Sunday, October 23, 2011

How to get better audio quality on Android

Certain genres of music sound better when the bass, treble, and other frequencies can be adjusted higher or lower. If you're on the Gingerbread flavor of Android, you're in luck.
Note: This how to blog post is for users on Android Gingerbread. If you're still on Froyo or older, you'll have to grab a music player with an equalizer built-in, since you can't adjust the settings across the entire device. PowerAMP is a great app to start with for Froyo users.


Grab Equalizer from the Android Market, and open the app. You will see several preset values for different types of music. If you're not looking to do much fussing with the app, you can select one of these settings or even the autodetect option check box and be done.


Navigation in the app is done by swiping to the right and left for other screens with more options. If you go one screen to the right, you can view custom presets. However, if you haven't created any of these yet, then simply click the green plus sign to add a new one.


Swiping to the next screen on the right will show you a live equalizer that can be adjusted. Here you can press the play button to listen to a sample track, open a song from your own music, or even save your settings.


The last screen on the right allows you to turn on Equalizer's Bass Booster, Virtualizer, and Reverb. You'll need to press the power button in the top-right corner of the app, and then check off which features you'd like to enable in order to adjust each.


Equalizer offers two widget sizes, both showing the five adjusted frequency bars. A good place to put one of these is near your music player widget, if you're using one.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Way2sms Free Recharge Service


Way2sms has been a leading brand for free SMS (Short Message Service) in India, and now its new innovative method for Free Recharge can revolutionize the on going scenario in the Indian market. They have finally started their Free Recharge Service on Indian mobile service providers - Airtel, Aircel, Idea, Vodafone, BSNL, Reliance CDMA,Reliance GSM, Tata Docomo, Tata Indicom, Loop, MTS, Virgin Mobile CDMA, and Uninor. Recharge amount starts from Rs.10.

How it works?
1. Go to "Social Ads" page and you will see different "conversationally relevant" ads matching to your profile. Share and spread these ads to your friends on twitter, facebook, linkedin and orkut etc and you get paid for every click or action you receive from your friends.
2. Go to "my earnings" page to check your recharge earnings. Your Earnings can be converted in to Mobile recharge any time instantly.


Advertiser funds your Recharge
Advertisers are trying to reach your friends to promote their ads. Advertisers craft their ads as "social conversations". You can pick these ads that are relevant to your friends and share those on social networking sites such as twitter, facebook, linkedin, orkut etc. Every click or action you deliver to the advertiser, you get paid with some recharge amount.


Do's and Don't s
In order to ensure a good experience for users and advertisers, you are required to adhere to the following policies
1. For any reason, do not click on your recommended links. Clicking on your own recommendations is prohibited.
2. Do not inflate clicks\ leads artificially or manually. We reserve the right to disable you from further participation in the free recharge option.
3. Do not ask\encourage others to click on your recommended links or use deceptive implementation methods to obtain clicks or leads.
4. You are allowed to recommend only via social networks listed by us or email accounts listed by us.You are not allowed to position our advertisers promotional content or links any where else in your blog or website.
5. Do not alter the link and content displayed by our advertisers.
6. You are not allowed to recommend same ad more than once in a day to your social networks or via emails. 7. Also do not attempt posting manually to your social networks.
8. Never spam by recommending too many brands\products in a short span of time. This will impact your social influence score negatively. Ensure atleast 2 to 3 hours gap between any two recommendations.
9. Irrelevant recommendations to your friends might drop your social influence score and of course your payment too.
10. Recommend only products\brands that gathers interest from your friends. This improves your social influence score and of course your earnings too.
11. Along with ad recommendations, Share informative and general content that you share usually to your friends.
12. The more social influence score you have the more high paying brands/products we display to you. So, keep improving your social influence score by recommending only relevant and interesting ads to your friends.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

'Get Friend Map' Facebook App Visualizes Where In The World Your Friends Are


Take a look at how far your social circle spreads across the globe with Get Friend Map, a Facebook app that will build a customized map displaying your friendships across the globe.

The Facebook app isn't new -- according to its Facebook page it dates at least as far back as August -- but judging from the way it has taken over our Facebook news feeds, it's new to many and quickly gaining traction with users eager to map out their friend connections.

To try the app for yourself, go to the Get Friend Map page, click "Go to App"



Approve the app, which asks to access your profile information photos, and your friends' location, among other details. The app appears to be legit -- even Facebook's own Vadim Lavrusik gave it a whirl -- but users should always be on guard for spammy or malicious apps that might misuse their personal information.



The app is one of several attempts to visualize the online friendships on Facebook. Last year, Facebook created its own map showing how its millions of users' friendships spanned the globe.

Apple Officially Announces The iPhone 4S



At his first press conference as CEO of Apple, Tim Cook unveiled the iPhone 4S, the next generation of Apple's hit smartphone.

Cook, who became Apple's chief executive following Steve Jobs's resignation in August, promised that the iPhone 4S would be far faster than its predecessor, offering speedier downloads thanks to its revamped antenna system and faster processing as a result of its new chip.

The most notable new feature will be the iPhone 4's integration of a virtual, voice-activated personal assistant: Siri. Powered by technology developed by a company of the same name Apple acquired in 2010, Siri will answer questions a user poses by speaking to the phone, read text messages out loud, speak reminders, and more.

