Saturday, September 24, 2011

Google Android Voice Translator - Speech To Speech Translator App To Communicate In 55 Foreign Languages With Ease

This is one of the best Speech to Speech translator apps. It can translate in real time the spoken voice from one language to another. You can also covert the speech to text and text to speech. You can send the translated text and audio file in email to your friends with just a single tap. You can also send translated text in SMS with ease. This Android voice translator app integrates smoothly with various speech tools like "TTS Extended", "SVOX Classic TTS Engine" and "Free Voices".

BestAppsFor_Android_Voice_Translator
Talk To Me Classic - Android Voice Translator : This is one of the popular and very useful apps for tourists who want to communicate in different foreign languages when they are travelling in other countries. User interface of this application is simple and user friendly. You can extend the voice quality of the app by buying additional languages for SVOX Classic TTS Engine.

Android Voice Translator Main Screen : When you launch this app for the first time then you would see user license agreement screen. Once you accept the agreement then you would go to the main screen of this speech translator app.

Android Voice Translator Main Screen
Android Voice Translator Main Screen
There are two ways to enter the text for translation in this app. You can tap the microphone button displayed at the top of the screen. This displays the pop up screen with instruction "Speak now". Once this pop up is displayed then you can just talk whatever you want to translate. Whatever you talk is converted into text and displayed in source text box. In above screenshot this text is "Good morning" and source language is English. The app translates the entered text into destination language you want. In this case it is German.

If your Android phone does not have Speech Recognizer then this feature of the application does not work. Another way to enter the source text for translation is by typing it. You can tap the source text box and just type the sentence that you want to translate using the keyboard of your Android phone.

You can tap the "Translate" button to translate the source text from the one selected language to the other required language. You can tap the "Speaker" icon shown in translated text box and app speak the translated text in given language. In above case it is German and translated text is "Guten Morgen". You must have one of the "text to speech engine" tools, "TTS Extended", "SVOX Classic TTS Engine" or "Free Voices", to make this feature work. This speak feature of the app is really handy when you want to communicate with a person in a foreign language that you can not speak. This can be really time saver for tourists when they are travelling in different countries.

You can tap the Swap button to swap the "From:" and "To:" languages with each other. So in above scenario if  you tap Swap button then "From:" language would become "German" and "To:" language would become "English".

Android Voice Translator Languages : You can change the "From:" or "To:" language by tapping the given drop down control. It would display the pop up screen as shown in screenshot below.

Android  Voice Translator Languages
Android  Voice Translator Languages
There are 55 languages to choose from. You would find Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Basque, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (China), Chinese (Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (United Kingdom), English (United States), Estonian, Finnish, French, French (Canada), German, Galician, Greek, Haitian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Maltese, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Welsh and Yiddish.

To use the speech recognition feature in any of the above languages it is necessary that speech recognition engine installed on your Android phone supports that language. Similarly to use text to speech feature in any of the above language you need to have voice database of that language installed on your phone.

Installing Additional Language For Android Voice Translator :  You can press the menu button of your Android phone to display the app menu as shown in screenshot below.

Android Voice Translator Menu
Android Voice Translator Menu
Tap the "More Voices" menu to display the "More Voices"screen. Here you can listen to sample of additional voice data for additional languages and buy it. Tap the "Sample" button next to the language name that you want to listen. Tap the "Buy" button to buy that voice data. This way you can extend this app to support text to speech translation with additional languages.

Installing Additional Speech Tools For Android Voice Translator : Tap the "Speech Tools" menu to launch the "Speech Tools" screen which is shown in screenshot below.

Android Voice Translator - Speech Tools
Android Voice Translator - Speech Tools
Here you can see which of the speech tools are already installed on your Android phone. You can install additional speech tools by tapping the "Install" or "Reinstall" button. You can tap the "Edit" button on this screen for navigating to the settings screen of  "TTS Extended" speech tool. On "TTS Extended" speech tool's settings screen, just make sure that "Always use my settings" check box is checked OFF. This is required for working this app as expected.

Sending Translated Emails With Android Voice Translator : After you translate the required text then tap the "Send as E-mail" menu to compose the email with translated text. It would display the email compose screen as shown in screenshot below.

