Jeff Keeping It Real!: 2010

Droid X Saving Lives One App at a Time

Hands-Only CPR

As a person that has experienced a Heart Attack Or Not and was lucky to live through it. I am excited to make this post about possibly the best apps for the Android phone. The first one is the new recommended Hands-Only CPR for Android. The American Heart Association says

When an adult has a sudden cardiac arrest, his or her survival depends greatly on immediately getting CPR from someone nearby. Unfortunately, less than 1/3 of those people who experience a cardiac arrest at home, work or in a public location get that help. Most bystanders are worried that they might do something wrong or make things worse. That’s why the AHA has simplified things.

Don’t be afraid. Your actions can only help.
It’s not normal to see an adult suddenly collapse, but if you do, call 911 and push hard and fast in the center of the chest. Don’t be afraid. Your actions can only help. Take a minute and look around this site and invite your friends! Increasing the number of people who know about Hands Only (TM) CPR will increase the chance that someone can help when an adult suddenly collapses, and more lives can be saved.

If your asking why Hands-Only CPR over traditional CPR with breathing It's recommended to visit the Hands-Only CPR Faq page. There the American Heart Association (AHA) recommends conventional CPR (CPR with a combination of breaths and compressions) for:

All infants (up to age 1)
Children (up to age 8)
Adult victims who are found already unconscious and not breathing normally
Any victims of drowning, drug overdose or collapse due to breathing problems.

The above is just one of the facts you will find on there site. The site is full of lifesaving facts that can be useful and one day could save a loved one.

Other Lifesaving apps for the Android platform

Pocket First Aid and CPR
CPR-Choking
First Aid by Health Team

Highly recommended websites

American Stroke Association
California Pacific Medical Center
Pacific Laparoscopy - Weight Loss Surgery can help heart failure
First Aid - Wikipedia

Recommended Books

To Kill or Not to Kill Task in Android

Automatic Task Killer

I've been asked whether Android users should use a task killer such as Advanced Task Killer or Advanced Task Killer Froyo. I say Yes and I personally use Automatic Task Killer for my program.

How to properly set up and use a task killer (Oh, yes, I went there!) sums up what I was thinking in these seven bullet points.

Any application that has the manufacturer or carriers name in it should never be killed.
Any application that has the word android. (yes the period is there on purpose) should never be killed.
Any application that keeps time should never be killed.
Any application that has a widget that updates should never be killed.
Any application that is not installed on /data (this is where user apps go) should never be killed.
If you can't figure out exactly what an application is, it should never be killed.
Home replacements, whether from the Market or your manufacturer never should be killed. This also means Sense, Blur, and Touchwiz. They also have dependencies that should stay alive, refer to numbers 1, 5 and 6 above. Of course if you're a tinkerer, and know which parts of the system you don't need running on your particular installation, feel free to experiment. And share your results.

They show great tips on when to use a task killer. I do not kill calendars, Handcent SMS, Newrob RSS reader and my default browser Dolphin Browser HD. I do not kill task that I use on a regular basis and want to have active when I turn the phone back on after it goes to the lock screen. This is why Newrob RSS reader and default browser are included in this list. There are times I have an article like the one about the USA Today and might step away for a minute. When I return my screen will be locked upon unlocking if you had your RSS Reader killed your post would be shutdown and you would have to reopen the program and find where you were before it shutdown.

Just be selective on what you kill and do not kill everything. If you run into issues with a program double check if it is being killed by a task killer. If it is uncheck the program and see if the program still has issues.

Recommended Reading:
The Definitive RSS Guide for Bloggers
Google Official Google Reader Blog

Free Over 200,000 Ringtones for Android Devices

Stumbled upon this outstanding ringtone program. Do not hesitate to checkout Ringlert to browse thousands of ringtones uploaded by android users. Variety of categories and options to find best ringer that suits your needs. Assign to contacts, set sms alerts and more.

As the screenshot to the left shows there are currently 214,881 ringtones available for immediate download. They give you a few different ways to browse for ringtones as seen to the right image. I found the search to be the best way to search for things you are looking for instead of going by categories and scrolling for days.

It is fun to click on Download Charts to see what others are downloading as there ringtones. I like how they allow you to choose Today, This week and This month. The ratings based on what others think can help narrow your search a little. I do recommend performing a preview of the ringtones first to make sure the quality is adequate. Remember these are ringtones created by fellow Android users probably with Ringdroid. You find what your interested in and click on that song then you can preview the ringtone before downloading. If you like the quality then click on download and it will save to your SDcard under Ringlert folder as mp3 files.

Once on your device you can treat it is any other mp3 file. Means you can share it with others through MMS. Even those that do not have an Android device like the great Motorola DROID X.

