How to share android apps over your social networks

 So you've managed to find yourself a fantastic app and now you want to share it with your friends and family over facebook, twitter or Google+, this guide will show you exactly how to do this.

Firstly you need to open the app drawer, it will look something like the image to the left hand side with all your apps (though you may have a different view, such as a list view) on this screen you need to press on your phones "Menu" button and then choose "Share app".

After you click on "Share app" you should see a list of the apps on your phone with a tick box next to them and a search box (much like the screen shot on the right hand side). From this screen you need to select the app (or apps) you wish to share. For the sake of this example I'll be sharing the excellent game "The King Of OX", so tick the box next to the game (as I have done in this picture.
After selecting the app (or apps) you want to share click "Done" on the bottom of the screen and then you'll see a screen like the one on the left, the "Share via" screen. This screen will have all your social apps (facebook, plume, twitter etc) so select the one you want to share the app with. For the rest of this example I'll be using Facebook but the other apps are all similar

After clicking on the app you want to share with you will open that app (as you can see in this screen shot I'm sharing it over facebook) and you'll be able to add your own comment. When you are happy with the message and the app your sharing you need to just click "Share" and you'll be sorted.

After clicking "Share" (or send, post etc depending on the app) it will be added to your feed or status and your friends will be able to click on the status to be taken to the app market and download it themselves with out needing to search for it.

Posting youtube videos to facebook on an Android phone

 So you've found an awesome youtube video whilst surfing the web on your Android Smartphone phone and now you want to share it with your friends, but you don't know how. This guide will explain, in details, exactly how you share any videos found on the youtube app with your friends on facebook, twitter, google+ or any other social networking app.

First you will need to load up a video in youtube and make sure the view is set to the portrait view. This should look something like the image to the left and at the top of the screen you can clearly see "More", click on this.

After clicking on "More" you will see 5 new options open up on the screen like in the screen shot to the right. From those options you will need to select on the "Share" icon (which you can see near the right hand side of the screen). If you've used the "share" facility on Android in the past you will know what to expect
and for those that haven't used the "share" facility before it is really simple. You'll see a list of your social apps (similar to the screen shot on the left) which you can scroll down to find the exact app you want to use, for example "Twitter" or "Plume".

When you've selected the app you want to share the video on
you will be taken to the post status screen (like this screen shot of posting on Facebook). When you've added your message to go with the video just post (or share) as you would do normally and it'll be updated to your status.

Where is the best place to look for cheap contract deals?

In the past we've never really had a great look at where to get the best deals. We've looked at the best way of getting a good deal with your current network when you're upgrading, but what about if you're going to enter the mobile contract world for the first time? Where do you look as a first time buyer into this massive growing industry?

Most people will go to the high street, they will check out the general network stores and see what the networks themselves offer. They will generally expect better prices by dealing with Vodafone, Orange, O2, T-Mobile and 3 directly. If you're a little bit inquisitive you will likely then check out offers from Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4 U. Somewhat unexpectedly these two stores can often better the deals offered directly by the network, they do this due to getting discounts from the networks.

Now whilst most customers will look at those as the only 2 avenues (direct from the network or from a 3rd party on the high street) there is in fact another, much better avenue and one that has more in common with companies like USwitch and CompareTheMarket.com. One of the major phone comparison websites is www.omio.com which, I've personally found to be the best.

An example of what I've found on Omnio:
HTC Sensation for £25 a month (handset comes free) with 500 MB of data, unlimited texts, 500 minutes with Orange

Directly with Orange for £25 a month with the phone you need to pay £199 up front and you only get 300 minutes and the texts (you need to pay more to add the data). In fact Orange offer NO contract directly where you get the handset (the HTC Sensation) free for under £30!

With Phones 4 U acting as the middle man you pay £27.50 a month with a free handset and get a slightly improved deal from the Omnio (700 minutes) thanks to a very generous special offer saving £7.50 a month.

With Carphone Warehouse their closest to the Omio deal is the same contract but for £30 a month and with a £69.99 charge up front for the phone.

As you can see there is a lot of discrepancies from place to place. Had it not been for the Phones 4 U offer the Omio deal would be the best by far...and in fact Omio SHOW the Phones 4 U deal anyway! See Omio is win win.

No matter what, I advise, strongly, looking on Omio before going anywhere for your next phone. Why go through a number of stores when you can do it by visiting just 1 site?

How to take Black and White Photos on a Samsung Galaxy S2

We all know that for some reason black and white photography is more "artsy". Whether it's emo's trying to look cool or a photographer trying to add an effect that always seems to look black and white is...the new colour. If you've a brand new Samsung Galaxy S2 taking photos in black and white is simple but brilliant.

Firstly you need to open up the Camera application and then open the settings for the camera (click on the cog icon in the bottom left corner). Inside the settings menu you need to find the option for "Effects" and then you're screen should look a little something like the one above. In the effects menu you need to select the "greyscale" option.

