Marathi Calendar (2104) for Google Calendar, Android Phone and other calendar applications.

Do you live away from home and miss out many of the festivals and sometimes aren't even aware of dates of your favorite Marathi festivals? Don't know when is Holi, Ganesh jayanti, Rakshabandhan or Diwali? That happens with most of us in this busy and fast life.

You can always buy a Marathi Calendar to check the dates, but that would only be available at your home or wherever you live. It would have been better, if you could carry it everywhere you go and that could remind you of your interested dates and festivals. Yeah, there are many mobile Marathi calendar applications for your smartphones, but those also have some drawbacks. Like, they are huge in size and so consume lots of your phone memory, those are specific to a year only and so for next year you will have to install a new one again, and also those are only available on mobile, can't be checked online.

So, to simplify the availability of Marathi calendar you can follow below simple steps, with which you will be able to sync a Marathi calendar to your Google calendar application and so to your Android phone or any other calendar application that supports iCal calendars.

Add the Marathi Calendar to Google Calendar. 

To add and sync a Marathi Calendar to you Google Calendar follow below steps:

• Go to www.google.com and login to your Google account (gmail account). On Google home page, on right upper corner you should be able to see yourself logged in, click on Calendar, that will take you to your Google calendar.

Google Calendar

• Then click on a downward arrow next to Other Calendars, on a left panel, and select Add by URL. 

Add by URL

• Copy and paste this URL into URL field:

             https://www.google.com/calendar/ical/injulkarnilesh%40gmail.com/public/basic.ics

            and click Add Calendar button. 

• Then you should be able to see a new Calendar under Other Calendars with name Nilesh Injulkar.
• Optionally you can select calendar event color for this Calendar by clicking downward arrow next to it.

Select (Select the colored checkbox) this calendar then you should be able to see the Marathi Calendar into your Google calendar.

Sync the Marathi Calendar to your Android phone.

Once you have added the Marathi Calendar to your Google Calendar, you can easily add it to your Android mobile calendar, provided that you have logged into your Android with same gmail id.

Make sure you are connected to Internet on you Android phone, either over wi-fi or a packet date.

Also, you should have enabled the sync for your Google account at least your Sync Calendar option. To check this on your mobile go to Settings > Accounts and sync.

There you should be able to see your gmail account, select it, you will see Sync Calendar, click on it and then it will start the sync of your Google Calendar. Depending on your Auto-Sync option, you would either see Touch to Sync now or a checkbox for Sync Calendar option, any way select it, and Calendar sync will start.

Wait for Sync to complete.

Once the sync is done, go to Calendar application on your mobile. Click on a menu button , the one that shows a menu. 

Menu on Android Calendar

Calendars

     

From there select More > Calendars, and then you will see the list of your calendars. Under your email-Id there should be a new calendar named Marathi Calendar By Nilesh. Make sure this calendar is Synced and Visible, if not, mark it so by using a button next to it and hit OK.

Synced and Visible

Once that is done, you will be able to see the Marathi Calendar in your Calendar application of your Android phone. Go through Day, Week and Agenda options to see the Marathi Calendar festivals as full day events on corresponding dates.

Agenda

A day on Marathi Calendar

    
As of now I have added Marathi Calendar 2014 only. By end of the year I will add next year Calendar to it and will keep updating it for upcoming years. You don't need to do anything,  added calendars will be synced to your Google Calendar and mobile Calendar automatically.

You also can add reminders to particular events, festivals, by clicking on it and Add reminder button.

The Google calendar link mentioned above can also be used in many other calendar applications which provides facilities to add iCal calendars from internet links, to sync and view the Marathi Calendar.

Enjoy the Marathi Calendar.

Jay Maharashtra ! 

How to use offline Google maps on android phone in India.

Recently Google launched offline google maps for android phones in India. This new feature allows you to store map of some area on your phone for later use. Say you are going to some new or remote area and not sure if GPS is available there or not, or your network provider provides network there or not, or say you don't use internet on your phone always and you need map under such circumstances then it's better to download map of required area in advance.

No doubt this feature is of great use. This service was available in US and many European countries and now it's made available in India too.

Below are simple steps to get offline google map on your android phone.

1. Have Proper version of Google maps app :

First of all you need to upgrade your google map app if it's older one. Now latest version available is 6.14.1 minimum, minimum  because this is what I upgraded to in 2012 october. You can check if you need to upgrade or not by Google map » Options » more » make offline available, if this option is available then you don't need to upgrade otherwise you need to. And important point to note - this feature is available on android version 2.2+, thank god I am just on edge. 

