ANDRY LODGE

Reasons Why You Should Consider Upgrading To Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)

2016-06-18T04:15:00.002-07:00

Reasons Why You Should Consider Upgrading To Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)

Throughout this year, Android 6.0 also known as Android Marshmallow , will with no doubt reach a large number of devices. Today, there are not too many individuals using the system. According to recent data, only 2.3% of Android users are on Marshmallow. The version currently dominating the market is Android 5 Lollipop, with 36.1% share. If you're one of the lucky few who already enjoy Marshmallow, we are sure you've already started testing some of its main advantages: Doze , individual applications or the new assistant management . However, the update do not only allows benefit from these new features, you can also perform a number of other things to enhance the experience of the platform. Some of the Top tips you might want to try out after upgrading to Android 6.0 includes:

Changing Quick Settings Notification Center

Once you've updated to Android 6.0 or purchased a device that integrates the system, you need to know that you can modify quick settings from the notification center itself. You only have to hold the Settings button that appears next to the battery when deploying twice the panel. You'll see a new menu of settings, which has been dubbed enabled "System UI Tuner". When you're in it, you can change the order and settings, access and make other adjustments, such as to enable the battery percentage.

Programming The "Do Not Disturb" mode

Did you know that you can program DND to be activated at any time you want? To do so enter settings in the section "Sounds and Notifications", you will see a section meant to schedule time intervals for mode automatically. Basically you can set it to anything you desire. Just try out each settings till you are satisfied with the outcome.

Doze disabled for apps you do not want them hanging

You know that Android 6.0 has opened a new intelligent power saving feature called Doze. Actually, what makes this new feature awesome is the ability to reduce the background activity of the applications on your device when it is resting on a table. But what happens if we do not want a particular application to go to sleep? Do not worry, you can create exceptions with Doze . Just enter settings and access the section of the battery, Click on the three dots located on the top right of the screen and enter the "option Optimizing Battery". When you're inside click on "unoptimize" and select "All". Finally, you will be able to see the application you want to be immune to Doze, select it and click on the option "No optimize".

Improved text selection

In case you did not know, in Marshmallow you can have more choices when selecting copy text function. For example, you can search the content you've selected on the Internet, or translate, if you have the application Google Translate installed. It also allows you to search the Wikipedia. The purpose of this is to make it easier for the user to perform functions faster, in case you want to find more information about a particular text.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE MOST ABOUT YOUR ANDROID 6?

The Oddest Place You Will Find the Best Applications of Google Play Store

2016-06-16T05:17:00.000-07:00

Google Play Store is the official store of applications for the Android operating system. This is so because it provides an excellent user experience, quite comfortable and intuitive but we can not deny that sometimes, it becomes somewhat monotonous. One of such reasons, among other things is the method used to find recommended apps or suggested apps. Fortunately, in recent times there some interesting alternatives that will allow us to find our desired apps , such as AppHunt, Aptoide or F-Droid.

AppHunt

If you want to find the best apps from Google Play Store, one way to go about it is through AppHunt . This tool lets you know what have been the most voted applications in the past week and even will let you see the latest top app in the past week or month. In addition, you can configure notifications to alert you of what have been the most voted apps of the week or month and also you have the chance to see comments made on applications to see what other users think.

Aptoide

Aptoide is a rather a curious tool because we can find applications that have not been approved in Google Play . It has more than 300,000 apps uploaded by users completely free, so you have to be very careful of what you download since it maybe contain some malicious application.

F-Droid

Finding interesting and fun apps is easier with F-Droid. Unlike Google Play, its applications are license - free, so there will be no need for a user account. In this regard, those responsible for F-Droid guarantee anonymity by not keeping a record of the applications that are downloaded. If you're worried that F-Droid may contain malicious applications, you can take certain precautions for safety like making a previous backup, use an antivirus for Android or read the list of permissions required by the application and check with your logic. Currently F-Droid has more than 1,500 open source applications.

SlideMe

If you want to primarily preserve the security of your phone, SlideMe is a tool that stands out for having paid content and in which its editors and user community review all applications that are published. Thus, they ensure that no malware or pirated versions. It currently contains over 2 million users and over 40,000 applications but requires the services of Google Play to run many games and applications correctly.

