text:
How does freezing an app work technically?
Apps like Link2SD and Titanium Backup are able to "freeze" other apps, that is disable them without removing them. What do these apps do to achieve this?

Titanium Backup etc just use in-built Package Manager (pm) to freeze an app. pm has a feature to prevent apps from running & from appearing in Launcher. To use it, Titanium Backup etc execute following command:

pm disable {package_name}

You can freeze apps by yourself without using a dedicated freezer app. Just use the above command in Terminal Emulator or ADB Shell.
For example, if you want to freeze Stock Web Browser, open Terminal Emulator & switch to root using su command. Then, execute # pm disable com.android.browser.
It'll return #Package com.android.browser new state: disabled. Done!
Restart your Launcher (some devices may require reboot) to see the app icon gone.
To defrost the app, just replace disable with enable in the command.

Is this the same as the kill -STOP, kill -CONT commands described here? http://linuxpoison.blogspot.com/2007/11/temporarily-suspend-process.html

@NoBugs Reboot your device. Some devices need this to completely disable an app. And yes, this isn't kill command.

Right. Sometimes pm disable only says "killed", then the process starts up again immediately. kill -STOP pid is better. You can see which are stopped, in ps output.

I found how pm disable works:
If you run cat /system/bin/pm, it gives:
# Script to start "pm" on the device, which has a very rudimentary
# shell.
#
base=/system
export CLASSPATH=$base/framework/pm.jar
exec app_process $base/bin com.android.commands.pm.Pm "$@"

So apparently it is the same as the PackageManager we use from Java, it is calling it - just in a root context that no user app can directly access.
You CAN check if something is frozen, using
getPackageManager().getApplicationEnabledSetting( the package name ) ==
        getPackageManager().COMPONENT_ENABLED_STATE_DISABLED)

pm disable can be bypassed by the app re-enabling the component. A better way to do this is to use the undocumented feature of Intent Firewall as such: https://github.com/lihenggui/blocker

In Unix systems, files have 3 authorizations: read, write, and execute.
(For 3 categories of people: the owner of the file [usually its creator], a group of people, and everyone else, but it is out of the subject).
If you remove the execute authorization of the file, it cannot be launched (executed) anymore.

Hello dralpuop. Android apps are not binaries, so adding or removing the executable permission makes no difference to their execution.

Android is System 5 Unix, where (for example) shell scripts are not binaries, yet adding or removing the executable permission MAKES a difference.

A shell script can be executed without executable bit set by passing it as an argument to an intepreter directly, so it makes no difference for shell scripts, or for apps. The question and question is about apps Android apps by the way, not about shell scripts.

Try this source to know how apps are run in Android. https://github.com/dogriffiths/HeadFirstAndroid/wiki/How-Android-Apps-are-Built-and-Run

Apart from which, apps are marked disabled in packages.xml, and the disabled status is reported in dumpsys packages. Simply changing their file permissions wouldn't cause that.


text:
Changing OS completely on galaxy note SC-05D and galaxy s2 SC-02C
I live in Japan and I would like to get these 2 phones but both of them is sold here with Google Android 2.3.7 Japanese OS.
I was wondering if it possible to change that into a regular English version?
If so, how to do that in detail, please explain as I am new to this.

No need to change - language can be changed within the OS. My only tweak was installing a better English keyboard from the Play store, since the stock Samsung one isn't very good.

OS might not have all the languages.

My experience (in Korea, not Japan) is that this is correct. I've never seen an Android phone sold in Korea that didn't have English as an option in Settings->Language & Input->Language. I expect Japan to be the same.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


text:
Enable Adhoc on Jelly Bean
[Is] there any way to enable adhoc mode in JellyBean. WPA_supplicant hack isn't working.

Root your phone, then use root explorer and download this wpa_supplicant file. Rename the original to wpa_supplicant_backup and set the permissions of the downloaded wpa_supplicant to match the permissions of the original one.
I tested on Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread it worked like a charm - almost. Sometimes I have to turn off the and turn on the WiFi twice but it's not a big deal.

pls search for the promisions because right now i can't find them to show you  how they look sorry

worked for ICS! No luck with Jelly Bean.

