Product review: BroadLink SP3 Wi-Fi Remote Control Mini Size Smart Timing Plug

The smart works well, it was easy to pair with the phone and it has not failed to turn on or off the plug in the last two weeks I have been using it. I used it both within the house using WI FI as well as while being away from home using a external network.

However, I had some security concerns with the app used for the plug. The documentation leads to get the app from an untrusted website located in China. I am software engineer with a lot of experience in web security. Downloading apps from untrusted web site is not safe, such app can comprise your entire home network. I contacted the seller and told them that this smart plug is not ready to be sold in USA until the app is available in Googlplay. The seller was very responsive, not only provided answers but asked questions on how best to provide this information to those who already purchased the product. It showed me the level of concern for the customers that I liked.

The seller told me that the app is now available in GooglePlay and told me that its name of the app is e-Control. I installed e-Control app from Googleplay however as soon as I installed the software recommended that I download an updated from the vendor's web site. The update prompt warned me that without the update I may not be able to control my devices from external networks. For security reasons, I did not perform this upgrade and again notified the vendor that all updates need to come directly from GooglePlay.

On the positive side, even though I am running a version without the update I have not encountered any problems turning on the plug while I an on a remote network.

Bottom line - use e-Control app from Googleplay, do not get any apps or updates from other websites.

This smart outlet was provided to me by Broadlink for beta testing and review. I always honestly describe pluses and minuses of my experience with the product. I have a long history of leaving critical reviews when the product deserves it. I also post updates when I have new information to share, and I will do so for this smart plug.


You can find it on Amazon by following this link.

Ali Julia review ★★★★☆

Mobile App Review: Battery HD, Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy Tablet, Nexus Table, Nexus Phone, Android)

I use a lot of different battery apps and I was surprised by how much functionality this battery app provides. It also has a couple of minor drawbacks compared to my favorite battery app (Battery App by Elvison).

The HD battery app has four pages of screens (you can switch between them by clicking on four dots on the bottom of the page) as well as 4 pages of settings (you can locate them by clicking on 4 icons at the top of any page).

Page 1:
The first page shows a large graphic of the battery with the remaining charge percentage. It also shows an estimate of much you can do on that charge: standby time, music playback, video playback, internet browsing, talk time. This information is based on community data, and you can calibrate it for your own device (under gear icon).

Page 2:
It shows you

•  how much time it would take to fully recharge the battery using AC charge source or using USB charge source.
•  how much time you can use GPS without recharging or play Games (2D or 3D separately)
•  how much time you can use the device as a flashlight
•  how much time you can use the device for reading

Page 3:
Show you how much you can use

• video chat 
• take photos 
• record video 
• listen to on-line radio
• do voice recordings

Page 4:
This page shows battery health, technology of the battery, temperature of the battery, voltage, and time since last charge.

Settings Icon:
Show the percentage of power used by each of the currently run applications (this is a short-cut to the same info as what you see under Settings of the device)

Graph Icon:
Shows the chart of your power usage on the grid that has percentage on y-axis and time of the day on x-axis.

Gear icon:

• You can select battery color from a color wheel
• You can select to show the charge level in the Notification Bar (for me this shows when I hit settings not on always visible notification bar)
• You can set how and when you are notified about charge levels. You can choose a ding or you can choose a human voice to tell you the level. My tablet emits lots of dings and sometimes I am not sure what it is trying to tell me, so having a voice tell me my battery is low is quite nice.
• You can choose to have the app automatically open when you start charging.
• You can run a set of tests which calibrate your tablet power usage rather than using the generic community data. This is a very extensive test - be prepared to give up the use of your tablet for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
• This is also where you can choose to upgrade to a pro version of the apps to avoid seeing ads (which are discretely displayed at the bottom of the page).

