How to add words to the HTC Wildfire dictionary

To continue our "Dictionary" series we'll now show you how to add words to the HTC Wildfire dictionary. To
start with you will need to enter the "Settings" screen on the phone and then scroll down to "Language and Keyboard". Inside the "Language and Keyboard" menu is 2 options "Select Language" and "Touch input". If you select "Touch input" you'll be given a menu like the one in the photograph to the left.

From this menu you need to select "User Dictionary" which is the bottom option. In the next screen you will see "Add new" at the top of the screen, press on this then enter the word you want to add to the dictionary

How to change the lock screen on a HTC Wildfire

As we all want out phones to be really "ours" we like to tinker with things like ringtones, fonts and wallpapers. With many phones however you can also change the lock screen wallpaper independent of the normal wallpaper, this guide explains how to set a lock screen wallpaper for the classic HTC Wildfire smartphone. This lock screen wallpaper will show up in the background behind the clock on the lock screen of your phone.

Firstly you need to press the phone's "menu" button and then select "Wallpaper" and then simply choose "Lock screen". After this you will be given 2 options "HTC Wallpapers" or "Gallery". If you want to just change the image to something generic feel free to have a look at the HTC Wallpapers, though I advise it's more fun to use a photograph of your own and searching your Gallery for a picture to enjoy.

Using a picture you've taken can add not only a nice personal effect by allowing you to display things such as a garden, your family, a sports team or yourself but also a smart little visual effect using pictures that were taken with added effect. In the wallpaper to the left the wall paper image was taken in sepia giving a rather antiqued look to the phone behind the clock and battery warning.

Whilst this is a little bit pointless it's a nice little thing you can change if you want to personalise your phone that little bit more with out downloading apps to really take a hold of your phone.

A solution to an MMS problem on the HTC Wildfire

I know the phone is old an old one but people are still using it and thanks to the HTC Wildfire S the name seems to have popped up once again. I've not a Wildfire S to test on but if you are trying to send MMS (media messages) on a HTC Wildfire and keep getting a "Generic network failure" the solution is usually really simple to solve.

Most of the time if you're getting this error you are connected to Wi-Fi with your phone and as a result the phone isn't able to send OR receive things over the data network. What you need to do is turn off the Wi-Fi connection and let the phone attempt to resend the picture. This should solve that problem as long as you can actually receive an internet connection via the data network.

Please note I've not tested this with a HTC Wildfire S so I'm not sure if it's been corrected on the new version of the phone.

How to take a screenshot with a HTC Sensation

The screenshot feature has been included in a number of Samsung devices and now you can join in if you have a HTC. Before you start you will need to make sure you are running Android version 2.3.4. To check your version you will need to go into the phones settings screen and then find the "About phone" option and scroll to "Android version". As long as it says 2.3.4 (or higher) you're ready to go.

Now on any screen you want to take a screen shot on press the power button and the home shot and the phone should take a screenshot of it's self with out any need to download an app or even rooting the device.

One of the key uses of this is for guides though another, growing use, is to use the images to post them on forums to show off problems. For example if you have a specific symbol showing and want to know what it is you can post a screenshot and make things easier for people trying to help you.

Some more playing with the HTC Wildfire Camera

As with all the recent shots these were just taken with the effects of the phone, mostly with the Solarize and Negative effects, though some of them are pretty cool. This one is of the front of a car with the glove compartment being the most obvious part of the picture. The air vent really stands out as looking particularly awesome though.

 These were some really dull and boring green leaves outside of the car taken with the Solarize effect. The leaves went from dull and boring to bright, colourful and rather brilliant to be honest.

 This was almost the same image as above taken this time with the sepia effect. The image uses the lighting from above nicely to give the leaves a brown effect that looks old and worn. It's one of the few Sepia pictures I've taken that I've actually quite liked.

I think, though I may be wrong, that this was taken with out an effect and is again the leaves from above. As you can see the leaves aren't exciting and really did need sprucing up a little bit.

