Make An Old Android Feel Like New: How To Make Gingerbread Feel Like Jelly Bean

Android has taken huge strides since Android 2.3 Gingerbread, but many devices are still using it. If you can't upgrade your old device, there are ways to make it feel more modern.

These apps won't actually upgrade your Android device to Jelly Bean, but they'll replace some of the more outdated parts of Gingerbread and make your device feel more like Jelly Bean and Ice Cream Sandwich. the latest versions of Android.

Launcher

Android's default home screen and app drawer – known as its launcher – have come a long way since Gingerbread. This is especially true if you're using an outdated custom interface from a device manufacturer, such as an old version of Samsung's TouchWiz or HTC's Sense.

Luckily, Android supports third-party launchers. You can install a new launcher to replace your device's home screen and app drawer with a new interface. If you're looking for a more modern experience, install Holo Launcher. Holo Launcher functions similarly to the default launcher on Android 4.0 and above. In addition to a more modern Holo theme, it offers an app drawer, home screen and icons that look like Android 4's. It's not just a visual improvement – Holo Launcher also includes useful features found in the latest versions of Android. For example, you can touch an app's icon in the app drawer and drag it to the Uninstall option at the top of your screen to quickly uninstall it without opening any settings menus. You can also drag-and-drop app icons onto each other to easily create app folders on your home screen.

After installing Holo Launcher, press the Home button on your device and you'll be prompted to make it your default launcher.

Browser

Installing a new browser is a great way to speed up an old device. Older versions of Android have an Internet browser with a browser engine that hasn't been updated in a long time. Unfortunately, Chrome for Android only works on Android 4.0 and above.

If you're looking for a new browser with a new browser engine, try Firefox for Android. Old versions of Firefox for Android were rather slow, but new versions are surprisingly speedy. You may also want to try Opera Mobile. Firefox and Opera use their own browser engines, which are derived from the Gecko and Presto engines that Firefox and Opera use on the desktop. Firefox and Opera are continually updated and both support Gingerbread. In other words, you can use a new browser with the latest browser engine – and it will actually receive updates.

You may want to avoid other browsers. Many alternative Android browsers use the browser engine integrated into Android – although you'll be installing a new version of the browser, it will be using the same outdated version of WebKit as your default browser.

After installing a new browser, open a link and you'll be prompted to make it your default browser.

Lock Screen

Made by the creators of Holo Launcher, Holo Locker brings Jelly Bean's lock screen to older versions of Android. If you're tired of Gingerbread's lock screen and want something that looks more new and fresh, you may want to give it a try. Holo Locker also offers easy access to your device's Camera app from the lock screen – just touch the unlock button and swipe to the left.

Keyboard

Android also allows you to replace its keyboard, so you can easily upgrade to a more modern keyboard. If you're just looking for something that feels like Jelly Bean, try Jelly Bean Keyboard, which is a port of Android 4.1's keyboard that's been modified to work on older versions of Android.

After installing Jelly Bean Keyboard, open its app and it will walk you through setting it as your new default keyboard.

If you're looking for the gesture typing feature found in Android 4.2, you can install Swype for free (although you can't install Swype from Google Play). Google Play also offers other keyboards – some people swear by SwiftKey, which offers great autocorrection and predictions.

Other Apps

You don't have to use the apps featured here – you can install other launchers, browsers, lock screens, and keyboards to change the look and feel of your Gingerbread operating system. Or, if you don't like an included app, you can install an alternative from Google Play. Unlike on Apple's iOS, these apps can become your new default applications, allowing you to change your device's Contacts, Messaging, Email, Browser, and other applications.

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You may also be able to upgrade your device to a newer version of Android by installing a custom ROM like CyanogenMod, assuming a stable one is available for your device. You'll find information about other user-developed ROMs on the XDA Developers forum for your device.

