Browsing the web is sure tons of fun, but sometimes you just want to click an icon and have a specific page load, right? Luckily this is easily accomplished, and you can add any sites bookmark to your home screen for quick and easy access, so let's take a look at how it is done.

1. Launch the browser
2. Press Menu then select Bookmarks
3. Long press any bookmark and click Add Shortcut to Homescreen

This will place an icon on your home screen allowing you to tap that and launch which ever site you had bookmarked.  You also can do it in reverse: Long-press on your homescreen and add the bookmark that way. Pretty easy, huh? Now get to bookmarking your favorite Android site!

This one's a tad off the beaten Android path but is something you should know about. You might well have heard that Google, in an effort to speed up a number of things involving location, has built a database of Wifi access points. The idea, of course, is that if your phone is in range of one or more APs, it'll have a pretty good idea of where you are, thus speeding location services.

The flip side is that it's not just public access points that have been cataloged. Your home Wifi might well be recognized, too (and Google's gotten in a little bit of hot water for accidentally collecting more data than it should have).

But you can now opt out of having your Wifi included in Google's database. To do so is simple enough. Just change your SSID (that's the name of your hotspot) and add _nomap to the end of it. (See our example above.) Takes about 30 seconds to do, though you'll have to reconnect your phones and what not.

Google's hoping that other location providers will also start to use the _nomap string, and it's got some helpful instructions, should you need a hand with your router.

Source: Google

Here's another one for you Gmail lovers. If you like to keep your inbox organized -- which we know you do -- instead of a cluttered mess, odds are you probably have a few rules, and a bunch of labels already set up. Did you know that you can manage what labels sync to your device, and how far back the sync goes for each label individually? Pretty sweet huh -- so now let's take a look at how you can set it all up.

1. Launch the Gmail application
2. Press menu, then more, then settings
3. Tap on desired account
4. Scroll down to Sync inboxes and labels
5. Click any label and select whether you want it to sync none, the last 4 days, or all of the label

Pretty easy huh? No more fumbling around and being caught without that email that you need while on the go.

Ever lay in bed trying to send a text message only to have your screen fight your for which orientation it wants to be in? Yeah, well it gets old quick trying to do something in portrait mode while your display is switching to landscape mode, doesn't it? Luckily with just a few simple clicks you can take care of this issue and lock your screen into portrait mode.

1. Open your device settings
2. Scroll to display
3. Check / un-check Auto-rotate screen

Having the box checked will allow the phone to determine based on the way it is held which direction the screen should be going, and unchecking the box will lock it into portrait mode for you. 

Here's one for all you gmail users. You have the option to be notified of only the first e-mail in a thread, or with each sequential message of the thread, depending on how often you like to be bugged I like to be notified of each email in the thread because generally they are important, and I don't like to miss out on important stuff. With the recent updates to the GMail application Google has burried the settings a bit further in the menu, but let's take a quick look at how to change the setting for yourself.

1. Launch the GMail App
2. Press menu, then more, then settings
3. Click on the account you wish to manage
4. Scroll to the bottom and select labels to notify
5. Click on inbox then the bottom option "notify once" is what you will want to toggle

Having the box checked will notify you only of the first message, and unchecking the box will ensure that you are notified of each message that arrives. 

Google+ is a great way to interact real time with a large crowd of people, gathering many different opinions and thoughts all in one single thread of comments. Being able to read, respond and interact with everyone while on the go is great, but one downside to this is that unless managed properly your poor device could become easily flooded with notifications. So, to prevent the assault of Google+ notifications on your device, let's take a look at how you can easily manage them.

1. Launch the Google+ Application
2. Press menu then settings
3. Scroll to Notification Settings
4. Disable any notifications that you do not want / need

For me things like people adding me to a circle, or anything related to photo tagging and comments I don't need to have a push notification for. This will of course be different for each user, so be sure to set up your notifications the way you want!

Google+ is great for so many things, but one thing that can become annoying is if anyone who circles you has the option to send you a message. That is, unless you change your preferences. So, let's take a quick look at how you can limit those messages down from just anyone to your circles or extended circles.

1. Launch the Google+ Android App
2. Press menu then go to Settings
3. Scroll to Who Can Message You
4. Select from Anyone, Your Circles or Extended Circles
5. Click the back button to save your settings

Just like this you are able to change your Google+ preferences so that not just anyone can message you, and only people that you have chosen to circle back can send you messages. While some will enjoy the ability to interact with just about everyone, not everyone wants that so luckily for us the option is available to monitor who can message you.

Oh, and you are following all your favorite Android Central team members on Google+, right?

A major feature of Google+ is "Instant Upload." That's a sweet little deal that will automatically upload your pictures and video to Picasa (Google's longtime image-sharing service), all without you having to do anything. It's something you'll be asked to set up when you first launch Google+, but it's worth a deeper look.

First off, it's not quite as scary as it sounds. If you enable it, it will, in fact, upload all of the images on your phone to Picasa. Do note that as indicated by the settings above, only new pictures will automatically upload, but you can tell it to send everything that's on your phone, too, if you wish. And also note that by default, these images are only visible to you -- not to everyone in your circles. You still have to share them if you want others to see them. So that picture you took of your butt (or worse)  late one night won't be automatically shared, just uploaded.

That brings about the issue in that it's not quite as easy to delete uploaded pictures as we'd like (nor is the selective uploading of batches of images). But as Google+ matures, we only expected it to be better itegrated with the core apps of Android.

Other settings of note: You can choose whether to upload while on mobile networks, or Wifi-only, or if you only want to do photos or photos and video, or only while charging.