Patty and Barry
I think you will enjoy your Android Smartphone - - I wrote detailed response before and it somehow deleted
I included summary of details for future reference
See the bottom of this note about battery saving tip:
Marine Apps:
Navionics British Columbia as others mentioned - covers from Olympia to N BC Coast - need US west coast version if you go outside-Calif or Oreg - - works without cellular reception once it has been downloaded to your phone. Updates are often and require cell. App is more mature on Iphone where Google overlay maps are helpful if you have cell reception. This is my most used app. Search for nearby tide stations, currents is very helpful. The GPS and Navionics performed great for 3 weeks while enroute to Desolation sound - actually better than Raymarine and Lowrence chart plotter systems that were on board.
GPS Status - two free apps/widgets with the similar name - can paste your coordinates into email or better yet txt msg - I found that Sprint text msg from Canada with coordinates was great way to update family at home about location. Kind of like Spot but not using satellite to transmit. Txt message was cheaper than calls w International sprint for brief exchange of info.
URL links for your browser
Ferry Weather -frequent wind reports for Puget Sound
http://i90.atmos.washington.edu/ferry/F ... frame1.htm
Marine Forecast
http://i90.atmos.washington.edu/ferry/F ... frame1.htm
NON-MARINE ANDROID APPS:
NAVIGATION:
CoPilot Live - on board maps of North America - usually on sale over holidays for land navigation
Google Earth - Free
Google latitude - a bit too much tracking of my location but it might help track your family if they are in different locations
Google Sky Map -Free amazing - hold it up to stars and it tells you what is behind your phone - can search for a star or planet and it will tell you where to look
Google Voice -free sign up on web [did require invite] - allows you to choose a free phone number in your area - then choose how to route the call to your home or cell with voice to [beta] txt translation - this saves me $50 in pager service and is now my office phone - w documentation of all calls. Lots of options to customize for work and home.
Yelp - how to find a coffee shop, fuel, marina or whatever based on your GPS location
PRODUCTIVITY:
EVERNOTE: my favorite app - Cloud, Win, Mac, Iphone and Android [development catching up] - can store text, voice notes, photos [geotag], best feature is the cloud based OCR - optical character recognition - that can recognize txt in a photo [say on a wine bottle] and make it searchable later/
This is great for home and boat inventory: Take photos of gear in: tool box, ditch kit, first aid kit, electric repair kit, emergency clothes, flare kit - easy to recall what gear is where by looking at Mac or smart-phone. - Also great for Home and boat shows - no cards to pickup - just photo it and when you get home the data is on your mac or pc - and phone, and is photo-searchable -
Paid version $45/yr better encryption but on iphone it makes all data resident [without towers] and that will be true for Android very soon - - I take photo of most receipts usually when I get to car with smart phone - i can then find receipt by word search for product by store, and item - paid version coverts pdf to viewable and searchable docs - but you can drag most files onto new note -
Store my CDORY maintenance records here, along with bar codes or photos of materials and receipts for warranty backup
Also store copies of cards like Safeway card - that I always forget when in store -
GTasks - Android app that syncs [finally] with Google Tasks - that is located to right of Google calendar application
Got to do - another Productivity Task application that syncs with cloud Toodledo.com - best GTD or Getting Things Done app [David Allen] so far for android
Jorte - free - much better view of Calendar - actually see details in 1-2 4 week views of month
UTILITIES
Owner - lets you set up predefined text on your locked home screen with "ICE" information
Shake2Mute - silences phone w shake
Barcode Scanner
WiFi Analyzer free to check signal strength
Pandora - for streaming music
HEALTH
CardioTrainer - free beta - records your workouts, minutes, calories are calculated, distance and GPS route is recorded, diet portion is still in development - helps with motivation to work out - can see the weeks results. Will start and stop timer if you choose based on motion - for the city runner [stop lights]
Epocrates - free medical app - medication information and drug interactions. I think lay persons can register for it???
Lexi-Drug the premier medical, dental publisher - has apps for OVC and herbal products as well - updates as often as daily - great for drug interactions, side effects.
HandsonlyCPR free - can call 911 within the app then follow video with pacing rhythm from Amer Heart Assoc
ISILO - residual app from Palm but you can covert most web pages into small memory sized document - thousands of articles are available - including many in health care and lots of open source articles and books. App for Win to convert documents to Isilo format - works across many smartphone platforms.
OnTrack - for personal tracking of diabetes
OTHER APPS
Earthquake - just in case you want to know why that big wave hit you.
NY TImes - just in case you would rather read about that big wave
Saving Battery
1.Settings>accounts and sync> turn off auto sync and background data sync
2. Choose to sync email less frequently
3. Install the built in Widget - Power Control to one of your home screens - its great feature - especially when near Canadian border in US and you want GPS on for Navionics without Roaming International data charges. It has WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, Sync and Backlight on one screen -Android Widget. -
4.Turn off everything you are not using.
5. Task managers probably not necessary for memory management on Android per recent information - just use the back arrow at bottom of screen and that tells android to change app priority in cue.
