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Some of my earliest memories of smartphones are of the hassles involved with getting bookmarks loaded across devices. Why was it that Web properties thought -- and some still think -- you needed different information at your desk from what you wanted on the road? The issue has never been properly a...

Want to launch a music app when you plug in your headphones, or wake up to a specific app? You can do things like this with sets of automated routines that you program via the Tasker app. Crafty's Tasker app automates settings on Android devices and lets you micro-manage them. Does this level of in-...

With the preponderance of data quotas imposed by telcos on mobile phone usage and the rapid introduction of data-hogging apps -- in particular, those related to TV and music -- it may well be time to investigate counters. Counters let you see how much data you're using, and warn you of potential ove...

Spritefish's Fast Burst Camera may be just the app for sports photography. I've reviewed camera apps for Android OS before, and I've been particularly fond of Vignette, with its 76 customizable photo effects including infrared. That app is superior to market leader Instagram. I'm now raving about C...

If you're a regular reader of this column, you may remember that I recently took a look at Cloud TV's HD Widgets, an app for creating your own elegant, translucent widgets to replace ugly stock widgets that appear to permeate today's Android phones -- Motorola, I'm referring to you mainly. I've had ...

I picked a beautiful day to road-test Earth's WeatherBug Elite app. It was a late-summer day on which the National Weather Service had just issued a Red Flag fire weather warning for my brush-fire-prone, tinder-dry neighborhood. Android weather app WeatherBug provides a set of current conditions, fo...

With ubiquitous Google Maps installed as standard on smartphone OS market leader Android's devices, why anyone would need anything else? Well, the principal benefit of an app like BackCountry Navigator Pro GPS is that it provides offline access to topographic maps, which represent terrain using grap...

IP Cam Viewer Pro lets you view and control an Internet protocol camera through Android OS on a phone or tablet. App features include SSL encryption, pan tilt and zoom, relays for lights and garage doors, and recording functions. DVRs and network video recorders also can be controlled. Included are...

Instapaper is finally available on the Android platform. If you're unfamiliar with the iPhone-originating app, it's an offline reader with a difference. I've always had a problem with offline readers. Offline readers, like the good-looking Pulse, function by pulling in XML feeds online. They are es...

It wasn't too long ago that you'd have to pore over shortwave radio schedule listings, cross referencing time of day, with frequency in kilohertz, in order to listen to long range, overseas broadcasts -- picking out the words from the spooky radio harmonics. Then along came the Internet, which allow...

"My esteemed colleague, it is with much reverence that I am humbly, yet secretly, contacting you to tell you of great fortune that has come my way. My most honorable relative has kindly left me, in his will, eighty gold bars. Unfortunately, due to circumstances, I have to regretfully sell on the ...

Here's a likely familiar summer scenario for many Americans: You've been driving all day, and it's getting late. You're tired. You're ready for a hotel bed in an unknown town coming up ahead. My modus operandi has always been to watch for billboards advertising upcoming motels with rates. Or, I mig...

If you've been getting into flashing ROMs on your devices, you're familiar with the palava that goes with it: booting to recovery, swapping cards, adb, fastboot, renaming zip files, and the rest of it. ROM Manager, from ClockworkMod, the recovery software maker, claims to largely alleviate the kerfu...

Plex is a good looking media platform for running media files on Google TV, tablets, phones and so on. Online channels include Hulu, Vimeo and more. On looks and apparent tight integration between my existing Android-based devices, I decided to check out Plex's two Android apps. I was interested in...

HTC is on its fourth incarnation of Sense, and in my opinion, no one has come close. In fact, they've got nowhere near. Muddy teal menus, and crude buttons from Motorola fail to delight; the Honeycomb UI on my Toshiba Thrive tablet with its neon-effect borders looks like it should be part of the UI ...

Reports of the demise of the fax machine may be premature if research in Chico Harlan's article in The Washington Post last week is to be believed. Fax machines are still in 59 percent of Japanese homes, Harlan found. They are still popular because of a cultural interest in the use of pap...

Visual voicemail functionality is the visual element in a voicemail application that allows text to be transcribed and displayed on the phone -- or more simply, message headers, or envelopes, are displayed textually in a list. Options often include push to email and SMS. It's been around in various ...

I've been looking for an alternative to Google's Google Voice product that provides one number for all my phones -- mobiles and landline -- and includes online voicemail and discounted calling. Google Voice is a fine product, and I've had exemplary use out of it, but it has a couple of failings rela...

I've got fond memories of physical keyboards embedded in smartphones. My Palm Treos -- I had three -- were superb at composing email and SMS text responses. I even made notes for a book I was writing on one Treo. I speculate that the hardware keyboard is the principal differentiator keeping BlackBer...

Have you ever found yourself scrolling endlessly around your phone's chronologically arranged photograph album -- called "Gallery" in Android -- looking for a photograph you've captured? If you can remember the specific place but not the date, then Scalado Album may be for you. I say "may be" becau...