SOURCE of Charge:

I frequently use various battery apps to determine how my tablet sees the source of the charge (AC or USB). My favorite app for this is Battery App by Elvison. Elvison app shows AC, USB or discharging status. 'AC' status means the charging is at full charging rate. 'USB' status indicates charging at a lower charging rate. 'Discharging' status means that the charging rate is below the power that the device is consuming so it slows down the discharge rate but does not re-charge. It also shows me the time when it began charging.

Battery HD app shows this information by displaying a graphic on the battery AC plug or USB connection. It does not show when the device is attached to the power source but is discharging because it cannot draw enough power to charge. HD battery does not show when the charging began.

COMPARISON of results with the Battery App by Elvison.

I decided to test this app using PowerGen PGMPP8400 8400mAh and PowerGen PGMPP9000 9000mAh external power packs whose performance I extensively tested with Galaxy 7.7. These external power packs have two USB ports labeled A (Apple) and NA (non Apple).
Why are no all connections equal? Android devices use a USB Battery Charging Standard where as Apple devices use a proprietary USB connector. Because of this difference USB connections wired for Apple devices do not provide AC power to Android devices even when a charging cable (rather than the data cable) is used.

Test Notes:

•  I kept the display powered on to make sure that powering display was the same in all tests as it is the biggest power hog.
•  I am using a charging cable rather than the data cable during the tests.

Elvison Battery App: PowerGen PGMPP8400 8400mAh with Samsung Galaxy Tablet 7.7
--------------------------
Regular cable -- 0.6 AMP outlet -- AC
Regular cable -- 2 AMP outlet -- discharging

HD Battery App: PowerGen PGMPP8400 8400mAh with Samsung Galaxy Tablet 7.7
--------------------------
Regular cable -- 0.6 AMP outlet -- AC icon
Regular cable -- 2 AMP outlet -- AC icon (graph shows a flat line, no charge)



Elvison Battery App: PowerGen PGMPP9000 Samsung Galaxy Tablet 7.7
-----------------------------------
2Amp outlet ..... generic cable .... discharging .... 1% discharge in 10 minutes
.06Amp outlet ... generic cable .... AC source ...... 1% charge in 10 minutes

HD Battery App: PowerGen PGMPP9000 Samsung Galaxy Tablet 7.7
-----------------------------------
2Amp outlet ..... generic cable .... AC icon ...... 0% charge in 10 minutes (graph shows a flat line, no charge)
.06Amp outlet ... generic cable .... AC icon ...... 1% charge in 10 minutes

OBSERVATIONS:
Battery App by Elvison has three modes (USB, AC, discharging). HD Battery app shows USB or AC and then you need to look at graph to determine if the device is drawing enough power to charge. You will also notice this when the charged percentage does not go up.

I am attaching a few screen shot that I thought might be interesting.

• #1. A screenshot with permissions requested by this app
• #2. A chart showing the power usage, note the flat lines which correspond to charging Galaxy 7.7 on Apple USB port.

This app works well on my Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android HoneyComb 3.2. I had no technical problems and the app scales to my screen size very nicely.

Overall, HD Battery app makes it a bit harder to see when am Android device is accidentally plugged into an Apple USB port and is not getting enough power. However the app provides a lot of other interesting information, I found this app a useful one to have on my tablet.

You can find this app on Amazon by following this link.
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Ali Julia review ★★★★☆

Mobile App Review: Norton Mobile Security Virus Malware Scan , Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy Tablet, Nexus Table, Nexus Phone, Android)

We own two Android tablets (Nexus 7 running Jellybean and Samsung Galaxy 7.7 running Honeycomb 3.2) and recently added Norton Mobile Security apps to both. The Norton Mobile app in Amazon store appears to be available only for Kindle, so I installed the Android version from Google Play (searching on Norton Virus brings it right up).

The Norton Mobile Security app identifies apps that are potential risks or have annoying behaviours. The free version provides free anti-malware scan. The pro-version provides anti-theft, backup, and web protection, which are not available in the free version.