Have fun
Jim
I think you will enjoy your Android Smartphone - - I wrote detailed response before and it somehow deleted
I included summary of details for future reference
See the bottom of this note about battery saving tip:
Marine Apps:
Navionics British Columbia as others mentioned - covers from Olympia to N BC Coast - need US west coast version if you go outside-Calif or Oreg - - works without cellular reception once it has been downloaded to your phone. Updates are often and require cell. App is more mature on Iphone where Google overlay maps are helpful if you have cell reception. This is my most used app. Search for nearby tide stations, currents is very helpful. The GPS and Navionics performed great for 3 weeks while enroute to Desolation sound - actually better than Raymarine and Lowrence chart plotter systems that were on board.
GPS Status - two free apps/widgets with the similar name - can paste your coordinates into email or better yet txt msg - I found that Sprint text msg from Canada with coordinates was great way to update family at home about location. Kind of like Spot but not using satellite to transmit. Txt message was cheaper than calls w International sprint for brief exchange of info.
URL links for your browser
Ferry Weather -frequent wind reports for Puget Sound
http://i90.atmos.washington.edu/ferry/F ... frame1.htm
Marine Forecast
http://i90.atmos.washington.edu/ferry/F ... frame1.htm
NON-MARINE ANDROID APPS:
NAVIGATION:
CoPilot Live - on board maps of North America - usually on sale over holidays for land navigation
Google Earth - Free
Google latitude - a bit too much tracking of my location but it might help track your family if they are in different locations
Google Sky Map -Free amazing - hold it up to stars and it tells you what is behind your phone - can search for a star or planet and it will tell you where to look
Google Voice -free sign up on web [did require invite] - allows you to choose a free phone number in your area - then choose how to route the call to your home or cell with voice to [beta] txt translation - this saves me $50 in pager service and is now my office phone - w documentation of all calls. Lots of options to customize for work and home.
Yelp - how to find a coffee shop, fuel, marina or whatever based on your GPS location
PRODUCTIVITY:
EVERNOTE: my favorite app - Cloud, Win, Mac, Iphone and Android [development catching up] - can store text, voice notes, photos [geotag], best feature is the cloud based OCR - optical character recognition - that can recognize txt in a photo [say on a wine bottle] and make it searchable later/
This is great for home and boat inventory: Take photos of gear in: tool box, ditch kit, first aid kit, electric repair kit, emergency clothes, flare kit - easy to recall what gear is where by looking at Mac or smart-phone. - Also great for Home and boat shows - no cards to pickup - just photo it and when you get home the data is on your mac or pc - and phone, and is photo-searchable -
Paid version $45/yr better encryption but on iphone it makes all data resident [without towers] and that will be true for Android very soon - - I take photo of most receipts usually when I get to car with smart phone - i can then find receipt by word search for product by store, and item - paid version coverts pdf to viewable and searchable docs - but you can drag most files onto new note -
Store my CDORY maintenance records here, along with bar codes or photos of materials and receipts for warranty backup
Also store copies of cards like Safeway card - that I always forget when in store -
GTasks - Android app that syncs [finally] with Google Tasks - that is located to right of Google calendar application
Got to do - another Productivity Task application that syncs with cloud Toodledo.com - best GTD or Getting Things Done app [David Allen] so far for android
Jorte - free - much better view of Calendar - actually see details in 1-2 4 week views of month
UTILITIES
Owner - lets you set up predefined text on your locked home screen with "ICE" information
Shake2Mute - silences phone w shake
Barcode Scanner
WiFi Analyzer free to check signal strength
Pandora - for streaming music
HEALTH
CardioTrainer - free beta - records your workouts, minutes, calories are calculated, distance and GPS route is recorded, diet portion is still in development - helps with motivation to work out - can see the weeks results. Will start and stop timer if you choose based on motion - for the city runner [stop lights]
Epocrates - free medical app - medication information and drug interactions. I think lay persons can register for it???
Lexi-Drug the premier medical, dental publisher - has apps for OVC and herbal products as well - updates as often as daily - great for drug interactions, side effects.
HandsonlyCPR free - can call 911 within the app then follow video with pacing rhythm from Amer Heart Assoc
ISILO - residual app from Palm but you can covert most web pages into small memory sized document - thousands of articles are available - including many in health care and lots of open source articles and books. App for Win to convert documents to Isilo format - works across many smartphone platforms.
OnTrack - for personal tracking of diabetes
OTHER APPS
Earthquake - just in case you want to know why that big wave hit you.
NY TImes - just in case you would rather read about that big wave
Saving Battery
1.Settings>accounts and sync> turn off auto sync and background data sync
2. Choose to sync email less frequently
3. Install the built in Widget - Power Control to one of your home screens - its great feature - especially when near Canadian border in US and you want GPS on for Navionics without Roaming International data charges. It has WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, Sync and Backlight on one screen -Android Widget. -
4.Turn off everything you are not using.
5. Task managers probably not necessary for memory management on Android per recent information - just use the back arrow at bottom of screen and that tells android to change app priority in cue.
Have fun
Jim