Easily get your Office product key

s "Try Produkey from http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html It can find the serial number of any Microsoft product on your system: Better yet, it has the standard NirSoft interface which gives you multiple ways of pulling this info remotely: Not only can it get your Windows Product key, but any Office product keys you have too. It works fine under the 64 bit version of Windows. It is a nice, simple utility that does what it says. No spyware, or extra junk. You can get it from here: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html via [http://www.intelliadmin.com ]

Use your Android Phone / Tablet as a PC speaker using Soundwire App

Ever ran into a situation where wished you could use your Android phone as a speaker for your desktop? Well, Soundwire, a free app for Android does exactly that. Made by GeorgieLabs, the app is an excellent tool to use your phone as a wireless extension for your computer.

It lets you use your phone to be played as a speaker so now you can rock out whenever you want without worrying about carrying a PC all round the house. This simple guide will tell you how to connect your smartphone with a PC through Soundwire.

Steps for Using Android Phone as PC Speakers

Download SoundWire and its desktop clients from the links given below.

Download: SoundWire App: Free | Full Version

Desktop Client

According to the app's description on Play Store, the difference between the paid and free version are as follows:

The free version of the application identifies itself by voice every 45 minutes and displays ads. There is a 5 minute compression trial in the free version. The full version enables unlimited Opus audio compression, can handle up to 10 connections at the same time, and has no ads or voice identification. It also has a special Pro Mode to set and display buffer latency precisely in milliseconds.

Before we start, please note that SoundWire works on both Wi-Fi and 3G/4G. To work with Wi-Fi, it your Android device and desktop are required to be on the same WiFi network. It also works when your phone is tethered to your computer using Wi-Fi.

Step 1. Play music on you PC. You can use any music player or website (iTunes, Media Player, YouTube, etc.) to play music in any format.

Step 3. Open the Soundwire PC client and select the audio source (the audio of video files get a small delay so Soundwire should be restricted to music only if you don't want the audio to be out of sync with the video).

Windows XP users should choose the source named "Stereo Mix", "Wave Out Mix", "What You Hear" or other similarly named source. Windows 7 users don't need to worry about this and can skip this step as the source gets selected automatically.

Step 4. Run the Soundwire app on your phone and press the connect button to connect to the PC and listen to music. If you leave the 'Server' box blank the app automatically locates the server. However, in case the server is not found you will have to enter the sever address manually.

The server address depends on the network and is shown in the upper left part of the Soundwire PC client window for example. The server address depends on your network setup and is shown on the upper left of the Soundwire Server window, for example: 192.168.43.120

Step 5. When music is playing check your Soundwire PC client's level meter. It shows the sound level being transmitted to the smartphone and thus should be neither too loud (very frequent red indication) nor too quiet.

Despite Soundwire's simplicity it still offers a lot of extra features packed in it. It can even help you connect two PCs via an Android simulator, allows you to compress the audio to decrease to network usage and even has a recorder to record any sound that you want to. Soundwire also sports a pro version with  additional customizations packed in it. It is a very useful app and the sheer simplicity of it makes it all the more awesome.

via TechSplurge

Share Android Apps, Files, Folders & Contacts Over Web & WiFi With Send Anywhere

The pace at which private file sharing services are increasing these days makes it quite perplexing for the users to pick the best one, since each service has its own specific set of goodies. Send Anywhere, a relatively new name among apps of this kind, provides a neat layout and support for multiple modes of secure wireless file sharing. The official Android client of Send Anywhere, which has just been released to the Google Play Store, allows users to remotely share whatever content they please over the web and with other Android users. The most appealing aspect of the Send Anywhere mobile app is its support for all types of file formats, and the various ways in which it allows content sharing. For instance, you may share the unique input key referring to the shared content with the recipient via SMS, email or any preferred means, generate or scan a unique QR code of the file, or share files with nearby devices over a common WiFi network.

Send Anywhere might not be the only remote file sharing solution of its kind on Android, but its rich aesthetics and the relatively extensive feature give it quite an edge over previously-reviewed EZDrop and JustBeamIt.

