1. K-9 Mail

   
   This App is far better than the original Email Client on the Android. It gives you an nice looking overview of your mails. K-9 also provides you with more settings than the native email app. The best feature i guess is the error log. You can finally see, what went wrong : D

   
   
   
   
   
   
   

2. Dropbox

   
   If you haven’t heard of “Dropbox” you should take a look at dropbox.com/. This tool synchronizes your set Shared Folder on your PC to an virtual Folder on the Internet. With this app, you can kepp track of your Shared Folder on the Android. You’re able to Down-, Upload and Delete Files from your mobile to your shared Folder. This App is just awesome when you’re working on different Devices.

   
   

3. Android Agenda Widget

   
   This App provides you with a Calendar Widget for your Homescreen. The format goes from 2×2 (that means, it takes 2 app icons width and 2 app icons height) to 4×4. The upcoming events from your Google Calendar are listed chronological. Great for keeping the overview of your Calendar.
   It’s also capable of displaying shared Google Calendars.

   
   
   
   
   

4. Last.fm

   
   Last.fm is just an awesome app if you are listening to Music using your Android. It’s not just able to connect to Streams, it also gives you some further Information about the Music you have on your Smartphone. One of the great features is for example the “Music Alike”. You can get a list of Music that’s like the one are listening.
   

   
   
   
   
   
   

5. Howcast

   
   This is one of the more interesting Apps. It’s a Video library of How-To Videos from Howcast.com. You can watch em like you watch videos on youtube. And it’s totally free. Must have!

   
   
   
   
   
   
   

6. AndFTP

   
   Great ftp App. You can manage unlimited ftp accounts. It has also a nice solution for the up- and downloading. You’re also able to manage file permissions.

   
   
   
   
   
   
   

7. GDocs

   
   If your an user of GoogleDocs, this is a must have App. You can do whatever you can do with a normal Web View on the GoogleDocs. By the way, it’s just awesome to see a spreadsheet on your mobile

   
   

8. WordPress

   
   You’re sitting on the train and your notebooks battery run out from watching scrubs? This is the app to post your articles on the go. But I admit, it could need some more features. If you’re not aware of HTML it gives you just limited options. However the media inserting is just great. You can make a video and insert it to your blog with just a few clicks.

   
   
   
   
   

9. Quick Settings

   
   Nice little app to set some important Attributes. The Volume Control gives you perfect control of your Volume settings. You won’t find anything similar on the original settings.

   
   
   
   
   
   
   

10. Password Safe

    
    This is one of my essential apps. I have so many passwords and due to increasing importance of a good security policy, I need to change a few monthly. It’s just impossible to remember all of em.

    
    

11. HOMERUN Battle 3d

    
    

    
    
    
    
    
    Now for a little fun Time. This is probably the best toilet game EVER!. You can just hit a few balls in the arcade mode or you face some real opponents in the online multiplayer mode. Really fun game!

    
    

First you probably think, “where do I get this Tool from?” The surprise is that you already have it (in case you installed a Java SDK). You can find the tool (“jvisualvm.exe”) in you java jdk\bin Directory. (e.g. “C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_18\bin\jvisualvm.exe”).

So what does the Java VisualVM?

Java VisualVM is a tool that provides a visual interface for viewing detailed information about Java applications while they are running on a Java Virtual Machine (JVM), and for troubleshooting and profiling these applications.

Let’s step right into it and have a look at the GUI.

On the first look, you probably won’t find anything interesting. But the time, you start your Java Application, new Java Classes are listed below the “VisualVM”.

You can double-click the Class and you’ll see some detailed Information. The tabs above are the point, where it gets interesting.

Monitor
The Page “Monitor” gives you some detailed Information about your JavaVM. You can see the current CPU Usage, current Heap Size of the VM and so on.

Profiler
The next fascinating Menu is the “Profiler”. Here you can start, e.g. the Memory profiling. From now on, the Java VisualVM logs any Object that is created and still alive. Because of the profiling function, this tool got my attention.

I used this tool to find the reason for an Application getting slower and slower. So I started profiling the Application and after a few minutes I knew that it was an unnecessary Object Creation task that created more and more Objects. I knew that beforehand but i just couldn’t (or was to lazy for) locate the mistake.

Conclusion
After all, this tool isn’t the Solution for all your Problems, but it might help you, giving a more detailed impression of your application. Maybe you find some room for improvement by looking at the behaviour of your Application.

Feel free to leave a comment.

First of all, let´s say you have a reader (e.g. a BufferedReader) which reads Key/Value Pairs. So you´ll get from one Line of the Reader something like this:

  name=fred
  surname=fart

Now you have a modell, which provides all the keys as attributes.

public class Person {
  private String name;
  private String surname;

...

setName(String newName) {
  this.name = newName;
}
setSurname(String newName) {
  this.name = newName;
}

...
}

now we´ll get to the reading routine

public class xxx {
  ...
  import java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException;
  import java.lang.reflect.Method;
  ...

//this method reads the information e.g. with the help of an bufferedReader
  public Person readPersonInformation(PersonInformationObject pio) {

    ...
    Person newPerson = new Person();

    while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
      parseReadPersonAttributes(newPerson, line);
    }
    ...
    return newPerson;
  }

/**this method parses the read information
* @newPerson the object, where the new value is beeing invoked on
* @codedInformation the read key-value line
**/
  private void parseReadPersonAttributes(Person newPerson, String codedInformation) {
    String information = codedInformation;
    //if there is noch equal symbol, than isnt able to be interpreted
    if (information.contains("=")) {
      String interpretedInformation[] = new String[2];
      interpretedInformation = information.split("=");
      if (interpretedInformation.length > 1) {
        //now for the Reflaction API
        Method personMethods[] = Person.class.getMethods();
        for (Method method : personMethods) {
          //find the setter Method for the Attribute
          if (method.getName().equalsIgnoreCase("set" + interpretedInformation[0])) {
            try {
              //now that a Method is found, try to invoke the method with the read Information
              method.invoke(newPerson, interpretedInformation[1]);
            } catch (Exception ex) {
              //errorhandling
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

The code searchs for a fitting setter Method in the Person Modell. If he finds a appropriate Method, its invoking this method on the given Person Object, in order to set the read Information

Note that if there are more keys read than there are attributes in the modell, you just have to add those attributes to the modell. I think that this is a good way, to map read information to a modell