Heck with over 200,000 in there database you might not need to create your own. Just remember if there is more than one list of your ringtone to preview each as these could mean a ringtone for different parts of the song. I did a search for one of my favorite songs Hotel California by the Eagles and came up with 13 different versions for different parts of the song.

How to set voicemail password

I have been asked numerous times how do you set your voicemail password so that it will automatically enter when selecting speed dial 1?

This is actually easier then you think. These instructions are for the Motorola DROID X Android Phone however, will work for most Android devices.

Delete voice mail from speed dial # 1 by going to phone press menu, speed dial setup press the minus sign next to Voicemail
Go to contacts and select voicemail, click menu button under settings select edit and add ",,password#" (minus the quotes) to the end of *86
Go back to phone, speed dial and add voice mail back to the first spot

Now when you click and hold the 1 key it will dial your voicemail and enter your password and the # sign.

Easy to be nosy with Scanner Radio

Scanner Radio allows you to listen to live audio from over 2,300 police and fire scanners, railroad communications, and weather radio broadcasts from around the world with more being added daily. I like the fact you can click on Scanners near me and it will bring up the scanners that are published online within your area. One thing to remember is that not all scanners are posted for online listening this is done by volunteers. For example in my area I do not have CHP which is disappointing but at lease I have Sheriff and Police that cover the cities just not the main highway next to us.
When you are in the app listening to a station you can click menu and view the 10-codes. These codes are how the police speak to each other instead of saying domestic disturbance they say 10-16 at 123 Main Street. Also in the menu is a sleep timer yes the developer had the foresight to add a sleep timer so that it can stop the scanning after a set amount of time like 10 minutes, 1 hour etc... They have a built in chat feature for that station but have not had the pleasure of anyone wanting to chat while listening.

Be warned the Top 50 scanners right now will keep your device talking for hours. There is a reason there the top and that's because there is a lot of action in those areas.

Here are some common 10-codes that might be useful while listening to Scanner Radio.

Scanner Radio
for Android Devices

California APCO 10 Codes

10-0 Caution
10-1 Unable to copy -- change location
10-2 Signal good
10-3 Stop transmitting
10-4 Acknowledgement (OK)
10-5 Relay
10-6 Busy -- stand by unless urgent
10-7 Out of service
10-8 In service
10-9 Repeat
10-10 Fight in progress
10-11 Dog case
10-12 Stand by (stop)
10-13 Weather -- road report
10-14 Prowler report
10-15 Civil disturbance
10-16 Domestic disturbance
10-17 Meet complainant
10-18 Quickly
10-19 Return to ...
10-20 Location
10-21 Call ... by telephone
10-22 Disregard
10-23 Arrived at scene
10-24 Assignment completed
10-25 Report in person (meet) ...
10-26 Detaining subject, expedite
10-27 Drivers license information
10-28 Vehicle registration information
10-29 Check for wanted
10-30 Unnecessary use of radio
10-31 Crime in progress
10-32 Man with gun
10-33 Emergency
10-34 Riot
10-35 Major crime alert
10-36 Correct time
10-37 (Investigate) suspicious vehicle
10-38 Stopping suspicious vehicle
10-39 Urgent -- use light, siren
10-40 Silent run -- no light, siren
10-41 Beginning tour of duty
10-42 Ending tour of duty
10-43 Information
10-44 Permission to leave ... for ...
10-45 Animal carcass at ...
10-46 Assist motorist
10-47 Emergency road repairs at ...
10-48 Traffic standard repair at ...
10-49 Traffic light out at ...
10-50 Accident (fatal, personal injury, property damage)
10-51 Wrecker needed
10-52 Ambulance needed
10-53 Road blocked at ...
10-54 Livestock on highway
10-55 Suspected DUI
10-56 Intoxicated pedestrian
10-57 Hit and run (fatal, personal injury, property damage)
10-58 Direct traffic
10-59 Convoy or escort
10-60 Squad in vicinity
10-61 Isolate self for message
10-62 Reply to message
10-63 Prepare to make written copy
10-64 Message for local delivery
10-65 Net message assignment
10-66 Message cancellation
10-67 Clear for net message
10-68 Dispatch information
10-69 Message received
10-70 Fire
10-71 Advise nature of fire
10-72 Report progress on fire
10-73 Smoke report
10-74 Negative
10-75 In contact with ...
10-76 En route ...
10-77 ETA (estimated time of arrival)
10-78 Need assistance
10-79 Notify coroner
10-80 Chase in progress
10-81 Breathalyzer
10-82 Reserve lodging
10-83 Work school xing at ...
10-84 If meeting ... advise ETA
10-85 Delayed due to ...
10-86 Officer/operator on duty
10-87 Pick up/distribute checks
10-88 Present telephone number of ...
10-89 Bomb threat
10-90 Bank alarm at ...
10-91 Pick up prisoner/subject
10-92 Improperly parked vehicle
10-93 Blockade
10-94 Drag racing
10-95 Prisoner/subject in custody
10-96 Mental subject
10-97 Check (test) signal
10-98 Prison/jail break
10-99 Wanted/stolen indicated

I'd like to thank David for turning me onto this great app for the Android phones. Visit his blog here.

