How to control a PC with your Android phone

There's something deeply liberating about being able to get one over on those huge, faceless and cold-hearted corporations, and nothing does that better than building your own recordable TV powerhouse in your living room - especially as companies like Virgin Media have announced package price hikes for those customers stuck in a contract.
You can achieve this snub by installing a media centre PC next to your big screen.
Unfortunately, no matter how good you make your media PC - and modern systems are good, allowing you to watch, record and play back TV in perfect silence - there's often one weak point in DIY home media networking that will bring the rest of the house toppling down.
The weak link in question is the remote control.
Many of us use the standard keyboard and mouse, or some kind of cobbled-together version of the two to control a media PC from a distance. Neither option is particularly good. You can purchase a third, more expensive option in the form of a media centre remote, but we don't think this is the best method available.
So what are you left with? Well, there's a solution, and you probably already own it: a smartphone. Not just any smartphone though - the mobile of choice for this kind of work comes from the hands of the smiling green bug of Android, allied to a little application called Gmote that gives you complete control of your media PC.
If you've never used it before then you're in for a rare treat - Gmote is an eye-opener to the world of Android. When such a simple app can work so harmoniously with the devices it's connected to, you start to wonder what else your smartphone is capable of.
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As well as being a great way of controlling the media on your PC for playback on a big screen TV, you can also use Gmote to stream media from your PC to your phone or tablet. Here's how to install the app on your device as well as the software needed on your computer to communicate with it.

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Android and iOS drive mobile app explosion [infographic]

One year ago, less than 40% of mobile subscribers in the United States had a smartphone. That number has increased dramatically, however; according to Nielsen, one in two mobile subscribers now owns a smartphone. Driven mostly by the rise of Android and iOS, which account for more than 80% of the U.S. smartphone market, 2012 has turned into the year of the app. The average number of apps installed on each smartphone has jumped 28% in 2012, an increase from 32 apps to 41. Smartphone owners are also spending increasingly more time using apps than using the mobile web, roughly 10% more than last year. Nielsen notes that the top five most active apps continue to be Facebook, YouTube, Android Market (now Google Play Store), Google Search and Gmail. Despite the increase of apps, smartphone owners spend roughly the same amount of time using them each day — 37 minutes in 2011, compared to 39 minute in 2012.
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