Google IO 2011: Androidify (Updated)

If you have not taken the time to Androidify yourself today is a good day to do so.  Today is the first day of Google I/O and there is no better way show Google how much you love them then to make your own little android character.

The app was just updated today with the ability to put your androids up on a live wallpaper.

Stay tuned today and follow me close on twitter to hear the latest news and announcements Google has for us today. Rumors so far are talking about a Google Music and even a new version of Android.

Download Androidify Here

Update:
Well want and exciting Google I/O event that was. Here is a run down of the main announcements.

Google Music Beta was launched to today. You can get the app if you have Android 2.2. Download it here. They online integration will allow you to upload all of your music online. It will keep all your play lists and in sync since you will stream it to your device. For now it will only be for the US. They will be rolling this feature out in waves so go here to request an invite.

Google Movies is a new service that allows you to stream movies from your computer, tablet, or smartphone. The Android app will be available in the coming weeks and you can rent movies from the Android Market right now. On the market you will have the option once you rent a movie to watch in a 24 hour period. If you are going to be traveling without a data connection you will also have the option to download it to your device.

Honeycomb 3.1. This update will first be coming to the Motorola Xoom and will offer new UI features to the tablet OS. It will include the Google Movies app and allow for you to browse more than just five recent applications. This allows for greater multitasking capabilities. Also each app is completely frozen when you switch to another so you don't have to worry about how many apps are running in the back ground, this way they are not really running they are just paused and waiting for you to go back to them. This update will also be coming to Google TV and allow you to use the Android Market on your TV this summer.

Ice Cream Sandwich! Right now I am not sure what number they will use for this but it will be the next Android version for smart phones. In this version they are working to brink all of the Honeycomb features to your phone. With this update they have also teamed up with most carriers and manufacturers to produce faster updates for each device. They are also guaranteeing an 18 month window of updating a phone to the latest software or unless the phones hardware is not capable of supporting the new features.

Android at home is a new way that Android is going to be placed in different devices so that you can interact in new ways with your own home products. This is something that will take a bit to be fully out in the market but was mentioned today to get developers working on products so that when the feature is fully ready there will be many apps to interact with.

Well I know I missed some info because there was a ton of stuff announced but I hope this helps you know what Google has been up to.

The luck of the iPad (Updated)

Many of you have read my iPad Me article. If you haven't please take a look. The post may make me sound a bit selfish but I would like to dedicate this post to helping you. In my search for getting a dollar from everyone I know, I have not just sat back and watched, but I have been actively involved in signing up for iPad giveaways to help my odds. I figure if my odds are not good enough to get $1 from 499 people, maybe they will be good enough to win one of these contests.

Here is a list of the places I have signed up for. I hope by giving you the opportunity it might help me out in one way or another. I also don't want to be known as the selfish one. Here you go.

I will start with the one that ends the soonest.

1. ebookfling is giving away an iPad. You need to sign up to start getting entries. Then you can like them on Facebook and share the giveaway on Facebook and Twitter for extra entries. Better hurry, this one ends tomorrow.

2. The next one is by a blog I just found today called The Centsible Life. You get one entry for commenting on the post, a second entry if you tweet the contest, and 10 entries if you blog about the giveaway. I’m posting this to enter into the contest offered by CheckNGo at The Centsible Life! I want to win the iPad 2! Enter to win here: http://bit.ly/TCLiPad.

3. The last giveaway is from Fabulous Savings. The disclaimer here is it is just for College and University Students. Miss Tejota just helped me figure this out, you need to click through the Feature Merchants on the right side column. One of these will pop up the page to enter your school and find the "special" tweet. You can enter this once a day until May 9th.

Well I hope this helps. Hope you all have a great weekend dreaming of iPad.

Update:
4. I remembered that I had entered one more. The great benefit about this giveaway is they are throwing in a smartcover. It is from SuiteTuts and you can enter as many times as you want just by following them on twitter and re-tweeting this statement: "I just entered to win an #iPad2 & Smart Cover! #stcipad201 http://t.co/IdeFBpH via @SuiteTuts"
It is yet to be determined win the contest will end.

499 things I will use my iPad for

Do I really need an iPad? Does anyone? Well with the iPad costing $499 it should help me accomplish many different things. I am going to compile 499 things that I will use my iPad for. It could be as simple as using it to make salsa.

If you have anything that you love to use your iPad for sound off in the comments to help me build my list.

iPad Me "Pretty Please!"

This week I was told I have a crush on an iPad 2.



At first when my wife told me this I thought "No I don't," then it hit me, I do have a crush! Ever since iPad was announced in 2010 I have probably talked about it every day. Sometimes the most exciting thing I have to talk about when I come home from school is how many people in class had an iPad.