When you start the app it gives you an option to sign in or skip sign in. Signing in allows your to register your device with Norton Security.

The scan for malware is very quick. The results are presented in two tab view: the first tab has a list of malware apps, the second tab has apps with present other risks. Norton identified no malware on my tablets, but one of the tablets had an app that was flagged as "other risks". It displayed the application icon and name and when I clicked on it gave me a list of reasons why this app was flagged. I am including a screen capture show the information that is presented

Detailed info about the flagged app showed the following information:
- collects your device info
- puts ads on notification bar
- adds icons to device screen
- modifies browser bookmarks
- displays ads in the app

The Norton app gave me an option to mark the application as trusted or to uninstall it. When I marked it to be trusted, it was removed from flagged risks count but it remained listed on the page so I could back revoke trust or uninstall at any time.

The list of other actions available from the menu are: Display the activity log (it shows updates, scans, what you marked trusted), settings (frequency of updates, what is displayed on the icon bar), LiveUpdate, Help, Report a problem).

The scan for new threat definitions occurs on daily basis, rule update happens automatically if needed.

The application looks and feels well done. It has logically organized controls and navigation is easy and intuitive. Logging is detailed without being overly verbose.

In a way I am glad it found a minor risk as it gave me more confidence that it works. So far I don't feel that it slowed down my tablet in any way.

This app works well on my Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android HoneyComb 3.2. As well as Nexus 7 running Jellybean.  I had no technical problems and the app scales to my screen size very nicely.

The Kindle version of this app is free from Amazon Android Store and You can find this app on Amazon by following this link.


Other Android versions can be found in Google Play Marketplace by searching on "Norton" and "virus". 

I am including Norton Mobile Security icon (to the left of this text) so you can easily recognize it among other mobile security apps.

Ali Julia review ★★★★★

Mobile App Review: Woot Check , Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy Tablet, Android)

Woot is aimed a bargain shopper. The site offers one item in each of five categories: home, kids, shirts, wine, sellout. Sometimes they have Woot plus items, which means one or two additional items will appear in a category for limited time.

You need to shop at Woot with a totally different mindset. You cannot look for a good price of an item you want, when you use Woot you are just looking for anything they have at a discount. There is no search, you need to look under each category.

Today's sellout deal is Topsy Tomato Planter for $3.99 and $5 shipping. At first, I thought it was a good deal although the shipping charge made me wonder if I can do better on Amazon. Amazon offers for Topsy Tomato Planter for $5.68 and it is eligible for free shipping. So Woot deal is not such a good bargain after all. So even using Woot doing a bit of research is always wise.

The app works very similar to the main site. You need to look at each category, there is no search added in the app. So I am not that crazy about Woot shopping experience but the apps works reasonably well, although I wish there was a search function.
This app works well on my Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android HoneyComb 3.2. I had no technical problems and the app scales to my screen size very nicely.

This app is free from Amazon Android Store and
You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★★☆

You can find reviews of other mobile apps I use under Blog Label "Galaxy 7.7 Tablet" on the left navigation pane of the blog.

Mobile App Review: iTranslate - Machine translation software , Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy Tablet, Android)

I am fluent in several languages and was pretty impressed with this app. I tested with a realistic tourist phrase which was fairly complex "I would like to visit your best art museum. Can you give me a recommendation and how to get there."

I selected English from the left drop down list, typed in a phrase in English, selected the second language from a drop down list on the right. I was impressed with the translation, the grammar was perfectly correct. Next to the text there was a button which pronounced the translation. The pronunciation was excellent and sounded like a native speaker. The intonations sounded "computer generated" but completely understandable. I tested Russian and Spanish. I am attaching a screen shot with the phrase and the translation in one of the languages I tested. This was the first random sentence that came to mind, I did not try to find a phrase that would be translated well. I was quite impressed with the results.

