• The website being down
• Your DNS not being able to lookup the IP address of the website
• Settings in your browser blocking access to the website
• Routers/Proxy servers redirecting traffic

The possiblity of error might seem to be larger on your side but its deeply frustrating to check every cause and eventually figure out that the problem was actually on the website’s side.  The simplest way to eliminate this possibility is to check the website through http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

Fire up your browser and point it to http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

Once there type the website to check, in the space provided and hit enter.

If the website is down you will get something like the following message:

Other wise you will get a message like this one:

In case of the latter, maybe its time to choose a better DNS provider or recheck your browser/router settings

Once installed all you need to do is double-click or highlight a word, and a little pop-up will show the definition of it in your language.

Click on the link below to install the plugin:
Google Dictionary and Google Translate 2.5

Image via CrunchBase

After a crash Firefox, when restarted gives a page with the option of Restoring the session or Starting a new session. Sometimes in haste we might hit the “New Session” option and feel a bit stupid that all those open tabs are now gone…

Well there is a simple way to undo that. Simply point your browser to “about:sessionrestore” and you will get back to the page with the option of restoring your previous session again!

Image via CrunchBase

There are many good tutorials on the web about installing Gingerbread on the Ace (like this one).

Once you have Gingerbread installed what can you expect from your new system?
Other than the already present updates to Android, here are a few notes I made:

• The Default language at the start is not English. To change, go to Settings -> Locale and Text (recognizable by the keyboard key A as the logo) -> Select Language (Option no. 1 in the list) -> English (or any other language)
• The battery lasts longer and is estimated more accurately. – The battery info is more detailed too.
• The Wifi bug that caused the “black screen of death” problem is fixed. Expect more stability while using Wifi
• The UI is faster and more responsive
• Fonts are crispier and look great
• The notification bar is smaller and that really helps screen real estate.
• Internal memory usage has improved leaps and bounds, expect lesser problems in that area

All in all the upgrade to Gingerbread has been perfect so far.

Note: The version I have installed is XXKPH

The problem I figured out later was a simple case of my phone being in the wrong mode. For updating you must be in the “Downloading” mode, In this mode the phone flashes a single line message on the screen – “Downloading…”


To get to this mode reset your phone(take the battery out, also take out your sim card and micro sd card). Hold Home, Volume Down and power buttons and then connect to the system.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you hold the Volume Up or both Volume buttons you will end up in other modes (like the ram dump mode).

Once in the more updating is just a few minutes affair

Whats worse? I could only discover a single app that made this operation possible.  The app goes by the name “Tiny Flashlight + LED” and is available in the Android Market.

The app also provides a handy widget that allows you to turn on the torch right from the home screen

The creators of the app say that it works with these phones:
Samsung Epic 4G Galaxy S II S2 SII GS2 GSII Tab 7.0 8.9 10.1 Ace Cooper Fascinate Moment Acclaim Transform Mesmerize Charge Behold 7500 Moment, LG G-Slate Ally Apex GW620 KH5200 EVE Shine Plus Optimus 2x G2x Speed, Motorola XOOM Atrix 4G Droid Bionic X 2 i1 Pro R2D2 Backflip Cliq XT Milestone Defy, Nexus, N1, Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 X3 Neo Pro Play Arc, HTC Incredible G2 Desire HD HD2 EVO Shift 3D myTouch Slide Wildfire Legend Thunderbolt Inspire Sensation Merge, Bright Flashlight, Dell Streak 2.1, Sharp IS01 JN-DK01 SH-10B Lynx IS03 SBM003SH SBM005SH, Pantech Vega SKY X, Sanyo Zio, Toshiba Regza T-01C, bright flashlight, bright led, Garmin Asus A10, Huawei Ideos X5 U8800, Archos Coby Kyros 7015 LED, Acer Iconia A500.

Download:

Tiny Flashlight + LED

Image via Wikipedia

The “Could Not Install On USB Storage Or SD Card” error on Android phones apparently occurs when something goes wrong with the installation of an app and temp file is left on your Android OS. There is a work around and a fix for this problem.

The Work Around:

• Unmount your SD card
• Install the app
• Mount your SD card
• Move the app to the SD card

The Fix:
Note: I suggest you backup your sd card before you try this method. It worked perfectly on my Galaxy Ace but there is no guarantee that it might not cause any data loss.

