Category Archives: Android tips

Cinemagraph apps: Plotagraph, Zoetropic, Plotaverse +more

If you are looking for an easy way to add some pizzazz to your still photos, you may want to try making a cinemagraph. In the past, it required quite a bit of time to craft a cinemagraph utilizing fairly expensive programs. Now, however, it can be done on your phone in just a few minutes (or your laptop, tablet, PC if you so desire) at minimal to no cost. As an example, I tried Zoetropic on my Note 8 (Android) and within about

How to re-claim 100GB Google Drive space

Recently I purchased a LG G6 phone. The first time I opened Google Drive it offered me a free 2-year 100GB Google Drive promotion. I already pay for the 1TB a year plan for my account. However, my wife could certainly use the free 100GB. I actually already pay $1.99 a month for 100GB for her, so with the free plan I could cancel the paid plan and save almost $48 over the course of 2 years. Therefore, I promptly canceled out of the

Subtitles in VLC on Android TV [SOLVED]

Until today, I have always had trouble with .SRT subtitles when watching videos on my Android TV device (the awesome NVIDIA Shield TV). The subtitle option was always greyed out and there was no way to load subtitles (even if they had the same filenames etc.) 🙁 The issue appears to be related to watching videos over SAMBA and launching VLC via an app like ES File Explorer. In those instance VLC will not be able to locate the subtitles…. Thankfully, there is a

Smartphone low-light image quality factors

Camera questions from my good friend Jesse: Hola Mr. Hodges! I have a newish Android phone, Moto X Pure (following my trend of getting 6 month olf technology for half price), which has a decent camera (Sony IMX 230 1/2.4-inch 21MP BSI CMOS sensor and a dual-LED flash. F2.0 aperture and 4K video). It works well, but it pales in comparison to some phone’s ability in low-light situations. Is that on the camera hardware, or the app? Same with image

[SOLVED] Moto G 3rd Gen (2015) SD card not accessible via USB

If you have a Motorola G3 (2015) phone with Android 6.0 and a microsd card installed, you may find that the card is inaccessible via USB/PC: Here is how to fix it: Go to Settings, Apps, 3-dot menu, select Show System (to show system apps) Scroll down thru apps to External Storage, select that, pick Storage, pick Clear Data (which also clears the Cache). Go back to the app list and do the same for Media Storage, as you did

HOWTO redeem Gear VR free with S7 and S7 Edge

I am pre-ordering a S7 Edge tonight and at first I didn’t see any info on how to get the Gear VR for free. Thankfully, a chat window popped up and the answer was soon within my grasp 🙂 Chat with AT&T AT&T: Welcome to AT&T Chat. How may we help you today? Me: Hi, do I have to add the Gear VR to my cart to get it… or is it included automatically when I buy a S7? Thx! Jenna: Thank you