The words that are not understood for the purposes of the translation are displayed in English. When I made a typo in one of the words (the word recommendation) in English, the word was displayed in English in the translated section, but when the entire phrase was pronounced the correct word was used in both Russian and Spanish. I know a little about how Google translation logic works, and the fact my typo was handled so well made me think that this app is using Google translate. I experimented some using several translation engines in the browser and was able to see the same results using Google translate, and much worse results using two other machine translation packages.

The only slight negative of the app is that the advertising at the bottom of page is animated and never goes away. I found the flashing from animation a bit distracting. However, given the high quality of the application itself I am willing to live with it.

Supported languages:
Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Irish, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Maltese, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yiddish


This app works well on my Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android HoneyComb 3.2. I had no technical problems and the app scales to my screen size very nicely.

I am quite impressed with this application and it will be very helpful during foreign travel.

This app is free from Amazon Android Store and
You can find it on Amazon by following this link.

Ali Julia review ★★★★★

Mobile App Review: TRARIS Deluxe (Tetris like game) , Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy Tablet, Android)

I am a big fan Tetris-like games and found that I am really enjoying this one.  Traris has a much larger variety of blocks than a traditional Tetris game, they are clever and uniquely shaped. In addition, you have a variety of options to melt and reshape the pieces, so it gives you a lot more options to consider and I am finding it re-freshening and challenging.  The graphics are intricate, the controls are well designed.

I found the music a bit repetitive but you can turn it off while still keeping the sound effects. I like playing with just the sound effects, no background music.  You can control the blocks either by using gestures on the screen or by using the buttons at the bottom of the display.  I found that I prefer the buttons.  I posted a screen capture which show the clever shapes and the buttons, which include a "drop" button which allows you to speed through the easy portions of the game and the "melt" button which gives you many additional options to consider.

This app works well on my Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android HoneyComb 3.2. I had no technical problems and the app scales to my screen size very nicely.

Overall, highly entertaining!


Ali Julia review ★★★★★

You can find reviews of other mobile apps I use under Blog Label "Galaxy 7.7 Tablet" on the left navigation pane of the blog.

Mobile App Review: Official eBay Android App , Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy Tablet, Android)

Normally, I close my Ebay shop when I go on vacation, but now that I own a tablet I decided to keep the shop going. I needed to monitor auctions, respond to question, start new listings (i.e. everything other than generate shipping labels).

Ebay app works well on my Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android HoneyComb 3.2. I had no technical problems. The app scales to my screen size, but is not aware that my screen is larger and does not make use of the width as well as at could. I have a lot of white space in the middle and the information is bunched up on the sides which makes it harder to read.

I found that the functionality for sellers does not have all the features I need to run my Ebay store while on the road. I was able to monitor active auctions, but found that I can scroll through information faster if I use the non-mobile version of Ebay web site using a browser. To see the same information I see in MyEbay I use the advanced search to display info by seller name (my own) and then customize the columns of the search results to show me the exact information I am interested in (removing some defaults and adding the useful to me info).

Another feature that I used a 'relist' button since I wanted to avoid a lot of typing and start new auctions as fast as possible. Mobile Ebay displays unsold items, however the 'relist' button is not available on that page. Mobile Ebay has a section from which you can relist, but on that page you can see just the items (title and image) without the dates when the items were listed in the past. I use the dates to help me to determine which items to relist. I found that using a non-mobile version of Ebay made my job easier.

My plan was to use Ebay mobile app on this trip, but I found that it was missing enough small features that using the non-mobile Ebay site made my job faster and easier.

You can find eBay on Amazon app by following this link


Ali Julia review ★★★☆☆

Mobile App Review: US Yellow Pages , Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy Tablet, Android)

This application is well integrated with Google maps. You can search for business either relative to your current position (which is the default) or by specifying any location you want. When you enter a type of a business you are looking for it displays the stores that match and the distance to get them from your position. It also contains the rating, the street address, and the phone number in the display. If you select the store you are interested in it will give more information about the business and several buttons: maps (which will give you Google street view, navigator, or just verbal Google directions), website (which will take you to the business website), add (which will add it to your list of favorite), or share. A store that does not have a website, does not show a website button.

