We have already looked at several performance enhancing apps for your Android smartphone in this series, and it's now time to wrap things up with two more. Let's see which two apps can help you boost your smartphone's battery life as well as give you remote access to your home PC.

Maximize battery life with JuiceDefender

Regardless of whether you use your smartphone for business or pleasure, you probably want to do everything in your power to prevent your battery from dying. To do so, there are many factors to consider. You may not be the most technical person, however, so tweaking all of your phone's settings to save battery power could seem like a daunting task. With the help of the JuiceDefender app, you have no such worries.

JuiceDefender makes battery management easy. There's an Easy Mode that allows you to enhance battery life by clicking a single button. The app will handle all the tweaks for you automatically. If you want to get more hands-on, there is an Advanced Mode that lets you go in and tweak individual settings for longer battery life. You can adjust parameters for Mobile Data, toggle between 2G and 3G, manage Wi-Fi, set screen off and screen lock timeouts, plus set minimum and maximum CPU frequencies. Other options include the ability to disable connectivity while you are asleep or if the battery goes below a certain percentage, the ability to choose which apps keep connectivity enabled, an option to keep connectivity on as long as there is an ongoing data transfer, and more.
 
One of the best characteristics of JuiceDefender is that it performs all the battery-saving tweaks while running transparently, so you are not interrupted. The standard version of JuiceDefender is free, but you can add its UltimateJuice plug-in and its extra features for $5.

Use PhoneMyPC to access your computer while away from home

While your Android smartphone may replicate many computer functions, it still is not your actual PC. In the past, if you were on the road and found yourself in desperate need of a document or something else on your personal computer, you were probably out of luck. By pairing your smartphone with the PhoneMyPC app, you can access your main computer no matter where you are, as long as you have an Internet connection.

PhoneMyPC is relatively easy to install. You don't need any extensive technical knowledge to get it up and running. All you have to do is download the app onto your Android smartphone, and then download the PhoneMyPC software onto your computer. The app can be configured to work with three different Windows computers.

There are various ways to use PhoneMyPC. You can use it to monitor the activity of younger users while you are away. You can use it to offer remote support should any problems arise on your computer. You can control your computer's mouse and keyboard directly from your smartphone, and even activate a connected webcam. These are just a few examples of what PhoneMyPC can do.

PhoneMyPC is in its Beta release and currently costs $9.99.

For more on this topic, visit the Computerworld story.

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