Opening up the Market: HTC Legend UK update

I was pleasantly surprised to discover my new HTC Legend alerting me to the fact that it had a firmware update waiting for me earlier today. I knew there was one in the pipeline to address the Market issues that I alluded to in my last post (a number of mainstream apps missing for the Legend) but I wasn't expecting it so soon. As far as I can tell it's an update specifically for UK Legend users on the Vodafone network.

I was given the option of downloading it there and then over my 3G connection, or to wait until there was a wifi connection available. It was only 9MB but I decided to go for the wifi option. The update sat patiently in my notification bar until I returned home, and then it promptly started downloading.

About 5 minutes later, after download, install and restart, I checked the phone's Software Information screen (to get there, go to Settings -> About Phone -> Software Information) and then listed at the bottom was the all-important Software Number, listed as 1.32.161.4. I had been upgraded!

I promptly checked the Android Market and sure enough, all those essential (but previously missing) apps I had been looking for had now appeared. I'm now set up with the full complement of apps that I wanted and pleasingly, they're all pretty much identical to their iPhone counterparts. I've got a few Android-specific ones in there for good measure as well. In no particular order then, here's what I've got (links are to the webpage specific to the Android app):

Evernote - Note-taking app, allowing you to upload photo notes, audio notes and text notes to your online scrapbook for later reference and searching.
Dropbox - Access to your Dropbox and its contents, and again letting you upload files direct from your phone
Shazam - For quick and easy identification of music that you hear, but don't know what it is!
Wordpress - Blog tools and management
Opera Mini - Good browser for when your 3G connection is slow
Google Listen - Podcast downloads, playback and search
NewsRob - RSS reader that syncs with your Google Reader feeds with excellent user interface, and offline caching
BBC News - App for direct access to all of the stories on BBC News
Google Sky Map - Point your phone at the night sky and the app will tell you what constellations you can see
c:geo - Geocaching app allowing you to locate and manage Geocaches, also syncs with your geocaching.com account
My Tracks - Lets you record your journey on Google Maps, complete with times, speeds, elevation etc and upload it
Barcode Scanner - Useful for price comparisons, and increasingly for finding and downloading other apps via QR codes
Astrid - Task manager and to-do list

Any others I should have? Let me know in the comments.

Mac software essentials

Once I'd taken delivery of my new iMac, I had the task of setting it all up the way I wanted it. Fortunately, being a Mac, that is all very easy. When you first switch it on, it asks you if you've got a Time Machine backup that you'd like to use to restore your previous data. Obviously I had been using Time Machine, so pointed it in the right direction. It then asks exactly what you want restored - music, photos, applications etc. I decided to just go for my personal data, as I was aware that I had clogged up my old machine with no end of applications that I had only ever used once before deciding they weren't for me.

Everything restored just the way I wanted it, but then I had the task of putting back just the applications I REALLY wanted, and this was quite a useful decision-making process. So what did I install? Here's my round up - and you'll be pleased to know it's all free!

The first thing I went for was trusty old Firefox. I prefer it over Safari for a number of reasons - I like the plugins you can get for it, particularly Xmarks, favicon support and its Google search defaults to the UK site. Small things, but for me it gives it the edge.

The next essential app is Skype. It's even better now I have a Mac with an iSight camera, as obviously I can now do video chat. All my friends have an account, and not only does it do voice and video chat, it's also a very decent instant messaging program. Add in the fact that I've also got it installed on my iPod Touch and mobile phone, it's an absolute must-have.

Next up, Dropbox. I realise that you can just use it direct from the web interface, but the Mac app adds so much more. I've got it set up to automatically synchronise with my Documents folder, so I know I've always got an up-to-date copy on Dropbox if I ever need a file, and the drag-and-drop nature of the desktop app means it's all much simpler than the web uploader.

I'm going to bundle these two together, as they are very similar in their functionality - Perian and Flip4Mac. In actual fact, there's nothing that you need to do with them once they're installed, but they give you access to all the different web video codecs that you're likely to come across. Flip4Mac handles WMV files within the Quicktime player, and Perian does the rest.

On a similar video-based theme, the VLC player is very handy for playing any truculent videos that don't like the Quicktime player. Not only that, it's essential to get my next app choice to work properly. Which brings me on to...

Handbrake! A fabulous piece of free software, it allows you to rip DVDs to a variety of formats and sizes. It works in conjunction with the VLC player, so make sure you've got that installed if you want to use Handbrake. There are a lot of settings to play with if you're so inclined, or just go for the presets.

If you're a Twitterer like me, then a Twitter client is a must-have rather than constantly visiting the website. My client of choice is Twitterrific, which is free if you can put up with the occasional advert. It's slick and unobtrusive, and there's a matching iPhone/iTouch app too.

One of the finest ideas in a long time, Spotify is quite something. Internet-based free music, supported by the occasional advert (or ad-free if you want to pay a subscription). I think it's brilliant. Great for discovering new music before committing to a purchase, and I really like the iTunes-like interface.

If you like to dabble in a bit of BitTorrent, you can do a lot worse than this very fine client app, Transmission. Small but perfectly formed, it does everything you need to do without any bloat or unnecessary features.

Should you need to FTP anything, then Filezilla is a great fully-featured free application for doing just that. Not much more to say really. Easy to use, does everything it needs to including secure FTP if you require it.

And finally, if you just can't help yourself and you find yourself installing stuff that you later discover you don't want then you need to get rid. You could just drag it to the trash, but that's not very sophisticated. AppCleaner will also get rid of all the associated files and folders leaving you crud-free. Splendid.

So there you go - all tried-and-tested, top notch free applications. So are there any that I've missed? Your suggestions in the comments if you will...

Offsite

I've recently got my hands on Leopard and I've started using Time Machine for backups - and I have to say it really takes the hard work out of backing stuff up. However, as good as it is I've also started being extra cautious and begun a strategy of off-site backups. I figure that all the backup in the world won't help if some scumbag burgles your house and nicks not only your computer but your backup drive as well. Believe me, in my line of work I see it all the time.

I've burnt all my photos (one year per disc) to DVD and also backed up all my iTunes music to DVD too, and shipped them off to a trusted source. I know that iTunes isn't strictly necessary bearing in mind I still have (most of) the original CDs, so I can always re-rip, but thats a bit of a long task really - and if the aforementioned scumbag steals your CD collection as well as your computer then you're really scuppered, particularly if you've got some classic discs that have now been deleted.

There's not a huge amount else of importance. I make very regular backups of all the websites I work on, but those are fairly small files, so not only do they go on to backup drive AND USB stick, they also get burnt to CD for good measure every so often and I've just started chucking the odd folder of documents and stuff onto DropBox (www.getdropbox.com). I figure you can't be too careful.

Think about it - you might not want to put all your eggs in one hard-drive-shaped basket, regardless of how good your backup strategy is. Just something to think about...