Practicallyandroid.com

by Marco Pérez

Who likes to pay a lot of money for gasoline!? Okay, everybody else, this video is for you. Save gas money like a champ w/ your handy-dandy Android, and then use the savings to pay your cell phone bill or buy some fattening fast-food!

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I will be the first to admit that while Android is great, there are definitely some down sides. Case in point: Never having all the cool new features because your android is stuck on an old version...like Google's new virtual assistant Google Now. 

Well we have your back at Practically Android! Check out how you can get some Google Now features on your phone without having to buy a new phone or with out having to root your phone!

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by Marco Pérez

There are a million and one ways to break and/or loose your precious little Android and with the pain of loosing a phone comes an even greater pain of loosing all your contacts. Contacts! For me that's my lifeline to the world man! I guess you could go through the process of telling all your friends on Google+, Facebook, etc. to text you. But not only is it a slow annoying process, not all the contacts in my Android are on my Facebook, Google+, or LinkedIn account. So how do we safeguard against this tragedy?

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by Marco Pérez

Okay, if you've never come across the very frustrating problem of trying to download an app because you don't "have enough storage space", then you may not have come the almost uncontrollable urge to smash your lovely little Android against the nearest hard surface. If you have, hopefully your Android is still in one peace, cause we've got just the solution right here!

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by Marco Pérez

Alright, I'll admit that maybe I'm a little superficial...but I hate UGLY icons, especially for apps that I use all the time. So are we left to just hate our Android experience because of these unsightly icons? 

NO! Remember that Android = customization, and this tutorial goes through how to change them in a snap!

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by Marco Pérez

You may say to yourself: 

"I can really get points for "attention to details" if I would just take the time to send a postcard to this special person in my life...but I'm so busy...oh, they are just so cool to receive, I mean...I would love to get one...if I only I could do this from my handy-dandy Android ALL my life's problems would be finito."

..or some variation of this....

By Rudiger Peres

Every time I find an awesome widget I have to face the drama. You see, the space on my Android's home screens is always more limited, so I'm always either creating a new folder w/ a few icons, or I simply exclude them from the home screens making them only accessible through the app drawer; which is a huge inconvenience if you have 200+ installed apps.

It would be ideal to increase the number of icons your home screen allows, and I tested a few options: it's possible to adjust the number of columns and rows with Go Launcher. But that affects both the widgets and all the icons. I also tried to adjust the screen density, which caused even more problems because it not only adjusted the home screens but anything that was displayed on the screen of my Android, so consequently, some of my apps stopped working. 

I would love to be able to make only a few of my icons shrink-to-fit while all the other icons remain the same size. Could it be so? Could such a solution exist that can ease my anguish?! 

by Marco Pérez

There are three parts to this problem. The first third of the problem here is that a lot of people aren't even aware of Google Chrome. I'll give you a quicky: Chrome is a competitor browser developed by Google. Think of Internet Explorer (the "e" on your desktop that  you click on to get on the intenet), but a whole lot faster, customizable, and functional. The second third of the problem is that some folk aren't even aware that Chrome is available on Android! Wooohoooo!

...Oh yeah, the last third of the problem is that unfortunately Chrome for Android is only available on 4.0 devices or better. Last I checked software version 4.0 Ice Cream sandwhich was only installed on about 11% of all devices. So market penetration is not awesome. 

That's okay though, I still thought it is appropriate to get ahead of the curve and share the Chrome goodness on Android with you so you can take advantage of it when your device is updated to Android 4.0 (if it hasn't been already).

by Rudiger Peres

In my old house there was only one room and for this reason my children, my wife and I shared the space. This really was no problem being that they were very small and the bed and the cradle occupied very little space. Not to mention the peace that this brought me because I was always scared to death that one of them (particularly the youngest one) would choke and I would not be able to hear him (there were a few close calls when he was younger and I am now apparently traumatized). 

But time passed and it came time to move to a bigger house with two bedrooms by virtue of the numbers. But this constant concern never left me and forced me to, from time to time, to go take a peek in the room of the little ones.

This obviously destroyed my sleeping routine and caused me to be so fatigued that even the loud cries of my little guy didn't even phase me.

So what now? Should I leave my bedroom and transform our children's room into a community sleeping quarters? Or should I simply disregard my concern?

I have to insert a little jab at RIM...bless their little hearts. 
Their dominance over the smartphone market is dwindling down to nothing, and their CEO(s) continue to make confident Goliath-like statements claiming "all is well" and that they are cooking up something that will "blow everyone out of the water", and lest anyone be confused: "they are still on top of their game". Little do they know there is a little rock heading straight toward their forehead. For lack of a better work, we'll call that little rock Android. =0)

My segway this: One good thing RIM does have is a good reliable keyboard. That is hard to come by with Android. Not because the keyboards are getting better (because they are), but because as screen sizes on phones become larger it is more and more difficult to type on them. I'm finding that if I have anything beyond a 4.3" screen it's a bit of risk to try typing with one hand. And dropping one of these precious Androids always hurts...oh so very bad. So with the likes of the Galaxy Note coming in at a whopping 5.3" (not to mention that rumors of its predecessor is going to be even larger), are we forever condemned to use both our hands to type on our Androids? What happened to being able to multi-task? Will I never again be able to shove food into my mouth as I answer a quick text?