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5 things a newb droid owner must do

Which weather app is the best.

I just got meebo, which seems to work good with both my yahoo and aim IM.

I personally like WeatherBug. It has both small and large widgets and they look nice than the WeatherChannel ones. It also puts the temperature up in your notification bar, which I love. I don't even really use the widget, I just like it for that reason. There is one other weather widget (I think it might actually be called weather widget; i've never used it) that a few people seem to like.

If you get BeautifulWidgets, the "Beautiful Home" widget combines a clock and weather widget into one, and looks very nice, but for some reason BeautifulWidgets is using a load of my battery, so I stopped using it.

Everybody has their preference, none of them are really bad. Try them out and see what you like.
 
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you're not your ..... jk

the power control widget is great. you save huge amounts of battery life by dimming the screen all the way and turning off gps/wifi/sync when not needed.

apps - make one of your first downloads a security app like lookout or antivirus

dolphin browser - multitouch zoom browser
taskiller - good to free up memory
ringdroid - for custom ringtones
picsay - multitouch picture editing and viewing
photo explorer - browse lots of high quality sites for photos
a world of photo - fun camera based game
abduction - fun accelerometer game
tricorder - functional star trek tricorder. it does a lot of really cool stuff
bonjour madame - if you like classy nude pictures of beautiful women

you tube - make sure you choose the "watch in high quality" option. otherwise you will be sorely disappointed.

learn how to easily move stuff around. customization is key with this device. you can do a lot to make you phone easy to navigate as well as impress the poor iphone prisoners.
 
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Don't forget to peel the plastic off the back of the screen. No, wait, don't peel the plastic off the back of the screen. Ah, shoot, I forgot what your supposed to do.

it doesnt really serve any purpose right?

i peeled my friends off and she freaked lol.. shes like noo! its so you dont scratch the back of the phone. i hope shes not right lol.

to add to this thread. im getting my droid in 12 days with my annual upgrade. got any tips to check the phone out to make sure i dont have a lemon or any problems. any common problems like loose screens? buttons make clicking noises or anything else that shouldnt happen for a new phone? I wanna get the phone, go outside test everything i possibly can before i leave the parking lot making sure theres no problems with it physically.
 
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it doesnt really serve any purpose right?

i peeled my friends off and she freaked lol.. shes like noo! its so you dont scratch the back of the phone. i hope shes not right lol.

to add to this thread. im getting my droid in 12 days with my annual upgrade. got any tips to check the phone out to make sure i dont have a lemon or any problems. any common problems like loose screens? buttons make clicking noises or anything else that shouldnt happen for a new phone? I wanna get the phone, go outside test everything i possibly can before i leave the parking lot making sure theres no problems with it physically.
She isn't right. Someone here called verizon and they said it is supposed to be taken off.
 
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Things to do first...

Press & long hold on empty space on home screen, and Add Widget >> Power Control. This'll let you Toggle power to Wifi / BlueTooth / GPS / Sync / Backlight brightness.

Second.

Change to another home screen (left or right) Press & long hold on empty space and Add >> Widget >> Music. This'll let you quickly get to your music collection. PS. Simply create a folder on your SD card called Music and dump/paste your music in there. NOTE: It's in your best interest to use Playlists, so make playlists for your albums, it's much easier when using the default music player to pull up a playlist. Plus this way the album plays in the proper order.

Third:

Bring up the Phone menu (like where you dial a call)

##PROGRAM (or ##7764726) and hit Send.
Enter 000000 (Six Zeroes) for the SPC password.
Go to OPTION 4 - VOCODE
Change it to EVRC-B
Hit APPLY

This will give you MUCH better call quality at the sacrifice of slightly shorter battery life.

Fourth:
Press and hold on an empty space on the screen, Add a > Folder >> New Folder
Press to open that folder, then press on the title that simply says "Folder" Now you can rename it, call it Speed. (for Speed Dials)
Now Press and hold on an empty space in the same home screen, Add > Shortcut >> Direct Dial >> And pick your contact.
Now Press & Hold on your direct dial contact, and drag it to the Folder called Speed.
Wash, Rinse, & Repeat.

You can do the same with text messaging, etc. Now you'll have a folder that will contain your speed dials, and will prevent you from accidentally speed dialing people when you're on that home screen (like I did 4 or 5 times... oops).
Apps that I have, and in the order I would suggest getting them.

*Note* I have linked to the Apps that have pages on AndroLib, if you look on the right, you can use the Barcode Scanner app and it'll take you straight to the Market to download the App.

