Kola Boof On Bin Laden's Death; His Sex Slave?

Osama raped me the first night we met. But out of my fear and determination to survive we became comrades; lovers; we wrote poetry together, I did his hair, I cooked for him, he gave me jewels and money; sent me to Milan on shopping sprees; buried one of his guards that I killed and made it so I only did one night in jail. Living at La Maison Arabe was hardly the life of a slave--I wasn't in chains, honey. I supervised Osama's men despite not being allowed to leave Osama. And let's not forget that half the wives of Arab rich men live that exact same way--many are married against their will, fathers give away daughters, women are snatched off the streets. Women had no rights in the Arab Muslim world when I was there modeling, acting and "hostessing."

from the Daily Voice:

I just saw myself on the cover of the National Enquirer. It says "Exclusive Interview with Bin Laden's Mistress"--but I've never given an interview to the National Enquirer; I have never in my life spoken to anyone at that magazine. In fact, up to this point, I have not given anyone anywhere an interview regarding my feelings on Osama Bin Laden's death.

A week ago, my favorite television news anchor Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) stated that I was Somi's "ex-wife" (because members of the Sudanese government authored a book claiming this). In Los Angeles, one of the top Black stations reported that because I tweeted about Osama's demise two days before he died; I must be working for the CIA and was aware he was about to be killed. The cover of the National Enquirer claims that I was kept chained in Osama's compound. None of this is true.

At this moment, I am embroiled in a serious matter that includes confrontations with Osama's lead wife Najwa over possible monies that were left to me. I will get to that in a moment, but first to make it clear how I feel about Osama's death and to make it clear why I haven't felt like talking about it yet, here's the Official Statement I gave the night Osama died:

"I rarely ever talk about Somi, but for the last two days on Twitter, something
came over me and I did nothing but Tweet about him.

Now I know why.

At last....I forgive Somi for everything he did to me and for all that I witnessed. I set him free and I dream for him to be healed.

My greatest sympathy is with his mother, Hamida, the only person in that family who is willing to hear from me. One mother to another, I close my eyes and embrace her with so much compassion.

I feel that no one has more accurately and fairly characterized her son than I have. I knew him to be a monster, a genius, a poet, a racist woman-basher and a very passionate, deeply sensitive confused being.

Like all of us, he was somebody's child.

I am not God, so I leave him to whatever comes next. I still have his poems and each year they have a different meaning. But now the papers are cool to the touch. I feel many things...things that people would not understand...I look at the gray hair I have...and all I can tell you is this....

Usama, Usama, Usama--Peace."

I think this statement spoken in my own voice reveals a lot for those who have intellect and can understand that the "Monster" Bin Laden was a real multi-dimensional person for those who knew him; not a media contrived cartoon. I have been greatly demeaned and disrespected by the U.S. press regarding my affiliation with him and I would like to say one thing straight out--Ninety percept of the media's problem with me is that I'm a Black Woman who looks Black and not mixed. It has been said to my face. Connie Chung and her producers at CNN asked me point blank, "Why would a man of Bin Laden's wealth and stature have a black mistress?"

Exotic deceitful monikers like 'sex slave' and 'chained woman' are applied to my image but were never applied to Patti Hearst--who was held against her will for more than a year and had sex trains with the nine Black men holding her--yet was not given a single exotic title. And unlike the garden variety White public mistress (Monica Lewinsky, Camilla Parker Bowles, etc.), my word alone nor my stature as a strong African novelist, activist and poet is enough to accrue common respectful treatment towards my person or my image. Extraordinarily literate facts and information I wrote about Osama years ago, things that could have helped them find Osama, are ignored as they focus on tabloid-like single sentences from my memoir (Osama lusted for Whitney Houston!; he was a Pot head). It was me, after all, who said ten years ago that Osama's guards used cell phones (I was crucified by Peter Bergen for that; though they discovered last week that it's true). It was me who reported ten years ago about Osama inventing the "kidney dialysis myth"--me who reported on his marijuana gardens and his obsession with Western culture. It was me who first wrote about his hatred for Sadaam Hussein.

