Archive for October, 2008

Looking for an inexpensive case for your G1? Over at Amazon, they have a black rubberized case for less than $8. It’s a three piece case so that it can fit the counters of the G1, and of course it allows you to still open up the keyboard.

It is kind of surprising that we hadn’t stumbled across this earlier but apparently there is a well developed open source and free solution for Over The Air syncing of everything from Contacts to Calendar for nearly every device you own (okay maybe that’s stretching it). There are clients for both versions of Windows Mobile, a solution for iPhone, a plugin for Outlook and even an app on the Android Marketplace for the G1. Now you know I don’t like to tell you about something unless I’ve put it through the ringer myself a few times. Well this is a different case. More >

Our stats are telling us that thousands of your are using the Wiki, which is great, but few are adding to it. Since some of you may not be familiar with how exactly to go about contributing, jsmccabe78 has posted an FAQ on the front page of the Wiki, that should help to answer your questions. Here’s a good one:

Why should I add to the wiki?

* Because we are obsessed with our devices and the only way to really progress is to share! And this is the place to do it!

The Shadow sections is packed with a ton of good info, but the G1 section is just in its infancy and especially needs some help. That said…don’t be shy…and contribute =D!

If you make a habit of checking the Android Marketplace for new apps everyday (like I do) then you will notice that today MANY news came into the light. Keep in mind the G1 has only been on the open market for a week now, however the SDK has been available to developers for awhile now. Needless to say many needed apps have show up. Of these there are a few worth mentioning:

• Twidroid: A Twitter app for the G1. Nearly anything you can do on Twitter you can do from the app. The ability to upload photos is present but buggy. Worth the download.
• GPS Tracker: Real time GPS tracking/sharing. Why you should have this on your phone: because you can activate by SMS if you lose your G1 and find it in real time… very useful.
• Mem: Simon clone! Displays the number of colored/toned iterations you’ve memorized so far.
• Ringdroid: Create Ringtones on the fly with the music on your phone.
• SpellDial: what the dialer is missing, look up contacts as you press the T9 dialer keys.
• Tag ToDo: Decent and usable To Do manager. Supports tags/categories.
• Android File Manager: Who would have thought we would miss our File Explorer so much? Here it is in Android Style. Current functionality is limited to moving, copying, pasting, renaming and deleting.
• BudgetDroid: Not an account manager for your bank funds but more of a simple budget tracker. What’s great about that? Not having your personal finances on your phone but still being able to stay on budget. Simply create a budget amount for a category and enter what you spend and it tells you how much you have left for the month.

If you run 96DPI on your Shadow, your screen will look to be higher resolution.  The top and bottom bars will take up less space and you’ll see more icons on the screen at once – thus requiring you to scroll less…as shown above. Yes – technically things are smaller, but it’s like turning up the resolution on your computer monitor.

martint started a thread over in the forums that linked to this ZIP file that you need, plus has the following instructions to get 96DPI:

1) Run the WM6.1-131to96dpi cab file
2) When it asks for you to restart, do not restart.
3) Run CeleCMD, and click the “…” button.
4) Go to Menu, Browse Folder, and select the folder where you put the dpi.ccs file.
5) Now you will see the dpi file, and then go ahead and run it.
6) Wait for it go back to the homescreen and then reboot your phone.

Note that depending on what ROM you are running, you may run into some problems. Some people report a flawless installation, and some report that parts of the screen get messed up. That said, since it’s a CAB file, you can just uninstall it from the Settings menu, and everything goes back to normal, so it’s worth a try =D.

Having Windows Mobile on your Shadow has its advantages. Adam Lein over at pocketnow.com has put together a great article that talks about how you can save money using your Windows Mobile device – and in these tough economic times, he provides many smart ways that you can reduce the minutes you use, or get by without paying for a data connection (or how to get a data connection for free, temporarily). Good stuff, and worth a read.

This video is for the App Lovers. This is a short and sweet tour of how the Android Marketplace works. It appears that User-Friendliness was high on the list of must haves for the designers of the interface. Good Job! Enjoy!

P.S. Have something you want to see in a video? Post it in the comments. Have a question? Go to the forums.