Checking exchange email without encrypting your Android phone with Touchdown

Finally I can check my company exchange email without encrypting my Android phone using touchdown. Why am I so thrilled about this? 

Reasons:

1) Any encryption will affect performance. Apple and Rim devices are encrypted permanently so people do not have a comparison on their performance without encryption. For me, I found that after encryption my phone do "slow down", although the impact is not very significant but I do feel it. 

2) Encryption is irreversible on Android. Once you encrypt your phone, you permanently have to leave with a 6 digit pin number unless you factory default your android device. It is troublesome if you decide to stop checking exchange email later on. You just cannot remove the 6 digit pin without a factory default.

3) Your phone might get stuck on the boot up password screen if your Android device reboot without you knowing. Android 4.2.1 is still having issue and it might reboot your Android device. With encryption, you need to input your 6 digit pin when booting up. If your Android device reboot, and you are not aware about it. People might not about to reach you as your phone is still waiting for your 6 digit pin. 

I don't know why I did not found out about Touchdown earlier since the app is available since 2008. Touchdown is the most popular exchange email app for Android and it is not hard to know why. For many Android users, we are having problem using Android for work because of the lack of features to support corporate systems. I was unable to check my office email even after encrypting my Android phone for Android version 4.0.3 and earlier. As not all Android phone can receive OS updates, I am stuck with Android version 4.0.3 on my Ino One. Touchdown is a real life saver. I can now check exchange email. Touchdown is a bit pricey at SGD$25.54 but for me I feel that it is worth it. 

3G service in Singapore

While Holidaying in Austraila, I came to realize that we in Singapore really have very bad 3G service. There have been people bashing local telcos on facebook and other online sites but I did not take those bashing seriously as I have not tried out other foreign telco before to do a comparison. In Austraila, I bought an Optus prepaid card to surf the internet for travel  information and location service. The Optus sim card cost $2 and for $2 dollar a day, I get unlimited local call and data. The surfing speed was amazing. It was twice as fast than any Singapore telcos 3G service. I was stunned. Singapore is a small country and we cannot even roll out 3G service as well as Australia which is many times bigger than Singapore. I am using Optus 3G service which is owned by Singtel and it is ironic that how the parent company is providing inferior service than it's member company. I enjoying my mobile surfing in Australia and once I got back, I just hate my local telcos. In Short, they sucks!

Default ICS keyboard or Swiftkey 3 ?

After using Ino One( Non-camera Android phone ) for about a month, I am more or less accustom to Android OS. If not for my job which does not allow me to carry non-camera phone, I do not think I would want to use an Android phone. Simple thing such as using the keyboard is giving me the headache. Although it is said that keyboard has improved alot since gingerbread, but it is still no match for IOS. I get a lot more wrong words using the default Android keyboard than any IOS version. Of course there are better 3rd party keyboard around in the Google Play store but there is a concern for security. There might be a possibility that these keyboard apps might be collecting key stroke data, thus compromising passwords. Putting security concerns aside, I installed Swift keyboard 3. This app is great. I get more words correct using it but I get less battery juice, as it is running in the background even when I am not using the keyboard. I could not live with the shorter battery life, so it is back to the default Android keyboard for me. I seriously hope Android will improve more on the basic features such as the keyboard instead of giving new features I don't use on a daily basis. 

Unable to check office exchange email

I was using Honeycomb on my Xoom 2 when I found that I was unable to check office exchange email. After updating my Xoom 2 to ICS, the problem is solved. I thought Honeycomb was the problem and that ICS has fixed all the bugs. When I got my Ino One phone running on ICS, I try to set up my office exchange email again. Unfortunately it failed. I came to realised that my Xoom 2 is running ICS version 4.0.4 and Ino One is running 4.0.3.  I am not sure if version 4.0.3 giving the problem but I am getting the same error message as when I was using Honeycomb. The error message goes something like this.

 " ... did not have the necessary security features to support my company's security policies."

I check on the web for differences between the 2 version and found out that "4.0.4 not only had a handful of improvements but “a few hundred changes over 4.0.3.” I seriously wonder if the email exchange is included in that few hundred changes. I have no way of telling unless I can get Android 4.0.4 for Ino One. 




