Active noise cancelling vs. passive sound isolating headphones, a primer in noise control

Guides

  • November 6, 2011 at 10:57 am

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Noise isolation primer

I’ve always been into audio technology of any kind, from high-end Hi-Fi separates to portable audio. Some years back I was introduced to noise isolating and noise cancelling headphones/earphones, since then I never looked back. It’s not until you cut out external noise from your listening that you will appreciate how much ambient noise there is, especially if you travel by and means of pubic transport.

This is a primer in the technology behind passive and active noise control, which will hopefully introduce you to the theory, benefits and caveats of these technologies.
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How to: Convert the HTC Sensation or Sensation 4G to a Sensation XE

Guides

  • November 5, 2011 at 2:14 pm

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Convert the HTC Sensation to a Sensation XE

You’ve recently got a shiny new HTC Sensation or Sensation 4G and there goes HTC tweaking it and releasing the Sensation XE. Well, you can actually convert the Sensation (4G) to a Sensation XE by investing half an hour of your time, and flexing your rooting skills. The hardware in the two handsets is essentially the same, as we’ve seen in our initial coverage, the XE simply has the same dual-core processor running at its default 1.5GHz speed (against 1.2GHz for the original), includes a custom Beats by Dr. Dre sound profile and a bigger battery.

You can get the improvements by installing a custom ROM, Android Revolution HD, for the Sensation, which among other things, allows the processor to run at 1.51GHz as a default, includes the Beats audio profile and a tweaked Adreno 200 graphics configuration to boot. Only thing missing is the bigger battery, but you can grab a tried and test 1900mAh Anker one from Amazon US or Amazon UK.

A word to the wise here, rooting your smartphone is risky, you could end up with a dead device and/or invalidate your warranty. Use the instructions below at your own risk.

Upgrading your Sensation or Sensation 4G to a Sensation XE involves, three steps. First, you must unlock the bootloader (from S-ON to S-OFF) so that you can install custom ROMs. Then, you have to install ClockworkMod recovery, which you will use to install custom ROMs, and finally, flash the Android Revolution HD ROM. Charge your Sensation and head after the break for the full instructions.
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How to: Root the Samsung Galaxy Note and install ClockworkMod recovery

Guides

  • November 3, 2011 at 7:48 am

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Samsung Galaxy Note, taking notes

The 5.3-inch Samsung Galaxy Note tablet-phone (or is it phone-tablet) has only been out for a week now. Well, it took less than that for the device to get rooted and ClockworkMod (CWM) recovery to be installed. This means that you can run all sorts of applications requiring root and potentially install custom ROMs for the device or even overclock it. Rooting was performed by the never-tiring Android community and it has certainly helped that Samsung doesn’t go out of its way to lock-out its phones. The rooting methods are very similar to that of the established Galaxy S II, which explains why it was achieved so fast.

There are several ways to achieve root and install CWM recovery on the Galaxy Note. One method, involves downloading and running the zengRush Revolutionary tool, for one-click root — step-by-step instructions after the break.

A second method, proposed in the video also after the break, involves flashing CWM using a Windows PC and then installing the SuperUser zip through recovery. Be aware that, as always, taking the rooting and custom ROM route, involves the risk of ending up with a dead device.

Another, bigger disclaimer here is that, flashing a custom ROM could invalidate your warranty with Samsung. Similarly to the SGS II, the Galaxy Note has a flash counter, i.e. every time you flash a custom ROM or kernel to the Note the counter goes up by one. If something happens to your device and you send it in to Samsung, they might refuse to service it under warranty if you counter is not zero. Currently there is no way to reset the flash counter (though a method might be devised), so be careful with flashing any custom ROM before a method is confirmed.

So, with all that out of the way, if you are really sure you want to take the risk, fully charge your Galaxy Note, grab your USB cable and sit in front of your Windows PC (unfortunately no Mac instructions yet), and head over after the break for the full how-to.
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Fujifilm X100 startup time and SD card write speed tests; how to make the X100 faster

GuidesThe Lab

  • October 23, 2011 at 4:47 pm

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Fujifilm X100 startup time and SD write speed test

The X100 shoots amazing photos, in general, and some of the best low-light pictures of any compact camera — it looks the part too. You can read our in-depth real world review here. Unfortunately, it’s not a speed demon; specifically, auto focus, startup time and SD card write speeds are relatively slow. This means that it’s not the ideal action shooter.