Male journalists like Morgan Spurlock (who says he laughed about my rape) and supposed Bin Laden expert Peter Bergen (whose published facts have now been proven to be less accurate than mine) discuss me as though I'm a deceased taxi dancer or a maid who stole coins from their nightstand. Sadly, because Black Americans can't decipher anything until White people confirm and approve it for them--I have been just as unfairly treated by Black journalists and so called Black academics and intellectuals. Which makes me shudder to think what would have happened to Thomas Jefferson's slave Sally Hemmings had she dared write in her own words about her affair with the President of the United States. How would her claims of child rape turned to a forced long term relationship to eventual love been received by her own people?

Sally Hemmings was twelve years old when she gave birth to President Thomas Jefferson's son, Thomas Jefferson Jr. He was in his fifties (I've since learned that the majority of Black American slave women got their first rapes between the ages of nine and thirteen and were freely raped by both White masters and fellow Black male slaves). As I well know, and share with Sally Hemmings--just because someone rapes you doesn't mean you don't go on to have a deep relationship with that person.

Osama raped me the first night we met. But out of my fear and determination to survive we became comrades; lovers; we wrote poetry together, I did his hair, I cooked for him, he gave me jewels and money; sent me to Milan on shopping sprees; buried one of his guards that I killed and made it so I only did one night in jail. Living at La Maison Arabe was hardly the life of a slave--I wasn't in chains, honey. I supervised Osama's men despite not being allowed to leave Osama. And let's not forget that half the wives of Arab rich men live that exact same way--many are married against their will, fathers give away daughters, women are snatched off the streets. Women had no rights in the Arab Muslim world when I was there modeling, acting and "hostessing."

It hurts to have so much valuable information; so much intelligence and to be so truthful and articulate--yet have "white powerful news controllers" decide that you're not the right image for what they'd like to promote. Therefore, part of history is always missing.

Osama's wife, Najwa Bin Laden, who wrote so snidely about me in her memoir a few years ago is now forced, at last, to recognize me. I'm sure she'd rather have me killed than see me collect money from her husband. According to her I was Somi's "abeed lan sharmuta" (nigger slave whore). But that's alright. I'm the one he kept for pleasure and not mere Islamic duty--as she well knows and sleeps alone with--and always slept alone with. Pitiful head covered door mat jockey.

The rank ignorant pettiness (well Kola's not pretty enough!) and the treatment my story and my personhood have received shows you exactly why the Americans couldn't find Osama for more than a decade. It shows you why Peter Bergen in all his almighty "million dollar advance" rhetoric could never locate Osama but had to degrade and slander me to protect the credibility of his own toilet-read tomes. And it shows most of all--that you can't keep a good woman down. I was not the one who revealed that I'd been with Somi. The London Guardian newspaper started it all; I originally denied the story out of embarrassment and then the U.S. Homeland Security (more like "Gangland Security") forced me to admit to it. From then on, I was trapped in a maze of defending my reputation and my personhood. And so the tragedy of my life is that I have told nothing but truth...yet the truth did not set me free.

My one revenge is that I'm not going anywhere. I think the Americans have noticed that by now. And I leave you with this bit of common sense and mother wit--"In any mansion...it's the maids and the whores...who know the most." You can't stop what's real.

Kola Boof is an award winning novelist, poet and television writer. Her latest book The Sexy Part of the Bible will be released by Akashic Books in July 2011.

End Of Days…Literally: Apparently Armageddon Starts On May 21

thx urbanmusic

People have been predicting the end of days ever since the beginning of days and May 21st is the new end of the world date.