Android Voice Translator - Send Email
Android Voice Translator - Send Email
The translated text is automatically inserted in message section of the email and voice file is attached to email. The default subject line is set to "Talk To Me Message" but you can edit it and change as you want. You can then enter the email id in "To" field and send the email with translated text. It is this easy to send emails in any foreign language now with this handy Android translator app.

Sending Translated SMS With Android Voice Translator : After you translate the required text then tap the "Send as SMS" menu to compose the SMS with translated text. It would display the SMS interface screen as shown in screenshot below.

Android Voice Translator - Send SMS
Android Voice Translator - Send SMS
Here again translated text is automatically inserted in SMS message field. You can enter the recipient phone numbers in "To" field and send the SMS in any of the 55 foreign languages.

One more way to use the translated text is, when you tap the translated text in this app then text is copied to the clipboard. You can paste this copied text to any text editor on your Android phone.

You can download and install this app from Android Market or Android App Store of your choice. If you liked this app then you may like to read about few more great Android apps here. Bookmark and keep coming back to read about more such wonderful, coolest and best apps for Android.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Android File Manager - Browse, Copy, Delete, Zip, View Files And Directories

Android phones come with default File Manager but for pro users it is not sufficient. If you are used to desktop computer's file manager then you would naturally look for something equally powerful. Here you would get to learn about one of the powerful and user friendly Android File Managers.

Android_File_Manager_Astro
ASTRO - An Android File Manager : This is one of the best file managers around. You can try a free version of it by downloading it from Android Marker or App store of your choice right away. It is powerful and at the same time simple to use. It comes with many features which you would need or must to have. When you launch ASTRO first time it will ask you to accept the licence terms and once accepted you can start using it.

Android File Manager Home : When you start it first time and after accepting license terms you would see the home folder contents.

Android File Manager - Home
Android File Manager - Home
The default home folder / directory is "/sdcard" but you are free to change the home folder by going to preferences and setting it to folder of your choice.

Notice the small up-arrow at right hand top corner of the screen. You can tap this arrow to show or hide the main toolbar that is displayed at top. You can see that there are left and right arrows at side of the toolbar. This indicates that you can drag the toolbar to scroll it to see more toolbar buttons.

Just tap the "Home" button at any time to come back to home folder. "Up" button is to go one level up in the directory hierarchy. Tap any of the folders displayed below the toolbar to browse the contents of that folder. If you tap any of the files then this Android File Manager opens that file for viewing using the app associated with that file type.

Android File Manager - Multi Selection : If you tap the third button on the main toolbar, that is "Multi" then File Manager goes into multi-selection mode.

Android File Manager - Multi-Selection
Android File Manager - Multi-Selection
You can notice that the toolbar changes in multi-selection mode. It provides the actions that you can perform with multiple selections of files or folders. For selecting the multiple folders for performing operations on, just tap those folders one by one. For example, in above screenshot "documents" and "download" are selected by tapping those folders one after another. You can perform batch operations on selected folders like copy, move, delete or zip. Tap "Cancel" button at left of the toolbar to exit from the "multi" mode.

Android File Manager - Search : When you tap the "Search" button on main toolbar then you would see the search screen of Android File Manager with wide range of search criteria.

Android File Manager - Search
Android File Manager - Search
As you can see in screenshot above, you can search the files by name and by text contained in files. You can select the directory name to search. You can define if directories should also be searched by checking ON "Include directory names'. You can also decide if sub directories should also be searched and search should be performed in case insensitive way.

If you scroll the search screen then you would find more search criteria like "Name does not contain", "size greater than" or "size less than" certain kilobytes, "Older than" and "Newer than" specified days. With these many powerful search options you can quickly search the file or folder that you are looking for.

Android File Manager - Sort : You can tap the "Sort" button on main toolbar to sort the folders and files as you want.

Android File Manager - Sort By
Android File Manager - Sort By
As shown in screenshot above, you can sort the files and folders by "Name", "Date", "Size" and "Type" by selecting the appropriate radio button. You can tap the "Ascending" or "Descending" button to decide the order of sorting.

Android File Manager - Grid or List View : When you tap the "View" button on main toolbar then it will display the popup screen with various choices as shown in screenshot below.

Android File Manager - Views
Android File Manager - Views
Here you can choose either "List" or "Icons" to display the folders in List or Grid view. You can additionally tap "Set Directory Options" button to select from options "Show Thumbnails", "Show File Details", "Hide File Extensions", "Show Hidden Files" and "List Directories First".