Unlike the Send Anywhere web app, the mobile version allows batch selection and sharing of content. Hidden under the app's simple UI are several of nifty features that make Send Anywhere quite a convenient file sharing tool to have at your disposal. All you get on the app's home screen is a couple of tabs to Send and Receive content.

Just to elaborate on the app's list of supported categories, it lets you share anything ranging from multimedia content (photos, music and videos) to your contacts and from your apps (APKs) to any file residing your device's storage. To expedite the content selection process, the app presents you with a built-in file manager comprising individual categories for all sorts of supported content.

Once you've selected files to share, the app presents you with a unique key/ID that can be fed to the Send Anywhere website or another Android device running the client to retrieve the content. Among other sending options, you may generate a QR code for the content, share the key via SMS, email or social media, or share the file with a nearby device running the Send Anywhere mobile app. The recipient would have to make their device discoverable for sharing over WiFi.

Status bar notifications keep you apprised of the sharing progress, whereas to track history of your received files, the app offers you a dedicated Received Box that displays the file format, date and file size of each received file. By default, all data received via the app can be found in the SendAnywhere folder on your SD card. However, you have the option of allocating a different directory for this purpose from within the app's settings screen.

Send Anywhere also integrates seamlessly with Android's universal file sharing menu to allow direct sharing of files from the stock Gallery and other supported apps (your favorite file manager, for instance).

Send Anywhere has both a free and $3 variant in the Google Play Store. In addition to being ad-supported, the free version is limited to allow sharing of a maximum of 10 different files or 30MB of data at any given instance. The paid variant, on the other hand, is free of any such restrictions.

Download Send Anywhere For Android (Free)

Download Send Anywhere PRO For Android (Paid)

Visit Send Anywhere

via Addictive Tips

Windows 8 Start Screen Personalization With Decor8

Most of you would probably have made a switch to the heavily advertised Windows 8 by now. Admittedly, Microsoft's latest incarnation feels so nice once you get the hang of it. One of Windows 8's distinctive features is the Start Screen. It's been both lauded and loathed by users around the globe. And I have personally found it a good move from Redmond. Even though, I like the new Start Screen, I also hate the lack of some customization options. For instance, the OS doesn't allow swapping Start Screen background with a custom image, which makes me wonder, why would Microsoft not include something this very basic. I have tried a couple of freeware tools to change the background, but none of them really worked for me, until I came across Decor8, a new app from Stardock.

It's certainly the best Start Screen personalization app that I have stumbled upon. Although it's a paid application, Decor8 is worth every penny – especially if you're a customization freak. Some of its highlighted features include; background and color schemes customization, image randomization, specifying default number of rows, and so on.

Once installed, the application shortcut is pinned to the Start Screen. The app itself runs in full screen mode, and the interface looks plain and simple. The Settings pane to the left contains three menus labeled as Background, Colors and Options. Background menu is where you apply the custom images. Decor8 comes packed with some enticing pictures out of the box. It's worth mentioning that it automatically disables Start Screen personalization from PC Settings, and also takes controls of the stock background images. Along with changing the image, you can do some additional tweaking, such as toggle Fade image effect, change image orientation, and toggle image shuffling after selecting multiple images.

Did I mention you can select a custom image directory as well? To do so, click "Select folders" at the bottom and then click Add in the proceeding window. It's good to see that the app allows you to choose a number of different folders in conjunction.

Colors menu houses the same color schemes that you'd find in PC Settings. However, you're also allowed to define a custom pattern, as well as enable "Automatically create a start screen color scheme from the selected custom background".

Windows 8 chooses the optimal number of Tile rows according to the display resolution. And you cannot increase or decrease the total number of rows without a registry hack. Decor8 provides an easy solution to reduce row count for a minimalistic look. Simply head to Options menu and then adjust row counts under "How many rows of tiles should there be" section. The new settings are applied the next time you login. The application also allows you to disable Parallax scrolling – a native feature in Windows 8 which moves Start Screen background when you scroll through the tiles. You can either entirely disable the Parallax scrolling or reduce the effect to certain extent.

