VIDEO-Amazing timelapse video of Ho Chi Minh City

Whilst I try and only feature my own stuff here every now and then a video comes along from someone else which totally blows me away. This video from Rob Whitworth is no exception and is totally amazing in every aspect.
Rob took numerous trips to Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, and spent nine months taking over 10,000 images! With a lot of post production and processing he has created a stunning video full of colour and movement!

ANDROID-Favourite Honeycomb apps

Having recently acquired a fantastic Samsung Galaxy Tablet 10.1 (who needs an iPad?) I thought it would be time to list my favourite apps that I have installed so far.

As I have spent a few hundred pounds on this device I thought it would be useful to spend £10 maximum on apps for it! (I don’t want to splash out too much cash now do I!)
 
I present to you the most useful apps I have found in using the device for the first few weeks. A few aren’t fully optimised for Honeycomb but for some reason stretch and fill the screen and work just fine! Just click each app name to locate it on the market!

ANDROID-Problems with Google Calendar syncing to an account?

My Android based phone (HTC Desire) has sporadically been losing sync between the Calendar application and my Google Calendar via my Gmail account.

It has frustrated me for many days now and have been attempting to find a solution that works. Loads of forums talk about rooting your phone, deleting certain Google folders and files, hard resetting your phone and even ringing your mobile phone provider to remove the 18+ rating on the phone service!

BUT

It seems I have actually found a solution that actually works and doesnt mean any of the hard (and risky) work suggested above! In just a few minutes you can get your Google Calendar back on your Android based device.

Cardiff v Portsmouth

After previous high-profile clashes between both sides it was the turn of Portsmouth to take the trip to Cardiff in the latest Championship game at the Cardiff City Stadium. After previously beating Cardiff in the FA Cup final in 2008 it was middle of table Portsmouth looking to cause an upset to Cardiff’s push to top flight football in the Premiership as they battle for the automatic promotion place (or one of the play off positions!)

Whilst walking through Cardiff City centre it seemed that The Great Western pub was the designated pub for the away fans AND the whole of the South Wales Police force! Chants and singing could be heard echoing around the pub with good spirited fans interacting with the police – whilst other policemen were on duty filming the days proceedings!

These photos taken with my HTC Desire.

ENVIRONMENT-World Toilet Day!

Home cleaner brand, Domestos, has teamed up with a few charities to launch ‘World Toilet Day’ on the general public. It is an initiative to help reduce the amount of flushing we do as a nation to save water and resources.

They have set up a website http://www.flushtracker.com where after typing in your postcode the application will track your current flush and plot a map of where the contents are travelling around your local area all in real time – complete with distance travelled and actual speed!

JOKE-The difference in School Buses in Asia!

First up a School Bus from Japan:-

HUMOUR-How smartphone users see each other!

The chaps over at C-SectionComics.com have produced a funny but almost 100% accurate poster showing “How smartphone users see each other!”

Latest Favourite Android Apps (November 2010)

A few months have moved on since the last update of my favourite apps for the Android operating system. So here is a run down of my current favs that I use on my HTC Desire mobile phone. (Of course they should work on all Android mobile phones and tablets!)
 

Twidroyd (FREE) Twitter has grown from just a 140 text string to a media rich way of cummunicating with photos, videos and links. This app used to be called Twitroid (or Twidroid!) but has now been renamed Twidroyd (for some reason) and has recently had a massive makeover. The latest addition to this version is the LIVE PREVIEW which means you can view all links, photos and videos with the built-in viewer IE you dont have to click the links and open up another app to view whatever you are clicking. This new version also allows portait and landscape viewing options aswell. This is the best, most flexible and intuitive Android Twitter client on the market.
 
