Will a Certification Really Help Me Get a Better Job?

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Galaxy S4 and HTC One Google Edition Hands-On: The Best Got Better

For years, one of Android's biggest problems has been Android skins that weigh down the best hardware the platform has to offer. But now the two best Android phones in the world—the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S4—come in pure, stock Google Editions. And after spending some time with both, we can confirm that ditching the skins has made them better than ever.

Since you can buy them as of today, we've broken down how the two compare with each other, and with the skinned versions of themselves.

The One with Sense enabled was already pretty much the snappiest phone we've ever used. With stock Android, it's even faster. Apps open just a little bit quicker and swiping around the UI is just a little bit smoother. The biggest difference you'll notice, though, is that it's just cleaner. Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) is a very minimal OS. Apps like the calendar, the clock, and even the apps drawer are more pared-back and easier to use. Desktop customization, for example, is much simpler.

You still get the same great phone on the hardware side. From a design standpoint it's still our favorite phone ever, and it's by far the most satisfying to hold. The screen is incredibly sharp and looks just as good as it did on the skinned version. The dual, front-facing speakers still sound incredible (best sounding phone ever), and when you have headphones in you have that same Beats by Dre EQ, which focuses on the bass a little more and sounds very good (the HTC One has a dedicated pre-amp to help with this). Unfortunately, it's not all good news.

The only significant drawback in the Google Edition unit we tested is that the camera doesn't work nearly as well anymore. You might recall how the HTC One's "ultrapixel" sensor took the win in our smartphone camera battle. Clearly, HTC's camera software had something to do with balancing that rather unique sensor, because the stock Android camera app doesn't do nearly as good of a job. Photos tend to be washed out, over-exposed, and under-saturated. Even in low light, it isn't as good.

The new camera app itself is very cleanly laid-out and easy to use, but you lose a lot of the advanced shooting features found in the Sense camera app (though many of these reappear in the editing menu in stock Android's Gallery app), in addition to the specialty modes, though you do gain Google's mega-panoramic PhotoSphere, which is fun but is ultimately a small consolation.

There's a chance, though, that the fault may lie in our unit. A Google spokesperson responded to our inquiries about it as follows:

"The camera hardware and underlying software (image processing, etc.) are the exact same between the Stock and Sense UX versions of HTC One, so there should not be any differences. Our camera tests show that the quality is consistent between the two."

That said, the Google engineers saw what we were talking about in our photos, and they are doing more testing, but they believe we have a faulty device. So who knows! Hopefully it's just a glitch with our One. We'll be getting a new one shortly and will update.

There are a few other quibbles, too, some small things you may have taken for granted with Sense that you don't get with stock. In HTC Sense's dialer app, you can start punching a friend's name into the number pad (using the superscript letters) and it will quickly pull up contacts. The stock dialer doesn't do this, so you have to scroll through your long list of contacts.

HTC Sense also offers built-in profiles—an easy way to switch between Normal, Vibrate, and Silent modes. Not so in stock. Also, the HTC One has a built-in IR blaster for using your phone as a remote control. Not only does the stock version not come with a preinstalled app that lets you use it, but as of right now there are no apps in the Play Store that can take advantage of it, either. We were told that capability would be coming in the next software build, though APIs will still have to be released, and someone will still have to make an app that uses them.

There's also the rather steep sticker price of $600, but that sounds like a bigger number than it actually is. For an unlocked, unsubsidized phone it's pretty standard. If you're used to paying $200 for a high-end phone and have your wireless carrier subsidize the rest (as a part of a two-year contract, typically) may experience some sticker-shock.

That might sound like it all adds up to a lot of negative, but it's really negligible, especially assuming we were dealing with an abnormal camera. And we haven't even mentioned the biggest advantage of a Google Edition phone yet: Updates. The stock version of the HTC One will all but certainly be upgraded to the newest version of Android right along with (or at least close to) the Nexus program. The One with Sense, by contrast, is still running Android version 4.1.2, which is now more than a year old. For people who want the latest and greatest coming out of Google HQ, this is huge. And trust us, you want the latest and greatest.