The link is dead.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Google Play movie rental errors as it says my device is rooted (it is not)
I have a standard Galaxy S3. I have rented and downloaded Movies from Google play before however now it is saying:

Downloads aren't supported on rooted devices (error 44)

However my S3 is not rooted. All software is update to date. I have cleared the cache but this does not solve the issue.

A lot of people seem to be having problems with Google Play Movies. If you have a look on the play store page there are a lot of people complaining that the app is buggy.
Lots of people have fixed issues by uninstalling and reinstalling, it may not help but it's worth a try.

This resolved the issue, although also required a restart.


text:
How to tether WiFi-internetconnection with Nexus 7 on a PC without WLAN via USB?
With my Phone it worked via the normal settings. I want to perform tethering of the local WLAN my Nexus7 receives via USB to my computer.
I found this so far, but it doesn't seem very useful to me. Anyone any idea?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1822788


text:
Unknown Notification Alerts
My S3 constantly sounds a Notification alert but I can't tell what it is trying to notify me about.  No new emails, no new messages.  What is it trying to tell me?

I take it you don't have a repeat notification app installed?

That would be correct - not sure what that is but I'll investigate.  Thanks...

Possible duplicate question of http://android.stackexchange.com/q/26371/7574


text:
Android: Change Samsung Galaxy Ace default message type to text (160 charactors )
My Samsung Galaxy Ace default message is multimedia type messages (70 characters) and is costing me a fortune, over 10p a text (UK).  How do I change this to normal text (160 characters) which my phone company gives me 200 free text making it cheaper for me?

AFAIK the stock Messages app always sends a SMS unless you've added an attachment (picture, video, audio), or if you are typing a very long message (the latter depending on your settings). If there is an attachment the message will show the number of used KB instead of the number of remaining characters.
That being said, you should check if the message centre number in your SMS settings is correct. To check start the Messages app, click Menu > Setting, scroll down to the SMS Settings section.
Also on the same screen there is a setting that may convert long text messages automatically to MMS, so you might want to turn that off.

I tried sending a text with no images and it still sends it as a mms.  The message centre number is 447785014318 and this is correct according to the forums.

@resolver101 Something I forgot to ask, can you check your MMS creation mode setting? Can you change it to restricted?

changing the MMS creation mode to restricted worked.  I also installed another sms app which allowed me to send text which were 160 charactors long.


text:
Security of Paid apps in Google Play?
What measures does Google takes to ensure that paid apps that are downloaded do not get spread for free? Currently I see a possibility that can leak out a large number of apps:

Someone pays to download an app on his mobile.
Creates a backup of the app.
Gives the backup to friends/ family or spreads it over the internet.
Many people use the paid app for free.

I have not tried this. My Question is: Is it possible? What is the current state of the security measures for the paid apps on Google Play?

Does it really matter? Most people don't do this and you're unlikely to get more sales by preventing it.

In addition to Martyn's answer on encryption.
This might be a bit on the developer side, however, Google offers Application Licensing:

With Google Play Licensing, your application can query Google Play at
  run time to obtain the licensing status for the current user, then
  allow or disallow further use as appropriate.

You're correct that app piracy in Android is a problem, and it's a reason a lot of app developers have gone for a more in app purchase model, rather than selling their apps on the play market.  You're also correct in your method - ripping an APK file off a rooted phone is trivial. Google have recognised this and responded by added App Encryption which will be available for any devices running Jelly Bean and over:

App Encryption
Starting with Android 4.1, Google Play will help protect application assets by encrypting all paid apps with a device-specific key before they are delivered and stored on a device.

http://developer.android.com/about/versions/jelly-bean.html
This means that each app will only be accessible by that device, so the work around you mentioned won't work.  I'm unsure about how this will affect devices running any OS before Gingerbread.

As with all copy prevention schemes, it's safe to assume that this will at best limit the spread of privacy and will not remove it completely.

Any encryption is only as strong as the cipher used.