To upgrade this app goto google play store on your phone search for google map and upgrade if you need.

 
2.Make map available offline :

Once proper version of google map is available, open google maps application search for area whose map you want to be available offline on your android.

by using  options » search.

Once proper area's map is loaded select

options » more options » make available offline.

 
3.  Select Proper Area :

Now it will show rectangular area over the map to chose the area of the map to  download. screen should be showing size of the map of area you have selected in mb along with "select" button which would be disabled. Now pinch in and out over rectangular selection area to select area to download. Keep an eye on select button and size of the map. You can download a map only when select button is enabled. Generally minimum area of the map that you can download is  near about 67mb. keep trying to select size of rectangle so that select button is enabled. try keeping size of the map across 60 to 100 mb.

 4. Download map :
 
Once select button is available, click it and  your map will start downloading. 

wait till map is downloaded. Once it`s downloaded you are ready to use the map offline.

5.  Use offline Google map :

To use offline map, goto options » my places » OFFLINE tab there your offline map will be available. Select it and there you go with your offline map.

don't you worry about phone memory consumption this map doesn't get downloaded completely to your phone memory. I am not sure where exactly this offline map gets downloaded  on phone  but it doesn't  consume your phone memory. I am sure about this because my phone never has that much free phone memory. So cheers. 




6. Enjoy offline maps on your android.

How to listen music on mono bluetooth headset on android phone.

    Mono bluetooth headsets have single stream connections, so you can't stream music on them.  But Nokia phones have option to play music via bluetooth which can play music directly on even mono bluetooth headsets.
A2DP bluetooth headsets are dual stream so music can be directly played on them.

     But if you have mono bluetooth headset and android phone you can't listen music on it but only can make and receive calls. You are stuck :( 
But don't worry, there are few apps on android market which enable you to listen music on mono bluetooth  headset.

BTMono Off

     BTmono is very simple and light weight application available on android market, which can stream your media over mono bluetooth headset.


     For using this app switch on your phones bluetooth, connect your bluetooth with paired bluetooth headset, open BTmono app and click on ON button then android robot on the screen will put it's one hand up and you are ready to go. Then just play music and it will be streamed to your mono bluetooth headset.

BTMono On

There are two versions of this app available on the market, free version and paid one. The only difference that matters is what happens when you get a call while listening to music. On free version when you drop a call received while listening to music, music resumes on speaker instead of bluetooth headset and that is little embarrassing eeew. While on paid version music resumes on headset when a call is dropped. so it's your call to choose free or paid version of BTmono.
The music quality on bluetooth headset using this app is not up to mark and that's because it's mono headset.  But remember this app is really helpful to utilise your otherwise useless mono bluetooth headset.

How to import and sync Facebook friends's birthdays to Android phone.

         You don’t visit Facebook daily, and miss birthdays of friends?  Want your android phone to remind you your friend’s birthdays?  There are lots of application on the market but you don’t need them and believe me these kind of apps run in background and drain phone's battery and resources. So possibly you should import and synchronize your facebook friends's birthdays to your android phone calendar so that you will be up to date with the birth dates.
       Following are simple few simple steps to import and synchronize facebook friends birthdays to your google calendar and then to android phone calendar.

 1.     Go to your facebook account, on home page at upper left corner, below your profile picture, there will be a link called Events. Click on it. It will open your  facebook events calendar that includes birthdays of your friends.

Facebook : Events link

    2.  On events page at upper right corner, there is Today button with settings logo. Click on settings logo and select export from the option, the way shown in picture.

Facebook : Export Events

    3. This will open 'Export Events and Birthdays' pop up.

Facebook :Copy export link 

    4.  Right click on ‘export your friends’ birthdays’ and select copy link option.

Facebook: Copy link

 5.  Now go to google calendar, that you can go by selecting calendar from top most black strip on google home page. Then on calendar at left hand panel click on other calendars option and select Add by URL.

Google Calendar : Add by URL

       

         6. Pop up for entering URL will be opened, paste the copied URL into the textbox for URL and click Add Calendar.

Google Calendar : add calendar by URL

    

   7.  Then the new calendar ‘Friends’ birthdays’ will be added to your other calendars section on google calendar. Select your favorite  color for this calendar if you want. Now you are done with importing you facebook birthdays to google calendar.