8 ways to improve Your Android phone battery life.

2016-06-16T01:32:00.000-07:00

Everybody would love to get their phone battery life to last a few hours longer than usual and will for sure appreciate some useful and additional tips on how to go about squeezing few more hours out of their battery life. I will be showing you 8 ways you can achieve that. Some of which are very simple, and we will start from the basics things you need to do to ensure you keep your device alive and later on we will move up to more complicated things.

8 ways to extend your battery life includes:

1. Pay attention to your screen.

The new screens of these era with 1080p screen resolution is one of the biggest culprit of android battery drain, it takes a lot of juice to power those displays. Obviously, your screen brightness and your screen timeout plays a very vital role here. The brighter your screen and the longer your timeout, the more percentage of battery they consume. Always make sure you reduce your screen brightness to the minimum when necessary unless in cases where you need a few extra brightness from your screen then you can turned it up to just the right level that suites you. Furthermore, it is also important you set your screen timeout to few minutes, advisably not more than 1 minute.

2. Radio and Phone Signals

Radio signals such as network signal (3G, 4G), GPS, Bluetooth, hotspot could be a really big problem to your battery especially when you are trying to conserve your battery life. 4G is the latest cell phone signals as well as one of the biggest new features added so that more people can use them for faster data speed required tasks. But its only problem is the battery consumption rate. Learn to use it only in extreme cases (thanks to preferred network settings present in android phones). This also applies to GPS and Bluetooth on your device. When you are not in need of your GPS or Bluetooth, turn them off to avoid unnecessary battery consumption.

3. Watch your applications.

These days, Smart phones are more powerful. They have the ability to do some background activities like sync with Facebook and Twitter, do all kinds of word processing and run office apps, and they have an excellent multimedia experience with video games. It is no surprise that if you watch Netflix on 4G on a phone of 4.8-inch screen, your battery won't last more than a few episodes .

Although Sometimes, an application can chew your battery without being active. Always make sure you uninstall applications your don't use by Doing this, go to your settings, and click the battery option, there you can see a list of apps using your battery, go through the list and note the ones worth uninstalling. After that go back and click "APPS" option and switch to "ALL" tab. There you will see all the applications installed in your phone. Go through the list and uninstall the applications you noted down earlier. By doing this, you librated your battery from powering unneeded Apps.

4. Widgets and syncing.

At times I see some of my friends having lots of widgets on their home screen and surprisingly, amongst those widgets, is the weather widgets. Then I start to wonder of what use is the weather widget to this guy? Most android users put up some unnecessary battery draining widgets on their home screen all for the purpose of beautifying the home screen. Take for example the weather widget which I mentioned earlier, most of them (if not all) require your GPS and data to be actives in order for them to function properly at the expense of our battery. Advice: Uninstall all your widgets from your home screen which you know you really don't need daily.

5. Avoid Phone Heating Up.

This one is weird, but pay attention to this. A battery at high temperature will cause it to evacuate quickly while a low temperature has the opposite effect. Don't place your phone in positions that will cause it to heat up like car dashboard, T.V top, desktop computer top; doing this Will cause the phone to get hot and the battery drains faster. And if you notice your phone temperature becoming too high, turn it off, take out the battery (for removable batteries) and place it somewhere cooler with some open air or before a desk fan for it to get a bit cold and then you can turn it on.

However, it is also very important that you do not freeze your phone or cause the battery to fall below a certain temperature since condensation can also cause ruins to your device. Just try not to go overboard with cooling your phone.

6. block ads [root required].

People sure know ads are annoying, but not many people really know how much they can hurt your battery life. Naturally, the more things you have acting on your phone frequently is mostly likely to cause power drop. There is no exception regardless of the website or application, it definitely will have an impact on battery life.

There are many ways to block ads on apps, but however, the option to remove ads by upgrading to a paid version of a particular application is not always welcomed by most individual out there, thus an ad-blocker is the next best thing. There are many ad Blocker online. Just search Google for it and you will have many options to pick from.