Recommended Scanner Devices for serious scanning abilities.

Uniden BC355C 800MHz 300-Channel Base Mobile Scanner

Radio Shack Pro-95 1000 Channel Dual-Trunking Scanner Radio

Cobra XRS 9345 14-Band Radar/Laser Detector

Quick Battery gives way to Quick Settings For Complete Control

Quick Batter Widget

Quick Battery gives you a nice graphical representation of your current Android smartphone battery power. The image to the left is the various stages of the widget. When you add Quick Battery Widget to your home screen you get one icon/widget on your screen and it changes based on your batter power.

You combine Quick Battery with Quick Settings and you get one powerful app. Quick settings allows you to control things like

Quick Settings Main Page

Brightness (including automatic brightness)
Volume (with separate control for every audio channel)
Mobile data & Mobile Data (APN) and a shortcut to "use 2G only" system setting
Ringer (silent, vibration, ringer and ringer & vibration)
WiFi & Wifi Hotspot
one click GPS
Bluetooth
Airplane mode
Screen Timeout
Automatic data synchronization
Automatic rotation

It also gives you the status of your phones memory and the space on your SD card. Once in Quick Settings you can click on menu and customize to add, subtract or move settings to your hearts content.

Quick Settings Customize Option

Very versatile program all wrapped up in one complete package. After a week's use I am not seeing any memory or battery leak issues due to the app.

I was a big fan of Battery Widget but must say Quick Settings along with Quick Battery does so much more at the click of a button. Now if it allowed scheduling of settings changes I could get rid of Settings Profiles full which is a great app for turning off the sounds at night so that you can get some sleep.

Oh did I mention Quick Settings has a built in Flashlight app?

Google Dots bounce Up a Media Frenzy

Google Interactive Dots

Did you go to Google to see the cool interactive dots?

No official explanation from Google yet. I wonder if it is HTML 5 or perhaps because they went public on this day back in 1998 they are celebrating.

I personally think Google doodles because they can.

Recommended Google Reading:
Ultimate Guide to Google Ad Words, 2nd Edition: How To Access 100 Million People in 10 Minutes

Getting Organized in the Google Era: How to Get Stuff out of Your Head, Find It When You Need It, and Get It Done Right

The Google Way: How One Company Is Revolutionizing Management as We Know It

HTC Incredible Receives Froyo 2.2 Today

The highly anticipated Froyo 2.2 update finally happened on our HTC Incredible Android Phone. Woke up this morning with the message to upgrade now or later. Choose now and after two reboots and about 7 minutes Froyo 2.2 was installed. Some of the feature of 2.2 are:

3G Mobile Hot Spot
Flash 10.1
HTC Widget: Mail
HTC Widget: News
EAS Updates
720p Video Recording
Amazon MP3
Skype
My Verizon

Time will tell if it helps the battery. The only gripe we have with the Incredible is the battery life. We installed Automatic Task Killer and it does help a lot.

2 Must Ask Questions For Picking An Android Phone

I've had numerous people ask me what Android phone to get. Here is my recommendation using the Verizon Wireless network. There are two major criteria that I like to ask before recommending phones.

1) Do you want a physical keyboard?
2) Does size matter?

Let's take a look at number one. Do you want a physical keyboard? If the answer is yes then I recommend looking at one of three phones.

Motorola DROID II Android Phone
Motorola DROID Android Phone
LG Ally Android Phone

Out of these three Android phones I personally would go with the Droid or Droid 2. It would be a matter of which keyboard feels the best. The new Droid 2 has a slippery feel unlike the Droid.

If a physical keyboard does not matter then I would ask you Does size matter? I've had both the Motorola DROID X Android Phone (current device) and HTC Incredible Android Phone and love them both. It came down to wanting a larger screen however, my wife loves the size and feel of the HTC Incredible.

Do your own homework to help you decide. Take a look at this excellent Droid X Review and don't forget the review of the HTC Incredible. Might want to compare the Droid X vs the HTC Incredible. A well thought out review of the Droid 2 is located here. For those wanting to compare the Droid 2 vs the Droid this is a must read. I know it can be overwhelming but all else fails walking into a local Verizon store and touch all of them. Do not hesitate to spend a few minutes at each one playing and calling people. Well worth the time when you are dealing with a 2 year contract or extension.