Nevertheless, there are things that you can do to get the camera to perform faster. The X100 includes a ‘Quick Start Mode’, which Fuji claims to reduce startup time to about 0.7 seconds compared to about 2.2 seconds when the mode is off. This mode is accessible on page 3 in setup. Fuji however, warns that, setting the mode to on will drain your battery, reducing the number of shots per charge.

It’s also been suggested that a fast SD card will help reduce startup times and of course file write times. So, with this suggestion we set out to test the X100’s performance with three different SD cards: a top of the range SanDisk Extreme Pro card claiming 45MB/s write speeds, a SanDisk Extreme III card with 30MB/s write speeds and finally a cheaper Transcend 16GB Class 10 card.

We measured the amount of time between switching the camera on and the camera becoming responsive, i.e. being able to focus, first, with the quick start mode off, and again with the quick start mode on for each of the three SD cards.

Then, we shot eight continuous RAW files, with each of the cards, in burst mode, and measured the time between pressing the shutter button, taking the 8 shots and the camera becoming responsive again, after writing the files to the SD card.

You can see the results, of our lengthy tests, below — note that we examined the video of our tests in slow-motion to assess the time better and avoid reaction time errors:
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Android basics: What is Ice Cream Sandwich and why would I want it on my phone or tablet?

Guides

  • October 22, 2011 at 4:54 am

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Google employee putting up the Android Ice Cream Sandwich mascot

Having just had a discussion with a non-‘techie’ friend who owns an Android phone, I received the very logical question: what is Ice Cream Sandwich? My response was followed with the equally valid inquisitive look on why would Google name its mobile operating system after a frozen desert.

Our attention is caught up with new gadgets and technology that we simply skip past all the basic concepts. Well today is the inauguration of a new column, appropriately titled ‘basics’, which will go over fundamental terms and provide beginners with (hopefully) easy to follow and clear how-tos. After all we are claiming that our opinions and advice should reach real people.

First, a background on Android. Android is a mobile operating system, it runs on mobile phones and tablets and provides all the basic functionally needed, such as connectivity (to connect to a Wi-Fi network or your mobile carrier), multi-touch recognition, a phone dialer and some built-in applications, like an internet browser and email. It’s like Windows or Mac OS but for your phone or tablet. Competing mobile operating systems are Apple’s iOS, Microsoft’s Windows Phone and also BlackBerry OS and the now-defunct webOS.
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Essential Mac OS X Lion keyboard shortcuts

FeaturedGuides

  • August 28, 2011 at 1:10 pm

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Mac OS X Lion

Mac OS X Lion brought a number of enhancements in terms of usability and ease of access, the new Mission Control and Launchpad, a number of multitouch gestures and the ability to run applications in full screen mode. There are also a number of new keyboard shortcuts that hopefully will allow you to perform tasks and access information faster. Below we’ve compiled a list of these new shortcuts and how they work.
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How to: Control your Android phone with your voice using Google Voice Search Actions: setting-up and list of commands

FeaturedGuides

  • August 28, 2011 at 5:27 am

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Google Voice Search actions for Android

You may or may not know that you can control your Android smart phone using just you voice. Have you tried speaking to your phone yet?

Well we’ve compiled below a handy list of commands you can use to control certain aspects of your phone. You’ll be surprised how accurate and convenient this can be. But before you start testing the commands out, first make sure you have the latest version of Google Search installed. Open the Market from your applications and search for Google Search. Either install or update if you haven’t yet.

