If you’re smart, you’ll know which misbehaving apps to kill, and when. If you aren’t sure, a second-gen app like Zomut’s app Watchdog might do you good.

But for those of us comfortable with task killers, or just ready to lay apps to waste, task killers like ATK can come in handy. First off, ATK  allows blanket killing of apps. While this can be overkill, it certainly gets the job done if used conservatively, causing even the apps that restart to reconsider their data usage.

Another convenience behind ATK’s power is its flexibility in dealing with bad apps. Despite popular belief, there are ways to deal with apps that just won’t disappear. One way is to open an app’s menu in Advanced Task Killer, and choose Force Close. Even the most troublesome apps tend to yield to this method.

Another is the Services list, accessible from ATK’s own menu. Going into services will  allow you to kill apps you probably don’t want to kill, but quite possibly a bevy of miscreants as well.

Really low on memory? Set ATK’s security level to Low to see more “critical” behind-the-scenes apps. A great way to terminate a launcher that needs a restart, for example.

Happy hunting!

And you shouldn’t have the problem again.

Free:
Handcent SMS
K9 Mail
QR Droid
Applanet
Battery Indicator
Wordpress
Pandora
Tweetdeck
Zeam
Quick Settings
Soundhound
Advanced Task Killer
Astro
Sketchbook Mobile

Paid:
Chandroid
Tapatalk
PicSay Pro

Hard to find:
Swype

Wireless Hotspot
As far as I’m aware, this option is only available on the LG Optimus. It also might not be the wisest choice to use, since Virgin Mobile can easily monitor your usage of it and could make a snap decision regarding your customer-provider relationship because of it. Not that they will, but don’t rule it out.
Pros: it’s pretty easy to do, it’s wireless, it’s totally unbridled.
Cons: uses a lot of battery, Virgin Mobile might be monitoring it
How: Download an app like Quick Settings from the Marketplace and enable the Wireless Hotspot toggle option.

Barnacle
Pros: wireless, powerful, one easy app
Cons: rooting required, ad-hoc wireless is picky, cannot connect Android devices to each other this way
How: Root your device. Install Barnacle Legacy if you’re using the Samsung Intercept, otherwise just grab the latest Barnacle. Run it and turn it on!

Easy wired tethering
Pros: no root required, pretty easy to do
Cons: needs computer to be set up before it works, costs $10-25
How: Search for and download either PDANet or EasyTether from the Marketplace. Both have free trials. Follow the instructions from there.

Pro wired tethering
Pros: free
Cons: hard to set up, harder to use
How: Find Proxoid or the like on   Marketplace and follow the instructions. After everything is running, make sure every computer program you want accessing the Internet is set up with the proper proxy (instructions should come included). Worse yet, when you’re done, make sure to return then to normal or else they won’t work while untethered.

1. The website for developers seems to be broken. There are a few pages that result in 404 errors and I can’t find any alternate routes to any of the affected ones.
2. Registering is the best way to be continually asked personal information.
3. When you log in, remember your username is your e-mail address, and your password has to have uppercase, lowercase, and numbers. I used my favorite password, capitalized with a little extra to adhere that criteria.
4. The Java add-on for Eclipse is all you need to download and install. No previous installation of eclipse is necessary. (Unless you don’t have a copy of the JDK(?) on your system…might need to get that as Eclipse requests)
5. The start page for Blackberry projects is LOADED with good resources. Loaded. The tutorials are pretty darn good too.
6. If you’re familiar with a Visual Studio language, this’ll be a little of a jump for you. Starting a “window” requires 10 lines of code from the get-go. Putting a button on the screen? Another one or two. Forget about even getting it to do what you want it to, or where you want it to be…
7. Eclipse is darn smart. It knows your variables and just about every command you have at your disposal too. Just start typing to see.
8. You don’t have to use the BlackBerry Storm emulator to run your projects if you don’t want. There’s one for the 8530, my phone, too, but it’s a bit slower to start and harder to test with it.
9. Once you start the emulator, no need to close it. Just hit Debug again and the new program will be copied over to the emulator. It saves a lot of time that way.