No matter what way you decide to go at least your going with an Android device.

Firefox Beta 4 sync'ing between devices

As I wrote earlier Sending links from computer to android device using Chrome to Phone is a great feature for staying productive on the go. Mozilla Labs is beta testing there Firefox 4 beta web browser and I must say it is running smooth so far. You can download directly with this link Firefox 4 beta. What impressed me immediately was the high score of 97 out of 100 on the acid3 test. The past builds I was lucky to break 93. Here is proof of the score:

Once you have Firefox 4 installed head over to Firefox Sync. It is a free browser add-on that lets you stay in sync with your Firefox. Access your history, passwords, bookmarks and even open tabs across all your devices. Firefox Sync 1.4.4 Add-on download it free. Then go into the options and click on the sync tab and sign-up. Remember the information you entered it will be needed in your Android phone like the Motorola DROID X.

Now go and download the Fennec Firefox mobile browser install it and launch it. Take time to look around and get to know the browser and stop by and read about some of the features click here. Hit the menu key to see what it does slide your finger right and left to see the sub menus. Then slide your finger right to left and bring up the options button scroll down and fill-in your sync account information. This will trigger and automatic sync to your phone. When ready to see what tabs you have open on your desktop slide your finger left to right and click the monitor button at the bottom (see image below).

Word of caution Fennec Firefox mobile is in alpha testing and will probably contain a few bugs. This just means you may experience some force closures. Just keep an eye on this blog and we will keep you updated when new releases come out.

These are great times to have an Android device. The development of apps and devices are great fun. If I could I would probably own a new device every 6 months.

Please do not hesitate to interact with this blog by leaving comments and even questions. We have all levels of expertise participating in this blog or at least reading it.

Good luck and good surfing.

Great Firefox books

Firefox For Dummies

Firefox Secrets: A Need-To-Know Guide

Foxfire 4

Greasemonkey Hacks

TweetDeck Receives Update to Beta

TweetDeck receives an update to its highly anticipated beta program. You can download TweetDeck Beta version 0.9.5 here. In case you do not know what TweetDeck is, TweetDeck is your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and more. Even Chris Pirillo like TweetDeck. See pic below.

Read the changelog below.

Full compatibility with all phones running 1.6 and above
Added option to remove Facebook, Buzz, or Foursquare accounts
Added option to delete tweets sent by you
Improved handling and refined UI for Facebook and Google Buzz attachments
Fixed bug preventing successful updates containing multiple photos
Added multi-Twitter account compose
New “More” button on all Twitter user profiles and updates allowing Reply All, Sharing, Translation, Copy update text, Copy update URL
Tapping the header when at the top of the column will refresh that column

Need to bone up on your social networking sites? I recommend the following books.

Facebook For Dummies

Twitter For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

Sams Teach Yourself Google Buzz in 10 Minutes

MySpace For Dummies

Follow me:

Fennec Mobile Working on Android 2.0 plus

Mozilla has released the latest version of Fennec v2.0a1 a.k.a Firefox mobile. As you can see from image above it is in Alpha testing. This means it is early testing and potentially has bugs. To download the fennec.apk file you can click on the image above or click here from your Android phone like the Motorola DROID X. It will prompt you to download the file and then you can install. Remember you must go into the Menu on phone | Settings | Applications | Check mark Unknown Sources in order to install apps outside of the Android Marketplace.

Fennec version 2.0a1

Firefox Mobile a.k.a Fennec

Once installed and launched you are greeted with a very clean interface as seen to the left. It was slow to launch the first time and had me concerned but once it loaded seems to be pretty responsive. There is tab browsing available by swiping left to right as seen in image to the right.

They do offer pinch to zoom however, I found it a little jittery. If you click the menu button you are greeted with a menu (below) that allows you to fin In Page, Save As PDF and Share Page. Interesting that you can save the page as a PDF to your phone. This will be handy to email to someone instead of just a link. The Share on Page allows you to share the page with Email, Twitter, Google Reader and Facebook.

As an Alpha version I am pleased to see Firefox still working on the mobile addition. Firefox is one of the leading desktop browsers if not the leading.

Things I would like to see added or fixed:

Speed up browsing
Make pinch to zoom smooth
Exit button
Make install package much smaller (below 5 MB would be nice)
Ability to sync bookmarks between desktop and mobile
Link to phone feature like Chrome to Phone UPDATE there is a feature called sync for use with Firefox desktop browser 3.6 and above.

As stated in What android browser to use I will test and post about the other options soon.