Hate Ads on YouTube?

Well here's how to remove them....

Now if you’re like me – you will hate adds on YouTube. When you watch a T.V show or a very popular video on YouTube it is always accompanied by an advertisement before hand for a car or toothpaste or some other useless paraphernalia. But don’t worry because you can remove them!

So how do you it?

It’s simple…..

• Make sure you download and install Google Chrome as your default browser
• For this to work its needs to be Google Chrome version 7 or higher
• Go-to Google Ad-Block, via this link:https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gighmmpiobklfepjocnamgkkbiglidom
• Download and install Ad-Block and it will be automatically stored in the Google Tool Extension
• Once this is done, why not test it out. Try and watch a TV show on YouTube and you shall see that if streams directly into the video without advertisements or interruptions. YAY!

This really is a great way to stop those annoying pop up in the middle of your videos. It’s also very effective in removing any webpage pop-ups from the likes of Party-poker or some online casino website.

But make sure you go to Chrome – tools – Extensions – Ad-Block Options – Excluded sites and type in ‘www.geeks.co.uk and do it again for www.supertalltek.blogspot.com

For any questions leave a comment below….

Phones the UK Never Got to See…

Although the Americans have to pay extortionate prices for their Smartphone’s they sill get some of the best ones - while we small people in the UK/Ireland sit back and watch in anger.

The List:

• HTC Evo 4G
• Samsung Epic 4G
• HTC Incredible
• Samsung Captivate
• Motorola Droid 2
• My Touch Slide
• My Touch 4G HD
• LG Ally

The above is but a small list of the handsets that most Geeky consumers in the US and Canada opt for. You’ll see the trending towards handsets with ‘4G’ in the title, which aside from the latest iPhone, domestic smartphone customers may not know what 4G is all about. The concept 4G basically means ‘SPEED’! Like an Ultra-Broadband for mobile phones.

We people of the UK and Ireland probably won’t see these speeds or this technology become the accepted mainstream in smartphones for a while – but it is on the way. The HTC Evo 4G is one phone that seems to make the Apple iPhone 4 look like a child’s rattle as it sits with the highest and most impressive spec ever to exist in a phone. Then you have HTC’s other handsets like the extremely popular HTC Incredible, which is pretty much the successor or big brother’ to the HTC Desire.

Now the other phones that we may be familier with are theMotorola Droid 2 and the My Touch slide. The Droidbecame available in the UK not too long ago but we haven’t heard any news about its successor yet – and the My-Touch was made available a long time ago on Vodafone – a cheap and cheerful Android first for the network. Now there are news and rumours about a big upgrade from it called the My-Touch 4G HD. I love the way American phones are brought out to sound SO impressive. Like the Samsung ‘CAPTIVATE’ or ‘EPIC’. US phones seem to be getting even more juvenile names every day. One thing I keep wishing for is to see handsets like these on the UK market so we – the geeky public – can have a play around or  even break one out of jealousy.

The UK’s Current Smartphone Market

• HTC Desire
• Samsung Galaxy S
• iPhone 4
• Samsung Wave
• Sony Ericsson Xperia X10
• Google Nexus one
• Motorola milestone
• Nokia N8 (releasing soon)

I would highly recommend all the above phones for anyone who is looking a smartphone before Christmas in the UK and some great deals are in place if you scan the T-Mobile website.

The Samsung Galaxy range.

Why take a Samsung Galaxy S when the Wave is a cheaper option? Now I know that the Samsung Galaxy S is an incredible Android powered handset, but you get the exact same phone, except a bit smaller for around £10 cheaper a month. After doing some research I’ve found what’s on offer for Galaxy range handsets for each network.

Standard 24 month	O2	Orange	Vodafone	3 Network	T-Mobile
Galaxy S	£40	£40	£30	£40	£35
Wave	£30	£30	£25	£35	£25
Apollo	Not Available	£20	Not Available	Not Available	Not Available
Portal	Not Available	Not Available	Not Available	£30	Not Available

Opinions

Galaxy S – Awesome Android phone, but no camera flash
Wave – My choice if it was loaded with Android 2.2
Apollo – Cheapest Galaxy phone, but cheap for a reason. Only available on Orange
Portal – One of the first Samsung/android phones with a decent spec. Only available on T-mobile.