@JoachimSauer, it will discourage a large percentage, as it's now no lnoger worth the effort to save a buck or two.  And for those that still steal it, they wouldn't have bought it anyhow.

Will this actually help longterm?  The device has to have the key in order to decrypt the app and run it.  An app to find the key and use it to create a decrypted APK doesn't seem like it would be too hard for the warez crowd to write and make available to casual pirates to run on rooted devices.

@DanNeely I'm not sure, I suspect not.  On top of what you say, surely once you have the base APK you can just run that on any phone?  So each file only needs to be cracked once in order to be able to distribute freely.

@Martyn: that doesn't matter. you already have the key (otherwise you can't run the program). so you already win by definition. And no this wont actually make it harder to pirate the programs (unless you count typing an extra 2 lines in the terminal "harder"). This is just for marketing to encourage dumb developers (that are worried about their worthless IP) to develop for android.


text:
Google Cloud Print from Android GMail
I have setup Google Cloud Print, and it works great.  I love being able to print to my home printer, from my phone no matter where I am.
However, the one thing I can't seem to print are GMail emails.  I'm using the GMail app (not website) on my Galaxy S3.
Everything else I can use Cloud Print and then just Share to it, and it will print.  GMail doesn't work like that however.
Regular email is a pain as well, as I need to save the email, then I can share it.
So my question is, how do I print email through Google Cloud Print, from my S3?

I was surprised there was no official Google app. I am using Cloud Print on my Galaxy S3.

The OP asks about printing from GMail using Cloud Print, just FYI, so your post doesn't answer the question.

oops, see what happens when i go off looking for a solution and wind up right back where the question started

@olore, no worries.  I've been using Cloud Print for a while, seems to work pretty well.

Looks like there is an official app now
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.cloudprint

authors: Ивайло Минков


text:
Will flashing re-lock my unlocked phone
I bought an unlocked android phone at Amazon and it works perfectly. This phone in particular doesn't have any OS updates I could do (Motorola Defy), so basically I am stock with Froyo unless I flash it with a custom ROM with an newer android version.
The phone used to be locked to T-Mobile's network, so my question is: since my phone is currently "network unlocked" if I flash it will it re-lock again?
I appreciate any help and guidance. Thank you.

No, flashing a ROM on your unlocked phone will not re-lock your device.  I have several unlocked phones which I flash ROMs on to without any issues.  The SIM code which operators use to limit what SIM cards will work in your device has nothing to do with the software running on that device.

Don't forget to mark this as the correct answer if you're happy your question has been answered, so other people with a similar question can easily see the status of your query.


text:
Tethering stops blocks my phone's internet
I've successfully tethered my Samsung S2 to my Windows7 laptop. Connectivity's fine for the laptop now but the phone seems to be unable to reach any host. When I disconnect the tether everything works again normally. Is it possible for both devices to access the internet at the same time while tethered?


text:
Packet monitoring on phone
I suspect one of the apps on my phone is sending private data back to its servers. I'd like to analyze the traffic generated by this app. Specifically, I'd like to monitor the requests it's making (not the amount and destination but the parameters in each request). Is there any way to do this on my unrooted phone? I thought of connecting my phone and my laptop to the same WiFi network and then analyzing the traffic but since my laptop runs Win7 it seems it's not an easy thing to do (or maybe even not possible according to Wireshark's docs).
Is there any way to do this?

Connecting your phone and laptop to wifi should be the easiest way to do it. I was going to recommend WireShark too... why are you saying that you cannot do it?

The Wireshark docs say monitor mode is not possible in Windows http://wiki.wireshark.org/CaptureSetup/WLAN#Monitor_mode Do you know of a workaround?

Use a Linux live CD like Knoppix then.


text:
Is there any shortcut for closing a tab in Chrome?
I find it very annoying opening the tabs list and swiping over or hitting the little X for closing a tab (an action which I do a lot...)
Is there any shortcut for closing the front tab using some single gesture? If not, is there some way to create such a custom functionality using some add-on/hack?