The stock HTC One runs on AT&T, T-Mobile, and other GSM carriers (i.e. not Verizon or Sprint), and yes, LTE works. We tested it on AT&T's network in NYC, and when we had four bars of LTE we averaged download speeds of over 20Mbps and upload speeds of over 12Mbps. We did have some problems with our radio, initially, but after talking with Google it appears that was unique to our particular test unit. And once we worked out the bug (it chose the wrong APN, for you geeks out there), it performed flawlessly. So, really, our only major gripe here is the camera. We've reached out to Google about it, and will update if we hear anything back.

In our initial review of the Galaxy S4, almost all of our complaints about it were software-related. So you would think that replacing TouchWiz with stock Android would fix almost all of its problems, right?

Yep. That's pretty much true.

Samsung's TouchWiz is such a heavy skin that it slows things down despite the super-fast 1.9GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor in its belly. But while stock Android makes the HTC One a little faster, it's a serious change in the Galaxy S4. Scrolling through menus and across screens is faster and smoother. Apps generally open more quickly, and most importantly, there is now almost zero shutter lag on the camera, whereas the TouchWiz version can lag behind by as much as a second.

TouchWiz is also just a clusterfrak of settings and bells and whistles, most of which sit there unused, clogging up menus. Stock Android is starkly minimalist by comparison. The stock apps look better and are more intuitive to use almost without exception. Desktop customization is way simpler. We were also able to install and use Google Wallet on it (not so on the HTC One Google Edition), which is typically blocked by AT&T. Why it worked on the S4 and not the One despite using the same SIM card for both, we do not know.

On the hardware side, thankfully, photos the 13MP camera took look almost identical to those on the TouchWiz version. Again, the camera app is much simplified, and though you gain PhotoSphere and easier access to HDR, you do lose a lot of the fun camera modes that Samsung came up with, like Drama Shot (which superimposes several images of a subject in motion into a single shot) and animated GIFs. As you know, the Galaxy S4 features a micro SD card slot, and while you can read files off of it (photos, etc.) you can't take full advantage of it. For example, there is no native way to move apps over to your SD card, as there is in the skinned versions of Android.

There are, of course, things you lose that you will miss. Again, TouchWiz's dialer lets you punch in numbers to get to your contacts quickly, stock Android's dialer doesn't (please fix this, guys!), and you lose TouchWiz's profiles feature as well. TouchWiz has some handy shortcuts to settings within the notification screen and some people may miss those, but for our money, the way stock Android handles it is better, and keeps your notification panel looking cleaner and easier to read. Also, while the IR blaster is technically ready to be used, the API hasn't been released yet, and so there are no downloadable apps that can take advantage of it yet. And, the S4 too, will only work on GSM carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile (not Verizon or Sprint).

And as with the HTC One, the sticker price might be tough to swallow. At $650, it ain't exactly cheap, but again, that's not bad for a high-end, unlocked, unsubsidized phone. As we suspected, putting stock Android on the Galaxy S4 made one of the very best smartphones even better.

So, you've decided you're going to go with one of these stock phones. Now that the software is essentially identical, here's how the two phones compare.

The HTC One is still arguably the best-designed phone we've ever used, and its build quality is unmatched. It was cut from a solid block of aluminum and it feels amazing. The Galaxy S4 is by no means bad, but with its slippery plastic back, there's no comparison. The One is slightly narrower and is a bit easier to handle, too. Winner: HTC One

The screens are definitely two different looks, as you can see in the video above. They're both 1080p. The S4 is a full 5 inches which gives you a little more real estate, whereas the One's 4.7-inch screen means the pixel density is every so slightly higher, making it look very slightly sharper.
In the whites HTC One skew a bit on the rosy side, whereas the whites on the Galaxy S4 skew blueish-green. Which is "better" is more a matter of personal preference, though we slightly prefer the One.In the blacks, there's no contest. The Galaxy S4 is like looking into the cold, black vacuum of space, even at full brightness. At full brightness, the HTC One's blacks are very slightly gray. It's still very good, but it's definitely not as good as the S4. Winner: Tie

As you can see in the video above, the stock HTC One locks focus and snaps shots faster than stock Galaxy S4. But, as we mentioned above, the camera on the stock HTC One was under-performing compared to the original. As a result, the camera on the Galaxy S4 is much sharper, has better color, and better contrast. The One does, however, still stomp the S4 in low light. Hopefully we just got a bum HTC unit, but for now the Galaxy S4's camera is better. Click here for a gallery of comparison shots. Winner: Galaxy S4 (pending)

