Monday, February 25, 2013

XE Currency Conversion Application


While I'm waiting for some new hardware/electronic items to evaluate/review, I thought that rather than not posting a blog entry for the week, I would start evaluating some applications that I use on my smartphones.

One of the programs that I've installed on all my smartphones (Blackberry Bold 9700, Samsung Nexus-S, and iPhone 3GS) is a currency conversion program called XE Currency. I use it mainly get the Canadian and US exchange rates but I've also used it to get the Swedish rate as well as some of the Asian currencies.

The program works very similar on all the smartphones that I own. You basically set up a home currency and then add a few countries that you want to get the currency of or that you want to keep track of.

After adding the countries, you can configure the number of decimal places for the currencies. The number of decimal places is universal for all the currencies in your list and is not individually set for each country's currency.

Normally I keep a value of "1" for the home country and every time I start the application, the program will download the exchange rates for the other countries and get the exchange rate for "1" unit (ex: dollar) of the home country. If my home country is set to Canada, and I want to know how much $159.95 is in US dollars (and the US is one of the countries in my list), I will replace the $1 in the Canadian field with $159.95 and the program will automatically convert show how much $159.95 is in US dollars.

XE Currency Converter is a very useful application for anyone who travels. The only negative thing about this program is that it has an advertisement banner on it but then again the application is free.

If you have any questions/comments regarding this blog entry, please don't hesitate to write a comment in the comment section below. Please note that the comments are moderated and any comment that contains a URL link (whether or not it is embedded) will automatically be flagged as being spam and will not be posted.

Monday, February 11, 2013

YouTube Remote for Android Review

I've tried the YouTube Remote for Android for a few weeks now and thought that I would write a review on it.

The YouTube Remote application allows you to remotely play YouTube videos on another device like a SmartTV with YouTube capabilities. What you have to do is add your SmartTV to the YouTube Remote program. To do this, you would either go to http://www.youtube.com/leanback or you would go into the YouTube Remote application and go to "My YouTube" and then pair the device.

On your Android device you would basically at the screen. I've tried using my Chromebook as a screen as well as my LG Smart TV Upgrader Box and got similar results for both of them.

The YouTube Remote application works but in my opinion it doesn't work as well as it should. You can add a list of YouTube videos to display. However, sometimes I've noticed that the YouTube Remote application will not find the device configured as the screen even though they are on the same network and both have a very good connection. It will then display the video on the application window on the upper right corner of the screen. Also, when viewing a lot of videos in sequence, the application stays on all the time. Turning off the Android device causes problems for the videos which sometimes range from the video stopping after it has finished playing (won't play the next video) or the video repeating.

I've also noticed that sometimes the YouTube Remote application will find the video but refuse to play it on the device configured as the screen as well as on the YouTube Remote application as well.

I find that YouTube Remote for Android is a useful tool but is not a "must-have" for people who watch YouTube on their SmartTVs.

If you have any questions/comments regarding this blog entry, please don't hesitate to leave a comment in the comments section below. Please note that the comments are moderated and any comment that contains a URL link whether or not it is embedded will automatically be flagged as being spam and will not be posted.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Blackberry 10 Announcement

I didn't have a review for this week since I've been very busy since returning from my vacation so I decided to write about the biggest technology news item that was discussed this past week.

The biggest news this week in terms of the things that I've written about (and that I'm interested in) has been the announcement of the Blackberry 10 devices (Blackberry Z10 & Blackberry Q10).

In terms of phones, I have a Blackberry (Bold 9700), an iPhone (iPhone 3GS), and an Android (Samsung Nexus-S). I currently use my Blackberry Bold 9700 a lot mainly for the keyboard since I can type a lot faster with my Blackberry keyboard than I can do with either the virtual on-screen keyboard from my iPhone or my Android phone. My iPhone 3GS functions mainly as an iPod Touch since I don't use it to make calls except when making VoIP calls. I will use my Android phone to check certain things out but will generally avoid typing anything on it mainly because I don't like virtual on-screen keyboards.

When I went to the US on vacation, because of the high data roaming charges, I used my US SIM phone has data service in my Android phone and I didn't really like having to type chat messages or e-mails with the virtual keyboard. The reason I didn't use my US SIM on my Blackberry is because of one of the shortcomings of Blackberries and that is, that it requires a Blackberry specific data plan (a regular data plan will generally not work on a Blackberry phone).

The Blackberry Z10 which will be released in Canada on February 5 and personally I won't be getting it. The main reason I have my Blackberry is for the physical keyboard since as I mentioned I can't get used to the virtual on-screen keyboards for my iPhone and my Android phone. I will probably wait until the Blackberry Q10 which has a built-in keyboard is released before making my decision on whether or not to purchase it since I can probably get an inexpensive Android phone v2.x which has a built-in keyboard for ~$230 brand new (and without contract).

Personally, I think that one of the problems with Blackberry/RIM is that the have too many phone models. About 3 years ago, you could get a Pearl, Curve, Bold, and Torch. If they only release 2 models (Z10 & Q10) with Blackberry 10, I think that this is a good start. However, having 2 phone models with 2 different screen sizes and 2 different hardware specs represents issues when it comes to application development. One of the reasons why I gave up my Blackberry Playbook is that it did not have enough applications for me and at the time that I purchased it, it also didn't have a standalone e-mail, calendar, and contact program (it required a Blackberry phone in order to use the e-mail/calendar/addressbook). I already had a tablet which did not have a lot of applications (i.e. my HP Touchpad) and I was using it mainly for reading PDF documents) and I didn't need another tablet that didn't have a lot of applications on it.

The features of Blackberry 10 does sound impressive but without applications, I don't think that Blackberry 10 will do very well. We'll just have to wait and see what types of applications are released for it when the Blackberry Z10 is finally released. When the Q10 is released later this year, developers will probably have to re-write or port their existing Blackberry Z10 programs for the Blackberry Q10 because of the Q10's smaller screen size.

Hopefully with Blackberry 10, the Blackberry memory leak issue is solved. For me, every few days on my Blackberry Bold 9700, I'm presented with a message that I am running low on memory and I am asked to delete any application that I don't use. However, after doing a battery-pull (or rebooting my Blackberry), the available memory is sufficient for me to do what I want with the phone (at least for a few days). I don't have to do the same thing with my Android phone or with my iPhone.

The Q10 is probably what I will purchase provided that the applications that I want/use is available for the Blackberry 10 operating system.

If you have any questions/comments regarding this blog entry, please don't hesitate to write a comment in the comment section below. Please note that the comments are moderated and any comment that contains a URL link (whether or not it is embedded) will automatically be flagged as being spam and will not be posted.