Do you use a password or security pattern on your Android phone? If not, then you should! If you use your phone for email, contacts , calendar, Facebook, etc. then you defiantly don't want someone to be able to access that information if you loose your device.

One annoyance has always been that even when your home you have to constantly unlock your device or enter your password to use it. If your like me and pickup your phone every 5 minutes, this gets annoying fast. So with a little searching I found some greats apps I wanted to share.

First, I found "Unlock With WiFi". this new app won't be out until middle of this month, but if you know how to download and install a .APK file you can get it now at http://tinyurl.com/3n6h8re but how to do that is too much to explain here. Otherwise just wait another week or two for it. What is does is allow you to tell the phone that when your connected to your home WiFi network, well then your home and therefor don't need the security on. But as soon as you start to leave your home and get out of range of the WiFi it automatically locks the phone again so the password is required. It can also be set to turn the wifi off as soon as you leave your home, which I do, then they it's not picking up any open or unsecured WiFi hotspots as you are away.

Then I started to realize one small problem with this...when I got home I had to always turn the WiFi back on so that it knew I was there and would keep the phone unlocked. So I started to look for a way for my phone to know I was home and turn the WiFi back on. After a bit of searching I came across "Auto WiFi Toggle". this app allows me to tell it that when the phones WiFi is off, turn it on every 5 minutes (or whatever interval you want) and check if I am near any trusted WiFi spots that it knows (I have it set just for home). If I am, then it turn s my WiFi on, if not then it turns the WiFi instantly back off. Once the WiFi is on, the Unlock With WiFi app knows this and unlocks my phone for me. This always happens within 5 minutes of my getting near my house.

You can set multiple trusted spots to keep your phone unlocked (friends or families homes) and if you forget your phone somewhere else, it's ways going to remain locked and secure. Both these apps are free but I believe the Unlock With WiFi app will start charging a few dollars for it when it's officially released mid-month.

Now what if you loose your phone? Check out www.preyproject.com for a free app and service that will allow you to locate and wipe your phone should your loose. It's free for up to 3 device.

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