How to Install Android Apps on Your Phone or Tablet

Howtojetro.blogspot.com | How to Install Android Apps on Your Phone or Tablet - Google provides a primary app store for Android, known as Google Play. However, Android isn't like iOS. Google Play isn't the only game in town, and there are other ways to install apps on Android.

Some Android devices (particularly dirt-cheap ones coming direct from manufacturers in China) aren't certified by Google and don't include Google Play. This makes the device much less useful, but you can still install apps on it.

Google Play App

The primary way you'll install apps on Android is by firing up the Play Store app on your phone or tablet. You'll find the Play Store in your app drawer and likely on your default home screen. You can also open it by tapping the shopping bag-like icon at the top-right corner of the app drawer. Once in the store, browse or search for an app and tap the Install button to install it.

Google Play on the Web

Hunting for apps using a touchscreen keyboard isn't the most convenient way to install apps. To install apps from your computer, visit the Google Play website at play.google.com. You can search and browse for apps on the website.

As long as you're logged in with the same Google account you use for your Android phone or tablet, you can click the install button on the website to remotely install the app on your phone or tablet. If you have multiple Android devices, you can select the one you want the app installed on. Once you've told Google Play to install the app, your phone or tablet will start downloading the app and install it for you.

Sideloading Apps

Android supports sideloading, which allows you to install apps from outside of Google Play. However, this is disabled by default for security reasons. To enable sideloading, open the Settings app on your Android, tap the Security category, and enable the Unknown sources check box.

Note that this can be a security risk, as it allows installation of apps from outside the Play Store, which could potentially contain malware. If you enable this setting, it's your job to install applications responsibly, stay away from pirated games and other apps that may contain Android malware.

After enabling this setting, you can download an Android app in .APK format and install it on your device. For example, you could download the .APK file in your Android's browser and open it from the Downloads app. You could also download the APK file to your computer, copy it over to your Android's file system with a USB cable, use a file manager app to browse to it, and tap the APK file to start installing it.

Sideloading allows you to install a variety of apps that aren't available in the Play Store, such as the XBMC Media Center for Android, various emulators that have been removed from Google Play, and third-party app store apps like the Amazon Appstore for Android and Humble Bundle app.

This option may not be available on some devices if the device's manufacturer or carrier has disabled it. AT&T once did this, but it's become much less common. Most devices should have the Unknown sources checkbox.

Third-Party App Stores

Android allows for third-party app stores. The most well-known and popular one is Amazon's Appstore for Android (currently only available in the US), which gives away a free paid app every day. Amazon's Appstore for Android is also used natively on Amazon's Kindle Fire devices.

The ever-popular Humble Bundle, which sells bundles of indie games for Windows, Mac, and Linux, has also sold bundles of Android games. If you purchased any of the Humble Bundles containing Android games, you could install the Humble Bundle app and use it to manage the installation and updating of your Humble Bundle games. To use either the Amazon Appstore, Humble Bundle, or other third-party app stores, you’ll need to sideload the app store’s app.

Some devices may come with their own, integrated third-party app stores. For example, Samsung devices come with the Samsung Apps app, which may contain free versions of some paid apps, but is otherwise fairly uninteresting. Carriers have distributed their own app stores with their Android devices in the past, but this is becoming less common.

Just as you should be extra careful when sideloading apps, you should be extra careful when using third-party app stores. For example, you can probably trust Amazon and the Humble Bundle, but you should beware of many other app stores. For example, an untrustworthy app store distributing pirated apps may be a source of malware. We recommend staying away from those.

Sideloading From Your PC

You can also sideload apps onto your Android device in other ways. For example, if you have an APK file on your computer, you can use the excellent AirDroid app to upload it to your Android device and install it without even connecting your Android device to your computer.

If you’re a developer, you can use the adb (Android debug bridge) command to "push" an app to a connected device, installing it from your computer. The appropriate command is as follows, where C:\package.apk is the path to the APK file on your computer:

adb install C:\package.apk

You can also install Android apps on your Windows PC, which opens up a whole new world of touchscreen games and apps on touch-enabled Windows 8 devices.