If you have ever met someone that has one, they love it. If you have ever met someone that has played with one, they loved it. I love the idea of tablet computing so much that I even have another blog called Tablet In A Minute. With that site my goal is to teach the general population how to use tablets. The main problem I have is the lack of a tablet.

Right now the market is being flooded with tablets but I would say the winner is the iPad 2 from Apple. They have done an excellent job. If I had the funds, I would just go buy one. Being a full time student, husband, and soon to be father drains my full paycheck and leaves nothing left for gadgets.

"So, how can I help?" you ask. It is easy. Just give me one dollar. That is it. $1 is all it takes. Let's say you make six dollars an hour. You have already given me one minute, so what is another 9 minutes of work to donate $1 to me? Maybe you lost a dollar of change the last time you sat down in your car. All you need to do is find it, and send it my way. In return you shall receive happiness. You won't be able to drive home without smiling, because you, my friend, did good in the world today and helped me out. Enough talk, click below.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. You are awesome!

U Move Fitness First Wii Nunchuck

Here is yet another one of my great ideas that just sat in my head while someone went out and made it and is going to get rich.

So did you buy a Wii so that the kids would be more active while playing video games? Have they now figured out how to use the controllers to fake the motions while sitting on the couch? Here is the ultimate solution.

This U Move Nunchuck will work like a normal controller but has a built in pedometer. It allows you to count your steps and calories burned. Take a look at the video to how it is used.



Is how it works is the game will not allow the character go move unless the nunchuck is in motion. If you stop jogging in place the character will stop jogging. I can see how this would be a very effective way of staying active while playing games. If I would have had this when I played Mario and got all 60 stars, I am sure I would have lost a few pounds with all those hours of game play.

My idea was to have some sort of attachment that would go on your foot or something. I also thought it would be great to have a pedometer that you could use outside and for every step you took outside it would allow you take that many steps with Mario.

I am not positive this works on US consoles. This is something my mom would have dreamed of. Maybe the kids will like it, or maybe they will realize it is just more fun to go outside and play with friends.

What Is A Browser?

When you buy a computer it comes with most of the software that you want to use on a day to day basis. Some of the time you may buy the Microsoft Office suite or iLife & iWork to add a bit of the most well needed applications to be fully functional.

The main program that you use daily is pre-installed on the computer. This would be your web browser. With a PC it will have Internet Explorer (IE) and with a Mac it will have Safari. Did you know that these browsers have different functions and that you can actually use these and many other browsers on your computer. You may have only used IE or Safari but other browsers are Firefox, Google Chrome, and Opera. Google has made an excellent video about what a browser is. Even though they are promoting Chrome, I think it gives a great explanation as to what a browser is.

So which one should you choose? From my experience most people are using IE on their PC. IE is only available on a Windows computer. IE just released version 9 (which is only available if you have Windows 7) when most of the computers if have used are still using version 7. You may even be using IE right now and be fine with it. My mother in-law had a problem using it when she tried to access a web site and it would not let her load the site because it said her browser was out of date. It was also giving her other problems as simple as not letting her print. I have also had a few colleges ask me how they can see more of actual screen space when browsing because the IE tabs are taking up all the room. With IE 9 they cleaned it up quite a bit but I have not spent to much time with it.

Safari is made by Apple. It just had an update, and it is available on Mac and PC. That is all.

Firefox is very well known. It is has been on out since 2005. In only a few years it almost reached 50% of the market. At my school Firefox is the only other software that is installed for students to use. This is because the Blackboard system does not work well in IE. Firefox offers many extensions, add-ons, and customizable themes. I used Firefox for quite sometime until it began to act very slow for me.

Opera browser has been out for awhile. I first heard of it when I was searching for a better browser on my Samsung Instinct. I was able to find a version for my phone and it worked great! From using the phone app I was curious about the desktop version. I installed it it found it to be very usable. One of the best features that it has was the ability to sync my bookmarks from the mobile app to the desktop. They are also one of the few browser that is able to work on many devices.

Google Chrome was released in September of 2008. After 2 years it has now more than 20% of the market. I have been using it since the day it came out. It has progressed over time and has been given every feature you would need in a modern browser. It has the ability to add custom themes, extension, and now even apps. In its most recent version it was able to boost its speed far above everyone else.

One of the greatest features of Chrome is the ability to sync all your bookmarks, apps, and browser info. If you are using Chrome you can set this up by going to settings and signing in with your Google account. This allows you to keep all the computers that you use in sync. So say you have Chrome on your computer at work. You create a bookmark and install a extension, then you go home and load up Chrome on your computer and the bookmark and extension you added are automatically sync to the browser where you added them at work. This feature is really great so you don't have to do double the work to keep you favorites in place.

Chrome also updates itself automatically whenever you open it. This is really convenient so you don't have to take time to download and install a new version. I find the extremely helpful to everyone so that the browser receives the greatest and up to date software. All the problems that my mother in law was having with IE was solved by me installing Chrome. In the future if the websites she uses needs a newer browser she will be fine since Chrome will always be up to date.

