Calibrate HTC EVO 4G Battery - EVO Tips & Tricks

Get the most of out of your HTC EVO 4G battery.  Calibrate and increase its performance!

As a followup to my earlier post on "how to save juice", I offer two tricks for ultimately increasing battery life.

First trick, a one-time only calibration:

This is a one-time only procedure.

1. Turn the EVO on and charge it for 8 hours.
2. Unplug it and turn it off.
3. Plug it back in and charge for 1 hour.
4. Unplug it and turn it on.
5. Wait 2 minutes and turn it off.
6. Plug it back in and charge for 1 hour.

There is circuitry in the phone (any phone) that controls charging.  The goal of this one time calibration is to help make sure the circuit ultimately understands the "full" point for the battery.  Many people have found that their EVO's ultimately show as "full" when they are really not.  If you're phone is showing juice drain immediately after it's unplugged, you probably are suffering from this issue.  Calibration like this will help, though it can be time-consuming.

Second trick, repeatedly filling the battery to increase the full point.

This can be done repeatedly and it has been proven to work very well:

• With the phone in the on position - Fully charge the battery (until the led turns green at the top.)
• Once the LED turns green, unplug the charger until the led goes off.  (this normally takes 5-10 secs after unplugging the charger from the phone)
• After the led goes off, immediately plug the charger back in.
• When the LED turns green, power off the phone. (this shouldn't take too long for LED to turn green))

Green LED = Finished Charging, Full

Now...with the phone fully powered off:

1. Unplug the charger.
2. Wait until LED goes off.
3. Plug charger back in until the LED turns green. When it turns green, unplug the charger again repeat the cycle.  In other words, unplug charger, wait for led to go off, plug charger back in, wait for led to turn green.  
4. Repeat steps 1-3, oh say, 10 or more times. This may take anywhere from 30 seconds to 30 mins per cycle. (from when led green, unplug charger, wait for led off, plug charger back in, wait for led to go green again.) Typically only about 1 minute though.

Orange LED = Charging

Couple words on what the second trick is doing (this works for most any phone, really):

We are basically doing the opposite of a complete drain and recharge, which was common with old batteries (NiCad).  We are continually "adding juice" by fooling the circuit.  Notice that steps have you charge (orange LED) until full (Green LED).  Then we unplug, and recharge (orange LED).  The goal is not to empty the battery and recharge like ni-cads (those have memory, these don't). These are lithiums, so we need to do the opposite..We are trying to fill up the battery, i.e. make the "full point" more full than it is now.  Think of it like like cheating in capacity.  Since it's a "trickle charge" you don't really have to worry about overload - that's what the circuity is there for in the first place.  We just want to fool the circuitry a bit. 

This method seems to work pretty well, and you can easily notice that

• You fill up the phone battery by charging it until the LED is green
• When you unplug, and the LED light goes off
• If you immediately plug the phone back in, the LED is ORANGE.  Why? 
• Because the battery can take more juice - hence the 1 minute or longer cycle times
• Each time you do this and it takes time to go from Orange to Green, you're doing good

You can find both of these types of tricks on mobile phone forums such as HoFo and XDA.  I have found good success with both tricks on many phones, including my HTC EVO 4G (and an iPhone 3GS).  I find the second trick is very effective and fixes the problem of losing battery immediately after unplugging.  

Pageonce vs Trip It - Free Versions Head to Head

Since I use both TripIt and PageOnce, I thought it would be cool to do a review and comparison to help anyone looking for more info.  Travel organizers and applications are all the rage these days.  Both PageOnce and TripIt are phone apps, and work on the computer as well.  I'm on a bit of a phone app kick lately (VyprVPN for your iPhone/Android!)

PageOnce Personal Assistant for Phone & Computer

I'll try to stick to talking the free versions, as an apples-to-apples comparison.  But, I will throw in some discussion on the extras that are offered in the paid versions.  They may swing a person one way or the other, whatever.

Let's get the first thing out of the way:

• PageOnce Personal Assistant tries to organize all your accounts (financial, travel, rewards, etc)
• Trip It focuses on just your travel accounts (hotel, air, car rental, etc)

PageOnce has an additional application, exclusively for travel.  It's also called PageOnce.  Yeah, it's actually two apps.  No, trust me on this.  Look in your fancy iTunes App Store.  See how that one has a little plane logo displayed prominently?  Yeah that's the travel one, "Trip Tracker".  PageOnce "Personal Assistant" is their main software product, it has shopping bags and credit cards on it's logo.  PageOnce "Trip Tracker" has only that plane on the app logo, and it focuses only on travel.                                 

PageOnce Personal Assistant

PageOnce Trip Tracker

So, again, apples-to-apples...we're talking PageOnce (for travel) vs. Trip It (for travel).  The free versions, with some minor banter about extras that cost money.