It seems the method you describe is currently the only true way of doing this. However, if you press the back key, it will close the current tab once you've gone back through the history of THAT tab. So if you open up lots of tabs but then close each one after reading, this is a very quick method for you (1 click). If you do extensive browsing in each tab, it's not as good but still easy in that you just press one button
There are many other browsers out there (Firefox, Dolphin HD / Mini, Boat Browser / Mini, Opera, Maxathon, SkyFire) which are all great applications (as you can tell by their app star ratings), albeit with different levels of integration with you Google account.  Several support addons or plugins to provide additional functionality.

Nowaday pressing Back just minimises Chrome. So useless.

Credit of this answer goes to @Joe in the comments
As of Chrome 78 (and at least till 119), hold the tab list button (next to the URL bar, the one that displays the number of tabs you have open and which opens the tabs list when you press it) and you'll get a menu like this:

You can use that to quickly close the current tab. Still a bit slow for my liking, but much better than before.
Thanks @Joe.

authors: Валерий Заподовников

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Are Xoom files automatically transferred to a newly added microSD card?
I just slipped a 32G microSD card into my Xoom tablet. I had used the SD card in my Android smartphone before replacing that card with a larger capacity card. Are files that were heretofore stored on the Xoom automatically moved to the SD card?
I may have neglected to remove all files from the sd card before installing it... so I should be able to delete all files showing up in the /sdcard (sdcard) directory? I note I also have a folder named /mnt/external1 (sdcard) directory. Any idea what is what here?

The files on the SD card are most likely there from the previous handset.  Android won't automatically move any files when it detects a new sd card.

Are files that were heretofore stored on the Xoom automatically moved to the SD card?

No, files that were already on your Xoom's storage aren't moved anywhere unless you manually choose to move them.

I note I also have a folder named /mnt/external1 (sdcard) directory. Any idea what is what here?

The /sdcard directory is a portion of the Xoom's internal memory that is used as world-writeable storage. Since the Xoom uses MTP, it is not a physically separate partition like it might be on other devices, but it is treated differently than other portions of the internal storage (for example, it is accessible over USB).
/mnt/external1 is the physical microSD card that you inserted into the Xoom. It exists and operates completely independently of the Xoom's internal storage (i.e. /sdcard). If you had any leftover files from your smartphone saved on your microSD card then they will should be in the /mnt/external1 directory.
In other words, putting a microSD card in a Xoom effectively gives it two separate external storage locations.

On my stock 4.1.2 Xoom, I don't have write access to the MicroSD card (doesn't seem to be supported). Whenever I want to delete/add files I have to remove the card and put it into a computer. So you may need to do this to remove your smartphone files from the MicroSD card.


text:
How do I turn Google Play Books pages with Voice?
I use Google Play Books a lot, especially for tech books and programming etc. Is there any way I can turn pages of an app, specifically Google Play Books, using my voice?

On Jellybean, simply saying next previous back forward will have to work.

Are you saying this is how it should be or how it is now?

I don't think Google Books has a voice interface, which is a shame.  I don't know of any book app which does, I'm afraid. Moon+ Reader  is a great ebook app which has auto page turning, based on time, but they are very active and are always adding features - it may be worth emailing them and asking if they will implement it?

That would be an interesting option. I wonder if Google Play Books is going to open up our books so other applications utilize them. Or have they already? If so then I would put effort into lobbying Moon+ Reader.

So, if there are any Android devs out there looking for a good idea for an app, this would be great! Simply left and right would be sufficient for 90% of users. I would hope Google is working on this but 3rd party is more realistic I think. I would probably pay 5 dollars for this functionality if it were available.


