Elephantsquared.

1. Use your home screens. Virtual desktops harmed no one. On the contrary they offered many conveniences. From organizing applications to dragging and dropping between virtual desktops, there is no doubt that virtual desktops are considered as a major feature for various operating systems like Linux, Mac OS and now Android! If you learn how to use them properly you will be surprised how helpful they can be. Android OS has 3 home screens (custom user interface redesigns like hTC Sense UI allow more home screens to co-exist).  I personally use the main home screen for fast access to a few apps I use numerous times per day such as Browser, Contacts and Google Maps with Latitude. Oh i also have the Clock widget. I use the left home screen mainly for productivity and communication apps like Gmail, Google Talk, Calendar, Messaging including a calendar widget. I also have there a shortcut of Astrid, Twidroid, OI Safe and wpToGo. The right screen is used for widgets like Google Search, Music and Scoreboard. Not much room left there for anything else to stick in.

2. Use Gmail labels shortcuts. Mobile experience comes first for android operating system. With Gmail labels shortcuts, even if you are on the way running to catch the bus and you are wondering when your project deadline is, that John emailed you last night, you are one touch away from finding out when. Filtering your emails never was easier. All you have to do is press and hold in one of your home screens, then press to add shortcuts to your home screen and finally press the Gmail label. After that you will get a list of your system labels (Inbox, Starred, Sent, etc.) and of course a list of all your labels that you use everyday to filter, categorize and manage your emails. Finally, when you press the newly created gmail label shortcut you will be redirected immediately to a list of all your emails attached with that label.

3. Listen to the users. When you are about to download an android app from the app store you should always check the Comments. Just scroll down just a little bit and read what people are saying about that application. Don’t forget to also check the Rating. You may also view more application from the same developer to see what’s the overall quality of his/her applications.

4. Use Locale. Locale is one of the most promising apps in the Android market. It was one of the Top 10 finalists in the first Android Developer Challenge which took place in the summer of 2008. In a few words, Locale, lets you create situations specifying conditions under which your phone’s settings should change. For instance, you could set a situation that turns on the WiFi  when your are in a specific radius around your home or other WiFi spots so that you connect to that WiFi access points anytime you are around. Another possible situation, which I personally use, is the one I call “Energy Saver”. In this situation i have my phone’s display brightness level decreased to “2″, the wallpaper changed to another one and the auto-sync feature turned off during 8 pm and 7 am. Use your imagination and turn every feature of Locale into a handy tool.

5. Use the unlock pattern. I guess you wouldn’t like it if your e-mails, contacts, messages, photos, notes or even browsing habits were exposed, right? Well, using an android phone means that you carry a lot of sensitive data with you everywhere whether this is an important e-mail you received from a partner or an sms that contains password information for instance. So you better be careful the next time you leave your phone exposed to others. Another good practice is to disable the visible pattern while drawing it. This helps protecting your pattern from curious eyes. Even if you don’t have a sim password set, the unlock pattern is a good example for protecting your data.

6. Master the Sync. When it comes to using the Sync features of your android phone, the best practice is to enable both “Background Data” and “Auto-Sync” in the settings. By that you will utilize most of your phone’s capabilities. However there is a chance you might not want to have these two features enabled all the time. You could get an app to help you enable/disable connectivity to internet over 3G/EDGE/GPRS like APNdroid but in case these apps wont work with your telecommunications provider (i.e. Vodafone GR) you could set up a new empty Access Point Name (you will have to set a name in the APN field) inside Mobile networks settings and set this APN as your APN anytime you want to disable connectivity to internet over 3G/EDGE/GPRS.

7. Better WiFi settings. In case you have *unlimited* data plan or the limit of your data plan looks like a very distant number, there is a chance you are not an avid WiFi user when it comes to using your android phone. Instead, you could prefer sticking to the internet over 3G/EDGE/GPRS – which also saves more battery. If that is true, another option you should uncheck is the “Network notification” inside WiFi settings. By doing that your phone wont notify you anytime an open network is available in the area, which comes in handy when you forget your phone’s WiFi on.

8. 2G vs 3G networks. So, what do the options “Use only 2G networks” and “Use only 3G networks” do? Well, the first one, apart from saving battery it could also come in handy whenever you want to switch to a stable network connection without jumping from 2G to 3G and backwards depending to the network coverage. Similarly, the second option switches your phone to a high data transfer connection in case you need it.

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