Guest post by the ConstructionKnowledge monkey: Lex Pelger

There are many helpful tools for life and construction available to those who use Android smartphones (also known as the Enlightened). Here’s a short list of some of my favorites. If you have any of your own, I’d love to hear about them in the comments

SmartTools
A handy toolbox for anybody in the field. It can measure length, angle, distance, height. It can be a range finder, a stud finder and a decibel meter. It’s not a replacement for your tape measure but it’s helpful because the phone is always in your pocket for making quick and dirty measurements.

Tiny Flashlight
There’s lots of free flashlight apps but I found this one to be the simplest and easiest. I’m currently hitchhiking through Mexico and I can unequivocally say that the flashlight is the most helpful tool I keep in my pocket.

PDANet
Internet for your laptop anywhere you go. This app is incredibly helpful. Just install the software on your laptop and you can plug in your phone to use it’s 3G connection. It’s not super fast but it’s good enough for sending emails and working in the field. Just make sure that you don’t go over your data limit. Those crooked mobile phone companies sock you for that. It’s usually just a couple of extra bucks for an unlimited data plan. Or you could use this 3G Watchdog Pro app to keep you from going over.

DropBox
If you’re using DropBox to backup your important files (as everyone should be doing), the phone app allows you to look at those files. Quite helpful when you need to check an estimate number from the field or an item on the bullet list that you left at the office.

What are your most used apps? Care to share with others what works for you?

As more smartphones, iPads and Android tablets show up on the construction site, more construction apps become available. On the jobsite, our projects change quickly and we communicate visually. That combination makes construction a great industry to capitalize on this new technology. Coupled with the fact that many contractors don’t type well, a touch screen with menus, instant size changing and drag and drop capability further ups the value.

Think about having all your current project drawings kept up-to-date on a file transfer protocal (FTP) site like Box.net. It’s relatively easy to do, then your tablet computer can quickly pull up any drawing you need on the jobsite. Moving around the drawing and zooming in is easy. It’s not quite the same as paper drawings, but it’s more likely to be the current drawing instead of an older version.

Also, think about the calculations that you typically do on the jobsite, then see if you can find an app to easily automate them. If you can do that, you should be using a tablet computer on your jobsite.

The promise of a paperless office has been offered often but never realized. It’s still reasonably far away, but I think we can now see that the tablet computer will be the technology though which that promise eventually gets accomplished.

A big advantage of tablet computers has to do with the much lower costing software. For some reason, regular computer programs that cost $300 get released for the iPad and Android tablets for $10. I think the huge potential world market makes the pricing strategy different. Regardless, though, you should be thinking about jumping into this technology and learning how much your business (or your personal productivity) can be improved.

If you don’t have a smartphone, get one now. It’s the important first step. After you get accustomed to constant email access and certain helpful phone app programs, then consider a tablet.