text:
When typing, automatically replace specific characters with others (ie accented uppercase Greek vowels)
I'm looking for an app or other way to automatically replace specific characters with others, from a list of my definition. This should be done in every possible text edit field, inline.
Ideally I would type up some text and, if the keyboard I'm using is configured to do so, it would replace as I type or after a word is autocompleted. Unfortunately I haven't found any keyboard app that allows for this.
A second way to do this would be to complete typing in any text field, select all typed text, share or copy paste to another app that will do the replacement, then paste the replaced text back into the text field. This seems like the most realistic solution to be looking for, and one that I could consider writing myself. I figured I'd check for a more elegant or existing solution before considering that.
The main purpose of this is to accomodate whoever types in Greek and wants to use a keyboard's autocomplete functionality, in particular to send SMS in GSM-ASCII encoding and thus be able to use 160 characters per single SMS.
All keyboards that I've tried (Go Keyboard, Swype, Swiftkey, stock ICS, Samsung), exhibit the same issue, namely the capitalized versions of the words in their Greek dictionaries incorrectly include accents on the vowels. This probably happens because the dictionaries include only the lowercase versions of the words, while automatically uppercasing them on demand to save store space or to avoid what they perceive as duplication.
Unfortunately, although lowercase greek vowels may carry an accent, uppercase ones must not do so. More importantly, the 7-bit GSM-ASCII encoding for SMS transmission that allows for 160 characters per SMS only includes uppercase Greek characters without accents (it does not include lowercase ones). As soon as a single lowercase or accented uppercase character is typed, the SMS must be sent using UCS-2 encoding which is 16-bit and limits us to 70 characters per SMS.
The list of characters and their replacements is this:
Ά => Α
Έ => Ε
Ή => Η
Ί => Ι
Ό => Ο
Ύ => Υ
Ώ => Ω

Would anyone have any idea how to go about doing this, in an existing app or some sort of macro with string replacement functionality?
Apologies for the long question, if you reached this far. I thought it was important to state the background that lead to this limitation. Thanks in advance.

Actually, 160-characters SMS only accepts the uppercase Greek characters that do not look similar to Latin ones (ΓΔΘΛΞΠΣΦΨΩ).
So, it is not a matter of removing the accent; you need to convert to the corresponding Latin capital letter.

Shortly after asking the question, I went about exploring the 2nd option I had thought of, namely using an intermediate 3rd party app to copy typed text to, replace accents, copy it again, and paste it back into the text field of the initial app.
I looked into Tasker and after a couple of hours managed to get a crude but effective solution using its quick dialog creator (Scenes) with an input field and a single button. I paste the accented text into the input field, click the button, and it removes all accents, copies to clipboard, and destroys the scene. For ease of use I am launching that one from a Task Cut shortcut that can be added to any home screen or even better, from a Swipepad portal.
Thus the crude and intermediate solution is the following:

type autocompleted capitalized greek words in SMS or other app, select all, copy
without switching apps, swipe to the Task Cut shortcut that opens the created Scene
paste into the text field and click on the button, which removes accents from uppercase vowels, copies back into clipboard, and destroys the scene
back in the initial app, select all, paste overwriting with the unaccented text

It is unfortunately not free as it requires the paid app Tasker. Hopefully the keyboard or atleast SMS apps will allow for this functionality, or even better someone will write the equivalent in a native android app.
I am including below the Tasker XML that you can use to import this into Tasker, should you find it useful. Below it I'm including another version that, on button click, fetches from clipboard without needing the user to paste the text. That one, however, requires root.
<TaskerData sr="" dvi="1" tv="1.3.1m">
<Scene sr="sceneRemove Accents From Greek Uppercase Vowels">
<cdate>1350679378737</cdate>
<edate>1350725381426</edate>
<gridSize>18</gridSize>
<heightLand>-1</heightLand>
<heightPort>362</heightPort>
<nme>Remove Accents From Greek Uppercase Vowels</nme>
<widthLand>-1</widthLand>
<widthPort>384</widthPort>
<EditTextElement sr="elements0">
<flags>4</flags>
<geom>20,20,343,214,-1,-1,-1,-1</geom>
<valueselectedTask>45</valueselectedTask>
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">TxtUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg2" val="16"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="100"/>
<Str sr="arg4" ve="3">#FF000000</Str>
<Int sr="arg5" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="0"/>
<RectElement sr="background">
<flags>4</flags>
<geom>-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1</geom>
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg1" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg2" ve="3">#77333333</Str>
<Str sr="arg3" ve="3">#77333333</Str>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3">#FF000000</Str>
<Int sr="arg6" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg7" val="0"/>
</RectElement>
</EditTextElement>
<ButtonElement sr="elements1">
<clickTask>44</clickTask>
<flags>4</flags>
<geom>50,243,288,105,-1,-1,-1,-1</geom>
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">BtnSubmittedText</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Remove accents and copy to clipboard</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="16"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="100"/>
<Str sr="arg4" ve="3">#FF000000</Str>
<Int sr="arg5" val="0"/>

