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| I know what our logo needs! More conduit! |
Easy Tether is fantastic on vacation. Once you have EasyTether installed on your computer, simply connect your phone via USB cable to your computer. Then right click on the EasyTether icon in the task tray and hit Connect via Android. Works great.
There is a free version of Easy Tether that has the ability to surf HTTPS sites disabled. The full version of EasyTether is a one time 9.99 in the Android Market. It's actually half-price this week if you read this in time.
Easy Tether beats the hell out of paying your cell provider an extra $20/month to have access to the data pipe you are already paying them for.
Quick note - I found another use for EasyTether a few months back. The wireless card in my laptop went bad. Until I could get the issue resolved, I simply hooked up to EasyTether, and had my phone on Wi-Fi mode around the house. Easy, quick fix.
| Round-bot looks pissed. |
A buddy of mine at work recommended RoboDefense to me a while back. He described it as a highly addictive tower defense game. Up until that point, I didn't even know what a tower defense game was.
Basically, different types of enemy units enter from the left and try to make it all the way across the screen to the right. Your job is to build robotic defense units to destroy the enemy before they invade your base.
There are 100 waves of enemies. If you defeat all 100 waves before your base runs out of lives, you win. Simple game.
The basic units of the game are gun towers, rocket towers and slow towers. Strategic placement of your defenses is crucial, because you are woking within a budget. Every defensive unit or upgrade you buy costs money and every enemy unit you kill makes money. The key is budgeting resources. If you wait too long to install air defenses, jets will streak by unharmed and kill your base. If you build air defenses too early, tanks will roll on by.
Try the free version and you will be hooked by the gameplay. The animation and sound of the game is great, even if the graphics are a little lo-fi. There are tons of achievements and upgrades you can buy in between games to keep things interesting.
| So what if you don't like football? Its' free! |
The NFL Mobile app is free and it is awesome for NFL fans. If you want to watch games on the phone, it will cost you extra. Everything else is free.
There are a ton of NFL news stories and a lot of free videos from the NFL Network. The scoreboard during the games is the best feature of this app though.
Any game you click on you can look at the stats for, or watch a live play by play ticker with representative graphics. You are also given the opportunity to listen to any NFL game's radio broadcast live on your phone. You are even given the choice to listen to the home or away broadcast. I've used this feature several times when I've been out of town and wanted to follow the Saints games.
No-brainer for NFL fans. And it's free.
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| Who do you think would win in a fight? Android robot or R2-D2? |
I almost hate to put this app on the list because it's so obvious. I use it so much that it has to go here though.
It took Netflix quite awhile to roll out to all the Android devices, but I think most of the somewhat current Android devices have Netflix support.
I watch more Netflix on my phone than anywhere else, as it is convenient to watch in bed before I fall asleep. The interface on the Android version is simple and easy to use. The videos look fantastic and even play well on 3G connections. Earlier versions of Netflix for Android were very buggy and were constantly force closing. Not the case with the latest versions, though.
One other cool feature. Let's say I watch a movie at home and stop watching it at the 42 minute mark. I use my phone on my lunch break at work the next day to watch a little more. The phone will automatically pick up at the place I left off on my Roku at home. (or whatever you use at home to enjoy Netflix)
As much bad press as Netflix has gotten lately, and a lot of it has been deserved...I still think Netflix is a hell of a deal. The Android Netflix app makes it a dead lock that I won't be unsubscribing anytime soon.
| If your too lazy too even read a book, Audible is for you! |
An Amazon company, Audible is an audio-book distributor with a good pricing model. There are two different pricing plans - $15/month will get you one credit, or one book per month. $23.95 will get you 2 credits, or two audiobooks per month. Once you run out of credits, you can purchase additional audiobooks at a members discount.
The Audible app is very slick and loaded with handy features. There is even a sleep mode, which you can set to automatically pause audible after a certain amount of time. I set this for 30 minutes when I listen in bed, and I very rarely make it that long.
Audible audio books are perfect for anyone that is on the road a lot. It's so much more entertaining and rewarding than listening to radio. I used to have a side-job that kept me in my car for 3 hours a night. The audiobooks through my Audible.com app made those miles fly by for me.
Stay Tuned - I will be posting more must have Android Apps soon!