7. Try a new kernel [root required].

Different kernels for your device can significantly improve performance and battery life. However, this option depends on the popularity of your phone. If you are using a less popularly known device it will be very difficult to find a custom kernel for your device. But that notwithstanding, flashing a new kernel into your phone van also help improve your battery life and the process is usually very simple. Most kernels are packaged in zip files with regular Flash support, but note that all phone kernel varies and it is therefore important you read some articles containing instructions on how to go about the flashing process. XDA-Developers.com is an excellent source for learning about rooting, unlocking, and flashing of phones.

8. Try a new ROM [root required]

Some times the stock rom built into our android device by the manufacturers don't really put the battery requirement into consideration. So many functions, features and apps are packed into the device all with the view of attracting buyers. In such a case, flashing a custom rom can be your best option. Custom rom are ROMs built by individuals for a particular device and most of them are meant to fix issues like battery consumption, ram management e.t.c in the stock rom. Just like in the case of the kernel, custom ROMs differs from one phone to another thus, to do this you have to search for custom rom for your device model as well as how to go about the flashing process.

7 VERY IMPORTANT BUT LESS KNOWN ANDROID APPS THAT CAN MAKE LIFE EASIER FOR YOU!

2016-04-28T23:39:00.000-07:00

There are tons of apps out there for Android user both the good, the bad and the ugly ones. There are some that are almost totally useless to our everyday kind of life style, while there are some that we just cant do without daily.
In this article, i will be making a list of JUST 7 (out of the numerous) android application that i have found useful in one way or the other to me. You too might find them of great value too.

1. CAMSCANNER

This app does a great job of cleaning up the pictures and jumbling them into one PDF.
Turn your phone and tablet into scanner for intelligent document management With CamScanner, any documents you see in real world can be digitized and saved right away with your mobile phone.

Just take a photo, and CamScanner take care of the rest. - Scan any kind of document in seconds, texts or graphics. - Scan multi-page documents - Batch scan documents - Auto-crop scanned photos - Smart-enhance the scan results - Several Enhance Modes available - Save scan results to system album - Create PDF files for scans - Customize PDF page size: 10 page size options (Letter, A4, B5 and etc.)

2. PVSTAR+

This is NO AD version of PVSTAR+. With this app, you can create and manage playlist for Youtube, DailyMotion videos and MV.

Moreover, continuous playback, background playback, repeat playback are also supported. The main features are as follows. - Video search (YouTube, DailyMotion, NicoVideo, Vimeo) - Voice search - Search Youtube playlists - Search Youtube channels - Category Search - Playlist playback .

it can play YouTube videos and more in the background/with the screen off

3. LLAMA

This is an automation app for Android. it allows you to create customized if/then events based on your phone's current state, such as your location (from cell tower, WiFi, or GPS), time of day,
current app, charging state, etc.

For instance, Llama can detect when you're near your workplace and switch to a quiet notification/ring profile. You can create an alarm that only goes off based on time and location, for example if you're at home running late for work.

I've used it to toggle on/off my dashcam app when I'm driving. There are similar apps out there, such as Tasker (not free), but I've found Llama to be the most versatile.
Particularly useful is that Llama can reliably deduce your location from cell towers, in addition to having 'variables' you can set to create more complex triggers with greater ease: one to correspond to whether I'm sleeping, driving, working, etc. that can be used to determine if other events should trigger.

4. WORD LENS TRANSLATOR

Word Lens Translator is an app that lets you translate any poster or printed text in real time using the camera on your Android device.

The only thing you have to do to use Word Lens Translator is select the language you want to translate, point the camera at the text, and keep it as stable as possible for a few seconds. Within moments you'll see, like magic, the translation as it appears in real time on your screen.

The best uses of Word Lens Translator are for restaurant menus, posters, signs, and news headlines, since the clearer the text the smaller the chance of errors in the translation. It's important to remember, though, that the app has a very hard time deciphering handwritten script. Word Lens Translator is an incredibly useful app for people who travel often. With it you can find out the exact meaning of any sign in any language that's not your own.

