Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Quickly Personalize an Android Smartphone


Discover quick and easy ways to personalize your phone
So you've just got a new Android device, right? Then you will have probably just spent the last hour or so pressing the various buttons , exploring the various features and finding out exactly how it works. Well, the next stage is personalizing your device and making it your own!
Android devices are very flexible in terms of what you can add and how you make them look. For example, you can change the ringtone to something that reflects your personality - it could be a tone from the existing database of pre-installed tones or you can look into creating your own from your favourite song.

You will probably then want to start altering the appearance of your device, which is where the possibilities really start to come thick and fast. The most obvious way to customise the appearance of your phone s through your wallpaper. Again, your device will come with a wide-range of pre-installed backdrops that include static images and dynamic, animated themes. If none of those float your boat then you can use an image that you have captured using your phone's camera - all that is required is the selection of the image and a minor amount of resizing to ensure that it fits within the screen constraints of your device.
Then we move on to app launchers and widgets. An app launcher is a kind of mini operating system that determines how our apps are displayed and where they are laced for easy access. There are numerous app launchers available to download for free through the Google Play store, and they provide quick and easy access to the apps hat you use the most while allowing you to organise and arrange the rest of your apps any way you see fit.
Widgets are a different bag altogether. Basically, a widget is a cool feature that you an assign to your home screen - kind of like an app that is running constantly, such as a clock ,weather report or stock checker so you can fill your various home screens with information that is important to you.
Widgets require varying amounts of space on your home screen, so a slight amount of organisation may be required. In this section we will guide you through the process of utilising all of these features and also provide further insight into additional ways to personalise your phone, such as keyboard shortcuts and adding on your phone's vocabulary with your own most-used words which, judging by modern phone-speak, may or may not be in the English dictionary!

Changing your ringtone. How to set new ringtones and adjust the volume

Go to Settings. On your device, locate the Settings app and then tap on it. Listed in the extensive list of options will be one called 'Sound'. Just tap on this to start exploring the audio options for your device.
Change the tone. Sounds can be applied to ringtones, notifications and more. Tap on the 'Phone ringtone' option under the 'Incoming Calls’, section, and then choose a new ringtone from the listed of installed tones.
Change the volume. Now tap the "Volume' control option, and here you will be able to adjust the volume for each and every tone that you have set to a specific function. Move the sliders and then tap on 'OK’ to finish up.


How can I add a bookmark shortcut to my Home screen?

Simply tap on your home screen, select the 'Shortcuts’ menu and then choose 'Bookmarks'. Now select the page you wish to add.