No effects picture of the sun on a lovely sunny day. This was basically taken as a test picture before taking some of the other sun pictures.

 The sun in black and white. Not the best picture of the sun though you can see the huge draining of the colours from the image, the sky and the leaves mainly.

 By the time this "Aqua" picture was taken the clouds had started to come across and hide the sun though it still seemed like a nice image due to the way the sun has decided to hide. Sadly it's really a bit boring and didn't have the artistic feel to it that some of the others do.

 Here is one of my favourite "sun" pictures, it's the sun solarized and it gives off some really cool looking effects. The sky has turned to a pinkish colour, the clouds, despite only being a light coverage, look angry and the sun looks like an explosion in the sky. It's just...beautiful!

 This is the sun negatived, it's not quite as as awesome as the solarized version but still pretty fun and artsy looking. The sun has become dark whilst the leaves have become light in a weird juxtaposition.

The final image, this one saw the sun hiding completely behind the clouds and as a result the light was kind of killed and as a result the sun just looks like a blob. It's a pretty awesome image in my eyes but others may think it sucks.

HTC and the effects

 Staying on the aspect of photography and the HTC Wildfire's camera I've had a short and quick play with the various effects on the phone. Some of the effects are far more fun to use than others though I'll assume they each have their own function at times. Lets have a look at the pictures taken with the setting, they are all of the same fruit bowl placed in the same place just for comparison purposes.

This was the picture taken with out any effects on. This allows us all to see what the image "should" look like. Although, as with all the pictures on this site, it's not perfect it's here only for comparison purposes.

This is the image taken in taken in "Grayscale" and as you can see the colour has been completely drained out of the image in what is referred to as being taken in "black and white". This can be a great effect if used properly and when used in portraits it can make peoplem even me, look rather good.

"Sepia" turns things brown, it can be one of the more useful effects and can give a good aging feel to pictures. In the case of this setting it's not very useful though in some scenarios it's the best option to give the photograph some real character.

"Negative" looks something like this, it "flips" the colours, or if you rather it "inverts" them. The pictures taken this way can look rather cool (a picture taken at the very end of this article shows off some of the ability of a negative). The inverted colours can be pretty awesome though if used cleverly and a better photographer can really take some amazing pictures using the effect.

"Solarize" changes the photographs colours by inverting them in a different way to "Negative" although it's difficult to really explain by someone like myself all you need to really know is that it can give some great effects or some worrying effects. Looking at the oranges in this picture it looks like the oranges are rotting due to the effect.

"Posterize" is a funny effect that never really seems to look particularly great. The idea behind it is that the it makes tone really stand out from each other and is an incredibly artistic tool. In all honesty most folks just wanting to take general photos should avoid it as it rarely sees a novice photographer taking anything better than wasted shots.

This is the phones final effect and one called "Aqua". It gives the sense that photograph was taken in water and adds a blue tint to photographs. In this example it doesn't really add to the photograph though as with all the effects it can be used in the right scenario to great effect. If you like playing with effects this really could be one of the most interesting ones.

This was an image taken with the negative setting and was taken just to show off how cool the setting can be. It's inverted the colours to brilliant effect and used the images on the TV to give a pretty impressive scene. The lighting on the consoles have been reversed and on the whole this really is a fantastic little example of how good the negative effects are.

Samsung Wave

It's been ages since I last posted on to this blog and I've since had a pretty fun play with a Samsung Wave GT-S723e. The things I've learnt from this phone have been put into a number of hubs for Hubpages which I'll link you to through out this piece.

The Samsung Wave I have is currently with Vodafone in the UK on some special 24 months offer with unlimited texts and 300 minutes for a nice price though the phone it's self isn't anything brilliant it's ok for what it is. The phone runs the "BADA" software which when compared to things like Android, Windows and iOS seems relatively limited. Despite this the handset is easy to use and the touchscreen is pretty accurate and works well. The battery can last a while and you can of course use a bunch of tricks to stretch out the phones battery life which aew pewtty simple and painless.