Android File Manager - Tools : This Android File Manager comes with additional useful and powerful tools. You can press the menu button of your Android phone to display the menus. Then tap "Tools" menu to display the following popup screen.

Android File Manager - Tools
Android File Manager - Tools
As displayed in the popup menu, there are three tools which you can launch from here - "Application Manager/Backup", "SD Card Usage", "Process Manager".

With Application Manager/Backup tool you can manage the apps installed on your Android phone. You can uninstall unwanted apps or take the backup of apps so that you can install them again when required.

Using SD Card Usage tool you can quickly inspect how much storage space of your SD Card is consumed by which folder.

You can use the Process Manager to check which different types of processes are running on your Android phone. You can kill the running processes that you don't want using Process Manager.

So go to Android Market and get this powerful Android File Manager. After you install this file manager on your Android phone then you would find house keeping of your phone's storage space is very easy task.

If you like this post then you may would like to read more about wonderful and exciting Android apps from older posts. Bookmark this URL and keep coming back for more such useful, coolest and best apps for Android.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Android Kindle Digital Books Reader - Read Fiction, Comics, Cooking, Fantasy, Humor, Thriller, Spiritual, Romance, Sports, Science, Travel and Computer E-Books On Move

There are many digital book readers in market today. They are also called e-book readers or electronic book readers. With advent of mobile smart phones these e-book readers are now also available for mobile phone users in form of apps. Now mobile users can enjoy reading books while they are on move. With e-book readers, you can carry with you your whole book library and read the books that you want, anytime and anywhere.

Android Kindle Books Reader : Android Kindle is one of the best and free e-book reader available today.   It is sophisticated and is from trusted source like Amazon. Kindle comes with it's own book store where you can search for the book you want from huge collection of books. It is very easy to get started with Android Kindle, just go to Android Market and install this free app to start reading books on your Android phone.

What Is Kindle : Before getting into details of Andoid Kindle, let's first see what is Kindle. Kindle is an innovative, portable and wireless e-book reader from Amazon.
Kindle, Wi-Fi, 6" E Ink Pearl Display

It is very sophisticated, handy and self sufficient device which allows you to read books, magazines, new papers, blogs and other content while on go. It comes with different configurations and it's cost vary depending on the configuration. Kindle is wireless book reader. It comes with Wi-Fi and 3G network connectivity options so that you can connect to Kindle store whenever required.

You can find more information about Kindle book reader at : Amazon Kindle In case you already have Kindle eBook reader and you want to buy accessories for your Kindle then you would find many fine Kindle accessories from covers to power adapters at :  Kindle Accessories

Apart from Kindle e-book reader shown above, Kindle reader app is available on different other platforms like PC, iPhone, Android and more. Once you buy a kindle book then you can read the same on any of these platform at your convenience.

Registering Your Android Kindle : You can download and install free Android Kindle app from Android Market or App store. You can download it for free from Amazon app store at : Kindle for Android. When you install and launch the Kindle app first time you would see following registration screen.

Register You Android Kindle
Register Your Android Kindle
If you already have an Amazon.com account then you can enter it in "Email address" and "Amazon password" text boxes shown in registration screenshot above. Tap register button to proceed. This is one time process and once done you don't have to enter this information again. In case you do not have Amazon.com account then you can create one at : Amazon.com Sign In

Buy Kindle Books For Your Android Kindle : When you install and run the kindle app on your Android phone first time then you would not find any interesting stuff to read there. You would need to buy few kindle books to read. If you want to find some nice kindle books to buy from large collections of books then get those at : Kindle eBooks

Free Kindle Books For Your Android Kindle : Before buying kindle books if you want to just try out the Android Kindle app then you can still find many free and classic books to read using Android Kindle. For downloading free Kindle books to your Android Kindle you can go to : Free Kindle Books

Kindle Books Download : When you go to Kindle Book Store using any of the links provided above then it is better to log in to Amazon using your Amazon account. We will see soon why this is important. When you find the book to buy / download and you are on the book description page like Blind Faith then look at the right hand side of the page for following box.
Kindle Books - Buy now with 1-Click
Kindle Books - Buy now with 1-Click
You can use this box to buy the books and deliver those to your Android Kindle app. Click the "Deliver to:" drop down box for the list of Kindle devices you have registered using Amazon.com account. If you have followed steps so far and registered the Android Kindle app and have logged into Amazon using same account then you would see your Kindle in drop down list box. Select it and click "Buy now with 1-Click" button. Follow the instructions to buy or download the book you wanted.

