Tuesday 13 September 2011

S is for Sports with the Galaxy S2

S0 hiya everyone, as you all know I’m the owner of a Galaxy S2….what you don’t know is that it's not only great for business and socialising it’s also great for keeping up with your latest sports too!

Firstly a nice app that I've found on the Android market is one that measures your heart rate…it’s very clever how it works which I'll explain in a moment!

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Here is the home screen of the app, from start up it instructs you to cover the camera lens with your finger (it also helps to hold your finger and phone towards a light source when doing this) it then detects the minor changes in light passing through your finger as blood pulses through it. How clever?! This app is ace if your doing exercise and cant afford a dedicated heart rate monitor. It also allows you to save each measurement that you take and also share it with your social networks if you like. Hence you can keep track of your heart rate and your fitness level with it!

 

 

 

The next app that I’ve found is very relevant to my sport! I practice fencing as a hobby and as anyone can tell you when swords are flying everywhere and you’re refereeing a match often it is easy to lose track of how many hits each fencer has landed. This where the fencing scorekeeper comes in!

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On this screen you can see that it incorporates a stopwatch and also a touch counter (which is highly useful!)

You can also set how long the match is going to be (i.e how many ‘touches’)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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If anyone is a bit naughty then there is also a facility to issue cards to each fencer, with points being added automatically when a card is shown.

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Finally the app shows when the pre-set number of touches has been reached and shows this screen which displays the score and which fencer won very clearly.

But of course the fun doesn’t stop there, with a touch of a button the app is ready to record the scores for the next fight!

Winking smile

Samsung Mobile Challenge 2011

So guys and gals! Fancy winning  USD$65000? Well follow these instructions very carefully!

If you have a galaxy s2 you are eligible to play in the Samsung Mobile Challenge, all you have to do is complete two laps on the game Asphalt 6 and post a high score at the end. There are 27 countries participating in the event.  Did I mention  the top two from each country get the chance  to go to a final event in Busan, South Korea and maybe win USD$65000? Here’s how to get a slice of the action:

1. Hit up the Samsung App store and search for Asphalt 6!

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2. Download and install Asphalt 6 then open it up, you’ll see the tab ‘WCG 2011’ ….hit that one!!

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3. Admire the Samsung sports car and select  race!

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4. Complete two laps and then submit your high score  by entering a username, country and phone number!

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5. Finally admire yourself on the leaderboard! As you can see here…I'm currently 1st place in the UK! However the preliminary qualifying event is until 25th September and I'm challenging you to do better! :D

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Sunday 4 September 2011

Photography With The Galaxy S2

So this month I went on a little holiday with one of my friends to Devon! Instead of taking my digital camera (which happens to be a Samsung ES30) I decided to take ALL of my pictures with the Galaxy S2! I used different filters to get different results and got a little ‘arty farty’ haha! Here are the results!

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Here I am at the wheel of my fiesta! my friend took the picture obviously!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Turns out folks from Dudley get everywhere! Here’s a pic with examples of the local Dudley dialect!

 

 

 

 

 

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This shot was taken from the Quay at Appledore, I like effect the Sepia filter on the S2 has.

 

 

 

 

 

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Westward Ho! the only town in the UK to have an exclamation mark in its name!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A shot in black and white of a ship graveyard while walking to the near town of Bideford.

 

 

 

 

 

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I love the way the negative filter makes this shot look stormy! Actually it was a rather nice day though!

 

 

 

 

 

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Myself flying a parachute kite (fairly low so i didnt injure anyone!) at Woolacombe beach!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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We also built a sandcastle…that was quickly obliterated when the tide came in!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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We also got to feed some sheep!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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We also visited the old town of Clovelly, there are no motor vehicles allowed and all the streets are cobbled! It was quite a walk!

 

 

 

 

 

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A shot across the bay at Clovelly!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A waterfall at Clovelly bay, the small cave to the left of the waterfall is apparently where Merlin was born.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Since it was rumoured that Merlin was born there, I  did the same shot in negative to make it look a bit ‘magical’ lol.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Here we visited a place called Lynmouth, they have quite a rocky beach. I really like this shot though!

 

 

 

 

 

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At the Lynmouth estate, they have two giant redwood trees, this is one of them. It’s approximately 100 years old, but they can live to 1000 years!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This was also taken at the gorge in Lynmouth, here in 1952 there was a terrbile disaster where massive flooding took 34 lives. Today the gorge and the river have been reinforced so that it will never happen again.

 

 

 

 

I hope you liked my selection of pictures, hopefully that shows how versatile the Galaxy S2 is as a standalone camera!