Alternatives to MMS

A few years ago MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) was going to be the thing to really make the most of Camera Phones, the quickest and easiest way of sharing your photos with a friend or a family member. Sadly it seems like the lifespan of the MMS is almost over, the high cost of the service and size limitations have effectively killed it before it became the success it was expected to be. When Camera Phones first hit the market around the turn of the century few expected phones to advance to the point where they became small and powerful mobile computers (as Smart Phones now are), it's been the move to Smart Phones that has effectively killed the MMS.

Rather than writing a long obitury of the MMS I've instead decided to look at some of the most useful alternatives to actually using MMS, something I quickly did in an old article looking at the pros and cons of using e-mail instead of MMS. Whilst it is true that E-mail is still the prefered way for some, such as myself, it's certainly not the only way, in fact their is so many different ways that I'm not even going to be able to cover them all, just the most straight forward ones.

The most widely used "third option" (behind MMS and E-mail) are the new messenger apps, things such as Whatspp? and Ebuddy XMS which allow you to send pictures, messages and other forms of media over the internet for free. This is a service much like sending images over MSN for example. For this you only need to make sure you and your friend are both using the same messenger service and both online at the same time. Whilst some people may like this method (and some genuinely do use it an awful lot of the time) I've not been sold over to it personally due to fact that I've simply found Emailing to be quicker, though this is likely to change over the coming years as these services continue to improve.

Facebook has been an internet super-power for the past few years and now you can use the massive social networking sites to send pictures directly from your phone to someone on your friends list. To do this you need to use the Facebook "Messenger" app and select it as a "Share via" option (with an Android, I'm not exactly sure with other phones) when you've selected a picture, then slect a friend. This is a bit of a middle line between e-mail and the above messaging apps as this can be recieved on a PC or a Phone (or anywhere else where the recipient can access their Facebook).

You could as a fifth option (and by far the least attractive for some pictures) share them publicly via Social Networking sites like Twitter, Picasa or Google+. If the picture is something you do want to share with a wider viewing public this is a much better option than E-mailing it to a number of people. However on the flip, if the picture is something that you would only like one particular person to see you'd be rather silly to use this option.

As said at the start of this post, modern phones do have a host of other options to share pictures, though I'd say these are the main 5 to look at if you wish to share the picture with someone further a field than the Bluetooth range on your handset. Of course if you are close enough to use Bluetooth I'd reccomend using that instead as it's quicker and much easier than using things like Ebuddy XMS or Facebook.

How good is the camera on the Samsung Galaxy S2?

 Having previously shown off how good the HD recording facility on the Samsung Galaxy S2 is it seemed about time to really play about with the other camera facilities, notably the front camera and the still 8MP photo's of the back camera.

All of the photographs on this entry have been taken on a sunny day with the phone outdoor using just the camera on the back and n editing at all (in fact even the settings were left to default) and were taken by myself (someone who really doesn't know cameras).

 As you can see in the photographs the colours are excellent, bright and vibrant the shapes are well defined and you can see minute detail on things, such as the pears on this tree, or the freshly cut grass on the lawn. The Shadow of the the tree really stands out as do the branches and if you feel the need to magnify the image and zoom into things you'll be pleased to know that you really don't get any piexlation until you really blowing it up.

Again with this pictures to the left you get a fabulous sharpness to the image, you get amazing colours and you can even see how the pear looks on the white background of the neighboring house. Although I'm not going to claim the photo is amazing it's hard to believe it was shot with a phone by someone who'd typically stick their finger over the flash in an act of clumsiness.

It's however not the pictures of the pear tree that really stand out but instead this pictures of the pink roses which is simply a brilliant demonstration of the sort of photographs even a camera idiot can take. The image is full of colour, full of detail and has a lot of range between light and dark and manages it all wonderfully well.

If you really worry about the camera quality I hope these 4 pictures have helped you realise that the Samsung Galaxy S2's 8MP camera is the real deal and in capable hands you will be able to take some amazing photographs.

How to add attachments to e-mails with the Samsung Galaxy S2

We recently looked at how to send MMS messages with the Samsung Galaxy S2 to share your pictures with a friend, an alternative option is sending them the image by E-mail using either Mobile Internet or Wi-Fi. We're only going to be looking at doing it via the Gmail system (click on the Gmail icon on your phone to access this) which should open something similar to the image on the right side of page you can see). If you press he phones menu button you can open up the small menu at the bottom of the phone and from that you need to click compose.

The compose screen looks a little bit like this, though again you need to press the "menu" button to open up the small selection of options at the bottom. Here you need to press on the "Attach" option which will then allow you to add images or anything else you would like to send.

When attached you should add your subject, your recipient and any text you wish to add (looking something like the image to the right) before pressing on the "Send" icon at the top of the screen. The send icon is the one with an envelope (the one with a floppy Disk is the draft option). The actual writing of an e-mail is easy and your contacts are easy to sync with your e-mail account or even your facebook account.

The advantage of sending E-mails instead of MMS will be looked at shortly in our next piece.

More secrets for the Samsung Galaxy S2

We've recently discovered that the "pinch" controls apply to things other than just the internet. We can use the "pinch" control, which we do by doing things like holding the corners and pinching them inwards on things like the home screens (which you can see on the right hand side) or even on the application drawer. This can make it easier to go through all the screens quickly rather than actually scrolling from one screen to another.

I'm not sure where else the pinch controls can be applied though with these two situations already being there I'd advise trying the pinch settings on a number of other screens that you end up on with your Samsung Galaxy S2.