Electron Management for Digital Devices - Part 1

I hope I didn't scare you away with the title...maybe I should have called it something like Getting the Most Out of Your Smartphone Battery. This will be a two part series because of the amount of information that I'm going over here. Either way, here goes.

So before I get started with the practical stuff, I'd like to give a brief overview of the technical/theoretical aspect as well as dispel a few myths. I believe that knowing even the basics of the how will help you understand the why. Now, most of the information in this section are not my original thoughts and I like to give credit where credit is due (see footnote). I've tried to only pass on the information that I feel is relevant to this post. Also if you want to get even more technical than what I'm presenting here or you aren't sure of the terms that I'm using, feel free to head on over to Battery University for as much information as your little grey matter desires.

Free Wireless Tethering

Before I start with the guide, I'd like to offer a shout-out to June Fabrics Technology for introducing me to tethering before Androids and iPhones even existed. They have a great wired tethering product called PdaNet that I have used on a Palm Treo/Centro and various Android phones (it also works on iOS/iPhone, RIM/Blackberry, and Windows Mobile). It's a little pricey for a paid app (~$16), but I've definitely gotten my money back over the years. Since wireless tethering has taken over as the preferred method, this software is a bit outdated, but it's always a good fallback option (for unsupported devices) and as a bonus FoxFi (the app in this guide) is included with the install as of PdaNet v3.50.

Ok so now onto the guide.

Things you'll need:
-A rooted OR unrooted Android 2.2+ (Settings -> About phone -> Android version) phone. This may not work on custom ROMs but if you are running a ROM, this guide would be a little basic. If you don't know what rooted is, then don't worry about it, most likely your phone is unrooted.
-10 minutes.

Check here to see if you phone is compatible or scroll to the end of this post.

The Flying What...?

So I had to re-flash my phone because every time I would try to run the new update, it would fail. Anyway, while I was waiting for it to finish, I had the thought that it would be cool to have a blog that just had technology related posts that I think would be useful (or just interesting - maybe just to me) for other people. I've been meaning to create a website for this, but, obviously, the overhead of starting it has kept me from actually doing it. Now before I give a short explanation for the name of this blog, I'd like to set some ground rules...


1) Don't correct my grammar, this is a technology blog and I'm a geek. Everyone knows that we suck at grammar/spelling (for proof, I spelled grammar as "grammer" if you still weren't convinced). Luckily, I have spell check. Unfortunately, grammar check doesn't usually work, so I've learned to ignore it. I suggest you do the same. ;-)


2) Ask questions... Not "I can't get my computer to power on, what should I do?" type questions, but "How would I do ____ with my ____ device?" I can't guarantee that I'll answer them, but I'll try.


That's it for the rules...now on to the title...