Remains of the Day: Spotting Android Scams and Malware
A look at how to weed out crapware in the Android Market, losing the ugly stickers on laptops, and Spotify joins the Sonos ranks.
- How To Spot Scams and Malware Apps on Android
Be smart about checking your Android apps to prevent malware or scams from appearing on your phone. [Tested] - Spotify and Sonos bring music home
For those that have it, your Spotify account is now accessible from Sonos players. [Spotify Blog] - Samsung Galaxy Tab
Samsung announced the release of their Galaxy Tablet with 7-inch screen, running Froyo 2.2, front and rear facing cameras for release in Europe this month and in the US in “coming months”. [Uncrate] - Steve Jobs on Why Facebook Is Not Part of Apple’s New Ping Music Social Network: “Onerous Terms”
A few people may have seen Facebook Connect pop up in Ping for iTunes, however, Apple is saying Facebook will not be integrated due to “onerous” terms. [All Things D]
HTC Home Brings the HTC Weather Widget to Windows 7
Windows: If you’re sporting an HTC phone with the HTC user interface you may have grown fond of the combination clock and weather forecasting widget. HTC Home ports the HTC interface from your phone to your Windows desktop, complete with animations.
HTC Home is a port of the popular weather/clock widget from the HTC Sense UI interface found on Android phones—and related to similar HTC UIs found on other smart phones. You can resize the widget, tuck it in the taskbar, toggle the animations on and off, and easily switch which locale the forecast is reporting.
HTC Home is Windows Vista/7 only and requires Microsoft .NET 4.0. Have a favorite weather app or widget? Let’s hear about it in the comments.
Link: HTC
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Update: Something to point out, only Celsius, don’t know about you but would be a kinda nice feature,
Three New Gmail Shortcuts You’ll Want to Memorize
If you’re a keyboard shortcut lover using Gmail’s new Priority Inbox feature or the awesome new Gmail calling feature, you’ve got three new shortcuts you’ll want to add to your Gmail repertoire.
Note: In order to use keyboard shortcuts in Gmail at all, remember that you’ll need to enable them by heading to your Gmail Settings and turning keyboard shortcuts on in the General settings tab.
Change Message Priority with ‘+’ (plus) or ‘-’ (minus)
Google’s new Priority Inbox learns what messages are important to you and tries to bring the most important to the top. If it gets it wrong, you can mark any message as important or unimportant by selecting it and clicking the new plus or minus buttons in the toolbar.
Exclusive: First Official Pictures T-Mobile G2
We did it again, same as we were the first ones of obtaining the official pictures of the Samsung Vibrant, now we give you the first official pictures of the T-Mobile G2. As you know the T-Mobile G2 is going to be the first HSPA+ phone running speeds up to 11mbps. We believe the G2 will only come in one color.. silver, a completely different way when T-MO launched the Slide 3G or G1.
The T-Mobile G2 will feature:
- Android OS w/ HTC Sense
- 3.7″ Active Matrix OLED display
- 1 GHz Snapdragon Processor
- Landscape slide-out QWERTY keyboard
- 5MP camera with autofocus.
- 3G HSPA+
- WiFi + Hotspot capabilities
- aGPS
- Bluetooth 2.1 + Enhanced Data Rate
Stay tuned for more information about this phone
WiFi File Explorer Manages Your Android SD Card from a Web Browser
Android only: Missing your USB cord, or just too lazy to grab it? WiFi File Explorer turns your Android SD card into a small web server, so you can transfer files, stream media, and otherwise control your content across a Wi-Fi network.
The app’s setup couldn’t be more simple. Connect your Android to your home Wi-Fi network, then start the app. You’ll get a popup box with the exact address you should point another browser on the same Wi-Fi network toward. The app can run in the background when you press the Home key, or shut down when you hit Back or exit the app manually. The web file manager is spare but functional, and in the free version, you can only download, not upload. Both apps could use a link for bulk downloading of multiple files, but for grabbing a few files here and there, it’s fine and functional.
Change Your Windows 7 Logon Box
Windows only: We’ve seen utilities to change up the background picture on Windows 7′s logon screen, and insert Picasa and Flickr pics, but one deviantArt user provides a file swap that changes the logon box itself, back to an early-stage “Longhorn” appearance.
To swap out Windows 7′s small, square logon box for the more rectangular and glass-framed look it had back in the early days of Microsoft’s Longhorn drafts for Vista. CyberNet News explains how to make the swap, using a DLL file picked up from a crafty deviantArt tweaker:
The file you will be replacing is the authui.dll that is located in the C:\Windows\System32 folder. However, before you’ll be able to replace the DLL you’ll need to take ownership of the authui.dll file. To do so I highly recommend using the registry script here, which will add a “Take Ownership” option to the context menu. The download includes a second script that you can run to remove the option from the context menu after everything is done, or I’d say it is useful enough to keep around.
Set Bing Backgrounds as Automatically Updated Wallpaper
Even if you don’t love Bing’s search, you probably appreciate its home page backgrounds. Now you can set those Bing images as your desktop wallpaper through an official theme, and keep it updated automatically through an RSS feed.
Windows 7 users need only to download the theme package from Microsoft’s offering page and double-click it to set up a “Bing Dynamic” theme. By default, the wallpapers rotate every minute or so, so you’ll want to head into the settings to slow things down a bit (click the “Desktop Background” link at bottom). You’ll get three months of Bing wallpapers through the feed, automatically updated each week. Each image has a Bing watermark, but it’s not too ostentatious.
Create a TOR Button in Chrome for On-Demand Anonymous Browsing
The TOR Project provides free, distributed worldwide proxies for anonymous browsing and private downloading. TOR comes with a built-in Firefox add-on, but Chrome users can get a handy on/off button for TOR with this setup, explained by commenter brssnkl.
• Step 1: Install TOR (Note: The “Installation Bundle” packages for Windows and Mac are the preferred downloads).
• Step 2: Install Proxy Switchy! in your Chrome browser.
• Step 3: Change the profile name with “Tor” (or which name you want but remember it). Make the http proxy “127.0.0.1″ and the port “8118″. then check the box “Use the same proxy server for all protocols”. Hit “Save” at the bottom. The full set-up is pictured here:
• Step 4: Go to the “general” tab in the options of Proxy Switchy!. Check the box “Quick switch,” then select “binary switch.” Make Profile 1 “[direct connection]” and Profile 2″ “Tor” (or which name you gave your profile before). Click Save.
How to Turn Your Android Phone into a Fully-Automated Superphone
What if your phone automatically went silent when you step into the movie theater? Texted your significant other when you finished your long commute? Or automatically turned down the volume when a particularly loud friend called? It can; here’s how.
Android application Tasker gives you total rules-based automation for your Android phone. It’s not free, but it offers a free 14-day trial download. In the Android Market, it’s £3.99 in UK money—a little over $6 U.S. If you grab the trial, or shell out the cost of a Double-Double meal at In-N-Out Burger to buy it in the Market (scan the QR code at left), you’ll discover it’s worth the cost, even if you only have one super-specific use for it.
Tasker can do nearly anything on your phone. It’s mostly limited by your imagination. Here are some up-front ideas about neat automations that come to mind:
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