Google Calendar : Added Calendar

       

     8.  Now you need to sync your android calendar app to  google calendar. For that open Calendar application on your android phone. Make sure you have enabled Use data packet I mean an internet access.

9. Select options -> More -> Calendars, it should show you Friends’ Birthdays calendar.

 10. Set Synced, Visible to this new Calendar.

Android : set synced and visible

Android : Birthdays showed in Bold

 11. Now phone will sync this calendar from Google calendar to calendar app and friend’s birthdays will be visible on your phone.



Now you can view friends's birthdays and set notifications for them as per your needs.

     

       

Drawbacks of an Android Operating System.

      You might have read, heard or even seen many great features of an Android operating system. You might have heard about what things you can do with Android device. You might have heard how many applications are there on Android market. But now I would detail few down sides, drawbacks of an Android operating system or say devices.

       I have used android 2.2 only, but these drawbacks are quite general to be seen across other versions also.

       I am not comparing Android with other mobile operating systems but for sure you will observe these while using an Android device. So following are few drawbacks of an Android operating system.

It hangs a lot :

      You are doing something on your Android phone and suddenly it stops responding and gives whuiii whuiii kind of two or more vibrations (this happens with my Samsung phone, might not be the case with other phones but there will be some other way) and you say “Not Again !!!”. Many times devises restarts of its own after it hangs, which takes my soul out. Still it’s Ok but when it hangs, stops responding and you even can’t shut it down, I hate that frustration.

     The device mainly hangs by applications and services running out of memory. On Android when you close an application by pressing back button, many applications still continue running in background. There is concept of service in Android, which means a process running behind the scene and that continuously consumes battery as well as memory. 

Battery backup is very low – Battery consumption is very high :

     If your device is kind of low budget phone, this is the main problem you would face. This is not only caused by device hardware but also by Android operating system, as this operating system runs lots of processes in background may be like widgets, services and many system threads. Battery backup becomes worst when you start using Internet on your device, so most of the time you need to disable data packet when you are not using it just for saving the battery. And many times you need to compromise with use of your mobile for saving battery or because of low battery.

Low end phones can’t install few applications – compatibility issue :

     Yes there are lots of Apps on Android market but, are they all useful? No, I mean you would get incompatibility issue with many applications for low end devices or old versions of android OS. This is mainly happening because of many versions of android and large difference between features and hardware requirements across the versions. You may want to install a good action game but for that you need compatible OS and compatible device.

Rooting voids warranty :

     Rooting an Android device is the best way to utilize it to the great extent. Rooting allows upgrading android version, installing good custom ROMs. But rooting voids the phone warranty that’s why many people are afraid of doing it.

Dalvik Cache – Limited phone memory :

     Android version 2.2 and onward you can install app on SD card. How great! that means you will never run out of phone memory, but is it the reality? Even if you install app on SD card, some considerable part of the app remains on phone memory, they call it Dalvik Cache. It’s a design funda, they use it for app to be fast. But they neglected the fact that they are using phone memory for that, which is kind of limited on many phones. So this also puts another restriction on how many applications you can install on your device.

Android is not an Enterprise person’s phone:

     

     Unlike BlackBerry and iPhone, Android wasn't considered to be an enterprise phone. It’s not that useful for enterprise applications and functionalities. Say like you want to connect your phone to your company’s enterprise WiFi network or want to configure  your office outlook mailbox on your phone, it’s a great a pain to get it done on android phone. At least it’s not as easy as it is on BB or iPhone. 

Data packet enable doesn't work :

      This is a small thing but irritates a lot. When you want to enable ‘Use packet data’, you go to Settings -> Wireless and networks -> Mobile networks -> Use packet data and select this option and expect data transfer to be enabled but many of the times nothing happens even after waiting for some time. Then trying deselect –select multiple times, it may start but if you have a bad day you need to restart your device and that sucks.

    Besides these few drawbacks there are many great features of Android operating system. And I still love Android.

How to hide media files from a scanner in android.

There are 3 methods,  I know, which are useful to hide your media files on an Android device so that those will not b shown in Gallery.

You can choose according to level of privacy you want, and how frequently you need those files.

1.Use some app from the market (Play) :

 There are many applications on the market for hiding media files on your device.Those are most secure and give best privacy.

This is the simplest method.

But some day, your friends will see this app on your device and will come to know that, you are hiding something and would say “what a shame! What are those files hmmmm? You dirty !”

 

 

 

2. put those files in a folder with name starting with ‘.’  Dot.

.name

If you have used Linux you must be knowing that, a directory with a name starting with ‘.’ Is hidden one.

