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  • 5 Neat Things You Can Do With Your Old Cell Phone

    So you got a brand new Samsung Galaxy S III, Sony Xperia Z, Lumia 920 or any other new smartphone and don’t know what to do with your older and outdated piece of plastic? Well now you won’t have to think hard as we’ll cover 5 neat things to with your old cell phone in this article.

    1. Install a ROM

    If your older phone ran Android or Windows Mobile OS then you’re in luck as most of them tend to have excellent third party developer support. Forums like XDA-Developers house thousands of ROM developers and cooks working on the devices they love. Ancient devices like the HTC HD2 which was released initially in 2009 running Windows Mobile is still supported by many developers and was running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean before many of the newer smartphones got it officially.

    android rom 570x320 5 Neat Things You Can Do With Your Old Cell Phone

    Trust me, when you’ll install a new ROM on your phone you’ll be amazed how fast it can be. There’s no feeling like getting more of your money’s worth out of something you considered trash a few minutes ago.

    2. Give it away

    Yeah I know you can just sell it on Craigslist and eBay and get a few bucks but where’s the fun in that? Try giving it way to someone who needs it, whether it be a security guard at where you work or a younger sibling. They can probably put it to good use and you’ll get that feeling when you do something good, trust me it’s addicting. You can also donate it to a charity.

    If giving away stuff is not your thing then continue on…

    3. Turn it into survival tools

    Yeah you read that right. I saw an interesting infographic on Reddit the other day and decided to save it for future use. Maybe some of you can find it of good use. Read it below to learn how to turn your old Nokia, Samsung or Blackberry phones into a cutting tool, signal mirror and more!

    neat old cell phone 5 Neat Things You Can Do With Your Old Cell Phone

    4. Use it as a GPS for your car

    Buy a car charger and glue (not literally) your phone to your car’s dash, and wallah you have a makeshift GPS. This can be done only if you have a proper smartphone which has GPS functionality, don’t worry though as almost every smartphone does. The app you want to use with your GPS is mostly your choice, they’ll also vary with the OS of your smartphone.

    5. Use it as a hotspot or server

    If your older phone has WiFi functionality and runs on Android you can use it as a portable hotspot or low powered server for your house. Apps like Servers Ultimate (Server) and WiFi HotSpot / WiFi Tether (Hotspot) will help you get that done.

    If you guys have any more interesting ways your use your old cell phones feel free to mention them in the comments and I’ll add them to this article!

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  • Nexus 4 Slim Bean Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean Custom ROM Install

    Google latest and great Nexus phone with LG – the Nexus 4 is a cheap but powerful device able to give any device on the market right now a run for it’s money. Being a Nexus phone, the Nexus 4 has excellent developer support and was graced with Android 4.2.2 just a week ago. Although official ROMs are great and all for their stability and reliability, the amount of features you can get with custom ROMs is second to none.

    Today in this article we’ll be covering on how to install the Slim Bean Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean custom ROM on your Nexus 4.

    Nexus 4 Slim Bean Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean Custom ROM Install

    Before starting the tutorial, make sure you have CWM Recovery installed on your Nexus 4 and that your phone is rooted. Now with all that done, let’s start the installation process!

    Step 1- Download the Slim Bean Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean ROM and Google Apps.

    Step 2- Connect your phone to a computer using mass storage mode.

    Step 3- Copy and paste the ROM and Google Apps zips downloaded in step 1, into the root folder of the mass storage device. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the root, but putting it in the root helps finding it easier.

    Step 4- Turn off your phone and reboot into the bootloader. Do this by pressing and holding the Volume Up + Volume Down and Power buttons.

    Step 5. Use volume rocker to navigate and power button to click. Perform a data wipe + cache wipe

    Step 6. Navigate to flash ZIP from SD card and choose choose ZIP from SD card

    Step 7. Select the Slim Bean Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean ROM’s zip downloaded in step 1 first. Select it using the power button and confirm installation.

    Step 8. Now do the same things with the Google Apps zip file.

    Step 9. When installation is done, go back to the main menu of CWM and perform a reboot.

    After the phone has rebooted, you should boot into Slim Bean Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. If you have any questions please feel free to ask us in the comments below.

