Android is a Linux-based operating system for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. It is developed by the Open Handset Alliance led by Google.
As a technology enthusiast, I love my gadgets. Here’s my phone running the latest ROM from CyanogenMod. As a bit of an extra, the lovely shallow depth-of-field image is courtesy my Micro Four-Thirds kit with the 20mm f1.7 lens.
Here’s some info if you want to take your Epic 4G to CyanogenMod: EpicCM Blog
I picked up a Roadster recently after the idea was recommended to me by a fellow gdgt user.
I’m not going to say much as there are a few reviews out there already, but I would like to touch on something that the reviews didn’t mention – the volume level. The Roadster is designed to sit just a foot or so away from your face on the driver-side visor of your car. At this small distance away, the volume level far exceeds my phone’s speakerphone and in fact, the volume of the Roadster is much higher than any phone’s built in speakerphone (that I have encountered). Read More
I’m going to start this post with two links. These links lead to the most valuable communities in the Android world (for the end user):
At this point if I don’t sound kind of silly it’s because you’ve heard of or enlisted the help of these communities. XDA is a collection of extremely talented developers how have normal day jobs like you and I, but spend their time trying to make their phones prettier, faster, and better. ‘Cyanogen’ is a custom ROM or Firmware that has had nothing but acclaim since the cellphone carriers started to treat your phone like a billboard (more on that in a bit). Read More
I’ve used the Wakemate for a while and the final verdict is that I love it. It’s a lot better than a regular alarm clock. However, when I first got my Wakemate it wouldn’t play nicely with my Samsung Epic 4G (Galaxy S). That’s a real shame as these are one of the most popular Android phones (Galaxy S) and the key with a product such as the Wakemate is that it works reliably across the board.
After much troubleshooting and testing I actually gave up on using it with my primary cell phone. (I would have tried my wrist band on my iPad, but unfortunately Apple’s policies forbid this… Don’t act so surprised) So instead, I bought an old Motorola Droid v1 from a co-worker. It works flawlessly with the Droid Read More
If you’ve been experiencing strange behavior on your Android handset, the culprit could be the official Twitter app.
Recently my podcasts refused to play without a reboot of my phone. The first few times it happened I simply chalked it up to Android and its quirks. But then it became consistent. Not necessarily scheduled, but regular enough to be annoying. I found myself dreading the moment when I would grab my phone to listen to Tech news Today or Security Now and my phone would spit that annoying error at me.
Once I figured that it was a real issue, I started to notice it in other areas; do any of these seem familiar to you?
So basically it’s an epic fail of any audio and video. A fix that I figured out that was (arguably) faster than a reboot was to unmount and re-mount the SD card. Something was definitely up. Even worse than the error itself was the fact that the above errors were so numerous and app dependent. Searches online turned up nothing; that’s what this post is for. Read More