How to Print Photos From an Android Smartphone or Tablet

Howtojetro.blogspot.com | How to Print Photos From an Android Smartphone or Tablet - Photos you take on your Android smartphone don’t have to stay digital. You can get physical copies of those photos printed out quickly and easily - using your own printer, at a local store, or sent to you in the mail. You don’t need any fancy hardware to do this. You could use your own photo printer, but that isn’t even an ideal solution - if you just want to print the occasional photo, just pay per-print.

Print Photos on a Home Printer
You can print photos yourself, if you have the appropriate type of printer. But this probably isn’t the ideal solution unless you want to print a lot of photos on a regular basis. For hardware, you’ll want a dedicated photo printer with high-quality photo paper. You’ll also need to buy color printer ink, of course. Don’t just print to a piece of typical printer paper using any old printer you have lying around.

Software-wise, you’ll need a way for your Android phone to communicate with the printer. Google Cloud Print offers this, in theory. But, unlike Apple’s AirPrint, we’ve had hit-and-miss results with a number of Google Cloud Print-enabled printers. Quality of the resulting printout can suffer, which is a problem when printing photos instead of just plain-old text documents. We’d recommend not buying a Google Cloud Print-enabled printer if you actually just want to print photos. Using Google’s Cloud Print connector to activate Google Cloud Print capabilities on a wired photo printer also may not be ideal.

Instead, you’ll probably want to communicate with the printer a different way. Some photo printers can function over Bluetooth - just pair the phone and printer and send a photo over Bluetooth. Some Wi-Fi-enabled printers can even accept photos and other documents via email, so you could email a photo to your printer from your phone to print it.

Many printer manufacturers offer their own dedicated Android apps that you can install on your phone and use to print photos to a Wi-Fi-enabled printer. For example, these apps include HP ePrint, Epson iPrint, and Brother iPrint&Scan. If you’re buying wireless photo printer just for this, be sure you’re getting one that can work with an Android phone and not necessarily just with Google Cloud Print.

You can easily print a photo by opening it and using the Share button - share it to email, Bluetooth, or a manufacturer’s printer app you have installed on your phone.

Print Photos and Pick Them Up Today
If you just want the print out the occasional few photos, you might want to forget using your own printer. You won’t need to buy and maintain a printer, keep printer ink stocked up and fresh, or buy premium photo paper. So, while you are paying for each print, this will be cheaper for printing the occasional important photo.

Many of the same services that offer iPhone photo-printing apps also offer Android photo-printing apps.

Basically, there are a bunch of local businesses near you - think Walgreens, Target, CVS, and Walmart - that will print photos for you at their store and let you pick them up that same day. Apps allow you to find these local stores and send them photos from your phone so you can go in and pick them up in person. They’ll be professionally printed at high-quality and you won’t have to worry about purchasing a printer and dealing with all the maintenance.

The Kicksend app is convenient because it provides a directory of a variety of different stores you can have your photos printed at and pick them up. Other apps are also available - the Walgreens app allows you to order photo prints at Walgreens and the KODAK Kiosk Connect app allows you to order photos at CVS pharmacy locations and anywhere else with a KODAK Kiosk, for example.

Print Photos and Have Them Delivered
You don’t actually have to leave your house and head to a store if you don’t want to. If you’re not in a hurry and you don’t mind waiting a few days, you can have a service print them for you and mail them straight to your door.

In fact, the Kicksend app tries to encourage you to do this rather than rely on nearby stores when you open it. Other services are also available - Free Prints promises free photo prints for you, but actually charges for shipping so you won’t really get them for free. No service will really send you free printed photos without getting some money out of it, even if they say you’re just paying for shipping. SnapFish and PostalPix will also send you printed photos, and you can find many more similar services with a quick search of Google Play.

You could use these methods to send printed photos straight to friends or relatives, too - for a small fee, a service will print them for you and mail them straight to someone else.

Of course, you don’t just have to print from your Android phone. You could transfer those photos to your computer using a USB cable or access them on the web with a service like Google Photos, Dropbox, or Microsoft OneDrive and print them from your computer, too. This is ideal if you have a high-quality photo printer but it doesn’t work as well with your Android phone.

How to Connect a Headset to a Laptop, Tablet, or Smartphone With a Single Audio Jack

Howtojetro.blogspot.com | How to Connect a Headset to a Laptop, Tablet, or Smartphone With a Single Audio Jack - Nowadays, many laptops include a combined headphone and microphone jack instead of two separate audio jacks. This trend started with smartphones and tablets, but has spread to MacBooks, ultrabooks, and convertibles like Microsoft’s Surface Pro.

