Sonchips Data

As my luck would have it. I am on my way in from the car to go into the Verizon store so I could pick up a case for my phone. Now let me remind you that the case for the Droid 3 are very new since they did not get released when the phone did several months ago.

I bought me a case, as I was on my way back into the store, what does retard do… YUP! You guessed it. I damn dropped my phone. I thought nothing of it. I have dropped my phone so many times and nothing happen… but my luck… after the store rep and a good friend saw me drop my phone… they both started laughing.

I casually picked up the phone and did the quick head check to see if anybody else noticed the do-do bird droppping his phone. Yup. They did and trust me, they were laughing right at me!

It was all funny. I gave him my phone and then he said, “Did you just do this?” I wasn’t really sure what he was talking about at first. Then he showed me. MY SCREEN WAS SHATTERED!

The good news, I have insurance on the phone. The bad news, the insurance plan has a $99 deductible to start the claim and get a new phone. What the hell? I will be posting the picture at some point.

Get this. After I dropped the phone and shattered the screen, the Verizon Rep actaully asked me, “Umm… do you still want this phone case?” After we were all laughing about it, I realized that there was nothing that we could do about the screen. So I told him that I would take my newly purchases phone protector screen.

I don’t know. Sometimes my luck sucks!

Okay, so there I was. I was looking for a little program that would allow me to display on my phone’s screen whatever was on my computer screen. Basically, it sounds like it would be a just a simple little remote type of controlling application. No Big Deal.

Here is what I ended up finding. A little program called GMote. This nice little application is actually in the Android Marketplace. I thought it looked somewhat interesting and so I had it installed. When I ran it, considering the fact I was not at my personal computer yet, it told me to run the server install program and then run the client software which is on the phone. No Big Deal.

I finally got to my house and installed the server side of the software package. Nucking Futs! I clicked on browse after I added my little music directory and instantly was able to browse through my 42,000 song folder. I have all of my folders broken down by Artist then in the Artist folder I have all the Albums listed. Then of course, within each of the Album directories, I have the songs from the album within that directory. When I selected a song to play, it played on the computer and through the computer speakers. It was friggin awesome!

Furthermore, if yo hit the hard menu button on the phone, it gives you an option to actually select touchpad. I was not sure was this was. I did that and holy hell… I was able to use the keyboard and mouse on my computer. It is really nice sitting there on my couch/futton and using the computer. It is FRIGGIN SWEET with Netflix. Play. Stop. Minimize. If you can do it on your keyboard and mouse with your computer, you can pretty much do it with your phone! This is really an application I WOULD RECOMMEND to others! Click on the link below to have it remotely installed on your phone. The link is to the Google ran Android Market site. Enjoy. Please leave your comments! This is worth talking about!

https://market.android.com/details?id=org.gmote.client.android&feature=search_result

So, there I was.  I was looking for a certain application that would forward my text messages.  I was wanting to look at a site that would show me all of the apps that were in the Android Market Place.  I never knew that there was a site for this.  I have added a link in the right column so you can get there and check it out too.

Also, with this little link, did you know you can actually install apps to your phone remotely?  For example, If you are at the office and you forgot your phone in the car or house, you can select an app you would like to install and it (meaning the web site) will send it to the phone.  It is pretty damn nifty!  But, below is the link.

http://market.android.com

I know some people just remember what they have in the bank.  Not this guy.  I am all about knowing, down to the cent, what I can use.  In case you are looking for a program on the Android phones that can assist you in doing this, I highly recommend a program called Clear Check Book.  You can go to the market place and locate this through the search tool.

This program is basically a digital form of the user’s checkbook.  I am able to go and put in to my phone using the Clear Check Book program that I put $46.57 in gas.  This gives me my current balance immediately.  Sure, I can wait and do all that later.  But I am the type of guy that will forget.  That’s never fun.

I would recommend this, GET THIS APP!  You can also use this application on the iPhone and the Blackberry.  A must see/use!

