Instagram is coming to Android and I don't care. Box cloud storage is a must have app.

Instagram coming to Android. Big whoop why?

The big announcement that the iPhone app of the year is soon to be available for Android Smartphone users. Somehow, I'm missing the excitement of this.

I visited the Instagram web site and their home page offers the following information:


It’s a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures.
Snap a photo with your iPhone, choose a filter to transform the look and feel, send to Facebook, Twitter or Flickr – it’s all as easy as pie. It’s photo sharing, reinvented.
Oh yeah, did we mention it’s free?

There has to be more to this that meets the eye but their website doesn't offer it up. Nothing in that introduction gives me anything more than what I'm already doing. Android already has lots of really cool apps to edit and transform photos, and sharing them on Twitter or Facebook is also just a click or two away. Seriously, am I missing something?

Box app cloud storage app not improves and simplifies.

Free cloud storage: good. Very good.

If you have an active online life (computer, smartphone, photography, social networking), then you hopefully know how important it is to back up all your stuff. Awful things can happen. Your hard drive fries; you lose your SD card; your Smartphone gets stolen; some idiot with a crappy TV show in Las Vegas mistakenly reports you to Google and YouTube for stealing their video content when in fact the content was yours to begin with and they were essentially using it with your permission but Google didn't question the dufus ass and cancels your associated accounts (Google and YouTube) making all of your emails and videos inaccessible forever. Do I sound bitter about that last one? :)

The point is, you don't want to lose your history because, at some time in the future, you may want to revisit a lot of that stuff.

A few years ago I sort of  created my own cloud-like universe with the help of Gmail. Since they give you so much free space on a standard account (currenly more than 8 gig if I'm not mistaken), I just started emailing all of my digital stuff to myself which I could then access from anywhere that had Internet access. That works very well unless it's actually Gmail who shuts down your account, then you're screwed.

Flash drives became very helpful in my back-up life, but now my backpack has about 15 or 20 of them (2 gig to 16 gig) stuffed in a pocket and there really isn't any way to identify what's on them until you plug them in and look. Annoying!

Then, I discovered A-Drive, a free online storage, cloud site which give you 50 gig of space for free. I love it, and sometimes actually remember to upload to it.

Enter Box. Box is an online and Smartphone app which allows you to access your cloud from your desktop, laptop and Android device (or Blackberry and iPhone). They also give you 50 gig.

What makes using Box over ADrive (or many of the cloud storage sites) better is convenience. The app that you download on your device (iPhone or Android) makes it easy to upload on the fly, and if you want to do multiple files at once, you just log into your account on your desktop/laptop and upload away.

With Box you can also allow access to others and they can download and add to your folder.

A feature that I love is about the mobile app is that you can upload multiple files to your Box cloud at once. Here's how you do it: Open the folder which contains the files you want to upload (pics, music, docs, whatever). Then click on the Menu and select Share. Choose Box (download the app first, of course) and then check off the boxes you want to upload.

I'm sure there are many other applications for this application. I'll have to start thinking outside the Box.

Count that baby and a foul! Android basketball games app reviews.

Just because you like a particular sport doesn't mean you'll like the games associated with that sport. And visa versa. I'm not a big golfer, but I love golf apps like Let's Golf 2. On the other hand, I love baseball but have yet to find a computer game or Android app that can keep my interest.

But, when it comes to basketball games and apps, I seem to love them all. For different reasons. So, let's take a look at three of them, and you can check them out yourself.

Basketball Shot - DroidHen Casual

Basketball Shot is basically the same game that you might play in an arcade. A basket the either moves or doesn't, and you keep shooting trying to beat the clock and score a certain number of points for that round. Simple? Yes. But, a fun time killer. Users give it about a four and a half star rating.

Basketball Lite - Ellis Markov

This was the first Android basketball game app I downloaded, and it's still pretty good. Rather than swiping your finger to shoot (like in Basketball Shot) you stretch and line up a trajectory line, and release to shoot. There are five different game modes, but for the most part you are trying to score as many points as you can in a pre-determined amount of time. Basketball Lite gets 4.2 stars and would have been worth downloading, had it not been for......

Tip-Off Basketball - IOPixel

This is the latest (and might I say, greatest) of the basketball games that I've tried so far. I noticed on the Basketball Lite page in the Android Market that it made a reference to check out the sequel, Tip-Off Basketball. They seem to have different developers, but there are certainly similarities.

The way you shoot is similar to Basketball Lite, using the trajectory technique and a time limit. But, that's almost where the similarities end. In Tip-Off Basketball you are given a variety of specific tasks that you must complete before moving on to the next level. Things like making 12 baskets, making a bank shot or even throwing an airball.

I'm still new to the game, but you get points or coins or something and you can buy stuff with them to make the game more interesting or fun or something.

Maybe it's because it's new to me, but this game seems to be the most fun of these three. And the accuracy of the shooting is much better. I give it five stars. It averages 4.7 stars.

Lost your Android device and forgot to load a locator? No problem with Plan B. App review

I discovered this app a few months ago, and for some reason, I thought I already wrote a review of it. Maybe it's time for me to download and review some of those memory enhancement apps.

Anyway, here's the scenario: You misplaced your phone. And not like left it in a room in your house so you can just borrow a phone and use the Where's My Droid app, but really misplaced it. Maybe at the mall, maybe at a friends house, maybe outside somewhere. Crap! I knew I should have searched for and loaded a device locator app. Now what am I going to do?

Luckily, there is Plan B.

When I first read about Plan B it didn't seem possible that you could use an app that you hadn't loaded to locate a lost phone and have the coordinates of your phones location emailed to your Gmail account. But, after my daughter lost her Droid just last week and I was about to tell her that she might have to (heaven forbid) reactivate her Blackberry until she can afford to replace it, I remembered the Plan B app.

I had her log into her Google/Gmail account (necessary) and then search for the Android Market online. Then she searched for Plan B and instructed the Market to load it to her lost phone. Once this was completed, it took about five minutes and she received an email which showed her exactly where her phone was located. Plus, if it's on the move, you'll receive additional emails showing you where your phone is travelling to.

This is without question one of the coolest most useful apps out there. Even though you hope that you never have to use it, it's good to know it's there.

Maybe Big Brother ain't such a bad guy.