I am attaching a screen shot under Customer photos which shows my tablet has a nice three pain view: summary of all stores on the left, details about my selection in the middle, and Google maps location in the right pane. The display is nice and legible on my 7.7 Galaxy tablet. The app remembered my previous searches when I restarted it, so to search for the same thing was easy.

Overall the app worked well, I did experience some minor glitches:
(1) It seemed to keep showing me the first street view even when I switched to another search. When I restarted the application it gave the right street view.
(2) When I selected navigation the application invoked a browser. When I wanted to go back to the application I restarted it from the desktop. This caused it to crash, but after the crash it restarted cleanly.

Overall, I find it to be a useful application and it works well on my Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android HoneyComb 3.2.

This app is free from Amazon Android Store and
You can find it on Amazon by following this link.



Ali Julia review ★★★★★

You can find reviews of other mobile apps I use under Blog Label "Galaxy 7.7 Tablet" on the left navigation pane of the blog.

Mobile App Review: BestParking - Compare Parking Rates, Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy Tablet, Android)

We used this app on a recent trip and found it very useful. You start it by specifying a city and a time period that you are interested in. It shows you a map of the city which includes street names, bus stops, metro stops, attractions. On top of this good map of the city you are shown parking areas along with their prices. The few we used were accurate.

It covers a number of metropolitan areas. I checked it for Boston and we also used it on our trip to Montreal, Canada.

Some relatively minor things did not work perfectly:
- It seem to identify our position incorrectly, we had to scroll the map to where we were manually ignoring the red star that marked our position.
- Auto rotate is not supported, the display is always in vertical orientation
- The map display is a tad slow to repaint, but it does have a lot of info so it is understandable.


This app works well on my Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android HoneyComb 3.2. I had no technical problems and the app scales to my screen size very nicely.

Overall we found it to be useful and we will use it again.



This app is free from Amazon Android Store and
You can find it on Amazon by following this link.

Ali Julia review ★★★★☆


You can find reviews of other mobile apps I use under Blog Label "Galaxy 7.7 Tablet" on the left navigation pane of the blog.

Mobile App Review: Battery, Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy, Android)

A battery app was among the first 5 apps I installed on my new tablet. This is a key app for a moble device and I look for three features

1. I want to know what the battery charge is now, I want it to be easy to read (big font)
2. I want to see the status if the battery is charging or not
3. I want information in as few clicks as possible

This is app provides me all the information I want, but the user interface is not exactly what I was looking for.
I want the battery charge level to be display on the icon itslef, this application displays it on the status bar which is crowded already and hard for me to see due to small font.
All the information I want is available but I need to click twice to see it. First to select the app, and then to select 'Advanced' button.

I found two other apps which in combination give me what I want... but not in once place. I am still looking for a perfect battery app.

The first battery app shows me the charge level as part of its icon on my home screen, but that app does not show me whether the battery is charging or not. I just bought a new recharger and could not tell if it was working, as there was no screen to show me if it was charging or not. I had to install another app to help verify that my new charger is working.

This second battery app shows me all the info (including charging status) with one click in a pop-up, but does not show me the charge on the icon, only in tiny letters in the status bar.

This app was the third battery app I installed for evaluation, and provided me more information than either of the first two (for example it told me the source of the charge - AC or USB), but had the UI shortcomings I described earlier. It also kept asking me to give it 5 stars every time I exit it. Since I was doing comparisons of several apps for this review, I was not ready to do it or select 'never' so it was a bit annoying.

This app works well on my Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android HoneyComb 3.2. I had no technical problems and the app scales to my screen size very nicely.

I am still in search of my ideal battery app that combines all the behaviors I am looking for in one place.