So create such a folder, using some file manager. Then copy your files you want to hide, into this directory.But you need some file manager app like Astro for this, but no need of separate hiding app and there are many other purposes of file manager ok.Also nobody would find media hiding app on your device, so they will think you are a good boy.

But be careful about choosing location of the folder, otherwise some extra curious friend of you may catch your files and you too.

3.use .nomedia named file

It’s same as second method but quite risky one. Say you want to use something different, which is android specific, then you can try this. But remember this is quite risky because of known bug in android.

For this method, create a folder somewhere using some file manager. Inside that create a file with name “.nomedia”, after that a scan will run. Then you can droop your  those files in this folder. This folder will not be scanned by next any scans and content will not be shown in Gallery.

It’s not that simple, if you place .nomedia file in a folder containing some file, those all files will b deleted, that is the bug, I now that exist in android version upto 2.2 (froyo), don’t have idea if that exist for other versions. So be careful and first place .nomedia file and then drop your personal files into the folder.

Android Apps You Must Try !

  Hello friends, this is my first blog and it is about Android apps, i though one must give a try.
So without anything other discussion lets start with app list, but remember they are in no order...

1. a Wallet -



        a Wallet is very usefull Android app which allows you to store your very sensitive data into your mobile, very secure way.  You can store your bank data, web accounts username and passwords, Computer passwords and other PRIVATE information also. It provides good templates for storing these all kind of information and even you can store few in the form of notes.

2.Gallery Lock Lite -

Yes it's your private mobile and you want not all of them to see your (some) videos and pictures, so this app is for you. With this app you can password protect your private videos and pictures. Even those medias you secured are not accessible from your memory card when attached to the computer.

3.Appy Geek -

 If you are tech freek and pass a lot of time reading news about techologies then you no more need to go to pc or laptop, you just can open this app and start reading lot of techie news. You can chose your favorite , you can search by brand or subject news.User interface is quite good but adds (sometimes) irritate a lot. But very handy app for techie people.

4.ASTRO -

Very good file explorer. If you have some good backgroud of using smartphones meight be of even Nokia, you know the importance of the file explorer. It's very usefull app to access system files and to do lot more.

One very important feature is ability to take back up of the apps so that you need not to download your favorites again.

5.Private Diary 

    Do you make resolution to start writing diary almost every year, but never got it even started ? Then you must try this handy app to start and continue writing the diary. Opps i forgot to tell you that it's really simple app so that you can write it being in bed even though you are all tired.

6.Dropbox-

    Well, though there are many apps on market to sync your data across all your devices like mobile, laptop,pc etc, Dropbox is quite simple and very usefull app. Google and Microsoft are providing such services with more GBs of space than Dropbox but this app seems to continue rocking .

7.Google Goggles -

This is very fancy and rich app by Google itself. This app takes image and tries to searh it on the Internet. You can spend lot of time searching the images with or across you. Even it comes with barcode reader.

8.Handrite Free -

There are many apps on market for TO-DO list maitainance, but most of them are pure textual. This app stands out by allowing you to use your finger to write on screen and save it in your own  handwriting. Though it has some less features, its Handwriting feature makes it special one.

9.Won tube-
   Yest ! It has to do something with youtube. It is youtube video downloader. This is very nice app that allows you to download youtube videos directly to your android phone. This app is very usefull when you are using 2G network for surfing which makes it very hard to see videos online. And sorry for NO LIINK.

10.Paper toss -

 A game to pass your good time is here. You obviously might have tried to throw a waste paper into dustbin, you meight be anywhere school, home, office. Now try same exprience on your android and even here you win points for getting it right.

11. Download Blazzer-

Many download mangers are there on market. But most of them will say "Not Supported" for many files you want to download. This one comes with very intresting user interace. I have not explored it more but this is the only download manager which is there on my andi for more than 5 days.

12.nextGTv-

  You want to see TV on your android in India? This TV app you must try to enjoy tv on your mobile phone. Though not many channels are there but it provides good streaming on even 2G.

13.Sketck n Draw-

  Do you like sketching, painting or playing with such things? Then this is very good app for you. You can try various nice brushes, not like normal brushes in mspain, but quite wiered but at the the same time quite interesting to play with.

14. Browsers -
 For browser my funda is very clear since my old phones..
Opera mini - Surffing
UCBrowser - Downloading

So friends, try these apps and let me know your all kind of feedbacks.
Any new app suggesions are most welcomed.