Now launch Google Voice Search, if you have the Google Search widget on your homescreen touch the microphone icon or else press and hold the Android search key (the one that looks like a magnifying glass) until the “Speak now” dialogue appears. Now speak your commands. If you are dictating text, Voice Search will present you with a closest match and highlight in blue, words it’s not sure about, touch those words and you are presented with alternative matches.
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Know your ports: Mini-USB vs. micro-USB

Guides

  • August 21, 2011 at 12:54 pm

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Mini-USB (left) v.s. Micro-USB (right) male plugs

There are several variations of the USB port and we understand that things can be confusing or unclear. The most popular variations of the standard USB plug are mini-USB and micro-USB (specifically mini-B on the left and micro-B on the right as you can see in the photos). Mini-USB is smaller than the standard USB port and micro-USB is even smaller at half the thickness. Both ports were introduced so as to offer standardized USB connectivity and power to increasingly smaller and thinner portable devices.

The micro-USB (right), which was introduced in 2007, is said to replace mini-USB (left), and is now the most widely used — micro-USB ports can now be found in most smartphones, tablets and other portable devices. The biggest benefit in having one standardized port is that you only need one cable and one charger for all your devices. Nevertheless many devices still carry a mini-USB port but its quite easy to distinguish between them. We’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
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How to stream your music around the house on a budget: Logitech S715i speaker and Audiogalaxy app review

FeaturedGuidesReviews

  • July 31, 2011 at 3:21 pm

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Logitech S715i Speaker and Audiogalaxy app

There are as many options for streaming music around the house as there are combinations of portable speakers, speaker docks, network players and portable device apps — and that’s a whole lot.

Here I’m going to go over just one of these combinations, which was the result of my search for a cost efficient, convenient, and aurally pleasing way to stream and listen to my locally stored music around the house and in the garden.
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How to: Pre-download a map area in Google Maps for Android

GuidesNews

  • July 11, 2011 at 7:42 am

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Google Maps 5.7 for Android - Download map area

One of our biggest frustrations with Google Maps for devices has been that you couldn’t set the application to pre-download a specific area, city or country. So, if you were travelling to, let’s say France, with no data access — unless you opted to enable very costly data roaming — what you could end up looking at was a not-so-helpful blurry image, like the one below.
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Skype for Android with video chat official for some, unofficially for Galaxy S II, HTC Evo 3D, Thunderbolt, Sensation and others

GuidesNews

  • July 1, 2011 at 7:37 am

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Skype for Android with video calls

Skype released yesterday a new version of its Android app, v2.0.0.45, which brings much awaited free Skype-to-Skype video calls over 3G or WiFi.

Unfortunately, although everyone can download the updated application, official support for video chatting is restricted to the Google Nexus S (excluding the US Google Nexus S 4G), HTC Desire S, Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo and Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro, at least for now.

It didn’t take long though for the Android modding community to fiddle with the installation APK file and allow support for more handsets. You can find the modded files and installation instructions after the break.
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Zune and Windows Phone 7 styled music player for Android

FeaturedGuidesNews

  • May 20, 2011 at 2:47 pm

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Zune / Windows Phone 7 music player for Android

We love the Zune’s stylish, flashy and efficient music player user interface which, by not simple luck, has been inherited by Windows Phone 7. Official Zune development might or might not have stopped, nevertheless it’s created something bigger and also quite a following. So, when we found out that it’s been ported into an Android music player we were pretty excited.

The application comes from LauncherPro’s developer, and although it’s still quite an early alpha build, we’ve taken it through its paces and its pretty smooth and really close both functionally and visually to the original.

UPDATE 1: Zune/WP7 styled music player shown running on Nook Color, images after the link.

UPDATE 2: Alpha 3 just released with many bug fixes and new features, link for download after the break.

UPDATE 3: Alpha 4 now out with widget support and playlist creation, link for download after the break.
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Guide: How to transfer you data and settings to the iPad 2 from an original iPad

Guides

  • March 15, 2011 at 6:22 pm

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iPad 2 Mail app

So you were already sporting the original iPad but you just had to have the latest and greatest, so you already picked up the iPad 2. Now you want to have all your data and settings copied over to your new iPad 2 so you can just continue where you left off.

Transferring your data is actually a pretty simple process and should take you only a few minutes, depending on the amount of information you have. Just follow this simple guide and you should have your iPad 2 all setup:
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