This app is free from Amazon Android Store and
You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★☆☆

You can find reviews of other mobile apps I use under Blog Label "Galaxy 7.7 Tablet" on the left navigation pane of the blog.

Mobile App Review: Medscape, Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy, Android)

I was surprised by how "serious" this application is. It over exceeded my expectations.

It has the following sections:

1. Medical News Alerts
The first screen contains up-to-date medical alerts. Today's alert (June 2, 2012) is that FDA announces safety label changes to Finasteride.

2. Medical News
The latest new published today (June 2, 2012) is "Revacozumab Boosts Outcomes in Resistant Ovarian cancer"

3. Medical Reference
This section is divided into Drugs, Diseases, Procedures, Drug interactions, health phone directory (physician search, pharmacy search, hospital search), Medline.
I was able to look up my medicines and see the information about interactions. Very useful!

4. Education/Training
This section contains a lot of information, including the latest updates for various medical conditions.
The latest update is a day old from June 1, 2012 "Can Bishphonate Use Lead to Atypical Femoral Fractures?"

You have two options for perusing the information. Either by clicking on the icons on the first page for perusing most recent first, or by searching on keywords.

I published some of the titles so you can see that this is a serious medical reference aimed at practitioners in the medical field. I think it is also useful for people outside the medical profession but probably some information is going to be too "technical". But better to have too much information than too little!

This application is very large and took quite a long time to install. This app works well on my Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android HoneyComb 3.2. I had no technical problems and the app scales to my screen size very nicely.

I was very impressed with this app and recommend it.


This app is free from Amazon Android Store and
You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★★★

You can find reviews of other mobile apps I use under Blog Label "Galaxy 7.7 Tablet" on the left navigation pane of the blog.

Mobile App Review: Accuweather, Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy, Android)

I regularly use two weather apps: The Weather Channel and Accuweather.I like The Weather Channel better as a mobile app, but the two apps often give slightly different forecasts and I find it helpful to have both pieces of information. The Weather Channel tends to be more optimistic, Accuweather is more likely to forecast rain. The Weather Channel app is a well designed app that scales to the screen size of your device (I use 7.7 Galaxy tablet), where as Accuweather is designed for a smaller screen of the phone. It does not scale and does not respond to zoom gestures. Thus the font (grey on black) is hard to read. The icon for 10 day forecast is not descriptive, located by itself, and was so hard to find that I was about to give up when I accidentally stumbled onto it.

I used it on 7.7 Samsung Galaxy Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android Honeycomb with no technical problems.

Overall, I like The Weather Channel app a lot more, but when it really matters I check both Accuweather and The Weather Channel.

Ali Julia review ★★★☆☆

You can find reviews of other mobile apps I use under Blog Label "Galaxy 7.7 Tablet" on the left navigation pane of the blog.

Mobile App Review: Temple Run, Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy, Android)

Beautiful graphics, fun action.  The main character of the game is on the run, your job is to keep him running over the obstacles. You control the game by swiping in different directions to turn, tapping the screen to jump, swiping down to slide, and so forth. The game starts with a tutorial which is pretty good teaching you the available actions. As you run you collect coins and buy power-ups. I am enjoying this game. 

Warming to parents: This app lets you purchase additional content using actual money.  This can be disallowed using parental controls to require Amazon account password for any in-app purchases before the purchase is completed.

This app works well on my Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android HoneyComb 3.2. I had no technical problems and the app scales to my screen size very nicely.

This app is free from Amazon Android Store and
You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★★☆

You can find reviews of other mobile apps I use under Blog Label "Galaxy 7.7 Tablet" on the left navigation pane of the blog.

Mobile App Review: MeTetris, Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy, Android)

Tetris is one of my favorites on a computer so when I got my tablet I began looking for a Tetris-like game for my tablet.

