Friday, May 28, 2010

SlingPlayer Mobile for Android Finally Here! (almost)


I waited so long for this that I have actually liquidated my Slingbox Pro on eBay a few months ago. This would have been the perfect opportunity to use the EVO 4's silly kickstand!





Sunday, May 23, 2010

Two reasons why I use Android Voice Recognition for EVERYTHING

ONE: It flat out works! Sure there is the occasional fast <--> best snafu, but the time savings using voice recognition and then tidying up with the optical mouse and virtual keypad are not to be ignored. Voice rec seems to be available in all apps and it really is a time saver. If I had an office versus a cube, I would want to use this for all of my text input needs. Note: If I had an office with a door, I would probably leave the door open to annoy you.

TWO: I am lazy. I have always been looking for time saving ways of interacting with technology. I am a strong advocate of the Thinkpad TrackPoint and used Palm OS graffiti until the very end. I was bitter Android didn't give me Graffiti until I updated my Samsung Moment to 2.1. Not only did I find voice recognition nirvana, I also was able to install Gesture Search.

Google Gesture Search allows me to use my phone with one hand (like good ole Palm intended). I can launch apps, dial contacts or launch bookmarks with the swipe of a thumb or finger. Now, I just need a hard button shortcut to launch Gesture Search and I will be golden.

Things You Need to Know: GMail Tips- Viewing Unread Messages

How many times have you skipped over an email intending to get back to it in the future? If you are like me, you probably do this dozens of times a day. Well, today I decided it was time to read those unread messages and I was frustrated that GMail doesn't seem to have the ability to filter unread messages. This exercise proved to me that while Google typically offers a good user experience, they want you to work a little harder than services like Yahoo! (I like your style Google!)

A quick use of the-Google led me to the simple trick: Search for: is:unread or filter:unread

Enjoy!