1. K9-Mail – I wasn’t a fan of the default Android mail. Blackberry really was great about one thing; email. With K9-Mail, it gets a little closer as you can set how often you want email pulled off the server, whereas I believe the default Android mail system only does that for Gmail.
2. Google Talk – If you don’t have unlimited texting for your Android, the Google Talk app is a great alternative. You can text all you want w/out incurring any overage fees for texting too much. The only drawback is that the other person needs Google Talk as well.
3. Facebook – I’m hardly addicted to it, but it’s become a standard app. It’s so easy to take pics, upload to Facebook, tag people, reply, send messages, etc.
4. TweetCaster – I think this is, by far, the best Twitter app for Android. The primary reason is how it handles multiple accounts. I’ve tried others and almost switched to TweetDeck, but there were definite pros with TweetCaster that I couldn’t find elsewhere (i.e. autofill for names, quick follow, etc.)
5. WordPress – It’s just like it’s Blackberry counterpart, but as with most apps, it’s improved over time. I’m able to take a picture with my phone, share it via the WordPress app (like Facebook) and it will upload it into a post.
6. Reddit Is Fun – If you like Reddit, but want something better than their mobile site, this app makes surfing Reddit, well, fun.
7. CraigsNotifica – This handy unofficial Craigslist app makes searching and tracking items on Craigslist a breeze. Plus, as the name implies, you can set up notifications to alert you when a new item that matches your query is added.
8. Pandora – With a new phone, I tried a new service and even paid for Slacker. It didn’t get along with my phone and I’d frequently have to relaunch it, which is a pain while driving, or mowing the lawn. Pandora, even though you can’t cache stations, works much better.
9. Gas Buddy – As gas prices continue to rise, I’m finding that I use this app more and more. It serves a singular purpose, and that is to help you find the lowest gas prices in your area.
10. Google Sky Map – The coolness factor of this app is off the charts! Turn this app on and you instantly have in front of you a map of constellations and planets, wherever you point your phone. My son was learning about planets in preschool & he loves this app too!

Obviously, there are a lot of other apps I use and some I would include based on frequency of use, but, like Droidin (the best LinkedIn app I could find), they just aren’t that great. I also use Tapatalk for a few forums I frequent, but many forum scripts have their own built in mobile versions that are just as good.

What are your favorite Android apps?

I liked the look and functionality of this theme and it wasn’t too over-the-top news-ish, but still has some of the cool slider features and sidebar & footer widget areas. Normally the InReview theme would be used for product reviews and ratings – there’s a full rating system for editors to rate product features and for visitors to provide their own ratings. It’s a great theme and maybe I’ll find a use for it on another site… Be sure to check out Elegant Themes for a ton of other great themes w/ one low price to use any/all of them!

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy the new theme! As I mentioned in my previous post, I have some new post ideas in the works and should be able to get some new content published in the very near future.

So, let me know what you think of the new look for drivelocity.com!

Anyhow, I’m working on implementing a new theme and will try to revive drivelocity from the dead. Since many things have changed over the past year, some of which involve old topics, I have some new post ideas ready to go once the new theme is ready.

The current theme, while whimsical and suitable for this site, is quite limited as far as customizing and using widgets. I’m pretty excited about that. Stay tuned…

• WordPress – This free app from WordPress has allowed me monitor and update all of my blogs from just about anywhere.
• Pandora – There are several free streaming music apps for the Blackberry. With Pandora I can enter favorite bands or songs and channels with similar music is created.
• Facebook and MySpace – I’ll just lump these together, since they pretty much do the same thing – updating the social networking sites.
• Google Sync – Blackberry has its own calendar, but I already use Google Calendar. This app syncs the two, as well as you contacts.
• Google Mobile App – Sometimes it’s too time consuming to bring up a the Blackberry browser and manually typing in your query. With this app, you can speak your question, or keywords and it will search for you. (Apparently, this does not work on the Blackberry Storm)
• UberTwitter – This is pretty much the king of Twitter apps for the Blackberry and retains most, if not all, of the functionality Twitter.com offers. Of course, it’s no match for a PC client like TweetDeck.
• PayPal – There’s not too much to this one, but being able to send payments and check your acct history while traveling is pretty cool.
• The Weather Channel – I prefer this weather app over others, like WeatherEye, because it offers a longer forecast and has less intrusive advertising.
• Poynt – From locating businesses, restaurants movie times and gas prices near you, this app does a lot!
• Blackberry Messenger – This one is pretty muck a given. It’s a quick and easy way to chat and share pictures with friends and famiy.