MeTetris is one of the apps I evaluated. It starts by display a black and white grid. You can flip the falling blocks by tapping on the screen and move them left and right by swiping the screen.
However MeTetris is missing one critical feature: there is no way to drop the brick when it is in the orientation you want it to be. Thus it takes much longer to play in the early parts of the game when the game is simple. It takes a long time to get through the simple stages of the game and I found I am too impatient to play it.

This app works fine on my Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android HoneyComb 3.2. I had no technical problems and the app scales to my screen size very nicely.

I did not stick with MeTetris in the long run. I settled on Tetriblox. This game has sleek graphics, fine controls, and you can drop blocks to speed through the easy rounds.

Tetriblox is a free app from Amazon Android Store.

Ali Julia review ★★★☆☆

You can find reviews of mobile apps I use under Blog Label "Galaxy 7.7 Tablet" on the left navigation pane of the blog.

Mobile App Review: Simple Calculator, Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy, Android)

If you are looking for a simple calculator with easy to use interface this one is for you. This application is beautiful in its simplicity.

The interface is simple buttons just like you see in the stock photo. There are no other screens or options. You can subtract, add, multiply and divide.
The display font and buttons are big and clear. The only exception is the divide operator looks more like a comma, it is much smaller than a multiply operator located next to it. But once you know this, it is not a big deal.

This app works well on my Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android HoneyComb 3.2. I had no technical problems and the app scales to my screen size very nicely..

When I need to do some simple calculations, this is the calculator I use!

This app is free from Amazon Android Store and
You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★★★

You can find reviews of other mobile apps I use under Blog Label "Galaxy 7.7 Tablet" on the left navigation pane of the blog.

Mobile App Review: TuneIn Radio, Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy, Android)

I like listening to the talk shows and news on the radio. Many of the shows I like are located on the AM band and not available on some devices. And if you listening in the car you may drive out of range for good reception. TuneIn Radio to the rescue!

This application is very well organized, easy to use, the sound is great, no buffering delays.

When the app comes up you get a list of choices:
- Local radio
- Recents
- Recommended
- Music
- News
- Sports
- Talk
- By location
- By language
- Podcasts

If you select Talk shows you get further refinements:
- Business
- Comedy
- Conservative
- Entertainment
- Ideas
- News
- Progressive
- Public
- Religious
- Specialty Talk

Then if you select, say, Public Radio then you get a list of NPR stations from  all over USA so you have more choices of times for the specific program you like.

This app works well on my Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android HoneyComb 3.2. I had no technical problems and the app scales to my screen size very nicely.

This is a terrific app: Huge amount of choices for radio shows, great reception, excellent interface.  I highly recommend.

This app is free from Amazon Android Store and
You can find it on Amazon by following this link.



Ali Julia review ★★★★★

You can find reviews of other mobile apps I use under Blog Label "Galaxy 7.7 Tablet" on the left navigation pane of the blog.

Mobile App Review: Angry Birds, Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy, Android)

I only recently got my first mobile device capable of playing this game. I heard so much about Angry Birds that it was among the first dozen applications  I got on my tablet.

I have to say that I was rather disappointed.  The graphics are pretty, but the game itself could not keep me interested for more than a few minutes. It did not seem to require much skill or thought.  In general I do like games, so it surprised me that I did not like this one at all.

On the positive side this app works well on my Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android HoneyComb 3.2. I had no technical problems and the app scales to my screen size very nicely.

This app is free from Amazon Android Store and
You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★☆☆

You can find reviews of other mobile apps I use under Blog Label "Galaxy 7.7 Tablet" on the left navigation pane of the blog.

Mobile App Review: Wi-Fi Analyzer, Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy, Android)

I found several good uses for this application: at home and while traveling.

The application has several screens that provide different information. My favorite view is the third screen (left most in the image below), the one with the bar display. This is my default view, once you choose this view the next time you start an app it will come up displaying that view.

In this view the length of the bar indicates the strength of the signal. The icon on the left shows you whether the channel is open or secured. My tablet is WiFi only, so when I travel it is very handy to quickly see if there are any open WiFi networks and which one of them is the strongest.  In the image below the last network in the image has the strongest signal.