Everybody might have heard about “Visual Voice Mail” (a.k.a. VVM), but incase you didn’t, VVM allows the subscriber to select which messages he or she wants to hear next.  For example, if the subscriber has 3 new voice messages, they can play the second message first, then the first, then the third.  You do not have to listen to them in the order in which they were received.  This is a very convenient way to check your messages.  You also have the option to delete the message if you already know that you do not want to hear it.

Let’s take VVM to the next level!  To do this, you just need a simple free account from YouMail.  You can get an account a couple of ways. 

1. Logon to youmail.com and register.
2. On your iPhone (App Store), Android Phone (Market Place), Blackberry, you can search the term, “youmail”.

YouMail allows the user to login via computer or phone application to retrieve the messages.  Here is the great thing.  If you are not able to take your phone to work or to a function, if somebody calls you and leaves a message, youmail.com will send you an email telling you who attempted to call and who left a message.  You can then either use your phone to listen to the messages or login to the youmail.com website and listen to the message.

This simple VVM system is a plus in my book.  It is very easy to use and yet, so complex!

Another great feature I LOVE talking about on this system is the fact that you can designate certain messages being played for certain numbers.  You can create a group so a certain message is played with those select people call you.  For example, if you have your boss and four other people from work that call you all the time, you can have a funny message greet them and tell them to leave a message.  In the other hand, if you have a car dealership that WILL NOT leave you alone because you test drove a car six months ago, you can add that number to the list and they will be greeted with a NUMBER DISCONNECTED message.  Not only that, after they hear that your number has been disconnected, you ditch the call!!! Sweetness!

You ditching a call just means that as soon as the selected greeting is played, YouMail will disconnect the caller and they have NO option to leave a message!!! This helps in preventing people from continious calling.  It works well!

I have been using smartphones for a while.  The one true thing I have noticed is that, regardless of what you use your phone for, you can always use more.  I have been with Verizon Wireless for about three years now.  I have had almost every Blackberry (as some would call a Dingle Berry) there was on the market.  When the first surge of Android phones pumped the market full of aww, I was interested.

I found a couple of Android phones that were nice, however, there was always room for improvement.  I came across the Droid X by Verizon Wireless.

There are several pros and very limited cons to this current day Circus Phone!

The first thing you might notice is the overly el-hu-mung-go screenage.  This is massive.  Here are some of the PROS:

• Massive screen.
• HDMI port on side of phone.
• Very accurate touch screen.
• USB connection has four different user selectable modes.
• GPS works great with size of screen and GPS accuracy.
• Typing on phone has option of using swipe method or classic “pecking” method
• Built in bluetooth (what phone doesn’t these days, but still a PRO)
• In general, this phone is the $h!t…

I am very happy with this phone and would recommend it to somebody looking for a computer that fits in the palm of their hand!

A lot of people do not know this factoid: The Android phone system is a LINUX based system… Meaning, when you phone seems to be slipping a little, running slow, hesitating, and just doing some wierd $h!t, turn the phone off.  Wait a couple of seconds and then turn it back on.  WHAMO!  Problems fixed!

Wow!  Let me tell you about this application that I found a little bit ago.  I was looking for a program that would be used on my Android OS phone, the Verizon Droid X, and I wanted to be able to keep up with all of my maintenance, fill-ups, repairs, and anything else having something to do with my car.

Well, I found the perfect solution.  The programmer, Armond Avanes, is a JAVA Developer that developes applications for the Android environment.  Mr. Avanes developed one hell of a program.

There are several pros and hardly any cons at all.  Some of the pros are simply these points:

• Record all fill-ups, maintenance repairs, oil changes, and anything having to do with the vehicle.
• Able to track several vehicles at once.
• If you are selling a vehicle, you can send the entire service record via email to somebody interested.
• Technical support is phenominal.  Mr. Avanes responds very promptly to emails.
• Different type of charts and graphs to illustrate different scenarios.
• aCar predicts when you next fill up will be based of history of fillups for particular vehicle.
• Tracks last month, current month, and last three months of fillups.
• Assists in budgeting monthly fuel cost without any heartache.

There are so many pros to having this program, that I don’t have the time to list them.  You can visit his site located at:

http://zonewalker.com/

You can see some of the screenshots below.  I would definetly put this little application on my phone if I didn’t already have it.  It’s a PLUS!