</ButtonElement>
</Scene>
<Task sr="task44">
<cdate>1350679493963</cdate>
<edate>1350679493963</edate>
<id>44</id>
<Action sr="act0" ve="3">
547
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">%TxtUserInput</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
</Action>
<Action sr="act1" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Ά</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Α</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act10" ve="3">
547
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TxtResult</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
</Action>
<Action sr="act11" ve="3">
105
Copied to clipboard
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TxtResult</Str>
<Int sr="arg1" val="0"/>
</Action>
<Action sr="act12" ve="3">
49
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">Remove Accents From Greek Uppercase Vowels</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act2" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Έ</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Ε</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act3" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Ή</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Η</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act4" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Ί</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Ι</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act5" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Ϊ</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Ι</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act6" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Ό</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Ο</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act7" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Ύ</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Υ</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act8" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Ϋ</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Υ</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act9" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Ώ</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Ω</Str>
</Action>
</Task>
<Task sr="task45">
<cdate>1350723583443</cdate>
<edate>1350723583443</edate>
<id>45</id>
<Action sr="act0" ve="3">
547
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TxtUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">%new_val</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
</Action>
</Task>
</TaskerData>

The below saves 1 step (pasting into the scene) but requires root:
<TaskerData sr="" dvi="1" tv="1.3.1m">
<Scene sr="sceneRemove (ROOT) Accents From Greek Uppercase Vowels">
<cdate>1350679378737</cdate>
<edate>1350727181786</edate>
<gridSize>18</gridSize>
<heightLand>-1</heightLand>
<heightPort>362</heightPort>
<nme>Remove (ROOT) Accents From Greek Uppercase Vowels</nme>
<widthLand>-1</widthLand>
<widthPort>384</widthPort>
<EditTextElement sr="elements0">
<flags>4</flags>
<geom>20,20,343,214,-1,-1,-1,-1</geom>
<valueselectedTask>46</valueselectedTask>
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">TxtUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg2" val="16"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="100"/>
<Str sr="arg4" ve="3">#FF000000</Str>
<Int sr="arg5" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="0"/>
<RectElement sr="background">
<flags>4</flags>
<geom>-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1</geom>
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg1" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg2" ve="3">#77333333</Str>
<Str sr="arg3" ve="3">#77333333</Str>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3">#FF000000</Str>
<Int sr="arg6" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg7" val="0"/>
</RectElement>
</EditTextElement>
<ButtonElement sr="elements1">
<clickTask>47</clickTask>
<flags>4</flags>
<geom>50,243,288,105,-1,-1,-1,-1</geom>
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">BtnSubmittedText</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Remove accents and copy to clipboard</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="16"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="100"/>
<Str sr="arg4" ve="3">#FF000000</Str>
<Int sr="arg5" val="0"/>