The HTC One is the hands down winner here. It's not even close. The stereo front-facing speakers are loud and clear. The S4's external speaker (on the back) is quiet and terrible by comparison. Also, the pre-amp in the HTC One makes listening to music through headphones noticeably better. Winner: HTC One

Unlike full on Nexus phones, the One and the S4 both have hardware navigation buttons. The One has two capacitive buttons: One for Home, and one for Back. You double-tap home to bring up the task-switcher, and you long-press it to bring up Google Now. The Galaxy S4 on the other hand has three navigation buttons: Back and Menu are both capitative and there's a home button in the center which is press-able. You press it once to go home, twice quickly for multitasking, and long press for Google Now.The capacitive buttons on the HTC (for home and task switching) are simply faster and easier to use. Also, because there is no physical menu button, that puts the menu options on screen in apps, which we find to be more intuitive. Winner: HTC One

Navigating around the OS, the HTC One is just a hair quicker. Considering it has the same software and the same processor but it's clocked 0.2 GHz slower than the S4, that shouldn't be the case. But it is. Go figure. We're talking about a very small difference, though. Even in benchmarks, the two were dead even, with one or the other coming out a hundred or two hundred points ahead of the other in both Quadrant and Geekbench 2 tests, but the One came out ahead two out of three times. Go figure. Winner: HTC One

Too soon to tell. More testing required.

Winner: TBD

Options

You want expandable storage? The S4's got it, the HTC One doesn't. Want a removable battery? Ditto. If you like to tinker, you're going to get frustrated fast with the HTC One's lack of fungibility. Similarly, while there are some accessories available for the One, Samsung has built itself a much more robust third-party ecosystem. If you want your phone with a side of stuff, the S4 is the way to go.Winner: Galaxy S4

Last but not least, the price. The HTC One is $600, and the Galaxy S4 is $650.Winner: HTC One

Honestly, these are both terrific phones, and you'd be happy with either. If an SD card slot and removable battery are a big deal for you, go ahead and get the Galaxy S4. Otherwise, the HTC One is our favorite by a nose. Most of all, though, just be glad that you can finally get the best possible versions of the best possible phones on Android. It's about time.

You can get the stock Android HTC One here and you can get the stock Android Samsung Galaxy S4 here. They should ship out by July 9th.

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Balance Work and Life Better with the Right Support Strategy

When creating a plan to balance work and life, we can easily forget that we don't live in a bubble. Inc. suggests coming up with a plan to lean on certain people to help keep up the work-life balance.

It seems like common sense, but we rely on other people every day. When you're figuring out how to balance your work life with your personal life, consider the people in your world that you can turn to for help with various tasks. As Inc. puts it:

"My intent has always been to be a mom, be present with children, and find balance, so for my husband and I it was a natural evolution. It has worked out—I'm a big believer in having family around. I have a huge support network, my husband is flexible, my mom is there, so I can travel and work because of my network. We're both doing what we love."

How we work will inevitably affect the people around us, so it makes sense to have a plan for how we will rely on people. Assuming your spouse, for example, will handle the housework is less ideal than discussing with your loved ones who will take on what roles.

5 Easy Tips for Better Work-Life Balance | Inc.

Photo by Greater Lansing Convention.

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Everything for Windows Updates, Adds Better Filters and Search Options

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Whats better than water Balloons... Sponge Balls!!!

Every summer we make a large batch of sponge balls for the kids to enjoy in stead of water balloons. We do this for several reasons. Once made they can be enjoyed all summer if taken care of properly. The clean up is real easy since there aren't any little rubber balloon pieced to hunt for and pick up. The set up is also really easy. It takes under 2 minutes to make 1 sponge ball. We usually make around 40 sponge balls every summer. Once the sponge balls are made we split them into four 5 gallon buckets filled with water strategically placed around our yard. The kids grab the sponges and start attacking each other. After a couple of throws when the sponges aren't as saturated with water, the kids dip them back into the 5 gallon buckets and continue with their sponge ball fight. They can be used every day if desired, and it's a great way to cool off in the summer. We regularly have kids in the neighbor hood with ages ranging from 4 to 17 playing with these things, and we have yet to have an injury due to the sponges themselves. We have had kids slip on the lawn and run into structures we have in our yard, so I still recommend playing with caution. Also, we regularly have friends ask to borrow them for parties. Everyone who uses them seems to prefer them over water balloons.Tools:
Sissors
Pliers

Material:
Sponges
Wire Ties

A pack of 4 sponges cost me .99 cents at our local grocery store. One pack of sponges will make 2 sponge balls. The wire ties can be found at your local hardware store for around $5.00 for a pack of 100. One wire tie is used per sponge ball.