The iPhone 4S will feature the high resolution Retina Display that was introduced on the iPhone 4 and an A5 processor (which currently powers Apple's iPad 2) that will make the phone twice as fast as the previous generation of the iPhone.

Its battery has also been improved -- Cook noted that users can expect 8 hours of talk time, or an hour more than the iPhone 4 -- it will be a "world phone" compatible with both GSM and CDMA networks, and the phone has been equipped with a new wireless system that will enable it to "intelligently switch" between its two, built-in antennas so that it can send and receive data at the same speed as 4G phones, according to Cook.

The iPhone 4S will have an upgraded 8 megapixel camera. In addition to offering higher-resolution photos with 60 percent more pixels than the iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S will allow for 1080p HD video recording and has been revamped to let users take better pictures in lower light and snap shots faster than on other phones.

The iPhone 4S will be available for pre-order on October 7 and will hit stores October 14. Not only will be available on AT&T and Verizon, two wireless carriers that already offered the phone, but Sprint will also be offering the iPhone 4S.
The specs disclosed so far:
  • Dual-core A5 CPU, said to be “2x as fast at CPU tasks”
  • Dual-core graphics, up to “7x faster than the previous iPhone”
  • Battery life estimates: 8 hours talk time on 3G, 14 hours on 2G. 6 hours of browsing on 3G, 9 on Wi-Fi. 10 hours of video playback, 40 hours of music.
  • Theoretical download speeds of 14.4Mbps (as opposed to 7.2 on the iPhone 4.) Interestingly, Schiller called out Motorola, LG, and HTC for calling these speeds “4G”.
  • World Phone (in other words, the one model will handle both GSM [like AT&T] and CDMA [like Verizon], and it should work well in most countries around the world)
  • 8 megapixel camera (Photo resolution: 3264 x 2448). The camera also takes advantage of image processing on the A5 chip, enabling stuff like Face detection and 26% more accurate white balance.
  • 1080p video recording with real-time noise reduction and video stabilization (!)
  • Voice-controlled personal assistant. You can ask things like “Will it rain in Cupertino?”, or “Can you find me a Greek Restaurant in Palo Alto?”, or “What’s the time in Paris?” and it’ll answer accordingly. This is the culmination of their purchase of Siri back in 2010 — and surprisingly enough, they’re keeping the “Siri” name.
  • Available in black or white
  • Pricing 16GB for $199, 32GB for $299, or 64GB for $399. This is the first time Apple has offered a 64GB iPhone.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

How to use Facebook Music


With it new feature you can listen, share and discover music with others, all from within Facebook. If you're ready for the experience, here's how to use Facebook Music:


How Facebook Music works
The idea behind Facebook Music is that whenever you or your friends listen to music from one of Facebook's music partners, the music gets published to your Timeline for friends to see. The details also show up as an update to the news feed and ticker. When your friends see that you've recently listened to "Give Me Everything (Tonight)" by Pitbull, they can click on the link to listen to it. If they see your activity in their ticker, they can click on the activity to begin listening to the song with you in real time, with the option to start a chat.


How to Setup Facebook Music

To start sharing music on Facebook, a link between the music service and Facebook needs to be established. Spotify, Mog, Rdio, iHeartRadio, Slacker, Earbits, Turntable, SoundCloud, and Rhapsody all work with Facebook Music.
To create the link, log in to the music service of your choice, and initiate the service's feature to share or link to Facebook. This will activate the link and once you approve it, the music service will show up as an app in your Facebook account. This is how it looks for Spotify on Facebook:



How to Use Facebook Music 

The listening activity of your friends shows up in your news feed, ticker, and their Timeline. You can also click on the Music app in the left sidebar, to view all of your friends' listening activities, including top songs and trending albums. If you prefer to bookmark that section, here's the direct link.


To listen to a song that a friend recently listened to, simply click on the play link. If you already have the music service up, the music will begin playing through their Web app or desktop app. If you don't already have the music service up, a pop-up window will appear, asking if you'd like to launch it.


If you're not using the same music service as your friends, you have the option of creating a new link (and a new account) or listening to the song with your preferred music service.



Adjusting Facebook Music Permission
If you're concerned about privacy and permissions with the apps in Facebook Music, there are ways to adjust them to suit your preference:


That's it. Enjoy listening, sharing, and discovering music with your friends--or snickering about their terrible tastes. Either way, it's win-win!


Fake iPhone 5 Email can Infect your Computer


The new iPhone has not been announced. It is not available for pre-order. It does not have a ridiculous see-through screen. It is not called the "iPhone 5G S" and it's (probably) not going to be available this Friday. So if you get an email with the subject line "iPhone 5G S has been released" that contains what appears to be marketing from Apple, don't fall for it.

Technology journalist Abram Wagenaar received such an email in his inbox and posted a screenshot to Twitter (see below). Aside from the fact that the phone hasn't even been announced yet, there are several other warning signs: the see-through display, the weirder-than-weird naming scheme (iPhone 5G S) and the insanely big "5" on the backside of the phone.


"Clicking on links in the email takes you to some Windows malware (lucky Mac fans are being ignored by the hackers on this occasion) which Sophos detects as Mal/Zapchas-A."

If your computer has become infected by Mal/Zapchas-A, you run the risk of having your machine remotely accessed by others. However, it appears that most common anti-virus programs are able to remove it.