Alright so lets get started, here is a quick rundown of the feature sets:

PageOnce TripTracker vs TripIt - Feature Comparison Guide

Right off the bat you see both apps handle most major airlines, hotels, and rental cars.  There is one exception, Southwest Airlines.  Southwest has recently decided to prevent applications such as TripTracker from accessing travel account information.  Yeah, I did that table myself.  Woo Woo

TripTracker displaying itinerary

Which leads us to our second major point in this reivew - building of trips and itineraries, either by auto-creation or manual methods.  TripTracker is auto-creation.  You provide the app with your account(s) and password(s).  The app fetches your travel reservations and assembles the trips.  TripIt does not go this route, and instead has the user email travel plans, receipts, and bookings to "plans@tripit.com".  So, on the one hand we have an automatic building of trips, and on the other an email forward.  Your choice.  Automatic is certainly easier, but as you can see from the SWA ban, it has it drawbacks.  Of course, so does email.  You register your email address(es) with TripIt and send the reservations.  Occassionally you need to help TripIt understand what you just sent - although 7 or 8 times out of 10 it will do just fine.  It can understand a Southwest E-Ticket for example, or a Marriott hotel reservation.

TripIt displaying upcoming trips

TripTracker does really well with offering a lot of features for free.  One of the major wins for TripTracker is the live flight details, flight status, and mobile alerts.  In order to match this in TripIt you will need to pay.  Also, TripTracker offers the details as an auto-build from your travel plan details - like maps, etc.  TripIt will support this detailed information, but you will need to manually add it using the website.

PageOnce TripTracker Screenshots on Android

But don't count TripIt comletely out of the picture.  TripIt will track your mileage, flights, and travel days in a nifty little report.  Available via the website.  TripIt will also give you a Calendar feed, so you can have your gCal automatically update with your travel plans.  TripIt also has sharing, and groups - which can be really good for an organization look for travel management (for free).

TripIt & TripIt Pro (Paid) - Only the paid version provides flight monitoring and notifications!

Either way, they both have phone apps and are fairly easy to manage online.  I recommend TripTracker over TripIt only because of the live flight tracking, status, mobile notifications, and auto-building of trips.  However, since both are free Apps, it doesn't cost you anything to install both!

TripTracker gets the nod for more free features

**Updated 23 Sept 2010:  I had an opportunity to test the auto-gmail pull that Tripit just released.  Thanks to the Anonymous poster who referred me to this link!  This does indeed work like a charm and gets close to leveling the playing field between the two apps.  TripIt is now able to "auto-create" trips, if your confirmations go to Gmail, and if TripIt can read the reservation!  However, TripIt is still missing flight status and notification in their free app, so PageOnce TripTracker is still getting the nod from me for this awesome feature!**

Giganews Vypr VPN - Secure Browsing on iPhone, iPad, Android, and Computer

So we've already established that Giganews is a pimp Usenet provider, and secure browsing is a good thing.

Check this out:  the Diamond package at Giganews gives you free access to Vypr VPN (from Goldenfrog).  Which, in addition to providing VPN for your computer, also provides VPN for your PHONE.  Yeah that's right, secure browsing on your iPhone, iPad, Android.  Setup is super easy too.

But let's take a step back, WTF are we talking about here?

We're talking about anonymous and secure internet.  Your email, IM, web browsing, VoIP, all that jazz.  Again, this is a good thing.  Still not sure why this is a good thing, read this here:  Why Vypr VPN?

In addition to the obvious benefits of secure web browsing, I would like to call your attention to this little known fact:  Public WiFi hotspots like those you use in airports and coffee shops are especially insecure. Anything you send or receive over WiFi is "visible" and vulnerable to hackers and identity thieves. 

VyprVPN lets you take a secure connection with you everywhere you go.

Illustration of internet traffic before Vypr VPN, and after

So you're sitting there at Starbucks right, or Safeway, or whatever and you're like "Sh1t I need to pay my bills..."  Next thing you know, you're logging into your bank website over the store's free public wifi.  Yeah, you're boned.  I just stole your login name and password.  Yup.  Sucks to be you.  Loving that free internet at the airport, aren't you?  All over your travel accounts (Airlines, Rental Car, Hotels)...yeah you're boned too.

But let's leave that alone for a second too, and go back to the whole VPN on your phone.  iOS and Android will both support VPN.  Supplying the server name, username, and password is about all it takes. 