Source :

http://www.androidauthority.com/android-4-0-3-vs-4-0-4-vs-4-0-5-75651/

Android 4.0.3

Android 4.0.3 was first released in December, 2011. With an API level of 15, Android 4.0.3 packed a number of features. One of them was the Social Stream API in the Contacts provider. Applications that used social stream data, like status updates and check-ins, could now sync that data with each of the user’s contacts. It allowed users to know what their contacts were doing or saying.

Enhancements were also made to the Calendar, such that apps could add colors to events to allow for easy tracking. New attendee types and states also became available. The Camera also received a few new capabilities, such as apps’ being able to check and manage video stabilization and could use QVGA resolution profiles when needed.

A number of accessibility refinements also came with the update, such as improved content access for screen readers and new status and error reporting for text-to-speech engines. Incremental improvements in graphics, database, spell-checking, Bluetooth, and more were also thrown in.
Gmail also got an update in the form of the Experiments heading in Gmail’s settings menu. Two new options were made available to the user. The first allowed Gmail to index entire messages to improve local search, and the other allowed users to drag and drop contact chips between the To, CC and BCC address fields.
Unfortunately, there were a number of complaints that came with this update too. Users didn’t like the animation and the time it took for them to access the multitasking feature.

Android 4.0.4

Android 4.0.4, released in March, 2012, answered user complaints. Google certainly fixed that lag in getting to the multitasking feature and added a few more things. People were saying that the overall improvement of 4.0.4 was supposed to be how Ice Cream Sandwich should be experienced.
Users on our favorite forum, XDA Developers, said that 4.0.4 really felt like a finished product. According to Android developer Jean-Baptiste Queru, 4.0.4 not only had a handful of improvements but “a few hundred changes over 4.0.3.”


For 4.0.4, Google not only improved the multitasking feature but also improved screen rotation. Screen rotation was more fluid and faster than ever before. Users will notice that when they change their phone’s orientation, there’s a slight lag before the screen rotates. It turns out not to be a glitch at all but is instead a built in “hesitation” so you can be sure that the screen is rotating like you intended.
With how sensitive phones are becoming nowadays, it isn’t uncommon for the screen to rotate when we really didn’t mean for it to. The Camera app has also gotten some improvements that allow it to work faster, smoother, and a little bit better.
One problem with the 4.0.4 update, however, was that some devices, such as the Galaxy Nexus, seemed to be having some problems. There are multiple reports that users experienced signal problems and even loss of signal since receiving the OTA update.  Users of the Galaxy Nexus GSM report that signal loss happened after a few minutes or more of the device entering standby. Turn off the screen and you’ll lose the signal.
Though some users are speculating that this is an energy-saving feature (to reduce power consumption when you weren’t really doing anything with your phone), it annoyed most users. Imagine not being able to receive messages and calls when your phone was on standby.

Voice call forwarding on Android 4.0.3

1) Open phone dialer app.

2) Goto to Settings>Voice Call, Select 'Call forwarding' to forward your call.

Turn off Facebook notifications

Facebook is great place to be connected to your friends. Unfortunately, sometime it gets a bit irritating to have alerts for all the activities in Facebook. You might want to turn it off. Turning it off can also save you some battery life.

Open Facebook app, Goto Account>AppSettings, uncheck Notifications to stop all the irritating alerts.

Now! You are at peace with yourself.

Improving battery life for ICS

Here are some tips for improving battery on your Android ICS device. 

1) Set your screen display to automatic. Goto Setting>Display>Brightness, select 'Automatic brightness'

2) Download a Kill task app and kill all tasks when you are not using the device.

3) Off the push mail function if you do not need to check email real time. Open  the Email app, goto Settings>your configured email account>Inbox check frequency, select 'Never'.

4) Unsync your Gmail email. Goto Settings>Account & sync > your Google email account, uncheck 'Sync Gmail'. Configure the Email app to check google email instead, as you can off the push mail function.

5) Unsync those applications that you do not need. Goto Settings>Account & sync, disable applications that you do not require to sync.

6) Set screen lock. Goto to Settings>Security> Screen lock, choose your prefer way to screen lock your device.


7) Use black or dark coloured wallpaper.