Android Kindle Home : Now when you start your Android Kindle app then it will automatically sync to download the book you have purchased, to your Android Kindle app. You will see Kindle home screen something similar to what is shown in screenshot below.

Android Kindle Book Reader - Home
Android Kindle Book Reader - Home
Here you can see all the books you have bought for your Android Kindle. The view of your Kindle app would be different depending on Kindle books which you have bought. You can buy or download more books following the link - Best Seller Kindle Books or earlier links provided above in this post. In above screenshot you can see two interesting kindle books Learn to Speak Japanese Quickly and Healing Short Stories

Android Kindle In Action : You can tap any of the book displayed in your Android Kindle app to start reading that book.

Android Kindle In Action
Android Kindle In Action
Above screen shot is showing the first chapter of the Kindle Book - Learn to Speak Japanese Quickly.

You can press the menu button of your Android Kindle ebook reader to see the menu. Using the menu you can fine tune behavior of your kindle. One of the important menu is "View Options". This menu allows you to choose the background color, brightness and font size of your Kindle reader.

If you are following me and have already installed the Kindle app on your Android and downloaded few exciting books to read then keep reading and enjoy. If you have not done it yet then go and install Kindle app and follow the instructions given in post to get started.

If you have liked this post then you may would like to read about few more wonderful and cool Android apps from popular section. Popular section is not visible to readers using mobile browsers and if you are reading this from your mobile browser then you can find more apps by tapping home at bottom of the page.

Keep coming back to read about more exciting, coolest and best apps for Android.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Android Dropbox - File Sync App For Music, Videos, Photos, Text, PDF, Office Documents And All Other Files

If you are looking for a free cloud data storage for your Android mobile phone then Android Dropbox is one of the best options available for you. Once you start using Dropbox for Android then you are no more limited by storage space available on your SD Card. You can sync your Dropbox with your desktop computer and mobile devices. With Dropbox on your mobile you can carry with you all the files in your Dropbox wherever you go and whenever you need it. You can carry all your Music, Videos, Movies, Photos, Pictures, Images, Text files, Word Documents, Excel files, Presentations, Pdf files and all types of files wherever you go.

Android_Dropbox
Android Dropbox - A File Sync App : Dropbox is a cloud storage and intelligent file sync app which syncs your folders on various desktop computers and mobile devices. After you register and install this application on your desktop PC and Android mobile then you are for sure that all your devices are in sync as and when you need them. In nutshell, Dropbox is your portable free online storage and free online backup with intelligence of syncing files and folders across all your devices. You will learn "How to use Dropbox with your Android mobile phone" in Dropbox review given below.

If you are new to cloud drives or online data storage then you can get up to speed quickly by watching the video given below. This will help you understand what is Android Dropbox is all about and how it can help you.



Android Dropbox Introduction

Registering for Dropbox : First thing you need to start using Dropbox is to register for a free account so that you can start using it. With free account you get handsome 2GB of free storage space. For registering a free Dropbox account you can click : "Register Dropbox Account" and you would see a registration page with following box on it.

Register For Free Dropbox Account
Register For Free Dropbox Account
As you can see it is very simple form and these are all fields that you have to enter to get your free Dropbox account. Once you click "Create Account" button then you are done with registration. Note down email address and password as you would need it to use your Dropbox.

Android Dropbox Login : You can download Dropbox Android app from Dropbox website given above or from Android market. When you install and launch Dropbox app for first time then it shows you an intro screen and on next screen you would see two buttons "I'm already a Dropbox user" and "I'm new to Dropbox". If you are following me so far and have already registered a free Dropbox account as explained in previous section then you can tap "I'm already a Dropbox user" button to see the Dropbox login screen.

Android Dropbox Login
Android Dropbox Login
Enter email and password on login screen that you previously used during Dropbox account registration and tap "Log in" button.  This would connect you to Dropbox. You have to enter the log-in information only first time and next time when you launch Dropbox app it will automatically recognize you and will connect to Dropbox. If at any point of time in future, you want to use different log-in credentials then you can press menu button of your Android phone and go to Settings menu and tap "Unlink device from Dropbox" menu. This would allow you to go to log-in screen and use new log-in credentials.