The screenshot below showcases how the Start Screen looks when you replace the custom background image. Quite ravishing to sum it up in one word!

Decor8 will set you back $4.99, which quite honestly won't put a serious dent on your wallet. But you can still try the 30 days evaluation trial before shelling out your hard-earned cash. Decor8 has been developed exclusively for Windows 8. It will not work on previous versions of Microsoft OS.

Download Decor8

via Addictive tips

Download Adobe Reader XI (11) Offline Installers With Improved Security

Adobe has released a new version of Adobe Reader, a popular software to read PDF documents on your computer. The new version of Adobe Reader XI is available for download from Adobe servers. If you have already installed Adobe Reader, you will be able to update it through Help –> Check for updates menu. Adobe Reader XI comes with some improved features. Some of the features include the following: Improved Sign files with e-signatures Improved Comment using the PDF annotator Improved Fill out forms Ease deployment Manage security compliance Protect your system Adobe Reader XI comes with complete support for Windows 8 and Mac OS X Mountain Lion. This means that the users will be able to use the PDF reader on touch enabled devices. Now you can convert your PDF documents into Word or Excel online for free. This feature is free for one year. The PDF annotator is also an amazing introduction as this will enable teams to collaborate on the same PDF file and the collaboration remains within the file itself. The performance of Adobe Reader has always been questionable because it took large amounts of memory to open a single PDF file. This alone has forced the users to switch to other PDF readers like Foxit Reader and Nitro PDF Reader. I tested the memory usage of three PDF Readers, Adobe Reader XI, Foxit Reader and Nitro PDF Reader. The results were quite satisfactory for Adobe Reader. I opened the release notes PDF file in the three readers and here are the results: Adobe Reader XI memory usage = 40.5 MB Nitro PDF Reader = 55 MB Foxit Reader = 11.5 MB This is quite an achievement for Adobe as the same PDF file was taking 80+ MB with Adobe Reader X. Please note that I had downloaded the file before opening it in these readers. When you go to Adobe download page, Adobe will provide an online installer for Adobe Reader. But we are giving offline installers for Adobe Reader 11. Adobe Reader XI (11) offline installer English (en-US) Adobe Reader XI (11) offline installer Brazilian (pt-BR) Adobe Reader XI (11) offline installer French (fr-FR) Adobe Reader XI (11) offline installer German (de-DE) Adobe Reader XI (11) offline installer Spanish (es-ES) Adobe Reader XI (11) offline installer Russian (ro-RO) For all other languages, please go to Adobe FTP Adobe Reader 11 directory and select your language for offline download. Download Adobe Reader XI (11) Offline Installers With Improved Security is a post from: Technize.NET

Burn ISO To USB

Making a USB flash drive bootable sounds like a fairly simple task, but it's not an easy task always. While using the Command Prompt method (see how to make USB bootable using Command Prompt) to transfer all setup files to the USB drive is the easiest and best way, many users are having difficulties using the Command Prompt.

 

If you're having a bootable ISO file and looking for a straightforward tool to burn your ISO to USB drive, ISO to USB is the right tool for you. ISO to USB comes with all basic options that you need to create a USB bootable.

Download ISO to USB setup file, install the same, and run it with admin rights. Once launched, click the browse button to browse to the ISO file location and click open button to load the file. Next step is to select your USB drive from the drop-down menu.

 

Be sure to select the right drive as the tool will format your USB drive before transferring setup files to the USB. Chose FAT32 or NTFS as your file system, enter a volume label (should not exceed 11 characters) and finally select bootable option.

 

Before you click the burn button, once again make sure that you have left no important files in your USB and you have selected bootable option. Finally, click Burn button start transferring files to the USB drive. When you see "burning will erase all data on USB" warning, click Ok button to proceed. The tool might take a while to complete the transfer process.

