Week 2 – Wifi, screens, apps and email

A Tablet is really best used when connected to the internet.
Connecting to the internet is normally acheived either by having a SIM card in the tablet which you will be paying for or by connecting through wifi.
Before doing anything else, look at the wifi settings on our tablet.

Your tablet picks up the SSID (name assigned to a wireless network which your router/access point normally broadcasts), and then will either automatically connect or will request a password to connect.  Once connected you may have to go through a second stage of registrations (such as with Sky) which will involve using your browser which will automatically be redirected to the registration/login page.

Once you have connected to a network your tablet can remember this for future access.  Sometimes (for example if the wifi password is changed) it is necessary to tell the tablet to “forget” the network in order to reset the details for login.

Wi-Fi

Activate the Wi-Fi feature to connect to a Wi-Fi network and access the Internet or other network devices.

Advanced: Customise Wi-Fi settings.

• WPS push button: Connect to a secured Wi-Fi network with a WPS button.
• WPS PIN entry: Connect to a secured Wi-Fi network with a WPS PIN.
• Help: Access help information for Wi-Fi.

Setting Wi-Fi sleep policy

On the Settings screen, tap Wi-Fi → → Advanced → Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep. When the screen is turned off, the device automatically turns off Wi-Fi connections. When this happens, the device automatically accesses data networks if it is set to use them. This may incur data transfer fees. To avoid data-usage bills, set this option to Always.

Setting Network notification

The device can detect open Wi-Fi networks and display an icon on the status bar to notify when available.

On the Settings screen, tap Wi-Fi → → Advanced and tick Network notification to activate this feature.

If you are using a SIM card in your tablet (or are using a phone) you can also use your device as a portable hotspot (tethering) where other devices can go on the internet through your device.

In addition to the wifi connections, Samsung also have a synchronisation feature called Kies which synchronises different elements of your tablet/phone with your computer.  This can be done with a USB cable or via wifi.  You install the software on your PC first and then set up the connection on your device.

Screens/Desktop

Your screens are where you place the shortcut icons which link to the apps.  This is also where you place your widgets (In Android, the word widget is a generic term for a bit of self-contained code that displays a program, or a piece of a program, that is also (usually) a shortcut to a larger application).

Note the “quick access dock” where you  can put your most used apps.

You can:

1. add and remove apps and widgets.
2. resize widgets
3. create folders

Widgets

http://uk.businessinsider.com/best-android-widgets-2014-12?op=1

http://www.phonearena.com/news/15-free-Android-widgets-you-must-have_id59910

The Display

There are a number of settings whiich you can adjust which change aspects of how your screen appears.

You can also change the background image (wallpaper) and there are a number of apps/wallpapers you can download:

http://www.livewallpapers.org/

https://play.google.com/store/search?q=free%20wallpaper&c=apps&hl=en_GB

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.app.free.studio.lockscreen&hl=en

In order to install some of these you will need to go to the Google Play Store.  In order to use the Play Store (and pretty much everything) you need to have an email account.

Email

1. how email works
   1. IMAP
   2. POP
   3. SMTP
   4. Spam
   5. Phishing
   6. all the other terms
2. the story of Gmail
   1. gmail in detail will be covered next week
3. the built in email apps
4. Other than Google’s GMail, there are a number of free email services
5. creating an outlook.com account
   1. download the outlook.com app
6. temporary email addresses

Browser favourites

Setting your browser up to have specific pages that you can get to quickly and regularly.