Barcode Scanner - Lets you scan all these cool QR2 Barcode's that contain links, business
LED Flashlight - App that uses the LED's on the phone as a flashlight.
MotoTorch - Same thing as above I can't remember which one is free.
Astro - File explorer/manager
DockRunner - Lets you switch to the Media Station mode w/o the $30 home charging dock
Anywhere GPS Text - Simply displays your Lat & Lon and a few other basics.
GPS Status - Displays satellites, speed, heading, altitude, signal strength, Metric & Standard
My Tracks - Lets you create a GPS Breadcrumb path/trail as you move (ie. record your path).
Listen - Google's Podcast software... my first time podcasting, not just downloading to PC and stuff, it's amazing.. and painless to use
Gasbot - Cool pay app $7/yr (free trial) lets you find the cheapest gas around, and pick fuel type/distance searched etc.
MountUSB - Widget Toggle that lets you do the PC Mount USB in one touch (for copying files from/to PC).
Advanced Task Killer Free - Great app, remembers what apps you want to terminate, frees up memory
Where - Amazingly handy directory based on your location (find restaurants, gas, etc etc)
Missed Call - Notifications in Status Bar & LED color changes for Missed Calls etc.
Locale - Change ringers/vibrate/notifications auto-magically based on location
contacts, information, etc (like you see in my user icon).
AreaCodes (Pay, I think it's $1.99) - Forward/Reverse Area Code Lookup (wish this was included by default)
Astrid - Simple to do list
Google Sky Map - Turn on your GPS and be amazed, a map of the night sky/stars/constellations etc
Mathdroid - Scientific Calculator for Droid
My Battery Status - Puts an actual %age number indicator in the Status bar of your battery %.
Movies - Find local movie times/theaters
My Verizon - Ya know... your Verizon account etc.
PDFGView - View PDF Files on your phone
Dolphin Browser - MultiTouch web browser
Unit converter - does what it says
Text Easy - Lets you send group/mass text messages

Wifi Analyzer - Find out what channels what wireless networks are on
Wifi Buddy - Lets you know if your Wifi is on but not connected, Keeps wifi active when phone is idle
WifiScanner - Scans wireless networks and displays info (MAC, Signal, SSID, network name, IP address etc)
Wardrive - Logs GPS coordinates of wireless networks detected, displays them on a map, and logs them to a file (AWESOME, just like Netstumbler but better!)

USA Today - New App
Weatherbug - Follows you and shows you weather for where you're at. Also can have alternate location to keep track of weather back home/ parents place.

aCar - Log mileage, fuel costs, maintenance repairs and reminders - AMAZING!!! I love this.
aDyno - Amazing little app. Dynomometer (Horse Power meter for your car), as well as skid pad, g-meter all kinds of cool stuff.
Car Finder Lite - Cinn Dev - lets you mark your cars location when you're @ a huge parking lot, and come back to it. (PS you can sort of do this with Anywhere GPS Text).
DinoDyno - Another Dynomometer for the car.

DroidSans Tweak Lite - Lets you tinker with animation speed AND turn on Compass in Google Maps!!
CubeWorks Trial - Lets you have 6 SIX search screens for the Internet... and maybe your home screen. Not completely sure of this one still getting familiar.
Places Directory - Huge info on locations, sort of like Where
Spare Parts - Shows you DETAILED battery info, can turn on Compass in Google Maps, and adjust animation speeds. I kinda like it better than DroidSans Tweak Lite
RingDroid - Lets you edit and clip up MP3's and set them as ringtones, or set previous edited mp3 ringtones (from other phones) directly as ringtones
Rings Extended - Lets you set Mp3's as ringtones (that's it)
Power Manager - You can have it change power settings depending on power status and battery status (ie. Automatically adjust screen brightness if battery is low etc).
Where's My Droid - Can locate your droid for you if lost/stolen. Can turn ringer on from silent, or send you GPS coordinates back via text.

Games
Barcode Beasties - Scan barcodes to have your barcodes battle other barcodes. Lame and cool @ the same time
Chess Lite - Free, only lets you play on level 1, but it's chess!
Coloroid - Annoyingly difficult and addictive game, try to get all rectangles the same color in as few moves
Jewels - Free knock off of Bejeweled, great time killer
Tricorder - Amazingly dorky little ap, but it's awesome! Gravity, solar flare info, audio analyzer... just download it you'll see!!

Hope this helps... because if it didn't, I just wasted 20 minuntes of my life :D
 
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She isn't right. Someone here called verizon and they said it is supposed to be taken off.