A broadcast ministry called Family Group based out of Oakland, has set up billboards and signs across the country, claiming that they’ve calculated the day the rapture is going to begin, based on a scripture dating back to Noah. Despite the fact that another scripture has Jesus saying that nobody will know the end of the world, the group is confident. Oh yeah, Harold Camping, the head of the group, also once predicted the end of the world to be in 1994. Unless we’re really bad at reporting big news here, that didn’t happen. But hey, they could be right. If so, get to praying and get ready for the rapture.

$28,400 for a turntable?

Thanks Born Rich

When you are spending some good bucks on a piece of passé technology like a turntable, you undoubtedly want it to be the best. For all those individuals yearning for exclusivity and for a stylish reflection of personal panache, Audio Consulting’s new entry-level turntable R-evolution Minima seems to be a great option. The elegant turntable boasts the same highly optimized direct drive setup and axe assembly as with the R-evolution Stealth. The turntable uses only 2 watts of power during operation.

Smaller and simpler than the Stealth model, the R-evolution Minima turntable has its platter made of wood, which accounts for optimum sound performance. Since it runs on battery, there is no problem of perturbations caused by the main supply. Other features include a leather mat and oiled wooden frame.

The Audio Consulting’s R-evolution Minima turntable sells for CHF 24,500 (about $28,400).

[Video] Apple may become the first $1 trillion company

Thanks Business Insider

Apple recently blew past Microsoft, Cisco, and other companies to become the most valuable tech company in the world.

But that's just the beginning, says investor James Altucher of Formula Capital.

Altucher thinks Apple will eventually be worth more than $1 trillion, maybe even $2-$3 trillion. Apple is currently worth about $320 billion, so $1 trillion would be a price of about $1,000 per share.

Why does Altucher think Apple's stock will go to the moon?

Because Apple's growth rate is astounding for a company its size, and the company's global market share in its key markets--smart-phones, tablets, and Macs--is still very low. Also, factoring out Apple's massive $65 billion pile of cash, the stock is trading at a low price-earnings multiple.

And what about the biggest concern most people have about Apple, the heath of its founder and visionary, Steve Jobs?

Steve Jobs is indeed an amazing leader, Altucher says. But Apple is now large and diversified enough that, if Jobs can never return full-time, the company will be okay without him.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/altucher-apple-will-be-a-1-trillion-company-2011-5#ixzz1LO9z90Lc

[Video] Android apps on PlayBook eyes-on

Thanks Engadget

We knew it was coming, but today at BlackBerry World 2011 we were treated to a demo of Android apps running natively on the PlayBook. The end result isn't too far removed from what we saw with Myriad's Alien Dalvik at Mobile World Congress. Android's menu and home buttons are emulated using the standard PlayBook gestures, and the back button is replaced with an on-screen softkey. Of course, you'll have to visit App World to download Android apps for the PlayBook when the Android Player (as it's called) finally becomes available. And speaking of Android apps, the wildly popular Angry Birds is coming to the PlayBook as a native game - no cross-platform trickery required.

BlackBerry to integrate Bing services at the OS level

Thanks Engadget
Steve Ballmer made an appearance today at BlackBerry World 2011 and after briefly pimping Windows Phone live on stage, announced a partnership between Microsoft and RIM to integrate Bing into BlackBerry products. In addition to making Bing the default search and map provider for all BlackBerry devices going forward, the services will be added at the OS level instead of being bundled as a series of apps. This will provide features ranging from voice and location-aware search to panorama stitching. It also suggests that we'll likely see another iteration of the BlackBerry OS beyond version 7 -- based on QNX, perhaps? -- sometime before the holidays.

Can you trust your financial adviser? - MSN Money

Can you trust your financial adviser? - MSN Money

It's a $10 word, but not knowing it could cost you a fortune.

The word is "fiduciary," and in the world of money it means someone who's committed to putting your financial interests ahead of his or her own.

The word is important because true fiduciaries are harder to find than you might think. Most of the people who want to give you advice about your money aren't held to that high standard. At best, they're held to a "suitability" standard, which means they're supposed to reasonably believe that the investment and insurance products they want you to buy are appropriate for your situation.