Android Dropbox Folders : After login and on successful connection you would see Dropbox folders screen as shown in screenshot below.

Android Dropbox Folders
Android Dropbox Folders
You would see only two folders and "Getting Started.pdf" file. Folders "Photos" and "Public" are two folders which are created by Dropbox by default. Other folders shown in screenshot above are created later and you will learn to create those soon.

Now if you exit from your Dropbox app and go to file manager then you may not find the folder structure in SD Card that you just seen in your Dropbox. The reason is that Android Dropbox does not automatically sync your Dropbox to save your precious mobile data charges. Once you download one of the files from Dropbox folder then that folder gets created in SD Card. For example, you can tap "Photos" folder and then "sample Album" sub folder to see few sample images. Now long press one of the images and you would see popup menu. Tap "Download" menu to download the selected image. Once image is downloaded then folder structure for Photos would be created in SD Card of your phone. Now if you browse to Dropbox folder on your SD Card using file manager then you can see folder structure as shown in screenshot below.

Android Dropbox Folders in SDCard
Android Dropbox Folders in SDCard
Above screenshot is showing two additional folders which are created later and you would learn how to create new folders soon.

In case of Dropbox for desktop you can choose the location of your Dropbox folder by going to preferences and then Advanced tab and entering the required Dropbox location. But with Android Dropbox you can not change the location of Dropbox folder. It is always at the root of SD Card as shown in screenshot above.

Dropbox Sync For Android : In case of Dropbox for desktop PC, all the files that you just copy to your Dropbox folder and sub folders are automatically synchronized. But in case of Dropbox for Android automatic sync is not done to avoid higher mobile data charges. For syncing any file all you have to do is perform an upload or download. For doing upload launch Dropbox and navigate to folder where you want to upload the file. Then press menu button of your Android phone and tap "Upload" menu. This would launch popup menu as shown in screenshot below.

Android Dropbox Sync - Upload
Android Dropbox Sync - Upload
Here you have to select the type of file that you want to upload. For uploading photos and images tap "Picture" menu. For uploading movies and other video files tap "Video" menu. For uploading music, songs, ring tones, audio books or any other audio files tap "Audio" menu. For uploading any other file types including text files, office documents, pdf files or any other filetype tap "Any file" menu. Each menu would launch different type of interface to select the file to upload. For example "Video" and "Picture" menu would launch Media Gallery and you can tap the photo or video that you want to upload. Similarly "Audio" menu launches the Music Player interface to select the audio file that you want to upload. "Any file" menu would launch OI File Manager or Astro File Manager if it is installed on your phone. You can install one of these file managers from Android market.

Android Dropbox - Adding New File or Folder : You can create new folders in your Dropbox easily. For creating new folder launch Dropbox and navigate to the folder where you want to create a sub folder. Then press menu button of your Android phone and tap "New" menu. This will launch popup menu shown in screenshot below.

Android Dropbox - Creating New Folder or File
Android Dropbox - Creating New Folder or File
Tap "Folder" menu and enter the new folder name in text box displayed and tap "Create" button. This would create a new sub folder with name given by you.

For creating new files tap one of the menus "Picture", "Video", "Audio" or "Text file" from the popup menu shown in screenshot above. This would launch specific app for creating that kind of file. Fox example selecting "Picture" or "Video" would launch Camera with appropriate mode. Selecting "Audio" would give you choices to select from various apps including voice recorder.

Android Dropbox As Cloud Storage For All Your Music : One of the important applications of Android Dropbox is you can store all your music files on cloud and access them from your Android phone anywhere and anytime. Android Dropbox app comes with search feature and you can search your music folders before actually downloading any files. Once you find the music file that you want then you can download it to your Android phone and start playing it. This way you can have all your music at your finger tip even while on move.

One drawback here is you need to download the music file for playing it and you can not just start playing it from Dropbox. If you are true music lover and looking for cloud storage for your music collection and want to play streaming music from your cloud music collection then you can check out Amazon Cloud Storage and Cloud Player.


If you like this app then you may would like to check out few more exciting apps from :
  • Popular section at the right if you are reading this on desktop browser
  • If you are reading it on mobile browser then tapping home at bottom and going to home for more articles on best apps for Android
Keep coming back to read about more exciting, cool and best apps for Android.