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  • Nexus 7 XenonHD Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean Custom ROM Install Guide

    Good new for Nexus 7 owners as the much anticipated XenonHD Android 2.2 Jelly Bean custom ROM has been released and is available for download.

    Google and ASUS’s budget Nexus 7 tablet certainly helped in turning the tide on Apple’s domination of the tablet market. The Nexus 7 is cheap but packs a lot of neat features which can be expanded even further by installing custom ROMs like the XenonHD.

    Nexus 7 XenonHD Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean Custom ROM Install Guide

    XenonHD’s feature list includes:

    JB 4.2.2 JDQ39
    Rooted
    Busybox

    Miscellaneous:
    Add reboot and screenshot options to power menu.
    Additional tiles in Quick Settings.
    Theme Chooser support. (Updated for 4.2)
    Volume rocker wake. (Settings>Display)
    Volume rocker long press to seek tracks. (“”)
    Show rotation lock in quick settings.
    Bluetooth Message Access Profile support.
    Improved scrolling cache.
    Fixed December bug.
    Fixed Google location service.
    Add an option to change the device hostname.
    New moto style softkeys.
    DSPManager added with all the binaries.
    Apollo Music player added and fixed for JB.
    Added XenonHD wallpapers.
    Louder output on speaker for Maguro and Toro.
    Added Galaxy4, PhaseBeam and Holo spiral wallapers.
    Run sysinit during boot.
    Change sysfs permissions to allow user control ksm.
    Wi-fi scan time to 100 to save battery.
    Performance, battery life and other misc tweaks.
    Init.d support with added tweaks and scripts.
    SuperSU application for root.
    CMFile manager added.
    GPS, Camera, Keyboard gestures fixed.
    Build.prop tweaks.
    Battery life tweaks.
    Some secret tweaks.
    I’m forgetting soo many things. Flash and see.
    Etc

    Browser:
    New navbar buttons.
    Added a menu item in Browser called Close other tabs.
    Open in incognito tab option in menu.
    Increased tab limit.
    Added menu option to open url in browser.
    Enabled tablet like browser on grouper.

    Messaging:
    QuickMessage and Reply.
    Custom notification vibrate patterns.
    Timestamp options.
    Input type selection.
    Add reminder to calendar.
    Templates functionality.
    Split SMS functionality.
    Emoji and Strip unicode support.
    Etc

    Phone and Contacts:
    T-9 Dialer and with other stuff.
    Dialpad settings.
    Etc

    Toro:
    Use correct battery capacity, add missing eri.xml
    Allow tethering.
    Fix overlay/networkAttributes array

    Maguro:
    Fix MMS receiving on T-Mobile
    Enable automatic backlight by default.

    Tuna:
    Removed bugmailer.
    Fix gps issues.

    Add simtoolkit application

    Now that’s a lot of stuff, so before we get started make sure that you have CWM recovery installed and that your Nexus 7 tablet is rooted.

    Step 1- Download the XenonHD Android 2.2 Jelly Bean ROM and Google Apps.

    Step 2- Connect your Nexus 7 to a computer using mass storage mode.

    Step 3- Copy and paste the ROM and Google Apps zips downloaded in step 1, into the root folder of the mass storage device. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the root, but putting it in the root helps finding it easier.

    Step 4- Turn off your Nexus 7 and reboot into the bootloader. Do this by pressing and holding the Volume Up + Volume Down and Power buttons.

    Step 5. Use volume rocker to navigate and power button to click. Perform a data wipe + cache wipe

    Step 6. Navigate to flash ZIP from SD card and choose ZIP from SD card

    Step 7. Select the XenonHD Android 2.2 Jelly Bean ROM’s zip downloaded in step 1 first. Select it using the power button and confirm installation.

    Step 8. Now do the same things with the Google Apps zip file.

    Step 9. When installation is done, go back to the main menu of CWM and perform a reboot.

    Also check out:

    The process is now complete and you should boot into the installed ROM. If you have any questions or problems feel free to ask us in the comments below.

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  • Samsung to unveil Galaxy Note 2 this August

    Samsung has enjoyed an unexpected amount of success with its Galaxy Note smartphone. The phone/tablet mixture initially looked like a niche device but the tens of millions of copies sold it’s pretty clear now that people love a big smartphone. So it’s natural that Samsung would want to continue this success by releasing a true successor. We’ve already seen some rumors regarding the successor to Galaxy Note before, let’s see what we have this time around.