 

Angry Birds (FREE) Our iPhone fanboys have been raving about this game for what seems like ages now but after a short beta-period its now available on Android and best of all its FREE! (Yep we dont have to pay like those Apple bods!) Ok every now and then there is a small advert in the corner but this doesnt detract from the game at all.
So for the unitiated what is Angry Birds? Well its a game of skill trying to unearth the nasty pigs who have stolen all their eggs! Yep it all sounds totally childish and this is reflected in the style of cartoony graphics, music and sound effects.
SO essentially you have to catapult your chickens and chicks into the air to unearth these pigs and hit then and the surrounding environment to unearth them. It all sounds pretty easy but some levels can become quite infuriating.
Its one of those games where you just have to keep having one more go! Well recommended!
 
 
Layar (FREE) An interesting little app this! Essentially it is a take on Augemented Reality on the Android operating system. Essentially what this app does is allows you to view your surroundings via the onboard camera and move it around your environment to interact with it and discover/locate things! For instance, I was trying to find a Post Box near me to post a letter in – switch on the ‘Post Box layer’ and spin the camera around to see where the nearest one is. Or if you are feeling a bit peckish and need to know where a local takeaway is – switch on the ‘Takeaway Layer’ Essentially it is a massive database with GPS locations of items which you can view relevant to you. It comes into it’s own when you start using the social media layers consisting of Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. A little bit scary for some people to see other Tweeters located around you but a really invaluable tool!
 
 
Meebo (Free) This is an instant messenger app that allows you to chat with MSN, AIM, Yahoo, and even Facebook contacts all within one window. Much more easier than multiple accounts open in loads of different apps! So easy to use. You have the choice whether to individually log onto separate accounts or all together with just one click! No need to reenter usernames or passwords – ever!
 
 
Xiia Lite Media Player This application allows you to surf and stream most online radio stations. So forget using separate apps like Winamp, Quicktime, Windows Media etc whereas this will play them all. Xiia Lite supports aac+,aac,m3u,pls,mp3,mp4,mp4a and mpeg audio formats. A lot of websites have small radio feeds or music player links but using the built in browser means the links dont actually open up anywhere! But once you click a streaming link in any web browser Xiia Lite instantly asks you whether you want to save and open in Xiia and when youve done that once you can always instantly open up in Xiia then! Seemples.
 
 
Vignette There are many photo manipulation apps about and a lot of them are great for specific effects. Where Vignette comes into its own is that it offers a range of effects which can be applied and give really professional results. Effects range from tilt shift, vignetting, diorama, colour casts, lens effects, blurring, single colour separation to name a few. Well worth trying the free version first which only allows photos of a max res of 0.5MP – paid version allows full res.
 
 
Bonzai Blast There are loads of games around like this but none as enjoyable as this version.
Here you have to shoot the coloured balls to match the other colours and then they pop once you get three or more of the same colour together.
Ok it does sound a bit simple but the game is well designed and executed with controls that are very responsive on the HTC Desire.
One to give to the kids to keep them entertained on that car journey or one to sneak into the toilet and play – yes surely we all take our phones to the toilet now?
 
 

PHOTOS-Vintage typewriter

I was having a rummage through some areas in work that were being cleared out and came across this delightful typewriter. It’s probably only 20 – 30 years old and hasnt aged that much at all!
It’s amazing how just setting your eyes on an old piece of kit can invoke the memories and this took me back to Mrs Cheetham typing away in Millbank Primary School. She’s sat in the photocopier room typing up letters for the Head Master. Such a great noise the keys hitting the paper and then the ding when you’ve hit the end of the page and you have to swipe the whole mechanism back to the left to allow the typing to begin again.
It’s unbelievable how much we already take computers and word processing for granted. The humble typewrite was deserved of a few stylish photos at least. I’ll let the photos do the talking and let you play the sound effects in your heads! Enjoy.

HTC DESIRE-Tips to improve battery life

We’ve all got our brand new spanking HTC Desire mobiles and are busy playing with them, installing new apps and generally showing them off (even though the Apple fanboys wont even look at them cos they know they are better )

But all this playing can drain the battery quite a bit and i did struggle to get mine to last more than one day before having to recharge. So I have come up with ten rules to ensure the battery does infact last longer and hopefully to cover you for a full day!
A lot of them might seem pretty obvious but when added together do really make a difference!

