5 Best Android Apps of 2010

The Top 5 Android Apps as of October 2010 (according to Dr. Sooper Smart)

1. Barcode Scanner

As the name implies, this app turns your phone into a barcode scanner. What you may not realize are the hundreds of uses for this app:

Scanning the barcode on a book while sipping a coffee at Borders or Barnes and Noble (or another brick and mortar bookstore) then purchasing it on Amazon for 25% less or more.

In your sleeping clothes at home, checking stock at your local store for the bottle of Ibuprofen that just got emptied.

Automatically opening up links on your phone by scanning a QR code from the web, like the one below, or in a magazine. In this case, the QR code below is for downloading this app (although, you have to install the app first, so it is somewhat pointless to show here, but for all the other apps following, this app will be immensely helpful.

Search “barcode scanner” from the Marketplace App on your phone

by ZXing Team


2. Google Voice
This app is most useful for making overseas or international calls, but you can use it to make any call if you wish. The key benefit to Google Voice is that it allows you to provide a single telephone number to all of your clients/friends/family/teammates/labmates and it will route their calls to your mobile, home or work land line, SkypeIn number and provides you almost limitless screening, and management options (such as providing a certain message for your coworkers, another for your family, and virtually any messaging option for any one else.

by Google


3. Google Listen
The Android app for catching podcasts live on the go, without having to tether to your computer. Eat my shoe dust, Apple.

by Google


4. IP Cam Viewer

If you have any web or security cams, this is the premiere application for using it. Better than any other program, for Android or iPhone/iPod/iPad.

by Robert Chou


5. TiVo Remote

Why purchase a TiVo Slide remote for $80, and in fact eliminate the need for even any TiVo remote, with this app which communicates via WiFi to your Tivo Series 3 or later. No line of sight required, so keep your hacked and upgraded 2TB TiVo safely hidden away in a ventilated cabinet.

Search the app market for this one.


Runners up:

Chrome to Phone

Google Sky Map

Mileage

ColorNote

Tip Calc

Shazam

Pandora

Mint

How to Enlarge Your Dickie’s, or, How to Make Your Pants Last Forever

Most of my Dickie’s are a decade, a dozen years, or even as old as a Jackson (Andrew, not Michael), and are finally feeling slightly too tight for comfort. Mind you this isn’t due as much to an increase in my waistline as I’ve only gained 5 pounds in that time span due to a niobium spinal implant, but rather to the shrinkage caused by the industrial laundry machines here on the base.

Dickie’s produced way back when (on Earth, in the late 20th century), have an additional seam that can be reverted to by pulling 4 long threads down the back toward the crotch, as shown in the figures below.

Figure 1. A pair of unenlarged Dickies.

Figure 2. The inside of the pants (before removing the threads).

Figure 3. Part of the threads removed, and the extra material lifting.

Figure 4. The threads being pulled up and out to the left.

That’s it.  Now your pants will be a size larger.  With normal washing and care they should still be going strong well after Justin Beiber starts shaving.  And finally, if the knees become frayed, then just hack off the ends, and you have nice baggy Huntington Beach cutoffs.

How I Bought My Time Machine for a Pittance

I recently bought a new time machine. My old one was almost 12 years old and too small for my growing family. I figure I could have used it for another 12×12 years since I could go back in time and hide it in a cave and borrow someone else’s to jump back, but that just gets to complicated. But my wife didn’t want it to get all covered with moss and mold, so we began researching new models.

We decided to buy a Japanese Time Machine from the Time Gods company (I know, I don’t like the name either – but they have the highest quality for the lowest price). After the test travel, my wife and I decided on the color and features. First I emailed and faxed bid requests from the half dozen closest dealers who had inventory of the particular model I was interested in. I gave them the specs, told them i was bidding out, when I would purchase, and when the bidding would close.

Then the quotes started rolling in. Most about the same. Some slightly less. I then shared the lowest bid and asked each to beat it. Strangely though, as the last few hours of the window closed, the closest dealer (at which we test drove a different color/trim machine) hadn’t sent in his bid. So I called, and he made an offer US(2010) $100,000 less than any others.

Well, at this point I realize I should have asked why it was so much less, but as this was my first actual new time machine purchase (my previous was a hand me down from my very generous maternal progenitor of the first order) and I thought he just liked us. Well, upon the test travel of this particular machine, I noticed that the chronometer showed it had already traveled 1600 years. It turns out that this particular machine was what they call an “unwind” in the industry – the previous chrononauts lost much of their money in a horrendously chrono-immoral series of wagers placed on world series games in the late seventies. And such, they could make the payments on their financed Chronolocator-Xtreme 999.

This suited us fine – a nice compromise actually between the used machine (my preference) and the new (my wife’s) – it even still had the new car smell and by all indications appeared the previous operator/owners had taken wonderful care of it.

I was able to haggle another $50,000 discount in the deal because of this surprise (and as we were paying in gold bars, we were getting a nice price anyways). I believe we ended up paying nearly what the dealership paid the manufacturers (“the true/real cost” – a good deal less than the “invoice price” and quite a bit less than the ridiculous “sticker price”).

Signing of the documents took 14 arduous hours and at some time early in the following morning we were finished, I blurry eyed and racing heart, exhilarated by a good deal. I had the machine ferried to our private island a short time later.

Humorously, we haven’t used it much yet. I’m not comfortable leaving it after a time translation in some random field in an uncivilized time (where Morlocks could molest it) without at least a force field or adamantium padlock. I also prefer to have a time positioning device (TPS) installed with a large screen–and also a camera showing the wormhole exit points on the event horizons–something I find quite invaluable for a safe and comfortable time trip.

While I am dying to pop panels and begin upgrading our chronomobile, we shall be employing a local outfit in the installation of these additions. Even though I feel the yearning desire, which I call the Doctor Sooper Smart (Who?) Itch, I am too nervous to do anything which might compromise the integrity of our new family TARDIS.