Most of the Blackberry apps listed above can be found at BlackBerry App World and the CrackBerry App Store. Enjoy!

I also got a netbook for Christmas. The next thing for me to do is to try and tether it with the Blackberry. Then, I should have everything I need to blog from just about anywhere. I’m sure my wife will just love that! LOL

Here is an example:

Before:

After:

Here is how you do it:

1. Backup yoursite.com/wp-admin/images/logo-login.gif
2. Create your logo image with transparent background or match background color (#f9f9f9)
3. Save as logo-login.gif and overwrite existing file
4. Backup yoursite.com/wp-login.php
5. Change (‘login_headerurl’, ‘http://wordpress.org/’); to (‘login_headerurl’, ‘http://yoursite.com/’);
6. Save wp-login.php and overwrite existing file

That’s all it takes. If you’d rather use a plugin, there are some available to help you customize your login page.

• WordPress Custom Admin Branding – This changes the log in screen, as well as the logo in the header and footer of your admin panel.
• Branded WordPress Log In Screen – This is a plugin that brands only the log in screen.

UPDATE:

When you upgrade WordPress, you will need to do this again. Upgrading to the latest version, 2.8.4 in this case, overwrote the files with the originals.

• Automatic Links – Automatically adds HTML anchor tags to plain text links and email addresses embedded in the content of posts and pages.
• Category Icons – Assign icons to your categories to appear next to post titles on the index, single post, archive and search pages.
• WP-Polls – A great AJAX polling system to place polls as widgets or into posts. You can have multiple polls throughout your site.
• WP Authors – Want to have a list of authors on your sidebar alongside your categories? This plugin allows you to place a widget that lists and links to authors on your blog.
• WP No Category Base – Would you rather have “yoursite.com/categoryname” or “yoursite.com/category/categoryname” ? This plugin allows the former for a shorter URL.
• WordPress Popular Posts – Retrieves the most active entries of your blog and displays them with your own formatting (optional). Use it as a widget or place it in your templates.

Also check out my Ten Favorite WordPress Plugins and my post about using WordPress as a CMS.

I’m not sure how MU admins do it, unless they have a staff to sit and moderate every account 24/7. Oh well, I don’t have to worry about that anymore.

The only real issue I’ve come across is with the Tabbed Widgets Plugin. The one site I use it on currently only displays one of the four tabs that I have set to display. So, it looks like I may need to disable it until it’s upgraded to work correctly with WordPress 2.8. Others are experiencing similar problems – the author is aware of the problem and says that a new version is in the works.

So, what does WordPress 2.8 offer?

• Fixed 790 bugs
• Browse the entire theme directory and install a theme with one click
• Make edits or tweaks to themes or plugins from your dashboard
• Completely redesigned the widgets interface (edit widgets on the fly, have multiple copies of the same widget, drag and drop widgets between sidebars, and save inactive widgets so you don’t lose all their settings)
• New Screen Options on every page (you could set up your dashboard to have four columns of widgets instead of the two it has by default. On other pages you can change how many items show per page)

Read the full list of over 180 new features, changes, upgrades, and improvements on the Codex.

Update: I’ve gone ahead and updated a smaller blog to WordPress 2.8 with no problems. The look & feel of the admin section is pretty much the same as 2.7, but there are some added features. The widgets section is much improved! I am currently make sure all of my plugins are updated on all of my sites. Once I’m done with that, I’ll make backups of everything. Once I’m done with that I’ll upgrade them one at a time…