Everything you need to know about setup can be found here, but install is a walk in the park, any monkey should be able to accomplish it.  Select your install type (Win, Mac, iPhone, Android, Linux, DD-WRT firmware) and the install instructions will walk you through the screens and settings.

iPhone with VPN on and VyprVPN network (misspelled)

Alright, we've established a few things here:

• Giganews is offering Vypr VPN for free for Diamond accounts
• Vypr VPN works for your computer and your phone
• Secure connect over VPN is good for a number of different reasons 
• Setup is easy - supply server address, user, and password

A word on performance.  Anyone who's ever used a proxy before, or a VPN (possibly for a remote work connection) understands how performance can become an important issue.  To be honest, I noticed zero difference in speedtests with VyprVPN on, or off.  I was getting a max connection either time.  The only limit is the amount I pay for through Comcrap, err Comcast.

I give VyprVPN 5 stars for this reason (performance), as well as ease of use, and functionality (works on your phone!)  No problems or issues to report.

So, if you're already a Giganews Diamond account holder, go setup VyprVPN (its free!).

Or, if you're not a Giganews account holder:
1 - check out Giganews, it's badass
2 - check out Vypr VPN, it is also badass

*last note: you can easily verify setup is working if you are connected and if your IP has changed.  if it is connected, and your IP has changed, your setup is successful!

XBMC Android App Review

Screenshots of free Android App "XBMC Remote Control"

So XBMC has released an "official" app for Android.  Pretty bad ass, really.

This is a really easy app to set up, and of course it's free.  I've used it on both a Nexus One and HTC EVO, both running v2.2 of Android (Froyo).

First thing first, you need XBMC running on your computer for this remote (duh).  From there, in the XBMC settings, you can enable HTTP remote control.  Specify a port (default is 8080), provide a user, and password.  That's it.

Open up the app on your phone and you can add your XBMC as a host.  The app on the phone will ask for the IP address of the XBMC machine (likely 192.168.X.X), the port, user, and password.  From there, you can head back out to the home screen in the app and it will automatically attempt to connect.  If it doesn't connect go ahead and exit XBMC on the machine and restart it.  I found that solved the first connection problem very easily.

Once you're connected to the XBMC host from the phone, the remote app will give you a home screen.  In the above pic the home screen for the app is the 3rd pic from the left.  TV, Movies, Music, Pictures, Remote Control, etc.  Clicking any of these will begin population of your media content.  This is actually pretty cool because the remote control app gives a great thumbnail and library UI.  Have a gander at this example of TV:

Example of App displaying your XBMC TV Library

Pretty freaking cool huh?  Same thing with movies.  This is a top down list, so you just continue to scroll through the list to find what you want.  Very slick.  Very responsive too, very little lag over even a bad wifi connection (low signal).

The remote control portion of the app is a little rudimentary, but it does give you all the basics.  Think pause, play, exit, menu, back, vol up/down, etc.  Control is intuitive and again responsiveness is awesome.  Press a button, your XBMC machine will begin playing, or whatever.  I found very very little lag.

This is definitely a must-have app for any XBMC user that has Android phone.

Head on over to XBMC org and check it out!  Download is free from the Android Marketplace.

Steve Jobs and his crappy Apple TV v2 can go suck it.  Nobody wants that POS box in their house.  Get yourself a PC for the same cost (it'll be way more powerful, more versatile, but likely in a larger box - who cares).  Install XBMC.  Get remote control and enjoy yourself.

I give the Android App for XBMC Remote Control a 4 out of 5 possible stars.  Only reason it gets 4 and not 5 is that the remote control portion itself is, like I said, a little rudimentary.  It doesn't have "all the buttons", which of course, we geeks *need*  (lol)

I should also mention that this app will *not* stream content from the XBMC to your phone.  You can't access your library and play movies on the phone.  That's not what it's designed for, it's designed to your phone into a fully functional remote for XBMC, and allow you to browse the library, etc.  Which it does flawlessly.

Leave a comment if you're already using this app or have a hint/tip/trick to contribute!

Sharepod Review (and some CopyTrans) -- Copy your iPod!

For copying music, video, pictures from an ipod to the computer without iTunes....SHAREPOD!

Why?  Because iTunes sucks.  That's why.  iTunes if fuck1ng terrible.  If you are too lame to see that, I can't help you.  Stop reading.

If you've made it this far, you are looking for a way to copy music (or anything else) directly from your ipod to your computer.  Or somebody else's iPod.  Hello, music sharing..."May I borrow your ipod for 5 minutes" (ripppp)

Two good applications for this are:

1. Sharepod
2. CopyTrans Manager

To understand the differences quickly, look at this way:

• Both will get the job done
• CopyTrans Manager has "more features" (i.e. bigger software)
• Sharepod is free

The choice is yours.  Both Sharepod and CTM can easily copy files back and forth from ipod to computer.  No iTunes bullshit.  Need all your songs from your ipod copied to your laptop?  Done.  Want to add videos without the hassle of iTunes?  Done.

I'll give Sharepod the nod because it's free.  But if you know what you're doing...so is CTM.

Enjoy the sharing, and always remember, tis better to give than receive!

(CTM screenshot below)