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Keep Sunscreen in a Cooler for Better Comfort and Effectiveness

If you're going to be out in the sun all day, sunscreen is your friend. However, warm, slimy, and runny sunscreen is a very unpleasant friend. Protect your skin and make putting on sunscreen more comfortable by keeping the bottle in a cooler bag.

This tip comes from the Be It Ever So Humble blog, where Mrs. Mordecai writes:

I put the sunscreen in an insulated lunchbox and kept an ice pack in the top when we were away from home. Not only has the sunscreen remained effective through the summer (we have had NO sunburns this summer, hooray!), it has been much nicer to put on. I hate putting on warm, oily, slimy sunscreen.

As a bonus, the sunscreen is always corralled in one place now, and it's easy to grab if we want to take it with us.

Toss your sunscreen in the cooler when you head to the beach not only to prevent the sunscreen from becoming gross and separated, but also to keep it from losing its effectiveness.

Keeping Sunscreen Cool | Be It Ever So Humble via Parent Hacks

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Revo Uninstaller Pro Uninstalls Your Programs Better, Is 50% Off

Windows' built-in uninstaller is okay, but far from perfect. Revo, our favorite app uninstaller, has an awesome pro version that is on sale for $20 right now, down from $40.

Revo Uninstaller has a lot of great features, and the free version is something everyone should have on their system. It's better at finding leftover files and registry entries than Windows' built-in uninstaller, and includes things like a "Hunter Mode" that let you click on any running application to uninstall it.

The pro version is even better, though: not only does it have more advanced scanning techniques, but you can monitor system changes, backup your registry before you delete old keys, and—our favorite feature of the bunch—uninstall multiple programs at once.

It's usually pretty expensive at $40, but at 50% off, it may be worth your while—especially if you're the kind of person that likes to try out new software a lot (and thus are constantly uninstalling old things).

Revo Uninstaller Pro - 50% Off

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Better Rename Quickly Organizes Your File Names, Costs a Bit Too Much

OS X: We love a great productivity app that saves you time, but some software contends with our frugality. We like Better Rename because it makes quick work of renaming files with tons of powerful customization options. That said, it costs a little too much.

When I needed to rename files, I threw them in Automator and set up an action that took care of business. Sometimes I had to run it a few times to get everything right and generally something caused a little aggravation. After putting up with a more DIY method I didn't like, I decided to suck it up and pay $20 for Better Rename in hopes of making my batch file renaming a bit easier. Obviously this is an app you use for a pretty specific purpose, which makes the higher price tag a bit tougher to swallow and completely ridiculous to those who don't actually have a reason to use it. But if you have to batch rename photos, a series of text files, MP3s, or whatever, it becomes incredibly useful.

Better Rename uses a drag and drop interface. You throw a few files into a window and then get started with a ton of renaming options. Aside from just manipulating existing text, you can also replace or append text to file names based on data inside the file itself. For example, if you have a photo with EXIF data that included a location, you could append the location to the filename automatically. If you had a bunch of generically named MP3 with ID3 tags you could use those ID3 tags to provide proper names to the files themselves. If you worry about making any changes and screwing up your file names, Better Rename provides a preview of what you're about to do—and warns you before you do it—so you don't cause yourself any grief.

Regardless of how useful you may find Better Rename, you may not want to cough up $20. If that's the case, keep an eye out for bundles. Better Rename ends up in quite a few of them, including the Productive Macs Bundle happening right now. For $30, you get Better Rename plus eight other apps. Also, keep an eye out for price drops on sites like App Shopper so you can just grab Better Rename for a more attractive price.

Better Rename 9

Money Bags is our semi-regular roundup of really great applications that cost a little more than we'd prefer.

