Identify Birds with iBird Pro for Android

Many people enjoy watching birds in the backyard. It is entertaining to watch them flitter about the yard. There are so many colors and sizes, it can be hard to tell what kind of bird is visiting your feeder. A good bird guide is necessary to help you identify your backyard friends. Examine your bird guide book. Look at how thick, heavy, and big the book is. Now try to put the book in your pocket. Does it fit? Is your bird guide convenient to take with you everywhere you go, to pull out at a moments notice, when you see a different bird while shopping or hiking? Look at your phone. Does it fit in your pocket and convenient for you to take everywhere you go. Now imagine the bird book on your shelf, shrunk down to be an app for your phone. Wow! that would be something useful.

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If You Don't Like It Change It! The Home Screen

Most default home screens on Android phones are inflexible and scarce with customization features. You may want to use more than five screens or add more icons to your dock. Perhaps enlarge your grid to five rows of icons instead of the standard four. One of the best things about Android is if you don't like it,Go Launcher you can change it and this applies to the home screen. There are several apps called launchers that will give you a whole new home screen and even a different user interface to your own liking. Some can be radical changes while others just adds a few more features. Most of them you can customize with themes.

Go Launcher is probably the most popular and it is free. It is a radical user interface change that for many is good.

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Read it later with Pocket

There is so much to read and so little time. Many of us browse the news on our phones with Pulse, Currents, or Flipboard. Often times we don't have enough time to read the whole story, just the headline. Wouldn't it be nice to save the article to read later when you do have more time. There is an app that helps with this and more. It's called Pocket.

Pocket has three major functions. It will save an article for you to read at a later time. It will sync that article with getpocket.com, so you can read the article on your computer.

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Hate Your Photo Gallary? Change It

Photos tell the story of your life. They depict important events, funny moments, and treasured memories. It is important to access your photos quickly and easily on your phone. On most phones the default photo gallery leaves little to be desired. They can be slow and lacking in features. I have had threeScalado Gallery Android phones and have never been satisfied with their default gallery apps. On my first two phones the gallery apps were slow to load photos. On my Samsung S3 the gallery shows all of my album art and I can't quickly find the photos I want. I have no way of hiding the album art. Fortunately there are tons of gallery apps you can use instead of the one that came with your phone. Let's dive in to the more popular ones.

Scalado Album is the new kid on the block. As advertised, it is very fast. Like most gallery apps the opening screen presents photos by their categories or folders.

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My Thoughts on the Samsung Galaxy S3

I Just bought a new phone, the Samsung Galaxy S3, which I am excited about. This is the most popular smartphone on the market with over 10 million sold in a month. A lot of you may be considering this phone and want see a non geeky review of the phone.

I have to add a little bit of geek to this review, sorry. It is necessary to illustrate a few points. Ok, the geek specs. It has a 1.5 ghz CPU, 2 gigs of ram, and has a 4.8 inch screen. You have a choice of 16 gigs or 32 gigs of storage. It can be expanded with up to 64 gig micro SD card. This is enough room to store most of your music, several movies and pictures.

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Don't Type use Google Goggles

You are at a store and see a product that intrigues you. Is this product any good, you may ask? I would like to research it before I buy, but I don't want to go home and back here again, what a waste of gas. You can research the product from your phone. I know it is cumbersome to type on the phone to do research but there is an easier way without typing. The answer is Google Goggles.

Google Goggles is a free app that allows you to conduct searches on Google by taking a picture of an item. It is also a bar code scanner. Let's go back to the scenario of the product you want to research while at the store.

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An All in One Toolbox with Smart Tools

Everyday I am amazed at all of the things that can be done with smartphones. The apps keep getting better and better and this dramatically increases the usefulness of the phone. One app that amazes me is called Smart Tools. With this app you can measure distance you are from an object, it has a compass, ruler, flashlight and other great tools. This is one of the most handy apps I have ever used.

There is a long list of tools jammed packed in Smart Tools. It has a ruler, several different types of protractors, bubble level, distance and height measuring tool, flashlight, compass, metal detector, sound meter, and a vibrometer. If this wasn't enough, more is even planned in the future.

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Make your Photos Pop to Life with Picsplay

We all love photos and enjoy sharing photos with family and friends. One of the most popular uses of Facebook and Google Plus is photo sharing. Android makes photo sharing extremely easy, however, there is one problem. The photos taken with the cameras on phones typically don't look the best. Fortunalty there are several apps avalible that edit photos by adjusting brightness and contrast, cropping, and adding special effects. These help greatly in making photos presentable for sharing. One app I am going to showcase is called Picsplay.

Picsplay is an easy to use app that allows you to adjust the brightness and contrast, color balance, adjust saturation, add borders, special effects, and a multitude or other edits. The main advantage of the app is its ease of use.

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Hungry? Let's Find a Restaurant

Are you in a strange city and need a bite to eat? Perhaps you have lived at your current location for several years and want to try something new. There are several apps on your Android phone that can help you find the perfect spot to eat no matter what type of cuisine you are in the mood for.

The app I am going to focus on is already installed on every Android phone. It is called Local, which is a part of Google Maps. To access it look for Local in your app drawer or you can tap on maps and then in the upper left hand corner select Local. Once it is loaded you will be greeted with a list of categories such as restaurants, hotels, ATM, and several others. Tap on restaurants and it will search for restaurants near your area.

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If you Don't Like it, Change it With the Keyboard

ne of the greatest things about Android is it customization. If you don't like something with your phone chances are you can change it. One of the most popular things to change is the virtual keyboard. Everyone has different typing styles and some keyboards are suited towards ones tastes while others are not. Often the default keyboard that comes on your phone is basic and simplistic. It can cause frustrations with some people. Fortunately you can change this.

It can be a real pain typing on the small screen of your phone. In addition there is no tactile feedback from the screen. Sure there is vibration but that isn't quite the same as a physical keyboard. There are several approaches to make typing easier and faster on small screens. The methods are predictive typing, swiping, and keyboards configured for your thumbs. 

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