5. TEXTRA

Use Textra default messaging app instead of the stock one- it's way more customizable (including sending delays so that you can stop a message from being sent if you accidentally send it too soon).

Textra is simply outstanding!

Comes with a bunch of great features, notably 100+ material design theme / bubble / app icon colors, dark & light modes, bubble styles, scheduled (future) SMS & MMS, delayed sending (stop while sending), slide to delete / call, quick snap camera, multi-select picture gallery, quick reply popup, awesome MMS GROUP messaging, quick voice memos, 21 text sizes, SMS blocker / blacklisting, auto video & picture compression and lots more...

Customize your preferred bubble colors, signatures and notifications (icon color, LED color, sound, vibration, privacy, reminders and muting) PER CONVERSATION as well.

6. PUSHBULLET

It allows you to send messages between your phone and your computer and it shows you messages you receive on your phone as a desktop notification.
Pushbullet is "the app you never knew you needed"
SAVE TIME
• Text from your computer using your keyboard instead of grabbing your phone
• The easiest way to get a link or file onto your phone to open or share
• Deal with notifications on your computer as they arrive

STAY CONNECTED
• Conveniently send and receive SMS messages from your computer
• Reply to messages from many popular apps including WhatsApp, Kik, and Facebook Messenger
• Easily share links and files between your devices, or with friends

NEVER MISS A NOTIFICATION
• See all of your phone's notifications on your computer, including phone calls
• Dismiss a notification on your computer and it goes away on your phone too
• Use Pushbullet Channels to subscribe to timely notifications about things you care about

AND NOW TO THE ONE I LOVE MOST (DRUM ROLL. . . .)

7. Greenify

Never should your phone or tablet become slower and battery hungrier after lots of apps installed. With Greenify, your device can run almost as smoothly and lastingly as it did the first day you had it!

Greenify help you identify and put the misbehaving apps into hibernation when you are not using them, to stop them from lagging your device and leeching the battery, in an unique way!

They can do nothing without explicit launch by you or other apps, while still preserving full functionality when running in foreground, similar to iOS apps!

THESE ARE BASED ON MY OPINION. I KNOW THERE ARE OTHERS THAT HELP YOU PERSONALLY IN YOUR DAILY LIVING. CARE TO US THAT "NOT SO POPULAR" APP THAT YOU JUST CANT DO WITHOUT OFTEN?

PLEASE ADD YOURS TO THE LIST USING OUR COMMENT BOX. THANKS!!

INSTALL CLOCKWORKMOD RECOVERY ON TECNO R7

2014-10-09T12:54:00.000-07:00

(1) Download any file manager application, install on phone. Preferably ES file explorer

(2) Download mobile uncle from here

(3) Download R7 recovery image from this link r7 recovery image Then, after downloading the recovery image, rename it as recovery.img Now, launch es file explorer and place the recovery.img file in the root of your sd (i.e do not put it in any folder in your memory card)

(4) launch mobile uncle tools and it will ask for root access, grant it. Now, click on recovery update on mobile uncle tool and phone will come up with a suggestion to update recovery and boot into recovery, allow it.

(5) After phone has boot into clockworkmod recovery mode, just scroll up and down by the use of your volume keys and use power bottom to click on backup and restore then click on backup option, phone should automatically backup the necessary files.

(6) Wait a while for the backup to complete, Then click on reboot system. That's all, you can now explore your phone as much as you like. If you in anyway, cause a phone malfunction during your exploring, just goto your back up and restore it.

NB: To restore, skip every other steps and start from step 5, and in place of backup, choose restore. That's how simple it is. Credit to matrix of the great tecno r7 whatsapp group

How to swap tecno n3 and p3 imei to be able to use glo 3gig bis even without rooting it!!