Another piece of information that is useful is the channel. This is the setting that is useful at home where you can control which channel you are using. If you see that you are sharing the same channel with several other people you can switch which channel your router is using to broadcast WiFi and get a stronger signal. To figure out what is the best option use View #4 (details below).

 The other views that I use less often are:

The first view is the graph chart that shows you the strength of all WiFi signals.  The second image on the photo above.
The second view shows you a meter that shows your the strength of your network.
The third one (my favorite) is described above in detail. The first image on the photo above.
The forth one shows the channel in your area with stars indicating the best reception. This view is useful if view 3 shows you that you are sharing the channel with many people and you decide to switch. This screen will help you to choose the best alternative.
View 5 shows color coded chart of activity for all local to you WiFi networks. At the top you see a legend for the color-coding. What you want to see that your WiFi line does not cross any other lines, as this would indicate no noise from your neighbor's networks. This graph is shown in the third photo above.  You see that green and red channels have some cross-chat.

This app works well on my Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android HoneyComb 3.2. I had no technical problems and the app scales to my screen size very nicely.


You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★★★

You can find reviews of other mobile apps I use under Blog Label "Galaxy 7.7 Tablet" on the left navigation pane of the blog.

Mobile App Review: The Weather Channel, Free App (7.7 Samsung Galaxy, Android)

I regularly use two weather apps: The Weather Channel and Accuweather. I like The Weather Channel better as a mobile app, but the two apps often give slightly different forecasts and I find it helpful to have both pieces of information. The Weather Channel tends to be more optimistic, Accuweather is more likely to forecast rain.

The Weather Channel app is a well designed app that scales to the screen size of your device (I use 7.7 Galaxy tablet), where as Accuweather is designed for a smaller screen of the phone. It does not scale and does not respond to zoom gestures. Thus the font (grey on black) is hard to read. The icon for 10 day forecast is not descriptive, located by itself, and was so hard to find that I was about to give up when I accidentally stumbled onto it.

I am using both apps on 7.7 Samsung Galaxy Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android Honeycomb 3.2 with no technical problems.

Overall, I like The Weather Channel app a lot more, but when it really matters I check both.

This app is free from Amazon Android Store and You can find it on Amazon by following this link.

Ali Julia review ★★★★★

You can find reviews of other mobile apps I use under Blog Label "Galaxy 7.7 Tablet" on the left navigation pane of the blog.

Mobile App Review: Dropbox, Free Mobile App (Samsung Galaxy 7.7, Android)

I recently purchased my first Android device (Samsung Galaxy 7.7 running Honey Comb 3.2) and asked my friends what essential applications they use all the time. Dropbox was one of them. Dropbox allows you to share files and images between different computers. Dropbox supports Windows, Linux, Mac, as well as mobile devices (Android, Amazon Fire, iPad).

Dropbox provides 2 GB of space for free, you can purchase bigger Dropboxes if you need more space. You can also increase your space if you refer people to use Dropbox. Dropbox is secure. It uses high level of security using public key encryption (same type of security used by banks) by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and AES-256 bit encryption. By default the files in Dropbox are private. But it also provides a way to share files with someone else by dropping your files in the public folder.

Dropbox is very simple to use. You just need to install it on the computers you want to share files, secure it with a good complex password, and it creates a folder on the computers where it was installed. As soon as you move something into that folder it becomes visible on all machines.

This app makes it easier to manage all your devices, and I now use to move things not only between my PC and my tablet, but my PC at home and my PC at work.

This app works well on my Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (my Galaxy 7.7 review) running Android HoneyComb 3.2. I had no technical problems and the app scales to my screen size very nicely.

I recommend it!

Ali Julia review ★★★★★

You can find reviews of other mobile apps I use under Blog Label "Galaxy 7.7 Tablet" on the left navigation pane of the blog.