Limited Edition Ouya Unboxing [Kickstarter Project]

Another article featuring yet another Kickstarter project that I have backed. This time I'm talking about the Ouya, the $99 Android game system! So check out what's in the box in my brief unboxing video bellow and perhaps even order one.

So some initial thoughts on the Ouya: 

The Ouya console is very nice looking and feels sturdy. It has the necessary specs, a Tegra 3 processor, 8 GB of storage, wifi, bluetooth, ethernet, micro usb, and hdmi. The software however doesn't seem caught up to the quality of the console quite yet. There aren't that many apps/games on Ouya yet, and installing XBMC, MX Player, or other video playback apps is a bit of a pain. The other thing is it doesn't seem to have hardware acceleration working correctly. They should work to have a working video playback software installed on the device from the get go. That way the device can be used as almost a Google TV box. I have high hopes though that as developers (XBMC's team is working on a great Ouya compatible version) and the Ouya team get more time to work on the device that great things will happen.

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Unified Remote - Android App Of The Week [Week-11]

Today's App is for remotely controlling every aspect of your desktop/laptop computer via your phone! This comes in handy for when you're using your computer to present a Power Point presentation, watch a movie with VLC, or just can't be right there at your computer. To set up the app is easy. Just download the client app on your phone and install the server app on your computer. You can connect via WiFi or via Bluetooth.

                 


There's a lot of things that you can do with the Unified Remote. You can open up files, kill processes, control the computer via a mouse or keyboard, and you can do even more with the paid version. I have been using this app for the past 3 weeks since I use my laptop as my primary source of media playback through my tv. I hook my laptop up to my TV and then play videos through my laptop. With the Unified Remote, I can then pause, play, load files, increase the volume, etc all without having to get up off the couch. I just have to have my phone with me!

Unified Remote

Unified Remote Full

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Flickr - Android App Of The Week [Week-10]

Flickr has recently released some pretty hefty changes to their services. Something that no other image hosting service has done. They are allowing you to upload 1 terabytes of images to the cloud. While other services measure in gigabytes, they're measuring in terabytes. We're talking about being able to store over 200,000 3 MB images. They use to offer the ability for you to go back to view the most recent 200 images and to upload 300 MB worth of images each month. Now you can go back and view ALL your photos, and upload as much as you want so long as you stay within the 1 terabyte. You could embed images into blogs and you don't have to worry about bandwidth issues. Flickr is where I have been storing all my blog images for this blog. Best of all, it's been free for me.

The UI update that the flickr app got makes it in line with the looks of a modern android app. Featuring a slide out navigation drawer and other little attentions to detail, the attention to detail is a welcome addition to the flickr world. The website even got a makeover too! 

 

I highly do recommend using flickr for image storing needs as it's a very effective way to store all those personal memories and it comes with the added bonus of being able to host the images to share via blogs and websites. Flickr has really done a great job with their changes and I expect for them to be competitive again. Download the app and enjoy a terabyte of storage for all your pics!

Flickr

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The HTC One and Sense TV

The HTC One has everything in it (except HTC opted to exclude the kitchen sink). Don't believe me? It even has an IR Blaster! An IR Blaster is a device that emulates an infrared remote control to autonomously control a device that is normally controlled only by remote control key presses. In laymen's terms - we're talking about a remote control built into your phone through the power button.

I was excited to hear that they added remote control capabilities into the HTC One, that way I don't need to find a remote (which is generally misplaced). I just have to know where my phone is and I always know where my HTC One is located at.

The app works really well and is very easy to pair with your TV. I've had some problems with it pairing with certain things like a digital TV converter box, and certain TVs. Another problem I have is just changing channels goes up in the channels, but doesn't go to channels that actually have shows on them. That's because for example, channel 5 has nothing on it, but 5.1 does. This probably has something to do with the transition to all digital TV or something with my Vizio TV. As HTC develops their Sense software more I'm positive the kinks will be worked out!

The UI of the app is clean and simple to use and has the necessary buttons to navigate through all the menus and channels. All you need is one device and you control all your TVs in your house! Changing to different programmed remotes is easy and has a TV guide that syncs with the cloud. Swapping back and forth between channels is extremely easy as you can just pull down the notification and you'll see recent channels that you've been on with a little thumbnail of what show is on that channel. 

You can favorite shows and get reminders for upcoming shows in BlinkFeed, which make Sense TV more than just a universal remote app. It's an entire assistant to help you watch what you want to watch. If you don't already have an HTC One, you might want to hold off on chucking all those universal remotes and replacing them with the HTC One. For HTC One owners, you really could!