The fact is the Samsung Galaxy S is the top of the range Samsung out. It could also be considered the very best of the Android phones available, but it lacks a camera flash. Now if you’re like me and go out on the drink and take mad photos, the lack of a camera flash is a big thing to miss out on. The Apollo, which is an Orange network only phone, is another lovely cheap Android phone which has been ruined by Orange’s bulky proprietary software. They did it to the HTC Tattoo Ink and now they have done it to the Apollo. Thank God it can be turned off! The Wave in my opinion is the best Samsung handset out there, although it’s the only one not running Android. It runs Samsung’s brand new Bada software, which is nice but it just looks like an iphone knockoff. The wave has one of the most impressive specs for a phone I’ve ever seen and the fact that it’s still so cheap makes it most attractive. It runs on a 1GHz processor, while equipped with a 5mp camera, 720p video recording and a super AMELOD screen that really pops out on its 3.3” display. Finally the Samsung Portal is one of the first Samsung-Android devices and has been out for a good while now. The portal is only available on the 3 network and it’s nothing to scream about. The phone itself looks like a sack of potatoes and the spec is very ‘Android standard’. I’d much rather take the Samsung Apollo over it or even look into a similar android phone like the Google-Magic.

USA carrier prices VS UK/Ireland networks

One thing I have found really interesting recently is the huge prices people have to pay for mobile phone contracts in the US and Canada. Now I haven’t compared other countries but I feel that the US and the UK are similar when it comes to the mobile technology market. I have found and compared four networks altogether, which are Verizon, Orange, AT&T and O2. I have also noticed many similarities between the US companies and the UK ones. Verizon and Orange seem to draw the most similarities as well as O2 and AT&T whom had exclusivity on the iphone when it was first launched (not anymore!).

Now back to prices. From what I have researched the average price for a smart phone in the USA is $199 for the phone on a two year contract, which is usually priced around $50-$80 a month and even with these huge expenditures you’re still not getting a whole lot. Generally in the UK for a smart phone you’re going to pay around £35-£45 a month on a 2 year contract and you will get the phone for free, but with this you will also usually get an unlimited amount of usage on it.

In the picture to the left you’ll notice how I have compared two blackberries, one on Verizon and one on Orange. As well as this you can see a comparison of two iphone 4’s, one on O2 and one on AT&T. AT&T-online charge $199 (£127.59) for an iphone 4. With this you will get an $80 (£51) a month contract which includes 450 minutes (which roll-over), 2GB of data and 1500 text messages. Now on o2, you will get an iphone for £29 ($45) on a 2 year contract. You will be charged £45 ($70) a month and with that you will be given a usage of 1200 minutes, unlimited text, visual voicemail and 750mb of internet (which is all you will ever need). The tariff prices are quite similar but I just can’t understand why a US customer would have to pay so much for the handset when on average for an iphone 4 they will be paying the company $2000 over the two years.

Now if I compare some lower range smart phones like a Blackberry Pearl 3G from Orange and a Blackberry 8350 from Verizon we can see a considerable difference in prices. Again in the US Verizon customers will get the phone for free on an $80 a month contract for two years. It seems that American companies don’t care so much for the talk plan or have specific talk plans for specific handsets like Orange do. A typical US talk plan with around 450 minutes is going to cost you $39.99 then you have to add additional usages such as text messages and internet, which are charged at around $15 extra EACH! On Orange a Blackberry Pearl 3G will generally cost a customer around £25 a month online and give them around 300 minutes, unlimited text and 500mb internet included, PLUS the phone will be free. Can US carriers continue to take their customers for a ride like this? From watching phone news and review videos on YouTube I constantly hear complaints from American customers about the prices and services they’re receiving.

