01792211844 Annoying calls to new phone

I recently bought a new phone (Nexus 4) and have not given out the details to anybody, except Apple. Today I received an annoying automated call informing me of money I could possibly be owed (PPI insurance most likely). This was obviously some sort of scam, but how did they get my number? There are 2 companies which I have allowed to know my number intentionally, which are Apple and of course my phone supplier Vodafone.

After looking into who might have my number, which now seems to be anyone, my conclusion if that my phone number has been retrieved from one of the apps I have downloaded recently. These apps can access my phone information and send it back to the company or individual, then they will sell it on. So these free apps from android can take information from your phone and sell it on.

Here is a list of possible suspects

• Lazors
• Flow free
• Real Racing 3
• Logo Quiz

It could be none of these, but somehow someone has got my new phone number and sold it on.

Screen Capture MAC

I use both Windows and Apple computers and I needed to find the best way to capture an area of the screen on my iMac. I thought I needed something like Cropper which I use in Windows, but have discovered iOS has it built in. Here are the following capture options I have discovered:

1. To capture an area of the desktop, press cmd+shift+4, this will give you a cross hair where you can select and area of the screen, this will save the image as a png file on the desktop.
2. To capture a application screen, press cmd+shift+4, to display the cross hair again, now hit the space bar and the icon will change to a camera and will select areas of the desktop.
3. To capture the whole desktop, press cmd+shift+3.

I thought this was great that Apple has included these features in iOS, I bet I will find some more useful features the more I use iOS.

How to Access Android files on Mac

I recently purchased a Nexus 4 phone, over the past couple of months I have been taking photos and video and wanted to transfer them to my iMac. I thought I would simply need to plug in the phone into the USB port and it would see the files, this is how it is done on Windows PC. At first I was a bit worried that because it was not Apple, and I had an awful feeling it would not work. But after doing some research all you need to do is download the Android File Transfer application, install it and you can see the files on your Nexus 4 phone.

Pomodoro technique using RicRac Stopwatch

As a software developer I have been looking at possible ways to increase productivity, recently I have spent a couple of days looking at the time management technique called Pomodoro. The basic process is to do increments of work which last for 25 minutes and then have a 5 minute break these are called pomodoros, then after 4 pomodoros you take a longer break of about 20 minutes. 

To do this I downloaded the RicRac Stopwatch, installed it and made a second copy by coping the directory, this then gave me 2 copies which I could have 2 different settings for, the first with a 25 minute countdown and the second with a 5 minute countdown. RicRac stopwatch worked well doing this, the issues I had was with the technique itself, my main criticism of the technique is that I work in an open plan office, and people constantly interrupt, which breaks the increments. For this technique to work I think I would need to be in a quite office or work from home.   

Nexus 4 battery problem

The other day my Google Nexus 4 phone had a battery charging problem. I put the phone on charge with 43% remaining and after a few hours maybe up to 5 the charge was only up to 45%. Taking it off charge and looking at the usage it dropped back down to 44% within a minute. I thought I was in trouble and there was a physical problem with the battery. The solution was to completely turn off the phone and switch it back on, then it started charging fine and I've had no problems since. The only thing I can think of that could have caused a problem is either the number of apps running or a specific app that causes a problem, will keep an eye on it.

The Nexus is not great when it comes to keeping its battery power and I have to charge mine on a daily basis. Here are some tips on improving the charge of the battery.

• Switch the NFC and Bluetooth off when you don't need it.
• Turn off App syncing when you don't need the App to be synced.
• I've chosen a dark background to try to reduce brightness.
• Apps that have the option to change the background colour I've set to black.
• Check the battery usage and see what areas could be improved.

Google Nexus 4 pros and cons

I recently purchased a new Google Nexus 4 phone, I had previously owned iPhones and even though I am a great fan of the iPhone, I decided to try something different and the price of the Nexus is £300 ($465) cheaper than the iPhone 5 costing just £250 compared with £550 for an iPhone. My first impression of the device was it was well built with curved glass edges, the speaker at the back is positioned in a funny place, the camera lens and flash are where you would expect them. There is no physical home button like the iPhone, but the home button is part of the display, which is actually better and I expect Apple will do something similar with the next iPhone..

The power supply for charging is via a micro USB, which is not as nice as the iPhone 5, but is more standard. I have found that the charge like the iPhone does not last that long and need to charge the phone almost everyday.

The Nexus 4 uses the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system, which runs very fast thanks to the quad core snapdragon CPU, and the 2GB of RAM, twice that of the iPhone 5.

The dimensions of the phone are 68.7 x 133.9 x 9.1mm making it larger and thicker than the iPhone and it feels slightly heavier, it has a 4.7 inch screen which fits very close to the edge of the device.

The main camera is 8 mega pixel which works OK, but some of the photos I have taken the result is a bit saturated and the contrast is not that good, it does however have HDR and panoramic options which do work well. There is also a 1.3 mega pixel front facing camera, which currently I have only used to unlock the phone with the great option of face recognition for unlocking.

Here are what I consider the Pros and Cons of the Nexus 4:

Pros

• Price is amazing and what you get for the money cannot be beaten.
• Well made phone which feels nice to use, I have already dropped it from about 5 ft and it survived fine.
• Elegant design with the glass edges curving and the edges having more grip.
• Very fast.
• Latest version of Android.

Cons

• Using headphones the max volume is still a bit to low, solution was to download so free software to boost the output.
• Battery life is short like other smart phones.
• No expandable memory.
• Copy and paste does not work as well as the iPhone.
• Not as intuitive to use as the iPhone.  

In conclusion I am very happy with the phone and at the price is an excellent product.

Canon Pancake Lens Review

A couple of months ago I got a Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM Lens also know as a pancake lens due to its dimensions. It is a small lens which it designed for use as a video lens because of its silent motor (STM meaning stepping motor). The quality of the lens is good with the connection area being metal, instead of plastic on cheap lenses. It has a 40mm focus length which works well in both in-door and out-door situations. When videoing even though the lens it meant to be silent there is a slight noise.

The lens is very thin like a pancake and because of the dimension it easily fits into the camera bag. This is not a professional photographers review of the lens, but after using it for a couple of months I have found it a very useful lens, not just for taking video, but it produces some great photos which are clear and sharp. Because of the size and price, which is less than £200 it is a great little lens to own and would recommend it.

HTML5 Links

Below are some great HTML5 links I have found

Apples HTML5 page with links to some decent demos
http://www.apple.com/html5/

Mozilla developer network links to loads of HTML5 demos
https://demos.mozilla.org/en-US/

Googles HTML5 demo web site
http://www.chromeexperiments.com/

Loads of information and resources on HTML5
http://www.html5rocks.com/en/

Microsofts Internet Explorer demo page with some demos of HTML5
http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/

Examples of HTML5 features including some great resources
http://beta.theexpressiveweb.com/