• Connect your phone to your PC as a mass storage device
• Backup important data
• Find the folder named “.android_secure”
• Inside it, delete the file called “smdl2tmp1.asec”
• Disconnect your phone
• Install the App you were trying to install

Hope this helps you

Image via Wikipedia

One of the best features of Android is its ability to merge your social networking accounts with your contacts. By doing that it brings all the information needed by you to a single place and makes it extremely easy to communicate by centralizing your contacts.

But on the flipside, it becomes extremely irritating when you realize that a contact has multiple userpics for different services and your phone has picked the random animated image as the default.

So how do we fix this problem and select the right default image for a contact?

Fortunately there is a simple way to specify the Default Picture/Name/Number/Email for a contact.


To change the default information of a contact do the following:

1. In your contacts page (where you have the list of your contacts) long press a contact that you want to change.
2. When the menu comes up, press select “Mark as Default”
3. Now you will be given a list of options for the Contacts details.
4. Select the default in each section and hit save

1. My Tracks
2. Run Free
3. Run Keeper

My Tracks

Developed by Google the versatility of My Tracks is simply undeniable. This app is capable of logging not jut your runs but most adventure activities. I even once used it to record the speed of a car that was driven by my friend.

My Tracks packs with it direct integration with Google Maps and provides almost all the information that any decent GPS Device can provide.

My Tracks does not integrate with any run logging website out there but provides the ability to export to GPX format that is acceptable at most sites.

Run Free

Runfree is one of the very few Android apps that provides integration with Daily Mile. One of its best features is “Tracks”, which basically lets you define tracks that you regularly use and compare your runs to past efforts.

RunKeeper

Integration with Run Keeper and features audio cues. Every Xmin or X Km(or Miles) it tells you your distance and pace, very good to get feedback as you run. I use this currently. Plus Runkeeper.com gives an easy way to export your run data and I liked that.  This app supports tracks too.

Depending on where you are logging your runs and what you want from the info you can go with one of the above three.

My Tracks is very versatile and you can use it to record your positions and geotag photos. Install this one for sure its a very good app even if you dont use it for running.

Image via CrunchBase

I bought the Samsung Galaxy Ace a little over a month ago. The switch to a smart-phone has been quite exciting and here are a few of things that I have had a significant impact on my experience with the Ace.

The Ace was supposed to replace my GPS Navigator, (Basic) Phone and IPod Touch, it managed to do that and more thanks to a few free apps from the Android Market.

The ACE:
One of the most striking features of the Ace is that its a very classy looking phone. The default back cover has a very nice feel and it was this combination that made me pick up the Ace over the Galaxy SL

At a screen size of 3.5″ it felt just the right size in my pockets and my palm, plus it provided enough screen real estate to read documents easily.

The hardware home button provides a little more easy access as compared to the touch based buttons of other phones of the same class. The Back and Menu buttons are touch based and are almost invisible unless activated, another feature that is very soothing to the eyes.

One of the biggest -ve points of the phone is the pathetic earphones that come with the phone. They are at best average and considering the lack of supported earphones for the Ace its a very irritating problem that I have to live thru for now.

Android:
The Android OS is one of the reasons I went for the Ace. The customizability of the OS is one of the biggest advantages over the iOS but on the flip-side the OS is far less stable and its very irritating at times.

GPS
I was pretty blown away by the features packed into Android thanks to the GPS. My iPod touch came without a GPS and the usefulness of one wasn’t evident until I started logging my morning runs and started using navigation.

The GPS tends to drain the batteries but considering that its mostly used inside a car it is better if you have a charging setup for your phone in the car.

The GPS is impressively sensitive and has been a great tool for my runs in the morning.

Phone:
I am not a huge fan of the touch interface for making and receiving calls but the big winner is the central contact system that is wonderfully useful.

I decided against using the default Swype keyboard available with the phone, initially and installed the Swift Keyboard.  After using the swift keyboard for a while I switched back to the Swype keyboard and felt much more at home with it.

Music Player:
The default music player wasn’t particularly good and I had to go for the paid Poweramp player.  The lack of a controller in the lock screen and all in all better control of playlists were the primary driving factors.  I tried Winamp and DoubleTwist but PowerAmp was clearly the best.

So thats my first thoughts about my new smartphone.  Its been a great help so far and looks like it will be very hard to move back to the ordinary phone  after this.