Sense TV: ★★★★★★★★★☆ (9 of 10)

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The HTC One and Battery Life

One of the things that worries a lot of smartphone users is how long their device will last day to day. My general rule for battery life is if it can get me through an entire day (from when I wake up to when I sleep, so about 18 hours or so), then it is enough battery life for me. I'm telling you now, don't hold off from buying the HTC One if you main or only concern is the battery life, either because you think it won't have enough or because it doesn't have a removable battery. It's not an issue for me, and I'm betting, it won't be for you. The 2,300mah capacity battery is great! You'll be missing out on beautifully crafted device full of useful features.

The one problem about rating battery life for smartphones is that every person uses their phone differently. So I may get 18 hours which is really good because I'm using my device for all sorts of things and it still gets long battery life, someone else could get 24 hours but barely be using it. I've used the HTC One S, Nexus 4, HTC Sensation, HTC One, and the LG G2x. The HTC One easily outdoes all of them in terms of battery life. It does so while also having a quad-core processor, 1080p screen, crisp boomsound, and a large 4.7" screen! So that's something to really be impressed by. I would say that the HTC One in comparison to the Nexus 4 has about 30% better battery life under my battery usage. Which is great. Also the battery goes strong for video playback. Check out this video bellow where I took the HTC One for a spin playing videos non stop until it died. For more details on the test check out my blog post about it.

Pretty good, right? People don't always use their phone for endless playback though. So moving on to some real world battery samples. I use GSam Battery Monitor to get my battery statistics. Bellow is my very first day of battery use after getting my phone. The default Sense battery information is pretty scarce so the information isn't that great, but it shows 16 hours of usage time. The picture on the right is with GSam Battery and is more useful as it shows that I had the screen on for about 2 hours 20 minutes. All of my battery tests are done with my brightness set to 50% for the majority of time, bluetooth always on (connected to my Pebble Smartwatch), GPS off, WiFi on, Auto Sync on as needed, and battery saving mode on (with only cpu power ticked).

So having 2 hours and 20 minute screen on time and still being able to have the device being used and unplugged for 26 hours is pretty good! So after over a month of data collected my average battery life is around 22 hours! This battery result is from today, but the battery usage for this particular usage cycle is pretty low because I had GPS on for awhile going around town getting information for Sensorly so I can map more T-Mobile LTE locations. But even then, I still managed to make it through the day!

The other aspect about battery life is how long does the battery take to recharge from really empty to completely full. As for the HTC One, it takes a longer than usual amount of time. It will take almost twice as long as any other phone I've owned. Around 3-4 hours for a full charge. Although the HTC One has the Snapdragon 600 processor, which supports the QuickCharge feature, but it looks like HTC opted out. One possible reason why, is because the battery is not easily replaceable and having longer charge times allows for better battery health.



Giving a clear rating for battery is hard. On one hand I get great battery life, but on the other hand I know that the battery isn't replaceable and that there are other smartphones out there with bigger capacity batteries. Take for example the Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy Note. So taking into account all that, my rounded up score is something I stand behind.


Battery Life: ★★★★★★★★★☆ (9 of 10)

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Sensorly - Android App Of The Week [Week-9]

Sensorly is a user generated carrier coverage mapping app. Users collect data to provide Sensorly with coverage for different connection types (2g/3g/4g/lte/wimax/hspa+/etc) and even wifi! The app is available for iPhone's too, so iOS users can help provide information too! I started using this app recently to search for T-Mobile's newly set up LTE network in my area (Southern California) and help provide coverage details of where T-Mobile's new LTE is. The app uses GPS to be able to accurately record where you take your trips and provide the information. You can manually record data or you can have it do it passively, which will take more battery.

 

The more people that contribute the better the maps become. They aren't going to be the slightly fake maps that carriers post to make themselves look better than they are. If there's a lot of data entries you can have really precise coverage information. That information is extremely helpful for deciding which nettwork is right for you! The other thing that the app can do is speed tests.

The above screenshot is a speedtest I took on T-Mobile in my area which was just recently deployed. Not too shabby speeds. Can't wait for these speeds to be everywhere as LTE is deployed in more locations. If you're on T-Mobile or any carrier, help out and join the community to create more accurate user generated carrier coverage maps!

4G,CDMA,GSM,WIFI Coverage maps

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The ChargeCard [Kickstarter Project]

So the other day I got my ChargeCard in the mail. Another one of the projects that I decided to back on kickstarter. The thing with kickstarter is sometimes, you begin to wonder when you'll get the product. Well, I finally have the product in hand, and I'm happy I supported the project. The ChargeCard is manufactured in Anaheim, CA (which is just about 10 miles away from place of residence) and it's always nice to support a local American manufacturing business. The reason I decided to get the ChargeCard is so that I'll be able to charge my phone virtually everywhere because I'll keep my ChargeCard in my wallet.

