Phone Troubleshooting

Quick Download: Phone Tester - SD Tools - SMS Backup & Restore

If you are having a problem with your phone there are a few apps that can help you get to the bottom of it yourself, without having to take it in for repair (or to at least help the tech at the repair place).

From touchscreen issues to the memory card not working, try these apps to help figure out what went wrong.  Plus, as an added bonus, I have included an app to backup your text messages, since Google doesn't save those for you automatically...

For starters download Phone Tester. Phone Tester is an app that tests all of the major components of your phone.  The first app I download if I think there is a problem with the phone.  It tests:
*Device's sensors: accelerometer, gyroscope, compass...
*Wifi: internal & external IP, gateway, DHCP server...
*GPS: latitude, longitude, speed...
*Battery: health, level of charge...
*Multitouch screen: how many fingers recognize your device?(not available in Android 1.6)
Also displays system information about hardware and software like RAM, kernel version, screen, ...

 Next up is an app that is designed just to test your SD card.  Most Android devices have a memory card slot and sometimes there can be issues with reading or writing to the card.   With SD Tools you can scan your card to see all of the manufacturer info about the card (like making sure the great deal you bought on ebay or amazon wasn't a counterfeit) plus the main feature of the app is that it tests the read and write speeds of your card. 

If you do detect a problem and decide to do a hard reset on your phone, or take it it for repair, you may want to do a backup of your text messages. If so you will want to download SMS Backup & Restore.  It will save your text messages to the memory card and then allow you to restore them back to the phone once the phone is reset.

So hopefully these apps will help you out if you are having issues with your phone.  Keep an eye out for additions as I find more great troubleshooting apps.

PS: Don't forget to check out (and download) the Old Android App here!

Use Android as an Ebook Reader

So you have an Android phone or tablet.  You may have been eying one of those e-readers too, like the Amazon Kindle or the Barnes & Noble Nook.  Well the good news is that you can have all those features right on your Android device with the help of a couple of apps.

2 of the most popular apps out there are the Kindle app (by Amazon) and the Nook app (by Barnes and Noble).  Kinda funny that the companies that are trying to sell you an ereader are the same companies that are offering you free apps to do the same functionality.  Both of these apps are pretty straight forward.  They have the built in bookstores that allow you to purchase books, and download free books, plus, you know, read your ebooks.

Along these same lines is an app put together by a little company called Google. Yeah, apparently the big guns of Google decided to jump into the ebook game with an app called Google Books.  The same features as the above books, but the interface is a little more simplified.  Also you have access to a ton of FREE public domain books.

The final app that I will cover here today is one of my favorites.  Aldiko is an ereader that works with epub and pdf files.  By far it is the most flexible ereaders, with a ton of settings you can tweak  It also (like all the others) it has an ebook store that has a ton of free and paid books.  There is also a premium version available too, so if you like it you can get the premium to support the developer.

PS: Don't forget to check out (and download) the Old Android App here!

A thousand Thank Yous

I wanted to post a quick posting, just to say thank you for all of the downloads of the Old Android app.  We are very very close (2 to go) to hitting the 1000 downloads of the app. 

http://slideme.org/application/old-android

It's amazing to see that number climb and climb. Hopefully we will se another big boost to that number once we get the Android Market thing up and running.

Another quick mention too is that the website should be hitting 10000 page views this week as we are just a few hundred away.  So tell all your friends with Android devices to stop by, and give us a bookmark or download the app!