Chrome is also very simple compared to IE as pictured above. As you see in the picture of Chrome there is only one bar at the top. This is referred to as the Ominbar. You can type in a web address such as www.google.com or you type in whatever you would like to search for. When you first set up Chrome you can choose the search provider you would like to use.

While much work has gone into to each of these browsers to make them all user friendly, in the end it is up to the user and preference. As you can tell I am a Chrome user. Maybe you are a Firefox fan. I would encourage you to try out another browser and see if it has some useful features. Maybe you will find something you really like, or maybe you will the rest of the browser world is years behind your current set up.

For those of you that would like to see a great break down of different browsers and there market share throughout time go here.

Tablet In A Minute: Otter Box iPad Case

Good review about a great case!

Tablet In A Minute: Otter Box iPad Case: "Do you have kids? Do you have a iPad? Then the Otter Box iPad case is what you need. This is a very durable case that is sure to protect you..."

Tablet In A Minute: HP TouchPAD Introduction

Hey check out a new blog I started.
Tablet In A Minute: HP TouchPAD Introduction: "Hp had its Think Beyond event on February 9, 2011. Here they introduced three new devices. The first was a 3.1' smartphone with WebOS ..."

It is the there for all of you tablet needs.

Android Market Online

Yesterday Google had an event where they showed off what they have been working on. As the event was mainly to show off the Xoom Honeycomb Tablet and the new interface, they also introduced many new things to the basic Android community. The main announcement which will have the most affect is the Android Market online.

You can go to www.market.android.com and browse all the apps on the Android Market. This is truly a great advance for the market as it is building many new users will up to 300,000 Android phones activated a day. User can browse, tweet, and directly isntall apps right from with in this website. One way I have used this is as I was reading a post online about Blogger it gave a link that took me right to the Android Market to view the information about the app. Then on the web interface all I had to do was press Install and the app started downloading to my phone. It really is truly miraculous. No syncing with cables were used. I am now using the app to post this and it really was so simple. I can even see all of the apps I already have installed and those that I have purchased. If you have more than ine Dndroid device you cab choose which device you would like it to be sent to. So give it a look, and if you are not a current Android user yiu can check out all tue great apps you are missing out on.

The New Year

Welcome to 2011! Wow what an eventful year it has been. I would like to start by sharing the great news that I received my Associate of Science from Utah Valley University in December. It has been a long time coming but it gives me quite a bit of peace to know that I have actually accomplished something by attending all these classes. I also had a wonderful Christmas with my family. My wife and I announced to our family that we will be having a baby on July 12th! We are extremely excited! Other than that being a big addition to my family we also added a few gadgets. On Christmas I received a Roku XD|S and a Kingston 16 GB Class 4 MicroSD for my HTC EVO 4G. I am loving having both of them but I would like to dedicate the post to another gift I received right before the holidays.

Last year on December 7th I watched Google's Chrome OS event. It was very exciting to see the progress the Google Chrome has made in the last few years. I have been following Chrome OS as closely as possible. I even used Chromium build on a flash drive to test out. It worked okay but was definitely not a final product. As they went through the event they announced the Cr48. A non-branded device that runs Chrome OS and will be first tested through a pilot program before it reaches the market in the summer of 2011. Sundar Pichai VP of Product Management announced who would be able to participate in the pilot program. He said you could sign up online, post a video of why you would be a good candidate, or he even suggested that those who had entered to receive a Google Chrome sticker would possibly receive a Cr48. I became extremely exited at this point knowing I had signed up for that sticker just a week prior. I signed my self up, then I signed my company up for 20, and then I even signed up My SMO.

A day passed and I shared my excitement with just about everybody. In an attempt to get everyone signed up, and studying for finals that week I actually forgot about the possibilities of actually getting one myself. On December 9th I went about my day like normal. My wife texted me letting me know that I had received two packages. I had ordered a few things online but I was only expecting one package. I thought maybe they had to fit it into two boxes. So as I read reviews about the Cr48 all day on Engadget I was pretty stoked just for when they would come out this summer.

That night after getting home late having finals and everything else on my mind. I didn't even remember about the packages that had come. I had been home for a couple hours looked by the front do and noticed the extra packages. It come from an unknown place. I opened it and immediately knew what it was! I bursted out a shout of joy and my wife thought something was wrong. Then next hour flew by as I spent that time in bliss. I could not believe that I had actually got one!



After using the Cr48 for the past month it has been great. It works just as expected... excellent! Now that I have started school I have been using he Cr48 a ton. I have only had a problem with it here or there but it has really been an excellent device. I will write more on how it is on a day to day basis. All I have to say is, thank you Google for this wonderful opportunity. Thank you.

Brett Bristow