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SoundHound - Android App Of The Week [Week-8]

You hear a song on the radio or maybe a song is playing while you're watching a show or movie and you don't know what to do. That's where SoundHound comes in. SoundHound is a great app for music fanatics. Hear a song you don't know, load up the app (or just have a widget on your homescreen) and it'll listen to what's playing and try and identify it. This is a competitor to the popular Shazam app. I prefer this one because I've had better luck with it and because it looks cleaner in my opinion.

           

The app is able to show the lyrics of the song that is playing and keep in sync with what lyrics are going on at the current time. It also has some nice sharing options and is easy to quickly youtube the song. It has some nice explore options so that you can find new music based on what's hot at the current time or what other people are discovering. The app comes in a free version and a paid version.

SoundHound

SoundHound ∞

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Slickdeals - Android App Of The Week [Week-7]

Like buying stuff? Also like paying as little as possible and getting good deals? If you don't already look up deals on slickdeals.net now is the time to start doing so. There's a multitude of deals to be had and this site congregates deals from around the web or from in store locations. The app that goes with it is handy because you can look it up deals on the go and be notified of deals through notifications. That way you can get in on deals before they expire, run out of stock, or in some cases change a pricing because it was too good to last that long and was a mistake that the company honored for a little while.

The app is well made and allows you to quickly go into the app, check for good front page deals and move on with your day. It also allows you to look at the deals forum. The app stays inline with how modern Android apps look. It has a slide out navigation drawer and quite polished.

I recommend installing this app to help keep track of deals. There are some pretty good deals that show up online. Deals from electronics (got a great 24" tv for $100), clothes (jeans, shirts for a couple bucks), and everything in between. Check out the download bellow.

Forex Currency Rates

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The HTC One and BlinkFeed

So I've had my HTC One since April 16th, so I've had a good amount of time to play around with the device  and know the device well enough to give my impression of it. What the device does well or doesn't do well is what I'll be sharing. So instead of clumping together everything into one post, I want to take the time to really get deep into the core of each aspect of the phone. I'll be starting with the areas HTC chose to highlight about the device: BlinkFeed, Design, Ultrapixel Camera, BoomSound, Sense 5, and the IRBlaster/Sense TV.

In the this post I'll go over BlinkFeed in all of it's eloquent glory and give my impressions of it. First off a youtube video where HTC showcases BlinkFeed just to give a quick idea of what BlinkFeed is in case you don't know yet.

The idea behind BlinkFeed is a good idea, and the design of it is crisp, smooth, and beautiful. The problem that I have with BlinkFeed is I like to sift through my information in a Google Reader approach. This means having the ability to mark stuff as already viewed, and to view EVERYTHING in chronological order. It does a really good job of almost being a replacement to Google Reader (and I need one fast since the service is closing soon. Why GOOGLE WHY!?!). I'm hoping that HTC stays committed to BlinkFeed since it has a lot going for it.

I love that if you tap on the notification bar it will bring you to the top of BlinkFeed. This also works in the app drawer of Sense 5. Pretty nifty feature. I wish though that I could get rid of the weather portion of BlinkFeed if I so chose to do so. Same way I would like the app drawer to be a little larger grid and to get rid of the permanent weather widget. The transfer animations are smooth though and despite some features missing that I would like. I find myself using BlinkFeed more than I anticipated.

BlinkFeed: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (8 of 10)

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PushBullet - Android App Of The Week [Week-6]

So this week's app is for all those people out there that like to be more efficient. I showcased MightyText which gives users the ability to send texts from their computers or from their tablets. With this week's app, PushBullet, you can send links, notes, lists, or files to your device.


           

You download the chrome extension on your desktop/laptop (sorry firefox users out there, IE users...get a better browser) and you'll be able to start pushing things to your phone. Just sign into your devices. If you have Google's Chrome to Phone app you're probably thinking why do you need this app? Why is it better? The answer is simple, you can send more things (notes, lists, files) and you can send them to specific devices.
PushBullet comes in for the assist nicely for when you're browsing on your computer at home and you see a file you want to download on your phone or suppose you're about to head somewhere and you want to load up the directions that you have on your desktop, onto your phone. It's as simple as pushing a link.

                            

Hit up the download link bellow, it's an app well worth downloading. Plus, it's free!

PushBullet

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Zedge - Android App Of The Week [Week-5]

If you're like me you probably like to change your wallpaper a million times a year, your ringtone everytime you hear some new hilarious audio clip, and your alarm clock notification sound just about everytime you set one. Doing that can become quite combursom if you have to manually find an image or audio and transfer it to your device or download it. Then it becomes a hassle of just organizing all the accumulated  media. Instead of doing all that, just download Zedge. Even if you don't like doing all that and don't download or change your wallpapers or ringtone sounds often. Still just download Zedge. The Zedge app connects into their website where anyone with a free account can upload ringtones and wallpapers to the site and then easily download it from the Android app. It's really handy. You don't have to worry about where you had that awesome ringtone located and you can favorite ringtones and wallpapers that you come across.

