When Google introduced Jelly Bean at this year’s Google I/O event in San Francisco, one of the features that struck as us as really cool was Jelly Bean’s new notifications. With Jelly Bean, some applications are able to show interactive notifications and also expandable notifications that allow you to take certain actions straight from the notification bar.

For now, only certain applications support expandable notifications. But if anything is for certain, it’s that Google will be adding more and more of these interactive notifications as time goes by. Here’s a quick rundown of the specific apps that support the new system and what they look like. 

Some time ago, back when Honeycomb 3.1 was released, Google enabled the re-sizing of some widgets on Android. It wasn’t very good and many widgets were unsupported. But as time goes by, the feature has grown and has become one of the many reasons Android shines over other operating systems.

If you use a 3rd party launcher, then re-sizing widgets is probably second nature by now, but for those who use the stock launcher, we’ll go over how to place a widget and then re-size it to fit your screen or whatever space you want it to fill. Let’s get to it. 

Why else would we be taking tons of pictures if not to share them with the people we love? Today’s smartphones are coming equipped with powerful cameras that can capture some stunning images with the quick press of a button. The one above is certainly not “stunning” but it’s cute nonetheless.

In this post, we’ll be going over how to share pictures you’ve taken to social networks, through email, and other means. 

One of the features that we tend to overlook is the ability to install custom 3rd party keyboards on our Android phones. They allow for different methods of inputting text such as swiping, pecking, speed pecking, or simply speaking into our device. The means of installing the keyboards are somewhat questionable at times so allow us to quickly walk you through it. 

Like many others, I have a few Google accounts. One which was my personal before I came to Droid Life and of course my business one that I use now. With Google allowing me to sync multiple accounts on one device, it allows me to receive emails from both accounts and also use services under different accounts as well such as Picasa, Google Play, and more.

Sometimes, you’re not the only one that uses your Android device. For example, if you have an Android tablet like the Nexus 7, maybe your children like to use it or your girlfriend. For times like these, it’s great that Google allows you to have multiple Google accounts tied to a single device. While your account can remain professional and business-centric, your other Google account can have all of the nonsense games and applications that one may download from Google Play.

Down below, we’ll go over how to set up multiple Google accounts on your Android device and you can start utilizing all of your accounts at once like a champion. 

My life revolves around the web. From the time I start work to the time I drag myself outside to walk my dogs, I am constantly surfing, reading, and all of the other descriptive words I could use to get the point across that I use the Internet a whole lot. One thing I learned back before Chrome’s syncing feature was that I could email or text myself links to pages that I needed while I was on the go. Addresses, restaurants, and things of that nature. Sure, it may not have been the best way or easiest by any means, but it worked.

With the introduction of Chrome for Android, accessing websites from my mobile that I already had open on my desktop is now just a couple of clicks away. It saves me a lot of time and sanity when I’m on the go. For example, if I was looking up a cool spot to eat for lunch and then leave the house, but forget the name or address, I can open up Chrome and access the same exact page from my mobile that I was looking at on the desktop. The applications for the feature go way beyond that, but you get the idea. 

One of the more heavily received requests for the Beginners’ Guide we have gotten is for a quick guide to editing contacts on an Android device. Unfortunately, we realize it may not be as straight forward as one would hope, so hopefully this little guide can lead you in the right direction. Let’s get to editing some contacts. 

When the Android team initially introduced us to Ice Cream Sandwich, one of the first features they showed off was the ability to quickly create folders of apps. The method is exactly the same in Jelly Bean, so even if you are still running Android 4.0, nothing on this front will change once you go to Android 4.1. And trust me, that’s a good thing because it doesn’t get any easier than this.