If you have a headset with two separate 3.55 mm audio connectors for the headphone and microphone, you don’t have to buy a new one. You can pick up a fairly cheap adapter if you know what to look for.

What You’re Supposed To Use

If you’re shopping for a new headset and you have a laptop, tablet, or smartphone with a combined audio jack, you’re supposed to buy one of the following:

• A headset with a combined audio plug. For example, Apple’s iPhone headsets have this type of plug. Headsets for Android devices and other types of mobile phones should work, too. This connector is generally only found on headsets intended for mobile use; you likely won’t find them on larger pairs of headphones.
• A USB headset. If your headset has a USB connector, you can plug it into any device with a USB port. With a USB headset, you can bypass the device’s audio jack completely, so the type of audio jack your device has won’t matter. This is a good option, but it means you won’t be able to connect your headset to a smartphone, tablet, or anything else without a USB port.
• A Bluetooth headset. You could pair a Bluetooth headset wirelessly with any Bluetooth-enabled device, from laptops to smartphones. Unfortunately, Bluetooth is fairly power-hungry. These headsets are generally designed for cell phone use, not laptop use.

If you’re buying a headset for a laptop, you’ll probably want a USB headset. If you’re buying a headset for a smartphone or tablet, you’ll want either a wired headset with a single plug or a Bluetooth headset — it depends on whether you want a wireless connection or not.

Connecting a Headset With Separate Audio Jacks to a Combined Audio Jack

Luckily, there’s a fourth option. Some manufacturers sell adapters that can convert a headset with separate headphone and microphone connectors into a single, combined connector, allowing you to connect it to modern laptops that only have a single audio jack. This would also allow you to connect speakers and a microphone to the same 3.5mm audio jack - it doesn’t have to be a headset.

This adapter can be hard to find. You’ll find a lot of headphone splitter adapters when searching for it - you don’t want a headphone splitter adapter; that won’t work. We purchased the StarTech MUYHSMFF adapter from Amazon and successfully tested it on several devices, from Microsoft’s Surface Pro 2 to Apple’s latest MacBook Pro.

Using the adapter is simple - just plug your microphone and headphone connectors into the appropriate jacks on the adapter, and then plug the the adapter into the combined audio port. Note that you’ll need to plug your headset into the adapter before connecting the adapter to the device. If you don’t, you’ll have to unplug the adapter and plug it back in so the microphone and headphone connections are properly detected by your device.

We tested this adapter with several popular devices and it worked well, but there’s no guarantee that it will work with every single ultrabook out there. But, for a few bucks, it’s worth a shot if you have a nice headset or microphone you want to use with your new laptop.

Of course, all of this only matters if you want to connect a microphone for audio input. If all you need is audio output, you can plug the headphone connector on your headset into the audio port normally. Your mic won’t function, but your headphones will work normally.

How to Remove Folder Names on Your iPhone Without Jailbreaking

Howtojetro.blogspot.com | How to Remove Folder Names on Your iPhone Without Jailbreaking - You know what's in your folders, so it's not always necessary to label them and ruin that clean look you're going for on your iPhone's home screen. I mean, how many folders am I going to have to title "Stuff" or "Junk"?

If you're tired of giving folders random, ugly labels—or names period—I'll show you an extremely easy trick to create blank names without using any jailbreak tweaks. All you need is an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch running iOS 6, iOS 7, iOS 8, or iOS 9.

Step 1: Download a Food-Related App

For the first step, you'll need an application from the Food & Drink category in the iOS App Store, like Starbucks or OpenTable. If you already have one on your iPhone, great.

Step 2: Make a Folder with It

Hold down on the food-related app to bring up the edit options. Drag the app over to any other app on your home screen and release it on top to create a folder. The folder that is created will not have a default name.
However, if you do it the opposite way (drag another app on top of it), you'll still get a default name like Games, Productivity, Photography, etc. So make sure you do it the right way.

Step 3: Remove & Repeat

Now just add the other apps you want to the new nameless folder, and remove the food-related one whenever you're ready. Then just repeat the process for any new folders you want to create without names.

We're not sure why exactly this works, but we assume it's because Apple never included a default folder label for Food & Drink apps. Whatever the reason, I'm glad this trick exists.