The Android Gallery is the app that most Android-powered smartphones use to display photos and videos. Unfortunately it also picks up other folders that contain images -- not necessarily photos. For example, I use LauncherPro as my launcher app, which allows me to set a custom background image behind the dock. These images show up in my Gallery alongside pictures of my family and friends. It's not a problem, it's just annoying to have to sort through all those non-photo images every time I'm looking for a picture. To remedy the situation you can place a .nomedia file inside each folder that you want to exclude from the Gallery. While not terribly difficult, doing so is not as easy as it sounds. Luckily we've got creative developers writing apps for us, and, yes, there is an application to help us out! Gallery Excluder lists the folders on your sdcard and allows you to place a check mark next to folders that you want to exclude, and vice versa. The app is simple and does exactly what it's supposed to -- most of the time. Some phones, particularly those from Motorola, do things differently and the .nomedia trick doesn't work. In any case, it's got a place on my phone, and if you've got images that you don't want in your Gallery I suspect the app will have a permanent home on your phone, too! Download from the Android Market ~ TECH NEWS VN

If you're like me, you've got way too many apps installed on your Android-powered smartphone. Although it's relatively easy to uninstall an app, it's a bit more time consuming and has far more steps than should be necessary. Multiply that by a few dozen apps and it's a pretty powerful disincentive for even the most organized among us!

Wouldn't it be nice if you could bulk-remove all the apps that you never use anymore? That's exactly what one developer thought, and he did something about it!

Silent App Uninstaller displays a list of apps that you have installed and lets you select which apps you want to backup, or which apps you want to remove. The removal process is super easy: check the box next to any apps you want to get rid of, tap the delete button, and let the app go to work.

Other apps exist that do the same thing, but most make you repeated hit the "confirm" button to tell the OS that you're really serious about the removal of each app. That's not the case with Silent App Uninstaller.

There is a drawback: this kind of power requires that you have rooted your phone and pass those permissions on to the app. In my opinion, it's well worth rooting your phone just for this one app. Give it a try and let us know what you think in the comments below!