App Review Wifi Hotspot & USB Tether Pro

svtp wifi hotspot

Without getting into the ethical and legal matters that surround tether apps,WiFi Hotspot and USB Tether Pro is an excellent app that deserves some recognition. What makes this app better than the free versions of tethering apps that you can get? Let's take a look after the break.

How to Hack Most Android Games

There are builder games out there, most of them started on Facebook. You know the kind of game that I am talking about, Farmville, Gangsta Wars, Airport City, Zombie Farm. They all have the same formula:

• Give you coins and then some kind of 'buck.'
• Build up a 'farm' or 'city'.
• Level up a couple of times. (Ohhh this is FUN!)
• There is always something that you do that makes you wait - plant a crop, ect
• Oops I want to build a ____ but I don't have enough coins, bucks, ect. (Oh noes what do I do now?)
• Maybe you wait, maybe you tell all your social network friends about the game to earn what you need to build your ____.
• Eventually when you get to about level 10 or so, you get to the point where you need to buy currency or wait days for your currency to build up. (I have invested hours and hours in the game, I can't stop now. I'll spend that $3 now, it's not much.)
• Once you spend that first $3 you are much more likely to spend more.

This hack won't work for games that require you to be connected to the internet to play the game. Test this by putting your phone in Airplane Mode and opening the game. If you can play just fine, then you can try this hack.

Your phone has to be rooted. If you are not sure what that is, head over to the android central forums and look up your phone. Rooting your phone means you are allowing access to every file on the phone.

1. Download this: It is a program called Scan Mem
2. Extract the files to your desktop, plug in your phone and place the extracted file on your sd card. Mac users with a Galaxy Nexus may need Android File Transfer
3. Use Root Explorer to copy the file to /system/xbin. You may need to change the permissions to read and write.
4. Long press on the file and click permissions. Allow all permissions.
5. Download a terminal emulator if you don't have one.
6. Run a game that you want to modify, like Airport City
7. Look at the value that you want to change. For instance: if you have 100 coins, write that number down.
8. Press home key and then open terminal emulator
9. Type in “su” (no quotes) to start super user permissions.
10. Type in “ps” scan
11. Type in “sm” to start scanmem
12. Put the phone in landscape and scroll up. You should see PID. Look at the list of processes and find the PID of the game that you are playing. Airport City is listed as “com.gameinsight.airport” and the PID is 19509.
13. Enter pid 19509
14. Enter the coins that you have in the game 100 so type in “100” There will be many matches.
15. Hold down the home key or app switch button to go back to the game. Play the game enough so that the number of coins goes up or down. Switch back to the terminal, and enter the new value of coins. The program is looking for a perfect match, if one isn't found, then keep spending money or gaining money and keep switching back to the terminal and typing in the new value, eventually the file that you need is going surface.
16. When a perfect match is found, then it will prompt you. Type “set 99999999” and press enter. Whatever value you type in after set will be the coins that you have in game.

Feel free to close the terminal window and use the same trick to get as many 'bucks' as you need. Usually this is the currency that you have to buy with real money. Or hack your XP

Source: XDA

POGO Dock Finally Available for Galaxy Nexus

If you are wondering what POGO pins are and what the heck they do in a dock, you are not alone. The Galaxy Nexus has three little metal pins on the right hand side of the device, and these pins are used to charge the phone. Get a dock with POGO pins and you only have to set the phone down into the dock and it will start charging. Pretty nifty eh? No more fumbling around for a plug and it will save wear and tear on the usb charging port.

Why the (#*$&!!* is Verizon's Network Not Working?

It used to be pretty simple to be a Verizon customer. You buy a phone, and you knew that while you might be paying a more than the average customer, you knew that not only was your network everywhere, it worked all the time. There was a time when Verizon customers would make fun of AT&T or Sprint customers when their phones lost data, or text didn't work. You really do get what you pay for, especially at a sporting event or other large gathering of people in a small area. Verizon always seemed to work better than the competition.