Just "appropriate" -- not "the best choice" or "in your best interests."
The high cost of being too trusting
Let's say you have $10,000 a year to save for retirement. Your financial adviser could recommend you invest the money in a low-cost index fund that might net you a return of 8% a year. After 30 years, you'd have over $1.1 million.

But let's say the adviser could earn a fat commission for recommending a higher-cost investment being promoted by his financial-services firm. So instead of netting 8% a year, you might net 6%. After 30 years, your nest egg would grow to just under $800,000, a difference of more than $300,000.

Most people don't understand the difference between fiduciary and suitability standards, said consumer advocate Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America. The federation's surveys show that the majority of people who work with a financial adviser trust that they're getting good advice.

"Two-thirds of investors aren't second-guessing the recommendations they're getting from their (financial) advisers," Roper said. To be that trusting "outside of a situation where a person is committed to putting your interests first is pretty risky business."
Scrutinize the job titles
Figuring out who's a fiduciary isn't always easy. In the financial-services world, there are three job titles that automatically connote a fiduciary standard:

Attorney
Certified public accountant (CPA)
Registered investment advisor (RIA)

There are several other job titles that indicate the opposite. People who are stock brokers (also known as "registered representatives") or insurance agents are allowed to put their own interests, or those of their firm, ahead of yours.

Fiduciary or not?Professional title Is he a fiduciary?

Attorney Yes
Certified financial planner (CFP) Maybe
Certified public accountant (CPA) Yes
Financial planner Maybe
Insurance agent No
Registered investment adviser (RIA) Yes
Registered representative No
Stock broker No

But other titles, including "financial adviser" or "financial planner," can be used to imply you're getting good advice without any requirement that said advice be in your best interests.
Keep reading more on the link

Our 5 Favorite Mutual Fund Managers @Kiplinger

Check out this article from Kiplinger:
We obviously think highly of all the managers who run the funds in the Kiplinger 25 -- otherwise the funds wouldn't be on our list. Among these managers, we've singled out five for special attention. It should come as no surprise that all five have posted outstanding results over extended periods that span several market cycles. In fact, four of the five have been at the helm of their funds for at least 20 years.

Steve Romick
Age: 47
Education: BA, Northwestern University
Investment Style: Value

Shareholders of Steve Romick's FPA Crescent (symbol FPACX) really should sleep well at night. Romick is proof that playing a strong game of defense in managing a mutual fund can also be a sound offense. The reason for this is the humble math of compounding: If you limit downside losses, the upside seems to take care of itself.

Romick's chief objective is to match or beat the return of Standard & Poor's 500-stock index while taking less risk than the index. In this endeavor he has succeeded brilliantly. From Crescent's inception in June 1993 through April 8, the fund returned 11.3% annualized, compared with 8.3% for the S&P 500, and did so with nearly one-third less volatility than the index. Two numbers explain why Romick's numbers have compounded so nicely with limited commotion: Crescent has enjoyed nearly 80% of the S&P's gains in up months while suffering just over half of the losses in the index's down months.

To be sure, Romick's portfolio doesn't resemble the S&P. He has the freedom to roam the spectrum of stocks, bonds, convertible securities, bank loans, and so forth -- wherever he perceives the most attractive return potential relative to risk. For instance, in 2009 he loaded up on bonds when, he says, "debt markets had priced in a depression." From a 31% weighting in bonds in 2009, Crescent is now down to 9% in bonds, he says. He's been raising his fund's allocation to stocks, particularly to companies tied to commodities. "We're worried about inflation," Romick says. A born worrier and risk manager, Romick is always fretting about something -- to the benefit of Crescent shareholders.