Related Even if you're not a programmer, you can easily create tiny, time-saving applications that breeze through repetitive tasks—renaming large groups … Read…

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Filipino Eggrolls... Better than any made in a restaurant

Ok...to be perfectly honest, i am not sure if this recipe is Filipino or if they even make eggrolls in the Philippines for that mater. I do know that my friends grandmother, who taught me how to make them, was direct from Manila, so i'll take her at her word. the photos of this Instructable are courtesy of Tatiana Rene Photography. Hope you all enjoy them,A list of ingredients making about 21 eggrolls
are as follows: (all can be found at your regular grocery store)
-1 pack of eggroll wraps (in produce. near tofu)
-1 qt of vegetable oil
-2 chicken breasts
-1 average size head of cabbage
-1 bunch of leeks
-3-4 stalks of bok choy
-1/2 a carrot
-1/2 can of water chestnuts
-1/2 can of bamboo shoots
-1 Large bottle of soy sauce
-1 large bottle of teriyaki sauce
-1 jar of hoisin sauce
-1 egg
- various dipping sauces (pictured; sweet & sour, hot mustard)

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Digitize Old Photos Better with the Negatives

Whether you're scanning old photos yourself, or sending them off to a scanning service, it's always better to use the negatives if you can find them.

JKastnerPhoto, a former photo lab technician on Reddit, offers up this tip and includes a dramatic side by side comparison, which you can see above. The negatives include far more detail than any prints, they haven't been cropped by an overzealous photo printer, and they can give you much more accurate color reproduction and tonal range than simply scanning an old print. A lot of you probably knew that negatives could produce better prints, but seeing the difference side by side really underscores how big a difference it can make.

While you can get an entry-level negative scanner for around $30 online, this previously-mentioned hack lets you use any flatbed scanner to do the same job for mere pennies.

LPT: If you are interested in scanning old family photos, scan negatives instead of the prints to achieve higher quality images | Reddit

Related Film and negative scanners are expensive. DIY options are sometimes complicated. This option only costs you only the price of a piece of A4 silver… Read…

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Ask About Repositioning Flights and Cruises to Get a Better Deal

When searching for a vacation online, you might not get the best deal. Susan Johnston, writing for US News, reports that asking about repositioning flights and cruises can save you a lot.

Airlines use repositioning flights to move aircrafts from one airport to another, and the same applies to cruise lines, which typically reposition ships twice a year. These flights or cruises tend to be cheaper but provide services similar to traditional offerings, according to Greenberg. He suggests asking about these options on the phone.

Next time you're taking a vacation and the cost seems a bit high, call your airline(s) of choice and ask about repositioning flights. You might just save some hard-earned cash.

5 Budget Travel Tips You Haven't Heard Before | US News

Image by file404 (Shutterstock).

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How to Make a Better Strawberry Pallet Planter

Over the past year I've come across scores of diy pallet projects, some of them intriguing and others not quite there yet but still having potential. One that I see time and again is the idea of using a single wooden pallet as a strawberry planter. Filled with soil and with plants inserted in the gaps they're usually leaned up against a wall but sometimes bolted on to keep from tumbling over. It's a clever idea but I've steered away from trying it myself because I suspect that they'll require constant watering and erosion control and also because I'm not convinced that they'll work long term. Almost every image I've found of pallet planters look to be newly planted rather than a tried and tested design.

Still I was interested in the idea and with the gift of eight pristine wooden pallets, I started scouring the internet looking for alternative tutorials. Ones that offered increased stability, more soil capacity and better aesthetics. Eventually, after finding nothing that really jumped out at me, I came to the conclusion that I'd have to come up with my own design. After thinking about the process for this post I'm quite sure that anyone who is comfortable using a hammer and hand-saw could complete this project too. Though I'll be honest and say it's much easier if you have a jigsaw and a few other extra tools.

For this project you will need the following materials:
- A suitable pallet as described in the next two steps
- A hand-saw or jigsaw
- Electric drill or hammer
- Two sizes of screws and nails - approx. lengths 4 cm (1-1/2") and 8cm (3")

Optional:
- Heavy duty chisel/wedge and iron mallet
- Non-toxic paint and paintbrush

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Hang Pots and Pans in Corner Cabinets to Make Better Use of Them

The corner cabinets are awkward, tricky places to store your kitchen stuff efficiently. It turns out, though, that this is a great spot for tucking away your pots and pans.

The Childfree Chic blog posted this clever corner-cabinet-turned-pot-rack idea. With a few hooks, you can make better use of a corner cabinet and store all of your pots and pans (which tend to be space hogs) neatly within it.

Full Reveal of Kitchen | Childfree Chic via BuzzFeed

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