficient and is healthy for the eyes in an indoor setting but in outdoors you might need a brighter setting.

Keep the number of home screen widgets to a minimum

Widgets are small snippets of programs that are continuously running in the background. They provide additional information and make easy the use of phone. They are decremental to the battery life as they use the battery whenever there is a need to fetch data to the home screen. 

System widgets like the battery widget will access only the system's internal resources but things like weather widget needs connectivity frequently to fetch the data. So I suggest limiting them to essential minimum. Also keep the update interval to the maximum possible. You don't want to get updated on national news every 5 minutes, do you?

Use a reasonable screen timeout with a soft-key screen turn off button

Keep the automatic screen time out to 5 seconds and you will find yourself getting irritated by repeatedly switching on the screen even during a single task. And every time you turn it back on, you are draining  the battery.  Keep it to 5 minutes and you will find the phone staying far too longer in the 'on' state which also drains battery. How would you tackle this problem?

I suggest keeping the screen timeout to 1 minutes and using a screen turn off button. Make it a reflex to turn off the screen as soon as you complete the task in hand. You can use the Power button (not the widget one, but the actual hard button) for turning the screen off. If you are reluctant to use the hard button for the fear of damaging it with frequent use, I suggest use of an on-screen toggle for screen turn off. You can use widgetsoid2.x to create a screen turn off toggle.

Say NO to task killer

Don't be amazed because use of a task killer will actually decrease your battery life. From 2.x android is very good at task management. The system keeps apps in memory only if it feels a recent requirement. If you kill the app using a task killer, the system has to restart the app from scratch when required which actually puts more pressure on the processor and drains more battery than when it is keep in the memory in idle state.

Use APNDroid - The second power button

APNDroid is a simple but powerful app that turns off the network on a single click. This offers a large boost on the battery life but has the disadvantage of losing connectivity. But as you can get online using the APNDroid toggle button in 3-4 seconds, I think it doesn't matter much.

Airplane mode

I agree that airplane mode is not a normally intended state of cell phone, but if you are in a situation where a call is not allowed, I suggest keeping the phone in this mode. Keeping the phone in airplane mode is almost same as switching it off, but has an advantage of getting back to connected state in seconds.

Use Battery Friendly Apps

Some apps use battery way more than others. Also system upgrades might cause some apps to drain more battery than before. In my case an app, network monitor, drained battery way more quickly when I upgraded my samsung galaxy ace to gingerbread. I suggest you to read reviews carefully before installing an app.
The apps with greatest chance of killing your battery are those that have to be run all the time. For example, anti virus apps. Select ones which causes the least burden on the battery life.

Solve Error in SMS Unread Count - Android

Scenario 1 :  SMS unread count shown on the SMS app is a wrong number.

Scenario 2 : You got notification for a new SMS, you went to inbox but no message inside inbox bears an unread marking( in red on my samsung galaxy ace). SMS unread counter in the SMS app still showing an unread SMS (number in a red circle). Even if you open up all the threads, the unread count will remain the same.
If another message comes the combined number will be shown unread. If you read the latter the number goes back to the 'stable' one.

Problem: This is an annoying bug in the android OS SMS app. The actual unread message remain hidden in the inbox so opening up the threads and deleting the messages won't work.

Solution: There is a specific free app for resetting the unread message counter developed by Kamosoft.
This app shows the unread messages and lets you mark them as read. The unread counter will be reset.

In my case the app identified the unread message and brought it to the surface. but the counter was showing unread count even after marking it as read. But a restart solved the problem completely. If just marking as read does not solve the problem for you, do a restart and you will be fine.

The reset counter app is completely free and you can download it from the Android Market using the link below.


Reset Unread SMS Counter - Android Market