Dan Fuss
Age: 77
Education: BS, MBA Marquette University
Investment Style: Go anywhere

You can't accuse us of age discrimination. Dan Fuss, co-manager of Loomis Sayles Bond (LSBRX), is 77. But his mind is still young. The worldly Fuss, who buys bonds issued all over the globe, is as likely to discuss the investment implications of demography in Japan and drug wars in Mexico as he is the U.S.'s budget woes.

Moreover, his rich experience in the bond markets is a big advantage. Fuss has been involved with bonds since 1958 (he started managing Loomis Sayles Bond in 1991). He notes that the first 23 years of his career (1958-1981) were essentially a cycle of rising interest rates. This was followed by nearly 30 years of declining rates, which Fuss thinks came to an end in 2010. He now expects another long period of rising rates. "I've seen this movie before," he says. Fuss expects the yield on ten-year Treasury bonds to climb to 6.25% over the next several years, from the current 3.5%. So to cut risk, he has shortened the average maturity of the holdings in Loomis Sayles Bond from the typical 14 to 15 years to less than 11 years.

After more than half a century as a professional bond investor, Fuss still gets charged up every day. "I don't need video games for excitement," he says. "I've never had a day that's exactly like the previous day in this business. That's the attraction."

Rick Aster
Age: 70
Education: BA, MA, UC Santa Barbara
Investment Style: Growth at a reasonable price

Speaking of septuagenarians, Rick Aster has quietly posted dazzling numbers (13% annualized) in the mid-cap growth category since launching Meridian Growth (MERDX) in 1984. In the Kiplinger 25, we use a number of funds from industry giants such as Fidelity and Vanguard. But we always have room for outstanding independent houses such as Meridian, based in Larkspur, Cal.

Meridian Growth's assets are a substantial $2.5 billion, but there are no analysts on the fund, only Aster and co-manager William Tao. "I don't want a big bureaucracy making investment decisions," says Aster, who notes that he's the biggest shareholder of the fund, which does not engage in any marketing.

Fortunately, Aster himself is a fine analyst of businesses ranging in market value from $1 billion to $7 billion. He looks for growing companies with high profitability and low debt, but refuses to overpay for the stocks. Buying financially solid businesses at a discount is one reason Meridian tends to hold up well in bear markets. Over the past ten years, the fund returned an annualized 10.8%, an average of nearly five percentage points better than a basket of mid-cap growth funds -- and with much less volatility than the typical fund.

Preston Athey
Age: 61
Education: BA, Yale University; MBA, Stanford University
Investment Style: Value

Preston Athey, manager of T. Rowe Price Small Cap Value (PRSVX), embodies what we look for in a Kiplinger 25 fund. Athey has a stellar long-term track record: Since he took the reins of Small Cap Value in August 1991, it has returned an annualized 13.0%, more than three points per year better, on average, than the Russell 2000 index, a benchmark of small-company stocks.

Moreover, Athey has achieved that feat while taking less risk than the index. He holds his stocks for nine to ten years on average, which is an eternity by fund-industry standards. As Athey puts it: "The average institutional investor is a frenetic day-trader who jumps at every little piece of information coming across his screen. I think of myself as a frog on a lily pad waiting patiently for a dragonfly to go by."

Early in his long career at Price, Athey focused, as both a stock analyst and fund manager, on growth companies. Today he's very much a value manager, but one who understands the characteristics of growth companies and growth-stock investors. An ideal stock, he says, is an out-of-favor growth stock with a blemish that has led to a decline in its share price. Athey will buy it and hold on as it enters the “process of moving from an ugly duckling to a beautiful swan." When it's pretty again, it's time to sell the stock to a growth investor, he says.

Will Danoff
Age: 50
Education: BA, Harvard; MA, MBA University of Pennsylvania
Investment Style: Growth

Last but far from least is Will Danoff, the peerless manager of Fidelity Contrafund (FCNTX), a large-cap growth fund with $80 billion in assets. Danoff is about as common as a black swan in the fund industry. Over the past 20 years, Contrafund has returned an annualized 12.0%, an average of 3.2 percentage points ahead of the S&P 500 index -- a remarkable feat.

