04
Mar
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Open Garden 2.0 Comes With Channel Bonding, Enhanced Reliability, Same User-Friendly Mesh Networking

Posted by in Applications, News

Everyone's favorite mesh networking startup Open Garden today announced its 2.0 refresh at LAUNCH festival, having allegedly already served 2.1 million installs since version 1.

Readers would be forgiven for not remembering exactly what Open Garden is, or why it's interesting – we last covered the app in its beta stage.

Basically, the idea behind Open Garden is to create ubiquitous internet access by linking various smart devices together and sharing a common internet connection in a mesh network. For example, if your smartphone is connected to the internet, Open Garden would allow you to create a mesh network to which your tablet, another phone, a PC, or all of the above could connect.

19
Dec
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This Is Why Your Verizon Galaxy Nexus (Or Other 4G LTE VZW Phone) Is Losing Its Data Connection

Posted by in 4G, Editorials, Galaxy Nexus, News, Verizon Wireless

After months of wondering and looking around for answers, we think we've finally found out why all of Verizon's 4G LTE phones (and modems / USB dongles) are having data connectivity issues, and it's a wee-bit technical even for us, but we'll do our best. This information has been gathered from various comments and forums across the net, so, take us at our word here.

When Verizon launched its LTE network in November of 2010, it was the first time the carrier had utilized a GSM-based (WCDMA, as opposed to CDMA2000) network in the United States. All Verizon phones and data-enabled devices had previously run on CDMA2000 connections - the network responsible for Verizon's 3G and 2G data.

30
Sep
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Verizon Has A Bug List For The DROID BIONIC, First Maintenance Update Coming In November

Posted by in Bionic, Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless

The DROID BIONIC, it's no secret, hasn't been launched bug-free. In fact, there's a number of bugs, particularly the dreaded data connection drop, that make using the BIONIC a major annoyance at times. Verizon has apparently been keeping track, and has a very detailed list of the glitches currently afflicting the phone, given to a customer in a support e-mail (weird, we know). The good folks over at Droid-life have compiled a "Top 10" bug list along with all the reported issues (here), and we've excerpted a few that we've noticed most:

1.  Issue:  4G/3G Service – Data Connectivity

  • Marginal 4G to 3G transition:  Loss of data connectivity – The device may display 3G service indication but no data connections are possible.

08
Feb
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Official RealVNC Viewer For Android Hits The Market - And It Doesn't Come Cheap

Posted by in Applications, News

Ok, so it's not that expensive, but $10 (5.99GBP)? Seems a little pricey for a remote viewer client (though LogMeIn will run you $30, by comparison), especially considering RealVNC's "Personal Edition" desktop software costs 30 bucks. Fear not, because there is a free version of the RealVNC software for Windows, and while it lacks a lot of the nifty features the full Personal Edition has, the Android viewer client doesn't support most of them anyway.

If you want a completely free Android VNC experience, I suggest TightVNC for PC or Chicken of the VNC for OS X, combined with the equally free android-vnc-viewer (though you'll probably spend a little more time configuring them).

05
Oct
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Android WiFi Tether App For Rooted Users Constantly Disconnecting? Try These Solutions To Fix It

Posted by in Applications, Tips & Tutorials
Last Updated: December 23rd, 2010

The number 1 Android app for rooted phones out there is undoubtedly Android WiFi Tether, which is a free alternative to all those carrier-bundled WiFi hotspot apps. In fact, it is the primary reason I root every Android phone I own - 2 hours of commute on the train suddenly become extremely productive because of always-on laptop connectivity. I've excitedly written about the app before, especially after it added support for Infrastructure mode and WPA2 on the EVO 4G.

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Problems

However, after a few months of using the WiFi Tether app, I started experiencing occasional issues maintaining connectivity. The symptoms were:

  • the WiFi AP (access point) would suddenly disappear from the list completely
  • the connection would drop unexpectedly
  • the AP would show up in the list but connectivity with it could not be established

Doesn't sound like fun, does it?