    According to reports, Samsung will hold a dedicated event for the launch of Galaxy Note 2 on August 30th. The event will start at 7pm CET and as mentioned, it will be about Galaxy Note 2 only.

    Now onto some speculated specs. Samsung will most likely go with a quad-core CPU to power this monster. It’s probably going to be their Exynos brand of SOCs with Mali GPU. The screen size is increased and now measures at 5.5″ with the same 720p resolution. It will use Samsung’s SAMOLED technology. There’s no mention of RAM capacity though it’s likely to be around 2GB. The smartphone will come with Jelly Bean out of the box (thank heavens for that).

    The camera is rumored to be a 13MP unit. That is easily the biggest sensor (in terms of MP) that Samsung has used in an Android smartphone. It seems unlikely though, because Samsung still keeps its Galaxy S lineup as its top end, and that only has a 8MP camera.

    If the phone does support LTE, which it most likely will, Samsung will probably go with a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset for the North American market. That is if they’ve not yet found a way to incorporate LTE onto a quad core chipset.

    So this is shaping out to be quite a monster of a phone, both physically and technically. August is only a month away, so we’ll know more about this as the time approaches.

    bookmark Samsung to unveil Galaxy Note 2 this August

  • Facebook for Android updated to make the photo uploading experience better

    Official Facebook for Android app has received an update today which is now available for download in the Play store. The update brings several improvements to the official app, all of which are related to photo sharing using the app. Many of you would be relieved to know that Facebook has made the photo tagging experience faster for users.

    With the updated version of the app users can choose an album they want to upload photos to, which was not possible before. The update also fixes the bug related to photo uploads which was affecting users who were using some other languages. While this is a minor update and there is a lot to be fix and improved in the Facebook for Android (which is still not at par with its iOS counterpart) it is nice to see regular updates from Facebook for its Android application. I am sure that a large number of those one billion Facebook users access the social network using their Android device so Facebook needs to pay some more attention of its app.

    You can download Facebook for Android for your device for free from Google Play store here.

  • Samsung announces Galaxy S III mini featuring dual-core processor, 4-inch screen and more

    Just as we reported yesterday, Samsung has officially announced the new Galaxy S III mini smartphone at an event in Frankfurt Germany. Overall the phone is good but those who were hoping to get a downsized version of original Galaxy S III will be disappointed as it features lower specifications than that. Galaxy S III mini runs Android 2.1 and features a 4-inch Super AMOLED screen with WVGA resolution instead of 4.8-inch like its bigger brother.

     

    Samsung announces Galaxy S III mini featuring dual core processor, 4 inch screen and more

    Samsung Galaxy S III mini that is targeted towards European market features a dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 8 or 16GB of internal storage that is expandable to 32GB via microSD slot, a 5-megapixel camera capable of recording 720p video, VGA front camera, Wi-Fi, GPS, Radio, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and much more.

    Galaxy S III is a good device with powerful specs and good looks but it is certainly not an iPhone 5 competitor many were hoping it to be.

    Will you be buying a Galaxy S III mini? Let us know in the comments below.

  • Google Might Be Planning To Incorporate Google TV Into The Next Version Of Android

    Ice Cream (The next version of Android) is said to be a mixture of Android 2.3 Gingerbread and Android 3.0 Honeycomb which sounds awesome but it seems that Google might also be planning to add Google TV to the mix. Google TV failed to radically capture markets but incorporating it will the popular smartphone operating system might prove to be a very smart decision.

    This decision could lead tablets, phones and TVs running on the same OS which would offer a much streamlined experience, heck we could even be able to have Android powering our house if this keeps up. This rumors sounds really good but we’ll have to wait till Google IO 2011 for the official announcement.

    Source: GTVSource

  • 5 Of The Best Facebook Android Apps

    As any Android user may know there are numerous third party apps for major social networks. Today we’ll be covering the 5 of the best Facebook Android apps.

    5 Of The Best Facebook Android Apps

    The full list is below.

    5. HootSuite

    hootsuite 5 Of The Best Facebook Android Apps

    HootSuite is a relatively newer Facebook app as compared to other apps on the list. Along with Facebook you can also browse your Twitter, Linkedin and Foursquare profiles. There’s even a web version where you can view advance stats and RSS feeds.