Danoff makes the most of Fidelity's enormous resources and access to corporate chiefs. He pays tribute to the "small army of analysts who cast a wide net" that he can tap. Gregarious by nature, Danoff himself chats up hundreds of chief executives and other top corporate brass every year. The goal, he says, is to identify companies that are multiyear growth stories. These firms are often run by exceptional businesspeople.

Nor is Danoff shy about promoting Contrafund. "Over time," he says, "I've beaten the S&P. I think of my fund as a building block for everyone’s portfolio."

Read more: http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/fundwatch/archive/our-5-favorite-mutual-fund-managers-2011.html#ixzz1K094soZl
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Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie

Amazing article, here are some blurbs:

Cardio machines are innocent enough, as they won’t actually make you any less fit, but maintaining cardiovascular fitness doesn’t really take much more than breathing uncomfortably hard for about 20 minutes, three times a week. And we all know that swimming, hoops, bike riding, and even Ultimate Frisbee can get the job done, and that treadmills or elliptical trainers are a pale substitute.

Weight machines, on the other hand, are far more insidious because they appear to be a huge technological advance over free weights. But quite the opposite is true: Weight machines train individual muscles in isolation, while the rest of you sits completely inert. This works okay for physical therapy and injury rehab, and it’s passable for bodybuilding, but every serious strength-and-conditioning coach in America will tell you that muscle-isolation machines don’t create real-world strength for life and sport.

YOU NEED TO BREAK YOURSELF DOWN BEFORE YOU REBUILD.
LIFT
Front Squat 1.5x BW
Dead Lift 2.0x BW
Bench Press 1.5x BW

ONCE YOU “GET IT,” YOU’LL LOVE IT.
Shaul’s guys out in Wyoming get massively strong and powerful on precisely three gym sessions a week, each lasting an hour and no more. Louie Simmons, the single biggest name in gorilla-style competitive power lifting, will tell you that 45 minutes is the max length of any smart training session.

But you can’t spend the first 15 minutes watching CNN from the treadmill and the last 15 “warming down.” Every second has to count, and it all starts with understanding the four basic muscular aptitudes: strength, power, muscle mass, and muscular endurance.

Strength means how much you can lift once, and it’s the backbone of every sport on Earth, from the crouch-holding power of a skier to the one-finger pull-up of a climber. Power is a more slippery term that means “speed strength,” or how much you can lift very, very quickly, and it gives you the explosive paddling speed to catch a big wave or the pedaling burst to fire your mountain bike up a grade. Muscle mass can be a liability in sports like climbing, where it’s all about strength-to-weight ratio, but mass helps enormously with games like rugby and football, and it can support strength and power — not to mention make you look better in a T-shirt. Muscular endurance means how many times you can lift a given weight in a row without stopping, and it’s the essence of running, swimming, and even a kayaker’s long-haul paddling.

As for your training sessions themselves, the number one thing to remember is that each of the Fundamental Four responds to a different number of repetitions per set. Lift a weight so heavy you can lift it only once, you’re building strength (and, oddly, not much mass); lift a weight you can move six to 12 times, you’re building mass (and, oddly, a little less pure strength); ease up to a weight you can lift 50 times, and you’re working muscular endurance (which is great for endurance sports but tends to undermine the first three, shrinking your strength, power, and muscle size).

It can be hard to believe a true strength coach the first time he tells you that by pressing and dead-lifting on even days, squatting and doing chin-ups on odd days, avoiding all other exercises, and adding a little to the bar each time, you’ll be stronger than you’ve ever been in only a month’s time. Thanks to the fitness industry, we’re so conditioned to equate sophistication with complexity — and to think we’ve got to “work each body part” — that our gut just says, No way; that can’t work. But it works like magic, and the entire body hardens up in unison.