As more people are buying LTE devices on Big Red, there are more and more people grumbling about Verizon's phones not working as intended. Dropped data is a big one, or getting stuck on 1X. It isn't any fun when you expect 4G and get 1X. So what's going on? Let's take a look at what's going on with Verizon today.

There aren't any engineering degrees hanging on my walls, I am a chef by trade. However, explaining what's going on with Verizon right now isn't rocket science. It is just a matter of math.

Currently, Verizon is supporting quite a few different kinds of networks. Most of the USA is covered in 3G, and that's what most people are thinking of when they buy or use a phone. 3G works great, it transfers data to your phone relatively fast, and the phone and tower talk to each other with a minimal delay. That's to say that the 'ping' or 'lag' is low. What that means is stuff starts happening almost right away when you press a button in your phone's browser.

In areas that are far away from towns, or fringe coverage areas, your phone might pick up 1X. That's an old network. It is 1G so to speak, compared to 3G and 4G. (2G wasn't really adapted.) It works fine for calling and texting, but you might notice that data doesn't work all that great on 1X. Not only does the data crawl along at a snail's pace, slower than dial-up speeds, it also has a very high amount of lag. It might take 2 seconds for data to travel back and forth from the tower, so browsing websites and apps might act like they are not connected at all when you start using them.

The technology used above is CDMA. You don't need to know what that means, except that CDMA phones don't need SIM cards. But wait, 4G LTE uses a SIM card so what's up with that? LTE technology is based on GSM, like your friends on AT&T there is a SIM card involved, and all Verizon 4G phones have a SIM card tucked under the battery cover.

Here's where the issue comes in. CDMA doesn't talk to GSM. It just doesn't work. So Verizon had to make another network to manage the handoff between 4G and 3G. That network is eHRPD. If you have a Verizon LTE phone that's on 3G, it's hanging out on the eHRPD network. You can check this yourself by going into your phone settings--> About phone--> Status and it's listed under Network.

This go between network is what's causing most the issues with Verizon's network lately. It is also why when the LTE network goes down, 3G tends to go down for 4G phones, despite what Verizon's PR teams might say. It is also why the transition from 4G to 3G can be painfully long, as the phone tries to handshake back and forth from 3G to 4G.

Well if eHRPD is the problem, can I just disable it? Well there is a way to do it on most phones, but it doesn't always stick if you reboot the phone, not to mention it involves digging into test menus that Verizon really doesn't intend the general public to get into.

So where does that leave us now? Well Verizon is in a transition phase right now. The idea is to get the whole country in LTE coverage by the end of 2013, that means phasing out 3G and also 1X. Once Verizon has us all on LTE phones, then you will see phones that don't have 3 different radios in them-and hopefully battery life will be much improved by then. Verizon is going to have your voice data over LTE soon, the concept is just now breaking. This isn't ideal for us now, and believe me, if you buy a LTE device now or in the next year, you are an early adaptor of this new technology. Things are going to be so much better when these legacy networks go away.  

Does World of Warcraft Cataclysm Work on Hughesnet?

Yeah, that's what you think it is.

In response to my article about using Xbox Live on Hughesnet, I decided to put together a quick post about how WoW runs on satellite internet.

Well if you have not looked at my other posts about Hughesnet, then you might be missing out on some good info. I have a post about using Hughesnet for Xbox Live, and some other general Hughesnet information.

Well, the long and the short of things is this: Hughesnet works with World of Warcraft. It sucks though.

Is Google Music in Trouble?

Are you using Google Music? The more important question is have you purchased music through Google Music? While there was quite an uproar to get Google Music Beta invites, and there was a large movement to upload songs to Google Music; there is concern that Google Music isn't living up to expectations. Cnet posted that Google is reporting that adaptation and revenue are well below expectations.

While it is fair to say that the service has not officially been released for even a quarter yet, there is still concern that the service isn't making any money, and there are still issues that need to ironed out.