    Download: HootSuite

    4. TweetDeck

    tweetdeck 5 Of The Best Facebook Android Apps

    TweetDeck was bought by Twitter a few months ago but even after that never lost its quality. Before being made for Android TweetDeck was a very popular iOS Twitter app which caused Twitter ultimately let to Twitter buying it for a massive $40-50 million sum. Along with standard Twitter functionality TweetDeck also supports Facebook, Foursquare and Buzz accounts. With a very neat UI and powerful functionality TweetDeck definitely deserves to be on out best Facebook Android apps list.

    Download: TweetDeck

    3. FriendCaster For Facebook

    friendcaster for android 5 Of The Best Facebook Android Apps

    FriendCaster For Facebook is, dare I say it, the fastest Facebook app available on Android. FriendCaster also comes with a beautiful UI design and  difference themes to choose from. A swift UI coupled with great developer support make FriendCaster for Facebook one of the best fits for our best Facebook Android apps list.

    Download: FriendCaster for Android

    2. Facebook (Official App)

    facebook app 5 Of The Best Facebook Android Apps

    Yes I know, you think the official Facebook app sucks and all but let me tell you, the latest update breath new life into the app. Its now much faster, includes enhanced photo features and more!

    Download: Facebook (Official App)

    1. Seesmic

    seesmic 5 Of The Best Facebook Android Apps

    My favorite Social Media app is Seesmic and it is great. It handles both Twitter and Facebook accounts with speedy navigation and powerful features. The UI is great to look at as well, not the best but good to look at none the least.

    Download: Seesmic

    Well that’s my list of the 5 best Facebook Android apps, what about you? What are your favorites? Let us know in the comments below.

  • Enable Developer Options in Android 4.2 and later

    Google recently updated the Android Jelly Bean software to version 4.2. This is currently only found in Nexus 4 and Nexus 10. Android 4.2 brings with itself some really cool new features like pinch to zoom on home screen and the photo sphere feature.

    google nexus 4 4 Enable Developer Options in Android 4.2 and later

    If you’re a developer, or a power user, you’ll notice one change in the settings menu. The developer options that usually appeared at the bottom are no longer there. Don’t freak out. Google has not removed this option, they have just made it a little more difficult to find. This is so that a casual user doesn’t tinker with sensitive settings and ends up doing something undesirable.

    Follow these simple steps to enable this option.

    Step 1- Open settings > about

    Step 2- Tap on ‘Build number’ 7 times. After you have tapped it 3 times a dialogue box will pop up telling you you’re only 4 taps away from being a developer. Tap it 4 more times.

    That’s it. Developer Options will now appear in your settings menu. Don’t go around tinkering with them if you’re not aware of what they do. However the finger pointer and CPU usage are particularly interesting even for a casual user.

  • How to unlock Nexus 4 Bootloader

    Google just took the covers off of its latest and greatest Nexus 4. Manufactured by LG this phone packs in some serious firepower. With a Qualcomm S4 Pro chip and a beautiful 720p display, this is the most powerful Android phone available yet. And because it’s a Nexus, it means its begging to be poked and prodded with. But as it is with any Android, before you go on rooting or installing custom ROMs, you will need to unlock the bootloader. This guide will help you unlock Nexus 4 bootloader.

    Nexus 4 570x309 How to unlock Nexus 4 Bootloader

    Unlocking the bootloader will wipe your memory so be sure to backup all important data. Make sure your phone is full charged.

    Step 1- Download the Android SDK

    Step 2- Enable debugging mode on your phone

    Step 3- Download fastboot and extract it android-sdk-windows\platform-tools directory. If this directory is not present, create it.

    Step 4- Backup all your data and switch off the phone.

    Step 5- Enter the bootloader/fastboot. Do this by pressing volume down + power key for a few seconds. You will know when the phone enters the bootloader. This allows your fastboot to connect with your phone.

    Step 6- Open the android-sdk-windows\platform-tools directory. Open command prompt (windows key +R and enter cmd.exe)

    Step 7- In the command prompt, enter the following: fastboot oem unlock

    Step 8- Follow the instructions and proceed to wipe all data. Your phone will automatically reboot

    After step 8 is done successfully your phone will have an unlocked bootloader. This will then allow you to install custom ROMs and whatnot.