That's BS. Someone here contacted MOTOROLA, the manufacturer not the retailer of the phone and stated that it should be left on. But hey if you want to bicker about it there's large multi-page thread about it elsewhere. That's my 2 cents.
 
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##PROGRAM (or ##7764726) and hit Send.
Enter 000000 (Six Zeroes) for the SPC password.
Go to OPTION 4 - VOCODE
Change it to EVRC-B
Hit APPLY

This will give you MUCH better call quality at the sacrifice of slightly shorter battery life.

OP: I wouldn't do this until you use the phone for a while and feel you have a problem w/call quality. My call quality has been stellar, best I've had on a phone, and I've found no reason so change any settings. In fact, if I had a Droid w/call quality issues I'd more likely exchange it than mess with settings - it should be great out of the box. That is one of the Droids clear strengths. I've been through four Droids (two had battery life issues and one constantly reset, but all of them have had great call quality.

About the best advice I've seen above is learn the long-press technique (Kwai Chang Caine first taught it to me) - it's the best "hidden" feature on the phone.

My five suggestions:

1: Don't assume anything - if something is important to you, test it to see if the Droid supports it. Then find out if there is an app that can fill any voids you find. You will find "missing" stuff... even basic stuff, there are some "interesting" gaps in the Droid's capabilities. An example from my experience is the Droid lacks a way to filter the contact list via the phone dial pad as you type (a feature on the Blackberry that I loved!). Happily, a free app called Super Dial provides that functionality so no issue.

2-5: Try out a bunch of apps...many (most?) are free, and you can test drive paid ones for 24 hours and get a refund when you uninstall them via the Marketplace if you don't like them.

The power of the Android platform is that you can build your own phone. Don't like the built in dialer, SMS app, browser, media player, or whatever? Replace it with whatever app you like better. For a Droid user the marketplace is your friend, and should be on your home page for a long while, while you are tweaking your phone to suit your needs.

Have fun...
 
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I) Master the use of long click and adding/removing widgets and apps to your home screen
II) You'll want the power control widget on there somewhere. Make room for it. This will make your life much easier in the long term.
III) Go find a bunch of cool aps in the marketplace:
Pandora/Slacker/droidlive for music
Backgrouds, which will let you easily swap you background images, ringdroid to crop out bits of mp3s to make a custom ringtone
 
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III) (continued)
Google sky maps, places, where for getting around
Where's my Droid and WaveSecure for security
Dolphin browser if you crave pinch-and-zoom tapped browsing
Finally, download Apps Organizer so you can group your shiny new apps with single icons.

IV) Personalize! Backgrounds, Ringdroid, Beautiful Widgets, Pure Calendar and Pure Grid Calendar. Ect. Go so far as using a replacement home app to really shake things up.

V) Show off your personalized new phone to your non-android friends and grin.
 
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...
Third:

Bring up the Phone menu (like where you dial a call)

##PROGRAM (or ##7764726) and hit Send.
Enter 000000 (Six Zeroes) for the SPC password.
Go to OPTION 4 - VOCODE
Change it to EVRC-B
Hit APPLY

This will give you MUCH better call quality at the sacrifice of slightly shorter battery life...

This just adds another layer of compression for a given bit rate, and a small bit rate at that, over EVRC. It will not provide any better "voice quality", as compression is little higher at that extra rate (4kb), but will help packet delivery when congestion is higher. However this improved call quality will only be one way if the other person is on EVRC, or another technology.

Changing vocoder to 13k will send larger, less compressed packets, providing better voice quality however packet deliver is less guaranteed. Overall voice quality is dependent on throughput and I've noticed that as throughput slows, audio quality suffers, not as good as other systems/phones (Droid to Droid calls were the worst in weak signal situations)...just the nature of the technology.
 
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apps - make one of your first downloads a security app like lookout or antivirus

question - how do you know which ones you can trust? as leery as i am of not having an AV program i'm also concerned about giving a lot of system level access to a random publisher. any one in particular you recommend?

you tube - make sure you choose the "watch in high quality" option. otherwise you will be sorely disappointed.

and then go watch this (in high quality). AMAZING looking on the droid.