So that’s all for now. More revelations as they come.

What would make this an even sweeter deal? The ability to tether my device to my computer, allowing me to access an Internet connection from anywhere. So here’s my experience with a few programs:

TetherBridge
There seems to be next to no information on this app– anywhere. But I was stunned to find out it facilitates about 90% of web browsing for free (with the exception of some secure sites) and the full version is only $25. A three-day trial is a great evaluation period too.

http://tetherbridge.com

Tether (formerly TetherBerry
I actually don’t have much to say about this one. I’ve heard good things, like it’s fast and secure, but that’s about all. At $50 I didn’t want to shell out the cash. But a trial is available should you feel daring.

PDANet
Although there have been some reports of this being a great tethering program, I never got mine to work from my blackberry. It made some dialup connection on my computer but it never seemed to work any further than that. Must be the Virgin Mobile prepaid service.

MobiShark or SharkModem
The app worked pretty darn well, although the trial period went up quickly. I figure the program is worth its salt though, with good transfer speeds.

BlackBerry Desktop
Although it includes the option to tether your modem, there are no options to do so via Virgin Mobile’s service, so the program is a no-go.

Manually
There are several sets of instructions for tethering online search around). Most of them involve setting up a modem at 36000bps and then dialing #777 with it. I’ve tried a few of these methods and had no luck (again, probably because Virgin Mobile is owned by, but not synonymous to, Sprint).

Results
I would use TetherBridge forever for free if I could (heck, I am!) SharkModem is my #2 choice, followed by TetherBerry. Both PDANet and the native tethering tools provided by BlackBerry seem useless to Virgin Mobile subscribers.

Well, here’s a nifty little trick for those pesky Javascript-generated windows.

1. Open the link in a new window. (This is not an option )
2. In the new window, press Ctrl+T.
3. Drag the original tab (the one not named Untitled) to the window you want it to be in.

Voila! You now have the tab exactly where you want it. If you want, you can now bookmark the tab for later use.

Why this works: Although there are no menus or toolbars, and the current tab is not being shown, you can rectify the problem by opening a new one. Since the menu is hidden, you need to use a keyboard shortcut instead: Ctrl+T (new tab). And since you can drag tabs between windows in newer versions of Firefox, the problem is solved.

We’ve been friends for a long time, Mozilla. I’ve been using Firefox since version 2.0, and I’ve supported it wholeheartedly. I read your book, “Don’t Click on the Blue E!”, religiously when I discovered it, quoting it to my friends and telling them  of the evils of Internet Explorer.

I also know about… Netscape. As much as I hate to admit it, I used the browser once upon a time too, and I thought that the editor was great. 

Sort of.

The editor really didn’t do anything I couldn’t do myself — actually, it slowed down the process. Click to edit the source, save (and it jumps away), wonder if it’s rendering the way it’ll appear in the browser. Publish, look at in browser, see it wasn’t the same at all. Go back to document, can’t edit the source. Go to source, save (and consequently am forced to leave source again). Something just went out of whack. I hit Publish. It looks better on the browser, but my Composer isn’t working so I turn the whole suite off and then back on.

Unfortunately, SeaMonkey is not a new way to give you an Internet suite. It’s a shiny new face for an old, cruddy, nasty program. Face it, Mozilla. Netscape’s mistake is becoming yours. Stop falling behind and developing things that don’t work. Pour your effort into something else, something new, something that will actually start to compete with Microsoft’s Expression Web.

Until then, I’ll just use Windows Notepad. Or edit.com. Watch me, Mozilla. Sea this code Monkey suffer less.

• Google wins. It hit the nail on the head in the first page, giving me results with the words I had typed verbatim, ones labeled “i really really hate October”, “Why I hate today, October 27″, etc. Good job at giving me relevant results!
• Bing loses, badly. It has a lot of posts regarding hatred, written  in October. Its results were along the lines of “Why I hate Java”, “Why I hate blogs”, “Why I hate tampons”, “Why I hate flu shots,” “Why I hate Apple.”

Do you know why I hate Bing? Because it doesn’t care what I hate.

Download zip file (mediafire)