You might see "not responding" in the title bar of the tool but don't close the program. Once ISO to USB completes its business, you will see "successfully completed" message.

ISO to USB supports Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 as well as Windows 8 operating systems. We tested it on Windows 8 Pro (x64) to transfer Windows 8 RTM (x86) files to a flash drive and can confirm that the tool works as advertised.

 

Visit the developer's page to download the setup file. Please note that ISO to USB can burn only ISO files and if you're having extracted files we recommend you use Rufus toolor Microsoft DVD/USB Tool.

 

Download ISO to USB

[via intowindows]

The Best Ways to Make Use of an Idle Computer

If you leave your computer on when you are not using it, there are ways you can put your computer to use when it's sitting idle. It can do scientific research, backup your data, and even look for signs of extraterrestrial life.

Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC)

If you want to help with the advancement of scientific research, the BOINC project allows you to use your idle computer to help cure diseases, study global warming, discover pulsars, among other types of research. You install special free software from their site on your computer and provide your email address and a password. Once you select a project, the BOINC software downloads units of work and crunches away at them when your computer is idle. BOINC has a screensaver that displays how the work is progressing. If you use your own screensaver, it will not interfere with BOINC, which will still run in the background.

SETI@home

One of the projects available in BOINC is the SETI@home project. SETI is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence and the goal of the project is to detect intelligent life outside of Earth. One approach to their research uses radio telescopes to listen for narrow-bandwidth radio signals from space. These radio signals are not known to occur naturally, so detection of such signals can provide evidence of extraterrestrial technology. You can contribute to the SETI project by downloading free software to your computer that will download the units of the radio telescope data and analyzes it.

Folding@home

Stanford University sponsors a program, through its Pande Lab, called Folding@home, in which scientists study protein folding. Proteins help your body break down food into energy, regulate your moods, and fight disease. However, before proteins can carry out these functions, they assemble themselves, or "fold." This is a critical and fundamental process that still remains a mystery. When the proteins do not fold correctly, known as misfolding, there can be serious health consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow, Parkinson's disease, and many cancers. The understanding of protein folding can lead to the development of drugs and therapies that can combat these diseases.

You can help with the study of protein folding by downloading and running the free Folding@home client software. The software runs behind the scenes, making use of idle computing time.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is an experimental new virtual currency that uses peer-to-peer (P2P) technology, allowing anyone to make instant payments to anyone else, anywhere in the world. The P2P technology allows Bitcoin to operate with no central authority. The management of transactions and issuance of money are carried out collectively by the P2P network. Each client acts as a node in the network. You can become part of the Bitcoin experiment by installing the free Bitcoin software on your computer and help "move" Bitcoins among parties making and receiving payments. The software can even produce a few new Bitcoins when it is not moving Bitcoins, at least until a finite number of Bitcoins is reached.

For more information about Bitcoin, see our article. Bitcoin is a controversial method of payment, not accepted everywhere. As we said in our article about Bitcoin:

"Disclaimer: This is NOT financial or legal advice. This. Is. NOT. Financial. Or. Legal. Advice. This is not, in any way, shape, or form, financial or legal advice. We're covering this topic because of the technological implementations it uses and the innovations it attempts to make. If you do anything because of this post, we are not responsible because this is NOT financial or legal advice. ^_^"

Backups

How-To Geek has previously published an article about options for backing up and sharing your data in the cloud for free. There were some sites listed in that article, such as CrashPlan and BuddyBackup, that allow you to back up your data to friends, families, and colleague's computers for free, and have their data backed up to your computer. Other sites, such as MozyHome, provide hard drive space in the cloud for your backups, and can perform the backups while your computer is idle.

SABnzbd

SABnzbd is an open source binary, fully automatic newsreader and a great Usenet client. Once you've installed and configured SABnzbd simply add an .nzb file and SABnzbd will automatically download the file, verify it, repair it, extract it, and file it away without any human interaction.

