1. The biggest drain on most phones is the big, bright, beautiful screen. Some phones have an auto-brightness settings that will dim the screen based on the lighting in the room, which somewhat works, but the best solution is to lower the brightness to something that works for you.

2. Turn off vibrate. It takes a lot more to vibrate the phone than to ring. And turning the ringer down a bit may help too.

3. Manage your background apps. If you have three different Twitter applications, all checking in the background every ten minutes, this will drain your battery more than necessary. Shut down or turn off automatic updates on unnecessary applications. Maybe have your Facebook and Twitter apps check for updates every hour instead of every 2 minutes, no matter how popular you are. Also, turning off push notifications for unnecessary applications will make a difference.

4. Lay off on the Wi-Fi. If you don’t really need anything data-intensive, turn off your wi-fi. You most likely have a fairly good data plan that should be find for simple e-mail and other small things. If you are not near your own Wi-Fi hotspot, the phone will constantly try to find and connect to a signal, which is bad for the battery.

5. Turn off the GPS/Location Services. Again, this will try to connect when you don’t need to.

6. Buy a second battery. You can then easily swap it out when your first one dies. But, like propane tanks on a barbecue, chances are you’ll end up with a big steak on, and two empty tanks…so make sure you charge them!

Most Smartphones are going to be somewhat rough on a battery though, as they get more and more powerful, and do more and more. If you’re going to do a lot of talking, play a lot of Angry Birds, and surf the web, expect to have to charge your phone throughout the day, and always carry your charger with you.

These are just a few tips I could think of. Anyone else have any tips they can share?

With 18 month old twins, and a 4 year old, our trips to the grocery store are filled with laughter, tears, tantrums, and arguments, and that’s just my wife and I.

So, suffice it to say, we need to be organized, and attack that store with a strategic approach.

Luckily, my wife is a bit of a gadget geek too, so we both use the Our Groceries application for our phones. You can set up multiple shopping lists, and even create recipes that will add all the ingredients to your list with one click. You can also categorize each item based on the location/aisle in the grocery store.

The greatest feature however is the ability to synchronize multiple devices. So, as I start at the dairy aisle, and my wife starts at the produce, we can see as the other person checks things off the list in real time!

It’s a very simple application to use, and helps us save time and money at the store, even though we do look a little geeky while we shop.

Easily search for: Movies, Restaurants, Events, Businesses, or People. And each of those categories breaks down into more specific searches. For example, click on Restaurants, then you can either see all restaurants nearby, or search by a specific cuisine if you’re in the mood for something in particular. The best part is that if the restaurant uses “OpenTable”, you can place a reservation directly from the app. Otherwise, you are given a one click option to call the business, view their website, see the location on a map, get directions, and more.

It’s an amazing way to discover new things whether you’re in your own neighbourhood, or visiting a new place. It’s also made in Canada, which is pretty cool.

Poynt is available for: iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and WP7. Visit your phone’s application store/market/place to download.

Find out more at www.poynt.com

We’ve quickly been thrown into the purchasing, wrapping and other preparations that surround us at this time of year.  With each year that passes I always vow that “I’ll be better prepared next year”. A great aspiration but, by the time the next Christmas season rolls around, I’m usually back in the same crunch that I always find myself in.

Not this year! This year, I promised to make a conscious effort to make it a little less stressful and a little more magical without  the post-Christmas financial hangover. We started our shopping earlier than we normally do – allowing us to put thought into what we are buying for everyone  and spread the spending out over several months.

I also enlisted the help of technology.

Too often, we wonder around the mall with a mental list of the people to check-off the and, worse, only a mental tally of the money we’ve spent.

This year, I downloaded an application onto my iPhone called ‘Holiday Shopping List’. It’s just one of the many available in the App Store. This handy little addition has allowed me to build our list, assign individual budgets for each person, categorize folks, make notes as we shop and keep a running tally of what we’ve spent (both individually and in total).It also allows you to mark a person as ‘finished’ – one of my most favorite features!

Now, as we shop, I have a current list in my pocket. No more scribbles on paper for us! I love this application. It’s allowed me to keep a really accurate tally on our status of what’s left to do and what we have left to spend. For once, I’m in control of Christmas Shopping and not the other way around.

Such a little thing has made a big difference! With our shopping in a good place – it’s left us time to actually enjoy the time leading up to the big day. We’ve been watching holiday movies, baking cookies, checking out the Christmas lights – who knew that the pre-Christmas weeks could be so fun!

Happy preparing!

- jenn

So, what do you buy that special Geek/Gadget freak for Christmas?