After selecting "greyscale" you'll notice the colour vanishes from the screen and you'll see images in "black and white". If you then take a photo you'll have taken a black and white photograph and seemed all intelligent and arty, just take a look at the two pictures below and admit the black and white one looks more "arty".

How to create a playlist on a Samsung Galaxy S2

 Although iPhone users may think iTunes is the only way to listen to music on a phone they are, as usual, not correct. Whilst iTunes is probably the best way, it's far from being the only way. One of the things that all music listeners like to be able to do is create play lists, whether it's something like "Music to relax" or "Romantic" or whatever it is they like to be able to just listen to a specific selection of tracks. It's not only iTunes that you can make playlists on.

To make one on the Samsung Galaxy S2 is incredibly simple and this guide will show you exactly how to do. Firstly open the default music player and then select the "Playlists" tab and press the phones menu button. This will leave you with a screen that looks like the one on the right hand side.
After selecting "Create" you will see a screen where you need to enter the name of the playlist and then you will see a screen like the one on the left with the name of the playlist at the top (in this case "Mash ups") and the option to "Add music". Click where it says "Add music".

After clicking on "Add music" you will see a be given a list of all your tracks allowing you to select the songs you want. As well as being given all your tracks you can select "Artists" or "Albums" from along the tabs at the top of the screen if you want to narrow down the lists. You need to select all the tracks you want (in this case a bunch of mash ups) and then press on "Add" at the bottom of the screen.
After pressing add and going back to the play lists you will see your new playlist added to the list. Remember you can make 100's of play lists so one for ever mood (or every occasion). A great use for this is to keep all your podcasts into a single list, or even keep a specific podcast list (for example a "Fighting Talk Podcast play list").

Whilst this is simple enough to do on iTunes, owners of Galaxy S2's needn't feel ashamed by their phones music player either.

How to take a screen capture with an iPhone 4

Picture courtesy of Robert Nelson
from Flickr

Having already done guides on taking screen shots with the Samsung Galaxy S2 and Samsung Wave it seems only fair to do the same thing for the iPhone 4, the latest release of Apples hugely successful iPhone range. This is just as simple as it is with the 2 Samsung's I've just mentioned and again merely involves pressing 2 buttons on the screen you want to capture.

For the screenshot you need to press on both the "Home" and "Sleep" at the same time. Following this you should hear a the sound of the camera and then the screen capture will be taken.

To find the image you need to open up your pictures and it will be the most recent image in the Photo Roll.

The problems with an iPhone 4

Although the follow up the the iPhone 4 appears to be just around the corner the current phone still seems to be selling well and is still one of the best phones available despite being almost a year old. Apple have brought out the newest version of the iOS (iOS 5.0) and it seems inevitable that a phone will be following. Although much debate rages whether it will be a proper upgrade (i.e. iPhone 5) or a variation of the iPhone 4 (i.e. iPhone 4S or iPhone 4G) the current phone is the one we will focus on here.

The big issue was (and still is) the well known "death grip" that caused a lot of noise when the phone was first released. The "death grip" caused the signal (and as a result calls) to suddenly vanish due to the way users held the phone. Apple's unhelpful response was to tell users "You're holding it wrong" (which, understandable annoyed customers) and never actually got properly sorted.
The cause of the death grip was holding certain parts of the phone, almost in a natural position as you would do for a call and it did lead to huge negative press for the company. Despite the "death grip" the phone sold well and Apple even managed to fleece extra money from customers by selling them a "Bumper case" just to try and prevent the signal loss. Effectively they asked for more money to make their very expensive piece of kit work properly rather than took a financial hit themselves and recall the unit.
The bumper case did solve the problem pretty well, especially for Apple, though it wasn't the only problem with the phone, it was, by far, the most embarrassing.

The camera, on release was also a major issue. It ranged from the virtual shutter just shutting and staying shut to an innate ability to make white appear yellow in indoor pictures. Whilst these issues have, seemingly been fixed since the early releases some people have still had issues with the camera in the past few months so just be aware of this if you do fancy getting one. It is also worth noting that the main Camera is just a 5MP one, and this is below what seems to be the standard for top phones at the moment (expect this to be upgraded when the next release is available).

Whilst the phone is a cracking handset that makes full use of a wonderful OS and wonderful hardware the phone is starting to show signs of it's age (at last). As mentioned above the main camera is "only" 5MP (with the standard now set at 8MP) as well as just 512MB of RAM (this is on par with devices such as the HTC Wildfire S and the Samsung Galaxy S). If you are fancying getting an iPhone I'd strongly advise waiting to see what they are to bring out. The device, although still having a high price tag, wasn't really the leap forward that many had hoped for and whilst it did add a number of nice new features it's certainly not the phone that really "Changed everything", it just raised the bar and others have since raised it which is why it's showing it's age.