One thing I do know is that we are very lucky with our contract prices in the UK/Ireland. The American customer needs to be extremely careful when choosing a package and a phone. I’m not sure how upgrade customers are treated, but judging by complaints that I’ve heard so far I wouldn’t be surprised if customers in the US are regularly jumping from carrier to carrier with no loyalty at all.

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Why Pay as you go is a waste of money.

Allow me to begin by saying that this is only MY opinion, so don't tear me to shreds! It’s just at this point I can’t see how people can still be on pay-as-you-go. First things first, the average person aged 18-24 is bound to spend at least £20 - £30 a month on pre-pay credit so what’s to stop them getting a contract for the same price? There are a wide variety of pay monthly plans out there for everyone, starting from £5 per month. A person doesn’t just need to take out some golden package as carriers now generally offer sim-only or simplicity plans, which are pay monthly tariffs that can be set up with easy direct debits, but there are no contract lengths involved.  These are cheap alternatives to contracts and are kind of half way between pay&go and pay monthly.

What I don’t understand is people’s scepticism and sheer lack of trust when it comes to pay monthly. Although I’ve heard a fair share of horror stories of people with huge bills, but I the reasons why where always quite apparent. I was always just too nice to point it out to them. The only people that shouldn’t be on contract are those who don’t understand them. Anyone who is complaining about the price of their phone bill after they just got back from holiday where they called, texted and facebooked every person and their cousin is quite blind sighted. Don’t use your phone abroad, well….don’t use it that much, it will cost a fortune whether you’re on pay monthly or pay&go.

Now, we can’t mention pay as you go without making some swooping comment to the cheapos on O2. That’s right! And it can’t be denied. O2 pay&go is the cheapest and best option for anyone. Well I say ‘anyone’ but in my opinion it should be mainly directed to children and the elderly because they can get the most benefit out of it. If person finds that there spending £30 a month on credit, whilst using a useless, problematic and frankly ridiculous handset, they should know that contract is the way to go. A £30 a month contract will generally get you around 6 ½ hours (400minutes) talk time, 500+ texts, a load of internet usage and maybe some extras like photo messages or sat-nav PLUS a freaking sweet phone (in most cases).

On the other hand, £30 a month on pay&go will generally get you unlimited text (depending on network), a maximum of 3 hours talk time and if you’re lucky a small bit of internet. BUT with that you’re still going to have to cough up an average of £50 - £200 for a handset, which will in most cases be defective or the network will not give you the service you want. Pay and go customers must be constantly unhappy when their phone breaks, because they get absolutely no help! The reason for this is I’m afraid, you’re just not important to the network. Approaching a sales person and saying “my pay as you go Nokia is broken and I have been with o2 for six years bla bla bla” won’t get you anywhere.

Pay monthly customers are the only customers companies generally care for, because they’re tied tight with fixed rate. That is maybe only thing that can give pay’n’go customers the upper hand over pay monthly customers. Pay’n’go have a choice, but contract customers do not. A pay as you go customer can top up £10 one month and £50 the next, but pay monthly customers must pay off their contracted tariff amount each month no matter what their level of usage that month.

Take from this what you will but personally I have never had any problems with any pay monthly service, from any network. But I can say fairly if you’re pay&go you better be O2 and if you’re contract you better be Orange. Vodafone lies somewhere in the middle, and is sort of a happy medium. But finally one thing you need to know about contracts is….. GET INSURANCE!

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Thanks to Kevin smith for the proof reading :)

Top 10 Best Android Apps

1. Advanced Task Killer: This handy wee app is designed to free up the battery and processor life of your android phone. What it does, in short is remove your currently open apps from your phones system to create room and let your phone breath a bit, especially while multitasking.

2. Music Junk: An excellent app that gives you thousands of free music tracks that download directly to your handset. In most cases it downloads the album artwork for you also, and if your like me that is a big plus. It works in a similar way to the Limewire (except less viruses :p) and gives you a large amount of music to download for FREE!

3. Ebay: Simple as, ebay is a good and a bad app. The good is that android users wont have to use PK auctions any more as ebay just release their own app last month. The bad is that ebay is a bit of an addiction, especially when on your phone, as iphone users no also.

