The Appy Corner…..

Chrome To Phone

Occasionally I want to share a link either with a friend or from my desktop to phone or tablet. Some sites now give you that option on the page but, many don’t. For my day to day browsing I use Firefox mostly because with the add-ons I’ve installed I feel it’s the most robust & resistant to malicious sites & attacks, as much as it can be.

I don’t limit myself to one browser though & use one type/brand solely for banking & that’s all, another solely for shopping, one is not altered with add-on’s or had any settings adjusted at all so I can copy & paste a link to this browser if the page doesn’t function on any of the others with add-ons installed that prevent a page from loading or functioning properly & so on (on the desktop I use Chrome, Firefox, IE, Maxthon & Opera.

Anyway, for those sites that don’t give you the option to share I’ve found an add-on for the Chrome browser that allows you to “send to phone”, if you’ve got an android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.chrometophone.

If I’m on a browser other than Chrome I just copy & paste to Chrome & then hit the Chrome To Phone symbol in the add-ons bar. You have to be signed in on Chrome to do this with your gmail account. Once it’s on my device if you press & hold the link in the app it will give you the option to open in browser or share with contacts.

Also, if you’ve got an android tablet & get frustrated at the amount of pages that won’t load video as flash isn’t available/supported anymore you can try flashfox browser. Unfortunately it’s ad supported. I have also tried photon but, that over stepped the line & started spamming activity & being intrusive on the whole tablet. Quickly removed.

Personally, I have installed the last version of flash available to android (there’s a way) & live with the risk. Also got avast mobile free installed as a minimum precaution.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this already, anybody playing free versions of games they’ve downloaded that are ad supported, in order to free you of these, play the game with your device in airplane mode/offline. Voila, no ads.

@woogy wrote:

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this already, anybody playing free versions of games they’ve downloaded that are ad supported, in order to free you of these, play the game with your device in airplane mode/offline. Voila, no ads.

Top Tip

My favorite app at the moment is :

Wordament – Free word finding game played against people around the world in real time

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/wordament/id580935508?mt=8

I am also playing SnapAttack on Windows 8.2, but I don’t think that’s available on iOS yet.

Being a typical Englishperson I’m obsessed with the weather. Found two new additions:

YR is a Norwegian weather app recommended by my Estonian taxi driving brother-in-law. On the phone it looks quite basic but, on a tablet it’s quite comprehensive & every taxi driver in Tallinn swears by it.

https://itunes.apple.com/no/app/yr.no/id490989206?mt=8
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=no.nrk.yr

I maintain the families pc’s & lappy’s & have had to negotiate windows 8 during the course of which I started to warm to win 8 once I tweaked it a bit to look like win 7 (install classic shell to bring back win 7 start button style pop up menu). I switched from 7 to 8 & doing this because I discovered win 8 is not such a resource/power hog on the system compared to win 7 & the other feature that distinguishes the two is the win 8 apps. Nothing to write home about but, I discovered ‘Rain Alarm’.

Now on win 8 it’s relatively unintrusive & works very well. On the phone & tablet it’s ok but, can announce a few false alarms cos you can’t adjust it as much as the win 8 app without paying. I still say give it a try though & you decide.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.mdiener.rain.usa
https://itunes.apple.com/app/rainalarm/id397676100

Incidentally, typically on android the stock weather app is accuweather whose forecasts are based on the same source as the met office app & the bbc weather app. My first choice is always the weather channel app cos I know they use local weather stations based in my town & not predictions based on collective area/county centrally aggregated information. At the end of the day though, you’re better off sticking your head out of the window :D…

Just make sure you open it first

Too tired to type about it extensively but, brief summary of phones I had & returned recently: Nokia Lumia 930 = well made & tactile hardware & nice bright display/screen but, did not get on with win 8 mobile op system & battery wasn’t great & as soon as I realised the sky go app wasn’t available on windows mobile, TA-LA .

HTC One (M8) = much improved battery life since I last had a HTC. Sounds good cos of speakers at front (as it should be). Well made & looks good but, it was just boring. I thought maybe I’m getting old for this stuff & then…

LG G3 ! Love it ! Vodafone was good enough to give me the previous two phones as upgrades on 14 day approval that I returned & on a whim I asked if they had or was getting the G3 & luckily they had it. If they hadn’t I was gonna either try the Xperia Z2 or give up contract & go on Giff-Gaff.

The only minor grumble I have with the G3 is considering it’s a 3000amh battery it doesn’t last as long as you’d think, maybe a day but, unlike the other two phones I’d trialled the LG isn’t a sealed unit & you can buy a spare battery. It can also charge wirelessly (like the Lumia 930).

Has anyone played Farm Heroes Saga?!

@taungfox wrote:

The Incredible “Skype”, gesture control App is now free
on The App Store.

Only a short time ago Apple opened up their products to third party
keyboards. Just after we all paid for it, suddenly it becomes free.

Superb product though.

Type with just one finger our just a few swipes on the touchscreen. You
do not even have to be accurate. It learns all about you! Just right for weak muscles
and gammy hands.

did you mean sKype or sWype? Mind you, as my machine just wanted to do, i typed right and it changed it

@taungfox wrote:

…….. And it is “Swype”.

thought so.

We are moving into a new techno era, our machinery will no longer ask us if we were wrong with little wavy lines but will instead butt in and assume what we were doing ….. rude!

Good idea, Jenny!