How to Set Up Email on a New Android Phone

Unless you rely on one of the majors like Yahoo and Gmail for email on your Android smartphone, one of the worst tasks in setting up a new device is surely configuring the email server. The key is to ignore the Android-device prompts for an automatic setup -- they won't work. Instead, plan to manually enter the data straightaway -- it's faster.

 

Setting up a brand-new phone can involve numerous aggravations, but if you don't rely on one of the majors like Yahoo and Gmail for email, one of the worst is surely the manual email server configuration. If you use a customized domain name, your Android device's email client is likely to need this extra step.

This could become an even more prevalent problem with the January U.S. launch of the reasonably priced and specified Moto G smartphone, enabling consumers to buy new devices willy-nilly and without contract. Buying such a new device might be easy, but it will likely remain a time-consuming hassle to configure it -- particularly if you're moving operating systems, like Apple iOS or Windows to Android.

In any case, the key is to ignore the Android-device prompts for an automatic setup -- they won't work. Instead, plan to manually enter the data straightaway -- it's faster. Begin by identifying your existing email settings: Open a currently functioning email client and choose the Settings menu. Then copy the settings syntactically character-by-character.

Microsoft Office's Outlook on the PC lets you leave the settings dialogs on-screen while you fiddle with the phone, but the settings can be copied from iPhones or other software clients too; look for the Settings button on the iPhone and drill down for email settings. 

Outlook 2013

Step 1: Open Outlook 2013 and choose the File tab. Then click or touch the Account Settings button and again, click or touch the resulting drop-down button.

Step 2: In the resulting Change Account dialog box, double-click on the listed email account that you want to use on your phone. The account type, incoming and outgoing servers, and incoming logon information will be listed.

Step 3: Choose the More Settings button on the dialog and then the Outgoing Server tab in order to see if the outgoing mail server is different from the incoming mail server listed in the previous step. Keep Outlook open.

Tip: Some, but not all, outgoing email servers use settings different from those of the incoming server.

Step 4: Find the email setup area on your new Android 4.0 ("Ice Cream Sandwich") device by choosing Settings in the app drawer and then Accounts and Sync; then Add Account and then Email.

Tip: The newest Android operating system -- Android 4.4 "Kit Kat" -- sets up similarly.

Step 5: Follow the syntax precisely to enter server data, obtained in the earlier steps, into the Android device's email setup menu. Use the Next prompt button to progress forward through screens.

Tip: Check the server syntax, password and User ID if the Android device can't connect to the server. Required ports can be found in Outlook's More Settings. Look for the Advanced tab and copy the port numbers listed there.

Pay attention to outgoing server-required SSL encryption, which will be listed in that Outlook tab too. Outgoing encryption is more prevalent than incoming.

Step 6: On the last screen in the series of Android email setup prompts, choose the Android device's email account options such as inbox-checking frequency, default sending account, notification and syncing.

Facebook Graph Search now finds comments, status updates

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at the unveiling of Facebook Graph Search in January

Facebook announced an update to Graph Search on Monday that will enable users to search for conversation topics within status updates, comments and posts. Some users with Graph Search can now browse Facebook for topics of interest — for example, "posts about Breaking Bad" or simply "Breaking Bad."

The update also allows users to search for posts or comments from a certain time period or location (for example, "posts by my friends from last month") or posts that they already composed or commented on.

The update makes Facebook much more conducive to real-time conversations, an area where it has been making major strides to compete with the likes of Twitter. The two social networks have been competing for eyeballs during primetime television events like the Emmys, the NFL's Monday Night Football, and Sunday's Breaking Bad finale.

When users' eyes aren't glued to the TV screen, Facebook and Twitter want them to be having conversations or voicing their opinions on their respective networks.

Opening up Graph Search to enable post and comment searches will help Facebook to do so. When a user logs into his profile during a primetime event, he can quickly scan all conversations about the game or his favorite show — even if he isn't near the top of the News Feed. If a user want to talk about an event hours (or even days) later, he can search for all relevant conversations on Facebook, something users can't easily do using Twitter.

Facebook has been working to add partnerships around live media in an attempt to fuel this social conversation. Earlier this month, the social network announced a content deal with FOX Sports to promote Facebook data and conversations alongside live NFL and college football broadcasts. Facebook has also added features like searchable hashtags and verified accounts in an attempt to make finding topics of interest easier on the platform.

Facebook reported on its Q2 earnings call that 88 to 100 million people are actively using the social network during primetime television hours — a number that Facebook advertisers will pay close attention to.