1 ) Avoid live wallpapers
2 ) Try and have darker, non-animating wallpapers
3 ) Set the screen timeout to a maximum of 1 minute
4 ) Turn down the screen brightness
5 ) Always switch off Bluetooth
6 ) Don’t use GPS unless necessary
7 ) Disable always-on mobile data
8 ) Limit use of widgets
9 ) Limit use of streaming apps
10) Set a reasonable frequency for background updates

WELCOME-Bloggers Unite!

Last night was the second (official) Cardiff Bloggers meet up held at Pica Pica in Westgate St.(It definately wasnt a Wetherspoons pub – I couldve got 2 pints for the same price a few doors up )

A totally packed venue with standing room only and a chance at last to put a face to some of the names from the Cardiff blogs and Twitter feeds.

Some were instantly recognisable whereas some others took a bit more convincing of that it was really them! I randomly kept asking people whether they were ‘VanillaLatte’ but never got to discover who she really was!

Ive never turned up to an event like this without actually knowing anyone and was a bit cautious about the whole affair but everyone was so friendly and open to chat about themselves and their blogs! It was like Speed Dating but without the obligatory awkward sex at the end.

The highlight for me was hearing Rachel from The Save The Vulcan campaign talk so enthusiastically about their plight to save the pub from demolition. Detaling how they utilised the internet (including Facebook and Blogs) to achieve this and just made it all sound so simple and obvious.

A great night of nerdy natter and blog banter was had by all.

So quickly a welcome to everone from the Cardiff Bloggers meet up last night and to add a bit more about my blog and how it works.

Firstly im not entirely sure whether I even like to call it a blog. To me a blog used to be something that only the Americans would produce where usually it would be an online diary of someone’s tales and woe’s. Usually pretty self-indulgent and never really my cup of tea.

I used to run my own website www.djleekee.com where I would showcase my mixing and dj skills. I used to code the html in Notepad and used to enjoy the buzz of creating the mixes, the html and getting in excess of 100,000 hits a month. It became so popular that copyright infringement issues meant that ultimately i had to cease the website.

I was one of the first Mashup Artists on the web launching in 1999 but have been there, done that and moved onto other media including video production now.

So I have videos over at YouTube and Vimeo, audio files at Soundcloud and Mix.dj, presence at Facebook, Twitter and Flickr and needed some way of intergrating all my content in one place.

Essentially I wanted to create a website that aggregated all my material in one place – and I found it in WordPress. Such a simple interface and the amount of widgets that they now have was exactly what i was looking for to get the best out of Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.

The best thing about using WordPress is that it doesnt necessarily jump out at you and say ‘Blooooooooooooog’ but used all the technology behind a blog to create a half decent looking website but with all the functionality of some much more indepth and detailed websites.

On WordPress there is a CATEGORY feature which allows me to put certain posts in certain places so for instance if you are only interested in posts that feature Cardiff then click the Cardiff Category and you only see posts that are relevant to that field. (Go on try clicking some of the categories above!)

I recently got a new HTC Desire mobile phone but even though a lot of forums have popped up online with people asking questions there didnt seem to be many answers out there – so I decided to start featuring Android Apps as part of my blog. This is currently listed under the Techy Category but i may introduce an Android category soon.

When posting links on other websites to my blog it’s incredibly useful to post a link to the dedicated, relevant feed so the user doesnt have to wade through loads of posts that are totally irrelevant to them. Hence i can link directly to the Techy category and post that in other Android forums to create traffic to my blog.

It really is amazing how people discover your blog and WordPress gives you so many details of where people have come from, what terms they searched, and where they went and if they clicked any links within your pages aswell.

Plug for WordPress over! So welcome to my bloggy website and hope you find something of interest or relevance! Im still relatively new to this blog world so will eventually get to grips with it all soon. Also im quite liking the range of stuff that I cover here – they dont always have to be subject specific!