We also show you how to supercharge your SABnzbd experience with tweaks, add-ons, and mobile apps.

Use Your Computer as a Supercharged TiVo

If you have a computer or home server you don't use much, you can leave that computer on all the time and turn it into a supercharged TiVo using a Usenet account, SABnzbd installed and configured, and a copy of the free PVR application, Sick Beard.

Host Multiplayer Games on Your Computer

If you're into playing multiplayer games on your computer, you can choose to host these games on your own computer. For example, we show you how to start your own Minecraft server, so you can bring all your friends into the same game, and you can make the rules.

Get Access to Your eBook Collection from Anywhere

If you have an eBook reader and a large collection of eBooks on your home computer that you sync to your reader, you can set up your computer so you can access that collection from anywhere using a cross-platform solution. If your collection is larger than the capacity of your reader, this can be especially useful. This method is also helpful if you're out and you forgot to sync some books you want to read.

CouchPotato

CouchPotato is an automatic .nzb and torrent downloader. It allows you to set a list of items you want to watch and it will search for .nzb files and torrents of these items at a time interval you choose. When a correct release is found, matching the quality you specified, it sends it to SABnzbd or downloads the .nzb or .torrent file to a specified directory.

Automatically Lock or Shutdown Your Computer When it's Idle

System Silencer is a free program that allows you to gradually shut down your computer, or perform other tasks automatically, when you've finished using it. You can have System Silencer automatically turn off the monitor, mute the sound, hide the Taskbar and desktop icons, or lock your computer. System Silencer can also kill a process or run a program or file while your computer is idle.

System Silencer is a portable program that does not need to be installed. Running it places an icon in the system tray that you can use to access the program's settings.

You can also use the Windows Task Scheduler to make your PC shut down automatically when you're not using it.

Wikipedia Screen Saver

If you like Wikipedia, you can set it up to be your screensaver with the Wikipedia Screen Saver. The screensaver, which is added to the list of Windows screensavers (see our article for information on accessing the Windows Screen Saver Settings dialog box), displays a random Wikipedia page on your screen and switches to a new page after a specified amount of time has passed (30 seconds, by default). You can change the interval between pages and specify a number of minutes after which the screensaver will stop displaying Wikipedia pages and make the screen go black.

You can also have the Wikipedia Screen Saver kill open Firefox and IE browser windows, as well as other programs.

You can also use an idle computer as a local backup host, a personal web server, as well as many other things.

If your computer is just going to sit idle, and not do anything, you should leave the power save mode on to save electricity. If you want to be able to easily turn off the power save mode, you can create a shortcut or hotkey to switch power plans. For more information about power management options, see our article about the difference between sleep and hibernate in Windows. You can also disable power management in Windows 7 or Vista, although we don't recommend that if you're using a laptop on battery power.

via [howtogeek]

Apple announces iPhone5 with new features

Apple announced its next version of iPhone called as iPhone 5 with LTE , A6 processor,8 MP camera.The new phone will be available from september 21 on United states. iPhone 5 has the slimmer design than its previous versions which is 18% thinner.It is made completely with Glass and aluminium with 4 inch retina display screen.The aspect ratio 16:9 which means the device is more handy to use and hold.   The new A6 processor chip is two times faster and 22% smaller than its previous version A5. The inbuilt 8 Megapixel camera was pretty much upgraded with backlight illumination and provides faster response times.The panorama feature in camera app can snap cool panoramic images. Instead of usual two iPhone 5 has three microphone in front,back and bottom. This phone uses the new type of connector called lightning connector that acts as intermediate for 30 pin dock connector. iPhone 5 will be priced at $199,$299 and $399 for 16Gb,32Gb and 64 GB respectively.Pre-order starts from September 24th so that you can get your phone by 21st september.       More specs at Apple website via G2networkblogs