In my home lab, I use Synology for my shared storage solution. In this post, I would like to talk about what Synology devices I use and how I have them configured.
Android
Applications I Use and Do Not Use
I am an avid Macbook Pro and Android smartphone user. The combination influences the applications that I use. I figured I would share the applications I use most to possibly influence others, see what suggestions others have and to also see how my application landscape changes from year to year. So, what applications do you use?
Installing applications from an unknown source does not work
I have been an avid Android user since the beginning. I like Android because it allows me to customize with my phone as much as I would like. This past weekend, I decided to try a new launcher on my Samsung S3. The primary driver for this was because the native launcher, TouchWiz, was often sluggish and on occasion crashed. I had heard good things about a launcher called Nova so I decided to give it a shot.
I must admit, the Nova launcher is snappy! The only thing missing was the date/weather application that TouchWiz had natively built-in. To address this, I decided to install Weatherbug. A long time ago, I scored Weatherbug Elite from the Amazon Appstore for free. As such, I went to the Appstore and attempted to install the application. Everything went well until the dialog box came up asking me if I was ok with application permissions requirements. On that screen I had two options: Cancel and Install. The Cancel button worked as expected, but the Install button did nothing. The Install button did not highlight like the Cancel button did when I pressed it. No matter what I did, I could not get the Install button to function.
What was going on and how can you fix it?
Review: VMware Horizon Mail
As I mentioned last week, VMware released an officially supported mail client (for Zimbra). About two years ago VMware released a fling called Zimbra for Android. This application was well received, but not well maintained throughout its life. It appears enough demand was generated for VMware to create and release Horizon Mail. I have been using the application for work since last week and have put together a brief review of the pros and cons from my perspective.
VMware Horizon Mail
I am guessing either people have not heard yet or perhaps they do not care, but VMware released Horizon Mail for Android users on Thursday (full article here: http://cto.vmware.com/introducing-vmware-horizon-mail/). I have gone ahead and downloaded the app (will set you back $9.99) and plan on using it this week for work in order to write a thorough review. If you have downloaded the app I would be curious about your feedback!
ING Releases Android App
Surprisingly, I found out about the ING Android (amongst other phones) application via an email from ING prior to it being reported by any of the usual suspects including Gizmodo, Everything Android, and LifeHacker. All I can say is it is about time!
Check it out at: http://www.ingdirect.com/mobile/
Update: Unfortunately, for Android the application only currently supports finding free ATMs 🙁