Author: Arun

Tech enthusiast

Categories
Reviews

rome2rio – Travel Search Guide for Airline and Railways

Rome2rio is a multi-modal travel search guide that aims at making travelling easy. rome2mio has a map based UI. You should enter the origin and destination places and it will be give you the travel combination of cars, buses, trains, ferries or planes that you should take.

The app also mentions you the amount of money that you should spend to reach your destination. The service splits the travel mode. It also mentions the amount of money that you should spend for each mode of transportation and then mentions the total amount. The airfares are taken from Katak.

Similarly, Indian train details are provided by Indian Railways. It gives you an option to enter the travel dates and it pulls the exact airfares from Katak. It features 670 airlines worldwide, and features trains in Europe, China and India. It also allows you to book your tickets straight away when you choose your dates and your preferred airlines.

Hotel bookings are also available.

It also gives you multiple choices of transportation/origin/destination and you can choose the one you prefer. For example, when I searched for a travel guide from Madurai, India to Tokyo, Japan, it gave me an option to land either at Tokyo Narita or at Tokyo Haneda.

rome2rio

The price tags are mentioned in USD by default. You can choose to change that to your preferred currency any time.

How rome2rio stakes against Google Maps?

rome2rio is basically Google Maps with additional features. But the main advantage of rome2rio over Google Maps is that, the former gives you multi-modal travel options while Google Maps limits to one mode of travel. Also Google Maps doesn’t show fares and doesn’t allow bookings.

Link: rome2rio website

Categories
Reviews

MyAppSharer : Share your Android apps with your friends

MyAppSharer is an Android app that helps you to easily share your Android apps with your friends. You can choose to share the apps’ market (Google Play) links or directly send the app package (APK file).

It is a free app and supports every Android device running Android 1.6 and above. The app is easy to use and makes Android apps sharing a lot easy. Also the best thing is that, your friend doesn’t need to have MyAppSharer installed on his device.

The user interface requires no description. It is an user friendly app and one can start playing with the app within seconds of installation.

Screenshot_2013-09-14-12-56-15

On launching the app, all the Android apps installed on your Android device populate. You can choose the list of apps that you want to share. You can also select/deselect all the apps.

You can share by two ways :

ADVERTISEMENT
  1. As a market link : You can share the market link of the app and your friend will have to download the app package himself/herself. You can share the market link by various means : text messaging, QR codes, bluetooth, bluetooth (zip) add to Dropbox, Facebook and a lot more.
  2. Share the APK file : The second option is sharing the entire app package. Like the first option you can share the entire APK by bluetooth, bluetooth (zip) or by internet via mail, Dropbox, Skype and many more.

Important things to note

ADVERTISEMENT
  1. To share the QR code for a particular app, you should have Barcode Scanner installed on your Android.
  2. To add the market link or APK fle to Dropbox, you should have the Dropbox app installed on your Android.
  3. It has been reported by many users that they are not able to receive the apps’ APK/market link by bluetooth on their Nexus device. MyAppSharer developer recommends you to share by bluetooth (zip) if you are sharing the file to a Nexus user.

Doesn’t this app look brilliant? Do give it a go and share your thoughts on it with us.

Link: MyAppSharer on Google Play

Categories
Reviews

Clueful : Your Android Apps Privacy Analyser

Most of the smartphone apps these days ask for special permissions like accessing your contacts, sending texts on their own, using your Gallery photos and more. To be on the safe side, we must be aware of the things that these apps ask and should take steps to be safe. If any app is found to be leaking out your contact numbers to third parties or sending your private data to others, that app should be removed immediately.

To take of care of your privacy, here comes Clueful. If you are an Apple fanboy or a previous iOS user, you might recognize this app. It is an app brought by Bitdefender. Available earlier to the iOS users, Clueful is new to Android. The app is easy to use and gives you a detailed analysis on the list of apps installed in your Android.

How Clueful Works

  1. On opening Clueful, the app scans all the apps installed on your Android and compares with it’s Cloud database from Bitdefender. Note that the app requires Internet connectivity to work.
  2. Once done, it classifies them as low, moderate and high risk apps.
  3. It also gives you a Privacy Score. The larger the score, the safer you are.

Screenshot_2013-06-04-20-54-55 Screenshot_2013-06-04-20-54-42 Screenshot_2013-06-04-20-54-32 Clueful (5)

Features of Clueful

  1. Once the apps have been classified, you can get a depth analysis of the apps’ privacy by clicking on that particular app.
  2. It also lets you to uninstall apps right within the app.
  3. You can filter apps and then check which particular apps use your location, which particular apps are viruses and more.
  4. It works as an anti-virus, anti-theft, web control and SMS control tool.
  5. It scans each app that you download from Google Play immediately and lists it as a low, moderate or high risk app.

It is a must have app for every Android user who give privacy the first priority. Privacy matters.

