Thursday, June 30, 2011

Case-Mate Barely There case for HTC Incredible S

The famous Case-Mate Barely There is a kind of hard plastic shell for mobile phone to protect the phone from scratch, minor impact/drop, etc.

As its name suggested, it fits to the phone perfectly and we can barely feel its existence especially when see from distance.

I have been putting Case-Mate Barely There case on my HTC Incredible S phone the next day after I got the phone. It is very easy to put on and also very easy to take off.

To let you have a better idea of how it looks like, I have taken picture of the case putting together with the naked phone side-by-side.

The front:


And the back:

This is how the phone looks like after putting on the case:


As you can see, Case-Mate Barely There fits nicely to the phone, maintaining the slim profile of HTC Incredible S and provide good access to all the ports, sensors, speakers, buttons, cameras and functions of the phone.

Case-Mate Barely There also provides good protection to the main camera of the phone. As you can see from the 2nd photo above, the back camera's glass surface of HTC Incredible S will have contact to the table surface it lies on when you put the phone facing up. Imagine that glass surface keeps on knocking your table whenever your phone vibrates. Take a look at the 3rd photo, and you will find how Case-Mate Barely There protects the back camera.

The top edge of Case-Mate Barely There is of same level with the power button of HTC Incredible S. This will prevent accidental pressing the power button (and turn on the screen, which in turn drain out your battery) when your phone is in your pocket. However, this also makes pressing the power button a bit harder than naked phone.

The price of Case-Mate is quite expensive. I bought it at the cost of over RM60. However, you will find it worth the price considering its nice design, good quality and the "barely there" feeling.

The packaging of Case-Mate Barely There is bundled together with Case-Mate clear screen protector. However, you will soon find fingerprints and smudge developed on that screen protector. Therefore, my phone is using Clarivue ultra-thin matte anti-glare screen protector instead.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Fixing Android unable to connect to WiFi network problem with FXR WiFi Fix And Rescue

Have you ever encountered these kind of WiFi network connection problem with your Android device?

  • Your Android device unable to detect the presence of a particular WiFi router/AP although SSID is broadcasted and all other wireless devices can detect and connect to the WiFi without problem
  • Your Android device's failed to obtain IP address from the WiFi router/AP and unable to start, although the WiFi DHCP service is running well with other wireless devices
  • Your Android device's WiFi service just unable to start
Normally, situations as above come at a sudden, and before that, your Android device has no issue at all connecting to that particular WiFi all the while.

Sometimes, rebooting the Android device can fix the problem, and you'll be able to connect back to the WiFi again. However, the same problem might also come back again.

I've encountered such annoying problem between my Android phone and my home WiFi router, and I finally fixed it using a free tool called FXR WiFi Fix And Rescue.


It is a one button fix solution. Just click the "Fix My WiFi" button and the tool will attempt to fix your WiFi problem in your Android device for you. You will lost all your WiFi settings, including all the saved WiFi connection passwords, along the process. However, this is still much better than having to do a full factory reset to the Android device.

It worth to give it a try before going for factory reset or sending the Android device to repair center.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

App: Use Business Calendar for Android to sync Google and Facebook calendars

Do you find the Calendar app that comes with your Android phone not impressive enough? Do you want a calendar app that can show as much information as possible in a single screen in a well-organized and readable way, especially in the Month view?

So far, I came across 2 Android calendar apps that meet this requirement, and able to sync with Google Calendar. They are Business Calendar for Android and CalenGoo.

I prefer Business Calendar by Mikado Software of Germany because its price is cheaper than CalenGoo, there is a free Lite version of it, and most importantly, its user interface is very much alike Google Calendar accessed with desktop web browser. It also has a more business professional look-and-feel than CalenGoo.

Click here to see some screenshots of Business Calendar.

Business Calendar is able to access and sync with the same set of calendars as the HTC Calendar app, including PC Sync (that will sync with the calendars in your PC through HTC Sync program), multiple Google Calendars as well as Facebook Calendar. Apparently, it shares the same calendar database with HTC Calendar that comes together with the phone.

Beside Month view, it has Multi-day (Week) view, Day view and Agenda view. Its Month view uses popup to show event details, allowing you to access the information easily within the same screen. Its Multi-day view supports multi-touch zoom-in and zoom-out gesture.

One of the thing I like about Business Calendar is it comes with highly customizable widgets of various size from 2x1 to 4x4 (altogether 12 of them), allowing us to access and manipulate the calendar directly from Android home screen.

Hint: Click on the "Older Posts" link to continue reading, or click here for a listing of all my past 3 months articles.