4. Vlc Remote: Anyone who watches allot of downloaded videos on their computer uses vlc as there media player. What this application does is links your phone to your vlc media player via wifi so you can control your computers media player from your phone. This is excellent if your lazy like me and cant be bothered to stand up to change the volume or pause your videos from your computer.

5. Zedge: This is a great app for the lovers of Ring-tones and wallpaper. All of the tones and backgrounds are free and some of the wallpapers are awesome, and also sized to fit your phones screen exactly. The ring-tones can be directly assigned to your phone and saved and chosen at any time.

6. APK Manager: I did a story on this a while ago, but basically what it does is allows the user to install applications directly from your sd card and also uninstall your current programs. Its great if you download apps from the internet and want to put them on your phone for free. check this out: http://supertalltek.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-to-robb-google.html

7. Twidroyd: Any of you who use twitter need to use this app. It condenses and outlines your twitter account in the best way possible making it a far better application for twitter following. Don't use peep, use this.

8. Guitar Tuner: Guitar players out there may find it extremely difficult to get a free guitar app for android. The iphone in my opinion has the best guitar apps (and best apps in general) and its fierce difficult to find a decent one for android. Guitar tuner is a good, not great free app to tune up your guitar to the best of its ability.

9. Launcher pro: Now for HTC android users this isn't that important because the sense overlay on your android phone is pretty enough that you may not need this app. But i like it even on my HTC Desire. What it is, is a skin for android OS that allows far more customization on your phones appearance and home screens. Its almost like a jailbreak. Now the original version is free and great but the pro has to be paid for to unlock the official launcher pro widgets.

10. Colour Note: A free note pad application that every phones needs but what colour note does is lays it out in a really nice a specific way so that your notes are organized and structured. It also allows for backup and check lists, which are a great addition.

Rumors: IPhone 5, IPad Mini, Desire HD

Now firstly this could be absolute rubbish but recently there has been allot of talk and rumors surrounding Apple and some possible new products, such as a repaired & revamped version of the iPhone 4, and a mini version of the ipad. Also some new bumper cases and iPod are rumored, but their just not an interesting as the possibility of a new iPhone. Now one thing that constantly happens after Apple release a new device is that a large amount of rumors appear that explain how apple are preparing a sequel device. To be honest I was quite captivated by the idea of a new iPhone because it would make a whole lotta sense due to the anntennagate problem, but allot of people would be extremely angry. I can hear it now: "How can apple release a new phone so quickly, it’s just because the iPhone 4 is a problematic, evil and generally a vindictive phone of epic proportions". Well you wouldn't be to far wrong. The fact is Apple must be extremely nervous right now, they no they can’t release the iPhone 4 white without fixing the signal problems first, so what are they going to do? In my opinion it could be a number of things. Apple could be smart and release the iPhone 4 white and throw a few coding lies (lies not lines) into their algorithms so that the signal strength doesn't change no matter what. Or they could quickly build a new iPhone 5 which claims to be another innovation and the most incredibly different and unique (even though everyone has one) phone ever created, but in turn create an even more dire and problematic device. I say that like it was a real problem to begin with, but in all fairness the antenna problem was really blown out of proportion, so much so that the hardware supervisor of Apple ran out, which is kind of funny. But at this point we can obviously only speculate and rumors are just rumors, for instance the ipad mini rumor has been floating about since the release of the original ipad (saying original like it’s an old thing, laugh OUT loud'!). 

Screens of the HTC Desire HD have been surfacing around the inter-webs for the last few weeks and a picture of a HTC Evo look-alike has been found claiming to be the new Desire HD. I'm pretty sure any UK/Ireland users wont be too upset hearing this if they just bought a Desire, as I can't see this around here any time soon. We never seen the HTC Incredible or Evo 4G and probably never will, so this could be another US/Canada only release. Anyway the Desire HD is supposed to be hooked up with a front facing camera, a bigger 4.3 inch display (probably super-amoled as well), 1GZ processor, Android 2.2 and probably a big camera upgrade also.