Twitter is making similar efforts ahead of the company's IPO; the company is expected to file its public IPO papers as soon as this week. Just last week, Twitter announced ad partnerships with both CBS and the NFL, which will bring real-time video into your Twitter stream.

Facebook's search update is not yet available to all Graph Search users, according to a company spokesperson. It will be tested starting on Monday with a small group of users and will roll out more expansively after that. Users will only be able to search for content that has been shared with them, in addition to public posts. In other words, your conversations should not appear in a search run by someone outside of your network unless your comments and posts are public.

Oops! BlackBerry even worse off than it thought

BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins doesn't have much to cheer about lately.

More bad news for BlackBerry. The smartphone company said Wednesday that its business is in even worse shape than what it reported just a few weeks ago.

BlackBerry (BBRY) said the 4,500 employees it is laying off by the end of the year will cost $400 million -- four times as much as the company had previously expected. That's particularly bad news, since BlackBerry is racking up giant quarterly losses and rapidly burning through its cash.

The company is also quickly losing its appeal in key markets. BlackBerry said Wednesday that customers in typically loyal international markets are switching allegiances to Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android devices.
BlackBerry also said consumers are looking for devices with the largest number of apps. That's definitely not BlackBerry's forte.
Related story: Terrible apps killed BlackBerry
Making matters even worse, BlackBerry said that its core base of corporate customers are also now looking towards greener pastures. Long delays in the BlackBerry 10 platform have angered corporate IT departments, which like to deploy new BlackBerry phones and software together.
Many business professionals have been demanding Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPhones and Android devices for years. But BlackBerry said it was surprised by the rate at which it is losing support from corporate customers.
The company also said that uncertainty surrounding its ongoing "strategic review" impacted demand for BlackBerry smartphones -- something that should impact sales to an even greater extent now that the company has announced plans to go private.
Shares of BlackBerry fell 2.5% Wednesday morning.
Wednesday's financial release was an update to its latest quarterly report on Friday. BlackBerry announced a $965 million quarterly loss, which included a $934 million charge for unsold BlackBerry Z10 devices, the first phone launched on the new BlackBerry 10 operating system.
BlackBerry said it delayed the full report of its numbers due to its ongoing negotiations to be taken private by Fairfax Financial, a Canadian insurance company.

Website maps 1.2 billion Facebook faces

A new interactive site lets you scroll through Facebook profile pics in chronological order.

Facebook has so many users -- more than a billion, or roughly the population of India -- that squeezing them all into one Web page seems almost impossible.

And yet someone has done just that.

A new project, "The Faces of Facebook," collects more than 1.27 billion Facebook profile photos on one site, arranged in chronological order according to when the person joined the social network. Users can sign in via Facebook to pinpoint their photo on the page and see where they show up in relation to their friends.

At first glance, the site looks like colorful, pixelated white noise. But users can zoom in to see individual photos and then scroll around or click on a photo to visit that person's Facebook page. (Be warned, however: the page is experiencing heavy traffic and can be slow and buggy.)

The site launched last week and was built by Natalia Rojas, a self-described "creative technologist" in Barcelona, Spain.

"I was playing around with Facebook API, and I discovered that there is a way to access everyone's public information with a very simple (but not obvious) algorithm," she said in an e-mail to CNN. "At that time, I thought I could do something beautiful/interesting with that, like showing them all together. Then I started to write the code to achieve it."

Rojas said she is not breaking Facebook privacy rules because she is not storing anyone's name, photo or private information -- just linking out to public Facebook profiles. She also said she hasn't heard from the social network, which she thinks is good news because "I was a bit worried about things like using their name in the URL."

Facebook did not repond to CNN's request for comment.

Rojas said it took her a year and a half to code the site. The hardest part, she said, was stripping out the default silhouette images that appear on some inactive Facebook profiles.

Asked about her hopes for the project, Rojas said she was inspired by the idea that each Facebook profile photo is an example of that person's best self, and that millions of those images together combine to present a positive, universal message.

"There is a mix of people from all over the world. And somehow we are all telling our friends: 'Look, this is me, when I like myself.' Feeling happy, being creative, looking good, being passionate about something, proud of something, enjoying the life," she said.

"So I think, why don't we try to BE our Facebook profile picture? Even if life is difficult some times, there is always a way for us to be what we want to be: happy."