Finally, keep it simple; understand that variety is overrated. Variety does stave off boredom — it’s fun to mix in new exercises all the time — but a guy who hasn’t trained in a long time, if ever, will get stronger faster on the simplest program of squats, dead lifts, and presses, three times a week. It’s true that you cannot do the same workout forever; you’ll go stale, and then you’ll go crazy, and 2010then you’ll quit. It’s also true that the stronger you get, and the closer to your genetic potential, the more you have to mix in new lifts and switch up the numbers of sets and reps you’re doing, just to make a little gain each week, or even each month. But I’ve learned the hard way that you’ve got to be careful about adding variety. If you constantly screw around with endless new exercises, you have no way of adding the precisely calibrated weight increases that actually make you stronger. To get it just right, keep meticulous records, writing down every rep and every lift so your targets for each workout are easy to spot and your gains are easy to measure.

Android App - Multicon

[App Of The Week] Multicon – Reclaim Your Home Screen Real Estate

Even though I have 7 home screens on my EVO 4G, I still sometimes find myself cramped for space. I have a whole bunch of apps and shortcuts that I would like to have instant access to. Enter Multicon.

The function of Multicon is to make widgets that pack in a number of downsized icons in the space that would normally be occupied by only single ones. This enables you to pack a large number of app shortcuts onto a home screen that only fits 16 by default (on most handsets).

Multicon is especially useful for devices with larger screens, such as the 4.3" EVO 4G, Droid X and the 5" Dell Streak because it’s much easier to click on icons several times smaller in size on those devices than on ones with smaller screens.

Now let’s cover the basics.
The Basics

The app itself is used just like any other widget. Install it from the market and long-press on a blank section of your home screen. Right off the bat, you are presented with some options to configure your widget:

You can choose one of several options to configure exactly how much space you would like to fill with your mini-shortcuts. For my purposes, I am going to choose the 1×4 size, which will create a single widget occupying 4 regular Android rows and 1 column, by default fitting 16 mini-shortcuts in total. After you choose the size you want, you will be taken back to your home screen which, in my case, looked like this:

To begin configuring the widget with custom values and shortcuts, simply click anywhere on the widget you just made. This is where the magic happens. Upon clicking the widget, you will be taken to the configuration screen. From here, you can do all kinds of fun things – you could leave the column and row settings at their default, or you could max the values out.

Using the 1×4 widget as an example, with the values maxed out (3×12) you have the potential to achieve an INSANE 144 (3x12x4) SHORTCUTS on a single home screen panel. I’m not sure I would recommend that, however, unless you have tiny-tiny hands.

Since Multicon doesn’t display application titles, you need to make sure you know what your apps’ icons look like. For example the Mail icon looks very similar to the SMS icon, so it would be wise to place them on the opposite sides of the home screen or quickly learn their exact positions.

Once you decide on your row and column counts, the rest is as simple as clicking the Android icons and choosing the apps, shortcuts, or actions you would like to use. One cool feature built into Multicon is this set of system settings toggle widgets:

To edit the number of columns and rows or change the shortcuts later on down the line, just fire up the Multicon app itself and click the "Edit widgets" button.

For my setup, I didn’t have 36 icons that I needed in the place of 4, so I went with 2 columns and 6 rows. Doing this allowed my icons to be a bit larger, which I like. My final setup ended up looking like this:

Conclusion

This app is extremely handy. With my 7 home screens, I have the potential to allocate a grand total of 1008 shortcuts (even more if you pack 3×12 mini-icons into smaller sized widgets – in which case you’ll need a microscope).

Multicon is extremely versatile and useful to people like me who have a lot of apps and want them accessible with one click. If you, too, are constantly fighting for real estate on your home screens, this app is a gift from above.
Download

If you would like to download Multicon, you can scan the barcode below with your Android phone or visit its Appbrain page here:

QR code for market://details?id=com.h9kdroid.multicon