YouTube - The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody
 
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That's BS. Someone here contacted MOTOROLA, the manufacturer not the retailer of the phone and stated that it should be left on. But hey if you want to bicker about it there's large multi-page thread about it elsewhere. That's my 2 cents.

yes there is a thread about that but majority of people, verizon and motorola have confirmed or given experiences that show it should be peeled off
 
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1. Buy a case. You'll drop the phone.....it's inevitable....
Read this and just had to laugh. I took delivery of mine a week ago and excitedly removed the "box" from the Fedex shipping box. As I very carefuly attempted to open the top of the nice looking "box" the Droid came in I found out what I was really holding was just a cardboard sleeve. While I'm messing with the top end trying to "open" it, the inner package containing the Droid is sliding out the other end. The phone promptly obeys the laws of physics and slides out of the packaging--Bang goes the phone! :eek: Three foot drop onto a tile floor. :eek: My wife just looks at me as if I just got spaghetti sauce on a new shirt and says "well that sure didn't take long! :mad:
On very close inspection there's just the slightest of dents in the bottom right corner...took me a full two minutes to find it. I nervously plugged the phone into the charger and waited. Once fully charged, it fired right up, no harm done! :D
Next day, dropped it on the same tile floor again taking it out of my pocket--Bang goes the phone! :eek: Wife goes :mad:. I say:eek: "Slippery devil that, in't it?" It landed on the same corner, no new damage. These things are TOUGH! Nevertheless, I now have it enclosed in a two-piece Droid Plastic Snap-on Case/Holster combo I bought at my local Verizon Store. Real industrial looking and feels more like I'm carrying some kind of military comm gear, but now the thing's just a little safer from its klutz owner. Anyway, I guess one of the 5 things a newb should do is "1. Take the phone out of the box and promptly drop it on the floor. Check for damage. Move on."
 
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Read this and just had to laugh. I took delivery of mine a week ago and excitedly removed the "box" from the Fedex shipping box. As I very carefuly attempted to open the top of the nice looking "box" the Droid came in I found out what I was really holding was just a cardboard sleeve. While I'm messing with the top end trying to "open" it, the inner package containing the Droid is sliding out the other end. The phone promptly obeys the laws of physics and slides out of the packaging--Bang goes the phone! :eek: Three foot drop onto a tile floor. :eek: My wife just looks at me as if I just got spaghetti sauce on a new shirt and says "well that sure didn't take long! :mad:
On very close inspection there's just the slightest of dents in the bottom right corner...took me a full two minutes to find it. I nervously plugged the phone into the charger and waited. Once fully charged, it fired right up, no harm done! :D
Next day, dropped it on the same tile floor again taking it out of my pocket--Bang goes the phone! :eek: Wife goes :mad:. I say:eek: "Slippery devil that, in't it?" It landed on the same corner, no new damage. These things are TOUGH! Nevertheless, I now have it enclosed in a two-piece Droid Plastic Snap-on Case/Holster combo I bought at my local Verizon Store. Real industrial looking and feels more like I'm carrying some kind of military comm gear, but now the thing's just a little safer from its klutz owner. Anyway, I guess one of the 5 things a newb should do is "1. Take the phone out of the box and promptly drop it on the floor. Check for damage. Move on."

Great story... ;) Been there, dropped that. Droid literally jumped out of my hands (seriously, it was like it was alive!) when I was in the back yard patio...ended up face-down. But...no screen scratches or damage, no dents, only a couple minor "oop-sies" where some of the black was scraped on the housing that I covered up w/a little permanent marker.

Still don't have a case or screen protector...just don't want to deal w/the additional size. I'll likely regret at some point, but that's what insurance is for, right? :)
 
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question - how do you know which ones you can trust? as leery as i am of not having an AV program i'm also concerned about giving a lot of system level access to a random publisher. any one in particular you recommend?



and then go watch this (in high quality). AMAZING looking on the droid.

YouTube - The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody

there is no way to "know" what you can trust, but reading all the comments you can stomach will help make it easier. i use the 2 i mentioned (antivirus and lookout). it's so funny that you posted that video, it's been my myspace profile vid for a couple of weeks now. it's the best thing i've ever seen on youtube
 
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yes there is a thread about that but majority of people, verizon and motorola have confirmed or given experiences that show it should be peeled off

Had my phone for a month with heavy daily usage, and it yas yet to display bubbling or peeling problems. I realize it will probably not affect performance, however I'm leaving it on as long as it sticks. Once it becomes a prob. then I'll remove it.


Also BUMP, for:

Scroll up to Post #31 my post earlier, that I just spent another 30 minutes Hyperlinking to all the Apps that I listed so all you have to do is click the App name, then scan the QR2 Barcode with your Barcode Scanner app and it'll take you to the download screen. Essentially saving you hours of searching and fooling around in Market, (like I did).
 
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