Peace.

Recommended Android Apps (April 2010)

After the first week of owning my HTC Desire I detailed a few apps that I found useful HERE but am now adding to this some more great apps that will make your Andorid phone even better!
 
Quick Uninstall This app does exactly what it says on the tin!
Use it to uninstall any app from your phone.
It can sometimes take a few seconds to populate the list but once running is fairly easy to use!
 
 
Xiia Lite Media Player This application allows you to surf and stream most online radio stations. So forget using separate apps like Winamp, Quicktime, Windows Media etc whereas this will play them. Xiia Lite supports aac+,aac,m3u,pls,mp3,mp4,mp4a and mpeg audio formats. A lot of websites have small radio feeds or music player links but using the built in browser means the links dont actually open up anywhere!
 

Phit Droid 3 This is an extremely addictive game featuring blocks! Loosley based on Tetris where the idea of this game is to fit a certain amount of shaped blocks into a pre-designated area. It doesnt sound that great when you write it down but the main thing going for this is the ease of play, simple graphics and responsive controls. In this version there are 4000 levels!
 

Foursquare This is a bizzare app and idea that allows you to explore your city and see where your friends are, learn about the places they frequent and unlock rewards as you travel. Its a bit of a social app which allows you to check into actual venues, pubs, restaurants etc and see who else is visiting and even connect with them. One worth trying out and see if you can become Mayor of your local pub!
 

Vignette There are many photo manipulation apps about and a lot of them are great for specific effects. Where Vignette comes into its own is that it offers a range of effects which can be applied and give really professional results. Effects range from tilt shift, vignetting, diorama, colour casts, lens effects, blurring, single colour separation to name a few. Well worth trying the free version first which only allows photos of a max res of 0.5MP – paid version allows full res.
 

My Tracks This app is a tracking application that allows you to use GPS or mast triangulation to plot your location on a map and then display the information of your journey on a map and give you graphical displays of speed, time, height amongst other parameters. This is an essential tool for when cycling or running or when exploring new places.
 

Cestos This is a fully interactive game of marbles played against others online players. Essentially on the playing board there are holes and you must knock your opponents off before they knock you off. Simply totally addictive.

Use Google Maps as Sat Nav on Android 2.0

Google have been showcasing what the Google Maps application is capable of on the Android operating system – but it seems loads of people are having problems locating the files, installing them and getting them to work as intended.
It’s taken me a bit of investigating and poking around the net but I have now successfully managed to get Google Maps installed and up and running complete with voice navigation and street view.
So here is the method on how I got Google Maps to work with voice control, street view and to work as a Sat Nav application.
 

UNINSTALL PREVIOUS APPS
I only got ALL the functions fully working by completely uninstalling all old versions of Google Maps and also another ‘Brut’ map application I had aswell to avoid any further conflicts further down the line.
 

DOWNLOAD GOOGLE MAPS
Firstly download the latest version of Google Maps (Currently 4.1.1)from the Android App Store and install.
New features include My Location, Directions, Traffic, Street View, Latitude, Layers, Navigation (beta), Search by voice.
 
 
DOWNLOAD GOOGLE VOICE SEARCH
A lot of Android phones do not already have the Voice Search app installed and it isn’t that easy to locate either within the Android Market so pop the following URL in your browser and download the apk file directly and install from the following location:-
http://voicesearch.googlecode.com/files/VoiceSearch_2.1.apk
 

INSTALLATION
Once all downloaded – run Google Maps and click Menu and select the Search option.
This will now bring up a top of the screen search box but now complete with a microphone graphic. Click the graphic to activate the Voice Recognition app and speak your destination by starting with the phrase, “Navigate to……Cardiff Castle” (for example.)
Click to confirm destination and Google Maps will show you your route. A very basic Microsoft voice will speak the directions to you but im sure many more voices will become available real soon.
Whilst in navigation mode you can access Google Street View by pressing the small street view graphic(its a small stick man!) and your Google Map will transform itself into a fully-rendered 3-D navigation system.