2014-10-08T01:22:00.000-07:00

After a frustrating and annoying months of searching and hoping to find a post on the Internet about how to swap tecno n3 or p3 device imei, i finally stumble on a post about how to backup and restore imei in LG phones so i thought to myself why not try tweaking this? It might work for you after all what's life without risk? Then i downloaded the only files that i didn't have before from the link provided in the post, installed it, and went ahead with the steps and tweaking each step to fit my device. To be frank at this moment i was so scared so i DOUBLE BACKED UP MY NV FILES to tell how scared i was but it all gave a positive result at the end. Hence this blog to help out those that are like me out there.

why will i want to swap my imei?

if you are a Nigerian and have an android phone, you'll agree with me that the cost of purchasing data for android is so not friendly to an average 9ja guy out there as compared to that of blackberry data cost. And presently glo has got the cheapest data plan for blackberry devices so that's where we come in.

swapping your imei to that of blackberry help fool our Internet service provider to think that we are really using a blackberry phone and thus make use eligible to use their blackberry subscription plan. Swapping of imei in android phone is painless in MTK devices But for few phones that are qualcomm (like p3, htc, Samsung) it's like very difficult, well until i did it though.

HOW TO GO ABOUT IT

DISCLAIMER : Am not in any way responsible for whatever damage you do to your phone but if you follow my steps carefully you should have no problem. With that said, these are the things we are going to be using

imei converter

qualcomm usb drivers

qpst

download and install imei converter
extract it to your desktop
download usb drivers
extract it to your desktop
download and install QSPT

extract and install the QPST,
connect your phone to your pc with your usb cord and make sure usb debugging is activated (you can find that in developer option of your phone or just search Google for how to do that)
open my computer > click system properties( at the top of your screen) > click device manager (at the top left corner of your screen)
scroll down your device manager list to the place where your will see others you should see some options with Qualcomm attached to its name (about 5 in number)

Now we have to update the drivers manually

right click on the first Qualcomm drive > select update drivers software > browse my computer for drives > click browse and locate the usb drivers folder you extract earlier > select it and click OK > then tick include sub folders > and finally click OK. wait for your system to install the drives and repeat the same steps for the other Qualcomm drivers With that done correctly, you should see all your Qualcomm drive fully listed out with COM PORTS respectively. Take note of the COM PORTS of the first two options and write it down. Mine was COM30 and COM32
connect your phone
open QPST configuration from where ever you installed it or better still click start > all programs > QPST and locate QPST configuration
click Port tab and then click Add port (at the bottom right of your screen ) and you'll see two text field, input the first port in the two text field, untick show serial and USB/QC. . . and click OK.
repeat the last step for the second port you wrote down

if done correctly, you should see your ports in QPST configuration window with the details about the exact port your phone is connected to

The next step is to back up your phone files incase of any error

still on QPST configuration window Click start client (at top) > software download > click backup tab click browse and choose the port on which your phone is connected to (check QPST Configuration window if you don't know )
click start after its done, exit it.

Now we can go ahead and change our imei

Click start client > RF NV item manager > settings > select the same port your phone is connected to and click OK.
Click file > read from phone > it'll load your phone NV files > locate line 550 (its should look like this NV_UE_IME_I ) > click it and you'll see your imei> tick HEX box to see the HEX value cause that's what we will be using.
Now open your IMEI CONVERTER, type in your BB imei and click convert it will give you the HEX values of your bb imei, write it down and go back to your RF NV item manager, delete what you see on the first box and replace it with equivalent values of your bb imei HEX just the same way you see it. Repeat this step for the other values till you get to the last box at the bottom.
click OK > file > write changed NV to phone > reboot your phone and that's all. Go do your glo bis subscription and enjoy

Note: for those who don't have bb imei, you can download my 56 bb imei + pin from HERE

HOW TO DOWNLOAD

(For or some reasons, downloading some of these files requires you to do a quick survey to unlock the files, please be patient and kindly complete the survey. It won't take time. Am sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks)

Click the link, choose a survey, complete it unlock the download link and download your file. That's all.

please if you encounter any problem don't hesitate to make it known and also if it worked for you, you can show appreciation by sharing this post and posting a testimony. Thanks! I av personally done this on rooted p3 and unrooted n3. For those using custom rom like mokee, just disable sim 2 then dail *#06# you will see your bb imei after confirming it, you can now enable the sim 2.