1. A Smartphone – This one is a really bad gift unless you know they really want the commitment. Sure, you’re paying the up-front costs, but you’re also sticking them with a monthly bill of $60 or more. may be a good idea to offer to pay for a few months of usage. There are tons of models out there, and it will all depend on the person you’re shopping for. The safe bet is an iPhone, as it has mass appeal, is simple to use, and is also an iPod, so you can skip my next gift idea. I would buy my wife an iPhone if I was to get her a phone as a gift. For the geek out there, I think an Android phone is the way to go! If the person is all about work, and has no idea what the internet is, then go with a Blackberry.

2. MP3 Player – Yeah, I’m not even going to pretend that there are other options out there. Get them an iPod Touch.

3. GPS – This is a tough one. With most Smartphones having GPS, and some moving towards a turn-by-turn GPS function (Google Maps Navigation for Android!!!), it will eventually get to a point where it’s all in one device. Until then, a car GPS is pretty cool. Look for one with Bluetooth so they can pair it with that Smartphone and not break the hands-free law in Ontario.

4. Laptop – Depending on the need, you can go anywhere from an ultra-portable Netbook (I recommend the Asus EeePC) to a big screen workhorse. You can pay anywhere from $250 to $4000 for something like this.

5. Pretty much anything from ThinkGeek. This is the ultimate online store for everything Geek. They have a great selection of gadgets, t-shirts, and just fun stuff.

Have a great holiday season!

Brandon, the Geek

The Goods:
- Android operating system is amazing, and is only getting better
- Has wifi
- GPS is great, and ties in to Google Maps and other applications very well
- If you are a Google user (Gmail, Google Calendar), it integrates flawlessly with these. (you will need a Google account to use the phone). It’s free, and I use Gmail for almost all my e-mail. The phone will automatically sync your Contacts, e-mail, and Calendar with your online ones. It’s pretty damned seamless
- Android Marketplace has some great applications (like the iPhone, only not quite as good yet)
- The Dream has a full physical keyboard, touchscreen, and scroll-ball – which makes it a triple threat.
- Very solid web browser, and will match the iPhone’s once Android gets multi-touch.
- It is open and customizable
- Memory – you can add a microSD memory card to it for more space. They are very cheap.
- It is a solid option as a smartphone that is not an iPhone or a Blackberry.
- Not a bad camera (3.1 megapixel), which has autofocus, so you can use it to scan barcodes to see where you can buy something cheaper. Also records video. Does not have a flash though, so you, and your target must remain still.
- You can run multiple applications at once, unlike some other phone…
- You can actually customize the interface, with simple things like a custom background! Take that iPhone!
The Bads:
- No headphone jack. It comes with earphones with a built in microphone that plug into the charging port. Really crappy that it doesn’t have a generic headphone jack.
- Bad battery life. Like the iPhone, if you use it, you’ll get a day out of it (unless you turn off wifi and GPS, then it lasts longer).
- Internal memory is so small (256MB) that it may not be able to handle the next Android update. They are working to get around that, but as of now, it looks like it will be limited in updates. This is very, very disappointing, and I hope Rogers will honour its early adopters with an upgrade.
- It’s a little thick and bulky, kinda like me. But I was willing to deal with this for the keyboard.
- It is the first of the Android phones, and the hardware is unable to really take advantage of what Android can really do. I have also had to reset the phone a few times…

Here is what it came down to for me: I use this thing a lot for work, so I e-mail, text, schedule things, and use the web a lot on it, so I wanted the keyboard. And, being a geek, I LOVE the phone. I would say to anyone looking to buy a solid smartphone to check out the HCT Magic, which is the touchscreen only Android phone. I think it’s the same price, and is faster, better battery life, and has enough internal memory to handle future upgrades. Also, it’s a little smaller and sleeker. You do lose the physical keyboard for a virtual one though. So, if you’re like me, and HATE typing on something like the iPhone, then the Dream is a good choice.

As for the available Applications, right now, they are not quite as good, and polished as the iPhone’s, but they going to have to get better. Recently, Facebook had to concede and make an application for Android. With over 20 new phones coming out, they can no longer disregard Google’s Android as a fad. Now, that being said, they devoted 1 person to help with the creation of the Facebook application, while I have a feeling they team for the iPhone app was substantially larger. I have not doubt that Android is going to be a big contender to the iPhone and Blackberry.

When it comes down to it, I can’t live without this phone for work (or geeky fun), and it does the job really well. You can watch YouTube, surf the web, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, Instant Messaging…

As far as smart phones go, it’s the only choice I would have made. I really don’t like Blackberries, although their battery life is amazing, I just hate the interface, usability, and their browser is atrocious. They are a great business work-horse, yet not so much a consumer/geek phone.

If you are looking for a safe, tested phone, the iPhone is most likely the way to go, even though it’s a wee bit pretentious. It’s pretty solid, and just works. But it’s expensive, and you are getting trapped into Apple. Apple is the new Microsoft/Evil Monopolistic Corporation in my eyes, not to be overly dramatic…

To me, as a geek, there was no choice other than an Android phone.