Link : Clueful on Google Play

Categories
Reviews

Free up Space on Your Android and Make it Run Faster

If you never knew, uninstalling some Android apps doesn’t take away all the data. There are some junk files left which can be erased completely with Clean Master. It is an all-in-one app that cleans the app cache, unused files, residual files (junk files left by uninstalled apps) and search history. Also, it lets you to easily uninstall/take backups of apps that you want.

The app also acts as a task killer. But there is a reason why task killers fail! You can read about that on Not much of a killer post, published on The Hindu.

On launching Clean Master, you’ll be shown top graphs which indicate the used and unused spaces on your external SD card and the phone’s internal storage.

The app also shows the amount of space recovered after each clean.

Clean Master

 

Junk Files allows you to clean all the cached files and residual files. Privacy allows you to clean the search history. Tasks allows you to kill tasks. App Manager allows you to uninstall apps or take backups.

Also, Clean Master allows you to schedule clean jobs.

What’s your thought on this 50 million+ downloaded app? Do let us know if you know more apps like this.

Link: Clean Master on Google Play

Categories
Reviews

Use Time Warp on Chrome to keep yourself focused on work

Time Warp is a productive Google Chrome extension that will help you stay focused. You might have lots of work to do, but you always tend to check your social media accounts’ updates.

Time Warp will help you calculate the amount of time you have wasted, display a quote message or redirect to a productive website. Time Warp is available for free on the Chrome Web Store.

Once installed, you can create “Wormholes”. Wormholes are basically commands that you want to executed whenever you visit a website that you should not.

Once you install Time Warp, you can go to the extension’s Options to create Wormholes. Then you’ll have to click the Time Warp icon at the top right of the Google Chrome browser to enable Time Warp. Once enabled, the icon will turn blue. To disable, click the icon again.

time-warp-chrome

There are three types of Wormholes that you can create :

  1. Redirection : You can create a Wormhole that redirects you to a particular website when you visit a website that wastes your time.
  2. Quotes : You can choose to display a quote whenever you visit a time-wasting website.
  3. Timer : Time calculates the amount of time that you have wasted on a particular website. The Timer will not be reset until you uninstall the extension or delete the Wormhole.

You can also choose where to display your Timer. You can display it at the bottom right, bottom left, top right, top left or at the top of your Google Chrome browser.

Link: Time Warp on Chrome

Categories
Reviews

Root Checker : Check whether you have rooted your Android or not

Rooting an Android device gives the user control over the root access. A rooted Android device is completely different compared to the same Android device when it came out of the manufacturer’s box. With a rooted Android device, you can install root apps, custom ROMs like CyanogenMod and other types of recovery like ClockworkMod Recovery. There are rooting guides for various Android devices on the internet.

If you ever wanted to check whether you have rooted your Android device correctly, Root Checker is here to help you. It is available on the Google Play Store. It doesn’t require root access, that is, you can run that app even a non-rooted Android device.

How to Use Root Checker?

  • Download and install Root Checker from Google Play Store.
  • Agree to the Disclaimer message.
  • Root Checker will ask for SuperUser permissions. You can give the app SuperUser permissions.
  • Click the “Verify Root Access” button in that app to check whether your Android has root access. If yes, you’ll get a positive message. If your Android doesn’t have a root access, you’ll get a negative message.

root-checker

There are two versions of this app, Root Checker Basic and Root Checker Pro. The pro version gives you more technical details about your Android’s root access. It gives your common su binary locations, SuperUser.apk location and version, user and group ID, environmental variables and a lot more. It is priced at $0.99 or 70 INR.

Link: Root Checker Basic | Root Checker Pro

Categories
Reviews

ActiveNotifications: Get ‘Moto X’ Style Notification on Android

ActiveNotifications is a new app on the Google Play Store that brings Moto X’s Active Display feature to other Android devices. Motorola unveiled Moto X a fortnight back. It is the one of the best Android smartphones out there in the market now.

The Active Display feature in Moto X is an unique notifications system brought by Motorola. The screen brights up systematically quietly when you get a notification. Clearly, it consumes less battery on the AMOLED displays.

ActiveNotifications app is made by one of the XDA Developer members and is available on the Google Play Store. It is a free app. It can be installed in any Android running Android 4.0 and above. It will be brought to the lower versions of Android soon. It requires Device Administrator permissions.

This app brings a black screen whenever you receive a notification. A round shaped button is shown at the center. Swiping that up gives you an option to respond to the notification. Swiping down unlocks your device. Swiping left/right dismisses the notification.

ActiveNotifcations (2)

ActiveNotifications features

  • The screen doesn’t light up when you get notifications when your phone is in your pockets or turned down.
  • You can receive select apps’ notifications through ActiveNotifications.
  • Custom timeout : You can set the duration how long the notifications have to be shown.
  • Sleep at night : Notifications won’t be shown at night.
  • More privacy : Hides additional notification details.
  • Automatically switch off screen when dismissing notifications.
  • Adjust screen brightness : You can choose the brightness level.