Phonebloks: The smartphone for the rest of your life

What does 20 million tonnes of electronic waste look like? Well, it looks something like a large container train full of decaying technology stretched all the way around the world. Every year we dispose of at least that quantity of 'e-waste' and our phones are one of the biggest causes. The solution? Phonebloks -- the mobile phone you'll never need to throw away.

When electronics decide to give up it's usually just one component that's causing the problem. Enter Phonebloks: a fully customizable phone built from, you guessed it, blocks. Phone getting slow? Change the memory block. Like taking pictures? Update your camera. The blocks then attach easily to a base which connects them all together.

The designers at Phonebloks are not the only ones seeking a solution to the planet's growing e-waste problem. One of the zanier concepts by Daizi Zheng is a phone powered by a 'bio battery' that feeds on the sugars and enzymes in Coca Cola and it's supposed to last 3-4 times longer than a lithium battery.

What if you could buy a smartphone that would last you for the rest of your life?

This is the dream of Dutch designer Dave Hakkens, whose 'Phonebloks' concept has captured the public imagination and received celebrity endorsement from the most unexpected quarters.

Phonebloks is a radical cell phone idea that aims to dramatically reduce global electronic waste ('e-waste') by offering users the opportunity to upgrade parts -- or bloks -- of their cell phone rather than having to replace the entire device.

Hakkens says that he came up with Phonebloks as a response to the accelerating pace of technological waste: "I don't like the direction electronics are heading. They get more disposable and get a shorter life with every model. This gives a lot of e-waste."

 The environmental campaign organisation Greenpeace estimates that global e-waste now amounts to between 20 and 50 million tons a year. Put into perspective, they say that quantity of waste, loaded onto container trains, would stretch all the way around the world.

Speaking at the CleanUp 2013 conference in Melbourne Australia, Professor Ming Wong, director of the Croucher Institute for Environmental Sciences at Hong Kong Baptist University, described the growing problem of e-waste as a "timebomb."

"[It] is the world's fastest growing waste stream, rising by 3 to 5% every year," said Wong.

The Phonebloks concept aims to decrease e-waste by offering consumers the opportunity to replace individual components of their phone, while retaining the device's basic frame.

Once constructed, Hakkens hopes that the Phonebloks handset will be built from components that can be 'clicked' together like Legos. Each component will have its own function e.g. Bluetooth, WiFi, battery, or camera. When a component stops working or needs to be upgraded, it can be quickly replaced with a new 'blok'.

In theory, Hakkens believes that choosing separate components could enable users to personalize their cell phone to their own specifications, adding an improved camera, increased storage or a larger battery.

"The idea is to set up a platform which, if used correctly, can reduce the amount of waste significantly," Hakkens says.

At present, Phonebloks is still a long way from reaching the market -- indeed its inventor hasn't even asked for any money to begin developing it. For now, Hakkers has simply been gathering support for the concept through the "crowd-speaking" platform Thunderclap.

At the time of writing, the Phonebloks concept video has received more than 12 million views on YouTube and been shared on social networks more than 650,000 times. The project has also received support from the actor Elijah Wood and television correspondent Jessica Northey.

The Phonebloks concept is not without its critics. Some argue that making a device that can more easily be upgraded will increase e-waste rather than reducing it. Others suggest that it would be 

impossible to build a functional smartphone in a modular way.

Hakkens says that at the very least his campaign has shown that there is an appetite for an environmentally friendly cell phone and that even though the concept was only officially launched a week ago "we are already having conversations with some serious players."

Tom Dowdall, a Climate and Energy spokesperson for Greenpeace, says that the interest in Phonebloks may be useful in underlining the growing prooblem of e-waste: "Hopefully the popularity of the Phonebloks concept will spark more action from the major manufacturers. It should not be beyond the innovative phone companies to make products that are upgradable and designed to last."

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How to Tease Top Performance Out of Your Windows Laptop

Much like cars, Windows PCs need an occasional servicing to keep running at their best. That can mean replacing the battery, freeing up disk space, defragmenting and more. For example, older, nickel cadmium laptop batteries were never designed to be left endlessly plugged in -- as we all do with our laptops -- and often die before the laptop does.

If you're noticing that your Windows laptop runs slower and crankier the older it gets -- I'm talking about your laptop here, not you or me -- it's probably because it needs a bit of maintenance.

Some tender loving care will take care of most old-laptop lethargy in much the same way a routine service visit can extend the life of your car and let it operate with more vroom.

Here's how to fix your laptop. 