 

That app knows what resolution screen you have so that you can find wallpapers that will look nice and crisp for what ever screen size you have. The gorgeous 1080p screen on my HTC One displays the wallpapers that it gets from the app beautifully. All the wallpapers that it gets on this phone are made for 1080p screens. If I fire the app up on my HTC One S (540p screen) it'll have wallpapers available to download in a 540p resolution that will look nice for that device. One downside to the app however is that you won't find almost all popular copyright material. So if you want to download a ringtone that is a clip of a song - you're out of luck. You'll have to get that ringtone elsewhere. Likewise if you want to upload a ringtone or wallpaper, if it's copyrighted there's a good chance it will be taken down quickly by their automated anti-copyright system. If the system doesn't catch it, there's a good chance it will eventually be reported and taken down. Despite that, there's A LOT of good stuff on Zedge. I recommend Zedge as a must have app on every Android phone.

ZEDGE™

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Quotable Quotes

Bellow is my collection of quotes that I have come across and found intrinsic value in the content of their meanings. The list will be updated with new quotes I like as I find them.




“Being a geek is all about being honest about what you enjoy and not being afraid to demonstrate that affection. It means never having to play it cool about how much you like something. It’s basically a license to proudly emote on a somewhat childish level rather than behave like a supposed adult. Being a geek is extremely liberating.” - Simon Pegg

"Such is life" - Ned Kelly

"The Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes" - Ted Stevens 

"A smile abroad is often a scowl at home." - Alfred Lord Tennyson 

"Life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating." - William Sydney Porter

"Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated." - Drabek R.

"A deceiving smile is better than a honest frown" - Me :D

"I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born." - Ronald Reagan

"It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it." - Thomas Sowell

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan

"It is better to have one friend of great value than to have many friends of little value." - Author Unknown

"Everyone is a friend, until they prove otherwise." - Author Unknown

"The only way to have a friend is to be one." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Most important thing about love is that we choose to give it, and we choose to receive it. Making it the least random act in the entire Universe. It transcends blood, it transcends betrayal and all the dirt and makes us human." - Chaos Theory

"It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people yourself is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness. People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered. If we're compassionate, we'll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint." - Penn Jillette

"Women are emotionally incoherent. It's their defining characteristic" - City Island

"Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you " - Luke 6:28

"Oh trust me doc, bringing psychiatric drugs and teenagers together is like opening a lemonade stand in the desert." - Charlie Bartlett

"Nothing good ever happens after 2am, so just go to sleep" - How I Met Your Mother

"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust." - Samuel Johnson

"Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you." - Thomas Jefferson

"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." - Mark Twain

"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish." - Albert Einstein

"A person who speaks cleverly is witty; one who asks questions is smart." - Terry Car

"Character is higher than intellect." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"There's still a kid inside but you grow up when you decide to do right, okay, and not what's right for you, what's right for everybody, even when it hurts." - Lars and the Real Girl 

"Did you ever do this, you think back on all the times you've had with someone and you just replay it in your head over and over again and you look for those first signs of trouble?" - 500 days of Summer

"The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws." - Walt Whitman

"The next time some academics tell you how important 'diversity' is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department." - Thomas Sowell

"If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." - Isaac Newton

"Science now knows that many of the pillars of Darwinian theory are either false or misleading. Yet biology texts continue to present them as factual evidence of evolution. What does this imply about their scientific standards?" - Jonathan Wells

“The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal.” - C.S. Lewis

"Friendship is an involuntary reflex, it just happens, you can’t help it.” - How I Met Your Mother

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none." - William Shakespeare

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant" - Louis Brandeis

“Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.” - Albert Einstein

"When you are in Love you can’t fall asleep because reality is better than your dreams." - Dr Seuss

"There's a fine line between sweet and creepy, and that line is whether she likes you back." - Micah Madru :)

"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on." - Samuel Goldwyn

"Once upon a time, I wanted to know what love was. Love is there if you want it to be. You just have to see that it's wrapped in beauty and hidden away in between the seconds of your life. If you don't stop for a minute, you might miss it." - Cashback

"We don't even have a secretary of the treasury, we have a secretary of the debt because there is no treasury, the treasury is empty, all we've got are liabilities..." - Peter Schiff

"If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?" - Frédéric Bastiat

"Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds government and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being done by government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the state — then we are against education altogether. We object to a state religion — then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the state then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by the state." - Frédéric Bastiat

"Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to principles. Intolerance applies only to principles, but never to persons." - Fulton Sheen

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