The last 4 features are bundled with the pro version of this app. The pro version is priced at $0.99.

ActiveNotifcations (3)

To uninstall the app, you’ll have to uncheck ActiveNotifications from Device Administrators list (Settings > Security > Device Administrators) first and then uninstall.

Link : ActiveNotifications on Google Play

Categories
Tips

How to Become Android Beta Tester for Facebook

Two months ago Facebook launched a new program called Facebook for Android Beta Testers. This program allows Android users to test the latest experimental features in the Facebook app. Obviously, this beta edition of Facebook for Android will not be full coded and may cause problems. If you are enthusiastic about helping Facebook build a better app, you should definitely be a part of this program.

Google launched a beta testing program at the Google I/O 2013 conference held on May 2013. With the beta testing program, Android developers can roll-out the updated versions of their apps to a particular group of users, beta testers, to know how those versions perform before rolling out to all the users.

How to become a beta tester?

Becoming a beta tester is really simple. You’ll have to join the Facebook for Android Beta Testers group on Google Groups, install the beta version of Facebook app and you’re ready to go.

Facebook Android Beta Tester

  • Once you’re a part of that group, go to this page and click the Become a tester button.

Become a beta tester

  • Uninstall Facebook if you have that installed on your device already.
  • Download Facebook from Google Play Store and you’re good to go.

Install Facebook

Things to note:

  • You should join this group with the Google account associated with your Google Play Store.
  • If you don’t get the beta version of Facebook even after trying the above steps, restart your phone.

This program is available to any Android user running either Gingerbread, Ice Cream Sandwich or the latest Jelly Bean.

Categories
Tips

MailDrop – Create Disposable Email That Stays Forever

MailDrop is a service that helps you to create a disposable email ID. These email IDs do not expire like those from 10 Minute Mail, Guerrilla Mail or TrashMail. This service is new to this niche. Never the less, it has an elegant user interface and works flawless.

MailDrop

This service is free to use and doesn’t require a sign up. Creating an email ID is also easy. You’ll just have to enter your name or nickname and voila, the email ID is created! It also gives you some cool email ID suggestions.

Some Restrictions in MailDrop

ADVERTISEMENT

MailDrop might look really interesting to you at first. But there are some restrictions that come along with this service.

  • Email IDs require no passwords. So anyone can check out your email inbox.
  • The email size is limited to 100 kB and the attachments will be stripped off.
  • A maximum of 10 mails can be stored at a time.
  • If the inbox doesn’t receive an email for 24 hours, all the mails in the inbox will be deleted.

Security Solution for MailDrop

With no password option for the email IDs, it’s easy for the public to dig into your mail inbox. MailDrop has a solution to this. The service provides an Alias Address. Every email ID created on MailDrop comes with an Alias Address. Email sent to the Alias Address also shows on the original inbox. People cannot see the Alias Address inbox without knowing the original address.

MailDrop-alias-address

Note : The privacy section of MailDrop states that the algorithm that converts real MailDrop addresses to inbox aliases is public and can be reverse engineered by anyone. So, it’s best not to send sensitive information on MailDrop.

Link: MailDrop website

Categories
Reviews

Droplr – Share files easily with an unique link

There are many tools and cloud services that make file sharing really easy over the internet. Droplr is yet another service that makes file sharing easy. Upload the file to Droplr and you’ll given an unique link to share. Every uploaded file is called a Drop.

Uploading a file is really simple. You can either click Select a file to share now button or drag and drop the file. The user interface of Droplr is really brilliant. It makes navigation across your files really easy. You can easily check all your Drops, edit the title, and even delete them if you want to.

It has both Free and Paid options. For a Free account you are given 1 GB storage and the limit per file is 25 MB. Also a Free account shows ads all around your content. The Pro account is priced at $3.99 per month and has some nice features like 100 Gb storage capacity, file size limit is 1Gb, private drops with unique URLs.

Using Droplr Apps

ADVERTISEMENT

Droplr is not just a web service. There are apps available for Mac, Windows, iPhone and iPad. The service is also baked in some other popular services or apps like Twitter cards, Tweetbot for Mac and a lot more! Once you install Windows app, you can use the Win + W key combination to bring the upload section at the bottom right. Just drag and drop files here to upload to Droplr. The same goes to Mac app.

The Windows and Mac apps have various other features. You can move the upload zone, set keyboard shortcuts, add Droplr to Windows’ ‘Send To’ menu and a lot more!

Droplr Referral Program

Droplr also has an interesting referral programme. For each friend you bring to Droplr, you and your friend get 200 MB free storage. You can invite up to 20 friends.

Droplr-referrals

Pipe for Facebook – Another app for quick file sharing

Pipe for Facebook is an app that makes file sharing as easy as Droplr. Pipe doesn’t generate unique links. With Pipe you can send files to your Facebook friends through Facebook.

Link: Droplr website