Rearth Ringke Case!!

Hey guys new video up on youtube for the Rearth Ringke case for the Nexus S/4G!! Check it out!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2Id1Nw7e7U

Skinit for the Nexus S!!

Just uploaded a two part review of the Sikinit skin for the Nexus S! Check it out!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e-lMsnTNCM&feature=channel_video_title

Spotify. What is it!

Let’s start off with the most basic question. What in the world is Spotify? Well, Spotify is a very popular music streaming service in Europe and has had quite a buzz around it recently. It has finally come to the U.S. To compare it to a product on the market already, it is very similar to Rhapsody. It has unlimited streaming of the songs you want to hear: You choose and it plays. 

Spotify is very nice, and in the short amount of time I've had to use it, I love it. It currently has 3 tiers of accounts: free, unlimited, and premium. Free is, at the time, invitation only, so you may have to wait for one. Unlimited is very similar to the free version, but you don’t have to wait for an invite, and no ads. At this time it is $4.99 a month. Premium is everything Spotify has to offer, which includes full access from smart phones and is currently $9.99. 

The major question going around is, "Will this be an iTunes killer?" and to that, my answer is yes, and, well, no. Like all things it depends on what you want in a music service. If you really want to do anything you want with your music than this may not be for you. But if you get your music on the go and don’t care whether or not you actually "own" the music then you may be interested. In my case, I stopped using my iPod primarily since my cell phone could do it just as well and sometimes better. I mean, who wants to carry more than one device when one can do what both do? 

So, for me, Spotify is great. If you think you'd like it, visit spotify.com and see what plan fits you best. And if you don't think you'll like it, you can still sign up for an invite and use the free version to see if it grows on you.


If you have any questions or comments, please comment below or feel free to drop us a line at feedback@thetekcentral.com.

How I Stopped Worrying and Ditched Cable

Let’s have a show of hands: Raise ‘em high if you have cable (Comcast, DirecTV, Dish, Verizon Fios, etc). Now raise ‘em if you get your television from an over-the-air antenna. Chances are that the majority of you raised your hands for cable. Well, I have proudly joined the ranks of the OTA crowd. I mean, let’s face it, why pay through the nose for 1000 or more channels when, if you’re like me, you usually stick to the big four ( Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS )? Why not just spend  50 or so dollars upfront, then watch all the TV you want for free? No contracts. No monthly bill. Nothing but what you really watch. Here's my experience.

I recently built a new house, and its out in the country and the only TV providers are DirecTV or Dish. So the process was: Who had the best price for what we wanted? DirecTV. But not exactly. What the sales rep failed to tell us, and what we learned the first night, was that because of the contract agreement of our provider (or lack thereof), we needed to apply for a waiver in order get any of the big network affiliate stations. Really? Alright, done.

We applied the next morning. A few weeks later we get a postcard in the mail listing “Access denied” for each affiliate. Feels like college application time again doesn't it? Not Fun. That was the last straw. I dropped DirecTV faster than you can read this sentence. The next morning, after a little research to find out the distance and direction for the local repeaters from my house, I went to my neighborhood Crutchfield and bought a $100 antenna and hung from the rafters in my attic. Haven’t paid a dime since. I get 21 channels from 4 cities and am completely satisfied. Again, I live in the country so depending on where you live, you might get more.

This was a great investment for me I would highly suggest it to anyone that wants to "stick it to the man." There are many websites that will give you a good idea of stations in your neck of the woods, but the one I used was http://www.antennaweb.org, and, depending on the signal radius of your antenna, you might get more than it says you would.

If you have any questions about over-the-air antennas or would like to know more, please comment or shoot us an email at feedback@thetekcentral.com

Tweetdeck for Android!

With the widespread popularity of the cross-platform application Tweetdeck, it was only a matter of time that they expanded to the quickly growing Android platform. If you use the desktop app, you will be right at home. You can add Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, and Foursquare. It also gives to the convenience of logging into your Tweetdeck account, and it will automatically sync all of your account. The interface is nice, and it is clear on what is from the different services. Although, I do wish it had theme support. This is a good app for your social networking accounts and provides a rich user experience. I would suggest this app, and it is my daily driver for social networking. It is currently free in the Android Market.

SBC Kernels for the HTC EVO

Now, if you are familiar with the different kernels available for the HTC EVO, then you have likely heard of the debates about whether or not SBC kernels are destructive. Well, let's get started on what SBC means and what it means to you.

SBC kernels allow the phone's battery to "trickle charge." If you own an EVO, then you are probably aware of the 10 percent drop in battery life that occurs when you unplug your device. This happens because it is generally known by companies and developers that overcharging lithium-ion batteries can cause some issues. To account for that, the kernel stops charging completely when the phone reaches 100 percent and lets it fall to 90 percent and then starts charging again. So the when you unplug your phone, even though it says that it is fully charged, it can still lie between that 90 percent to 100 percent range.

But back to the point here. SBC pushes the phone to 100 percent and forces it to remain there with little to no discharge. Some debate that in certain situations this can cause battery failure. And in some cases it is blamed for minor battery explosions.

Now to how this affects you. As extended batteries become more popular, so do these kernels. This is because the stock kernel is made to charge a 1500 mAh batteries and not the 3500 mAh that usually resides in the extended batteries, so they don’t fully charge. Because of the damage that overcharging can do, I would recommend that you do not use these kernels if you don't have an extended battery.

My experience with my Seidio 3500 mAh extended battery is just plain old success. Before this kernel, I didn't get the battery life one would expect with a battery twice the capacity of the first, but since I installed the SBC kernel, I'm getting approximately 26 hours with heavy usage (lots of music, internet radio, calls, heavy texting, data and GPS navigation).

If you are interested, here is the XDA thead on the kernel I use, and the link for the intense debates about SBC in general.

If you have any questions, please send me an email at fred.gortler@thetekcentral.com or comment on this post. I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.

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droid VNC Server Review

If you are like me, you are often in situations where you can't use your phone openly but still need to do something, whether its sending a quick text message or email, the ability to control your phone through a computer is something that can be extremely helpful. droid VNC Server (Root Required) by Jose Pereira is a fantastic app for doing just this. It is simple to use and I only ran into 1 issue, which I can elaborate on later. But that aside, once you install this app on your phone you can set up a password to access and control your device. It makes it easy to start the server, on the main page, you see to large buttons, Start Server and Stop Server, which adds to the ease of this app. But before you can control your device, you need to download a VNC viewer, which are easy to come by and are usually free. Now to the negative, now unfortunately I'm not sure if this is a network issue or an app issue, but nonetheless, its there, the updating of the screens are extremely laggy, with that said, for a quick text or email, it works fine and has lots of potential. With all that said, this app if fun to mess around with, but when the day is over, is nothing compared to a wired connection using the Android SDK.