Step 1:

Buy a new battery if your laptop is no longer portable and needs to be tethered to the wall.

Older, nickel cadmium laptop batteries were never designed to be left endlessly plugged in -- as we all do with our laptops -- and often die before the laptop does.

Tip: Remove the battery pack from the under side of the laptop and perform a search for the model number on the Internet.

Choose newer Lithium Ion, or Li-ion, battery chemistry, if you can find that option, for the least weight and limited memory effect.

Step 2:

Run Windows Maintenance Tasks by opening the Control Panel in Windows 7 (older Microsoft operating systems are similar), and browsing to System & Security and then Find and Fix Problems.

Select Run Maintenance Tasks and allow the troubleshooter to run.

Tip: Run Maintenance Tasks will correct maintenance issues like excessive unused files and shortcuts.

Step 3:

Free up disk space by returning to the Control Panel home page and browsing to System & Security again. Choose Free Up Disk Space from the Administrative Tools area. The cleanup will run and prompt you to delete redundant files.

Tip: Freeing up disk space provides more elbow room within the hard drive.

Step 4:

Remove programs that you don't use by selecting Free Up Disk Space again. This time, choose Clean Up System Files and then the More Options tab.

Allow the list to populate and uninstall programs you don't use by double-clicking on the program label.

Tip: Programs take up space on the hard drive. As with the previous step, making space helps the laptop. Plus, fewer programs loading on laptop startup frees RAM.

Step 5:

Defragment the hard drive by choosing the Defragment your Hard Drive option label adjacent to the Free Up Disk Space label.

Click on Analyze and the tool will analyze the disk and advise you if defragmentation is necessary. Follow the prompt to perform the defragmentation.

Tip: Defragmenting physically organizes file clusters on the hard drive, making the day-to-day file reading faster.

Step 6:

Turn on Windows Update by clicking on Automatic Updating On or Off within the same System & Security section of the Control Panel, and choosing Install Updates Automatically.

Tip: Windows Update is a Microsoft service that pushes bug fixes and enhancements to the laptop.

Ensure the computer is running and online at the scheduled check time. Follow any prompts.

Step 7:

Install antivirus software. Browse to the Microsoft Windows Consumer Security Software Providers Web page and choose an antivirus application. I've had success with the free AVG product, but others are available too.

Follow the prompts to install the product and allow a scan to take place. Follow any prompts to repair virus damage.

Tip: You may have to delve deep into some of the antivirus websites to find the free version of the product.

Step 8:

Install maintenance software. I've used IObit's free Advanced SystemCare, which has corrected issues for me.

Browse to the IObit website for the download. Install the application and allow it to perform a Smart Scan. Smart Scan will identify and remove malware, fix registry issues and scan the disk for errors, among other optimizations.

Tip: The paid version of Advanced SystemCare provides more in-depth fixes.

Museum celebrates women in computing

Many of the first computers were developed during wartime and women were intimately involved in their creation and operation. Here Dorothy Du Boisson and Elsie Booker operate Colossus as it cracks codes.

The National Museum of Computing has opened a gallery celebrating the role of women in computer history.

Sponsored by Google, it documents the important role women have played in building and programming pioneering computers.

The idea for the gallery arose when the Museum found that only 10% of students on its educational courses were women.

It is hoped that the gallery will help to inspire more young women and girls to take up a job in the computer world.

"Girls must take advantage of the revival of computing in schools and recognise and grab the opportunities that our wonderful sector offers," said Dame Stephanie Shirley at the opening ceremony for the gallery.

The Museum is sited in the grounds of Bletchley Park, the wartime code-cracking centre.

On show at the gallery are contributions from Joyce Wheeler, one of the first academics to use the Edsac computer; Mary Coombs, the first female programmer for the Lyons Electronic Office and Kathleen Booth, an academic who wrote the first book about programming in Assembly language.

Margaret Bullen, who helped wire up the original Colossus at Bletchley Park during World War II, attended the opening of the Heroines of Computing gallery.

Also attending on the opening day was Joyce Wheeler, a scientist who was one of the earliest users of the Edsac computer at Cambridge

Built in 1949, Edsac (the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) was developed to be the mathematical workhorse for Cambridge scientists.

The gallery also celebrates Mary Coombs, one of the first programmers of the Leo (Lyons Electronic Office) a machine that was based largely on the Edsac design.

 

 

 

The Women in Computing gallery was created as part of a larger project to inspire girls to take up programming. The Museum is running workshops and other events to get younger women interested and involved.