So by following these 3 simple steps you can enjoy a free Satellite Navigation system on your Android mobile phone. Obviously you will need to use the app with the GPS switched on! Enjoy. This page may be updated again real soon.

PHOTOS-HTC Desire camera testing

The HTC Desire boasts a 5MP camera which is a higher rating than my stand-alone camera but what are the quality of the pictures like?
Well I have been randomly snapping with it all week and will show you some images here complete with some taken with various ‘camera apps’ aswell.

First up is an application called ‘Vignette’, which as the titles suggests, adds various arty effects to the photos on the fly. There is a free version which will only allow you to take the photos with a maximum resolution of 0.5MP (great for texting and facebook use) whereas the paid for version (£2.99) allows you to manipulate to the full quality of the camera – in this instance 5.0MP. But as the app has to manipulate a lot more data on the higher res images it can take a little longer for it to create the adjusted image.(You dont actually notice the phone doing it mind!) So first up a range of vignetting, colour casts, toy effects, light leaks and diorama effects with Vignette.

Another free camera application is one called ‘FX Camera’ this offers some simpler effects along the lines of pop art, mirror, lens effects and colour effects. The free app is quite powerful and easy to use. Here are a few photos taken with this app.
 

More images to be added a little later – watch this space!

How to import contacts and address book into an Android phone

People sometimes try to put their old sim card into their new phone and attempt to copy them that way, others sync up via Outlook on their PC whilst others try to bluetooth their old address book across – but none of these methods would work from a HTC Diamond to the HTC Desire. Baffling me for many days – I stumbled across a solution and am posting it here to assist other new Android users in tranferring their whole address book/contacts over.

As you’re going to an Android phone, I’d personally recommend a Free GoogleMail/Gmail account. They are fairly friendly to the Android operating system and are great for backing up contacts, calendars, & email for FREE. And it all happens over the internet(I know how temperamental Activsync can be on USB)

HOW TO IMPORT CONTACTS/EMAIL/CALENDAR TO A NEW ANDROID PHONE

1) On your Computer, set up a GoogleMail account (IF YOU ONLY WANT TO USE IT FOR CONTACTS TRANSFER, THAT’S FINE! You can always get rid of it later). Once you’ve done that and are shown the inbox, click on ‘Calendar’ in the top corner of the web browser, just to kick that into life too. Should only take 2 or 3 seconds.
 

2) On your HTC Diamond Tap Start > Programs > ActiveSync.
 

3) Tap Menu > Add Server Source.
 

4) Enter your Gmail address, and ensure that the ‘Attempt to detect Exchange Server’ Settings automatically check box is de-selected. Enter the Google Exchange Server setting manually, which is m.google.com
 
4a) Enter your User name (which is your Gmail address IN FULL), password, but leave domain blank. Exchange server settings and the password are case-sensitive, so be sure to enter uppercase and lowercase letters correctly. Tap next.
 
5) Check the boxes for the types of information you want to synchronize with exchange server. Make sure ‘contacts’ is one of them!
 
6) (Optional) Select E-mail, and tap Settings to do any of the following: Change the number of days for which messages wil be synchronized, Change the message format, Select the download size limit, Include attachments when downloading messages. Tap OK if you have finished.
 
7) Tap Finish.
 
All your contacts, emails & calendar will now sync from your original phone to the Google servers. It might take some time and not accurately display what your old phone is doing and may even crash it! But if you run into trouble either reboot ActivSync or even the phone as a last resort. Emails will be pushed to your handset rather than it having to check every so often.

When you get your HTC Desire, one of the first things it’ll ask you on setup is if you have a Gmail account. Fill in the details, check that data sync is enabled in the settings menu and your new phone will pull down all your contacts (and calendars, and email) for free!

Any questions please feel free to ask!