The phone has a solid 5MP camera which although not brilliant does take some pretty decent photos and are incredibly easy to transfer to a computer with out too much effort. Though admittedly I've not really played with the camera enough to work out how good it actually is. In all honesty it does seem slightly better than the HTC Wildfire's camera though not as good as the Sony Ericcson C902 one (the three phones I have for comparison at the moment).

As with all modern phones you can easily put your music on to the phone and of course select your own tracks as a ringtone. With out a memory card you are pretty limited to a handful of songs or photographs. The memory card you will be needing if you purchase the phone is a Micro SD card which can come in some hefty sizes and are afforable (though not "cheap" per se).

As with all modern phones there is a real depth to how far you can explore the phone but you will still be surprised by the depth of the handset and the fact there is a real wealth of secrets. I sadly didn't find some of them out until it was too late, though here is a heads up on some of them to allow you to do things like "Screenshots" and factory resetting the handset.

On the whole the phone is a "decent" handset but not a particularly great one. If you want to be up to date this isn't the phone for you though it's a steady handset for those who aren't too big on multi-tasking. It does all the basic things well such as making calls, playing music, allowing you to use the net (via either 3G or Wi-fi), texting, photography, being an alarm but it doesn't do the advance things. Don't look to this phone to be a mobile office or to be a replacement to your Nintendo DS as it's not that kind of device, it's a phone first and foremost with some bonus'.

HTC Wildfire Tips tricks and stuff

So with Christmas around the corner and phone stores everywhere trying to flog you a smart phone, you want to know as much as you can about them....right?

Well although I can't tell you everything you may want to know I can help you with the one I've got, the HTC Wildfire. A cheap and well rounded HTC that look as attractive as any other smart phone out there at the moment and although not the most versatile is one of the best introductory Android phones out there. Although the phone is a solid one and has a fully fledged review here. You'll probably want to know more than just want a review gives you, so lets look at some of those useful little things that every phone user wants to know.

So firstly something that the you'll find yourself using more often than you'd expect, using the phone as a torch isn't something most would think they will find as a bonus, but it actually is. To read how to use the phone as a torch, by using either it's inbuilt “Flashlight App” (which uses the Camera light) click here,  though of course that guide also teaches you how to use the a free App to use the screen as your torch light.

A common question regarding the phone is “how do I select my own ringtone?”A question that you will ask yourself unless you've been shown how to set it. Heck even the in built menu doesn't pose any help at all. If you're one of those that likes to set your own music for a ring tone then I must urge you to give this guide a click. Although it's not a pictorial guide it is easy to follow and talks you through all the steps you need to look at.

Of course you'll not want you're phone getting scratched and any tips to prevent damage to it are advisable. As well as remembering not to try and use a stylus (they don't work with the screen) you can read a variety of common sense tips in this guide of “How to prevent your screen being damaged”. It may not be anything ingenious but it is certainly useful. Although that's not a money saving tip, one that is is connecting your phone via Wi-Fi where ever possible. The reasons can be found here, though a description on hos it's done is actually very simple. On the home screen press “menu” then find wireless, click on Wi-Fi and find your normal connection (generally your home internet, though also things like “The Wi-Fi Zone- The Cloud”. For your home internet you will have to have the WPA key the first time.

Whilst on Wi-Fi why not make the best use of your phone and either listen to one of any number of digital radio stations from the amazing TuneIn Radio App (that's currently free from the Android market) or watch Youtube through the phone. Though of course if neither of those please you, you can generally find a way to watch live TV from a website like Tvcatchup.com (though it's limited to the UK sadly) totally legally (at time of publication it is legal).

When your sick of Apps or have just need to free some space on your phone there's 2 ways to delete them from your phone. Have a read of both of these techniques here. They are sadly not the most logical of ways but they both work brilliantly.

Of course there is much much more to the phone than just those tips and tricks above as well as the tricks that can be found in this “Tricks and Tips” article. Feel free to google around and share these tips, I'm sure any of your friends with, or getting this or similar phones will find them really useful.