</ButtonElement>
</Scene>
<Task sr="task46">
<cdate>1350723583443</cdate>
<edate>1350723583443</edate>
<id>46</id>
<Action sr="act0" ve="3">
547
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TxtUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">%new_val</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
</Action>
</Task>
<Task sr="task47">
<cdate>1350679493963</cdate>
<edate>1350679493963</edate>
<id>47</id>
<Action sr="act0" ve="3">
51
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">Remove (ROOT) Accents From Greek Uppercase Vowels</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">TxtUserInput</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg3" ve="3">%CLIP</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act1" ve="3">
547
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">%TxtUserInput</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
</Action>
<Action sr="act10" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Ώ</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Ω</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act11" ve="3">
547
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TxtResult</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
</Action>
<Action sr="act12" ve="3">
105
Copied to clipboard
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TxtResult</Str>
<Int sr="arg1" val="0"/>
</Action>
<Action sr="act13" ve="3">
49
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">Remove (ROOT) Accents From Greek Uppercase Vowels</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act2" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Ά</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Α</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act3" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Έ</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Ε</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act4" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Ί</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Ι</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act5" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Ϊ</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Ι</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act6" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Ή</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Η</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act7" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Ό</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Ο</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act8" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Ύ</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Υ</Str>
</Action>
<Action sr="act9" ve="3">
598
<Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%TempUserInput</Str>
<Str sr="arg1" ve="3">Ϋ</Str>
<Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
<Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
<Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
<Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
<Str sr="arg7" ve="3">Υ</Str>
</Action>
</Task>
</TaskerData>

Just for completeness, have you tried the MessagEase keyboard? I don't know anything about its Greek features, but based on its English features, it's fairly likely to allow you to type what you want the first time.


text:
I changed my sim card - how do I find which app is sending sms messages to my old number?
I recently traveled to another country and I'm using a local prepaid sim card on my Galaxy S2.
My prepaid credit was depleted rather quickly, and when I checked the phone record I found out my phone was sending two sms messages each day, about one minute apart from each other - one to my old number and one to my wife's number (as far as I can tell the only thing special about my wife's number is that with my old sim card I used to call it a lot).
These two numbers are in my home country, so the sms messages were very expensive, and that is why my prepaid credit was depleted so quickly. Of course I didn't send any messages myself, nor is there any record of them in the outgoing messages.
Now that my credit is depleted I still sometimes get a message from the mobile carrier saying they can't deliver a message I was supposedly trying to send (though really I wasn't) because I have no credit - so my phone is still trying to send these messages. Specifically this also happens after I restart.
So I'm stuck with no credit, and I don't want to recharge my card because my phone keeps trying to send these messages and it will deplete my credit again.
Obviously some application is sending these messages, and to find out which application (after reading this question) I installed RL Permissions, and here are all the applications listed as having the permission to send sms messages:

Now as far as I can tell all these apps came preinstalled by Google or Samsung, and therefore supposed to be trusted.
The only exception is WhatsApp, but this is a widely used app and I think is also trusted. It does make me wonder though, why WhatsApp needs permission to send sms messages in the first place - it's supposed to send messages only by using the internet connection isn't it?
So can anyone help me find which app is the culprit?

You should also check to see which of these apps has the permission to start on boot. It should help narrow down the selection. Also, do you have the message that was sent to your wife (by asking her, as you stated you don't have the message in your outbox)? The message would probably help you (or us) narrow down the possibilities even more.

@dymutaos - I actually tried to put my old sim card in my device to see the sms message, but it was too long after the message was sent, and I didn't get it (I guess there's a limit to how long the mobile carrier saves a message for me if my device can't receive it). Same goes for my wife who is with me and also changed her sim card. Anyway I solved the problem (see answer below).

I am such an idiot.
A picture is worth a thousand words:

When I bought my device, about a year ago, I turned on the feature "SIM change alert - Send SMS when SIM card is changed". I completely forgot about it later, and it only came back to me today. Of course the recipients I defined were my own number and my wife's.
The lead I followed was @roxan's comment, which raised the suspicion about the mobile tracker app. A Google search led me to this forum post that describes this security feature, and when I read it I recalled that I turned it on.
Despite this incident, I actually still think this is an excellent feature that can really help in case my device will be stolen, but I just have to remember to turn it off before I change the SIM card myself...

I'm having this problem and it's eating up my balance every time I restart the phone. I tried to get into this "SIM change alert" setting, but it just crashes Settings app with "Unfortunately, Settings has stopped"... I don't know if placing the old SIM will make the settings work, but I know this thing is sending messages out every time I restart phone, but I can't get into the settings and change it!

@ADTC - Have you tried Settings > Application manager > "Settings" app > "Clear data"? (from here: http://android.stackexchange.com/a/75836/13108)

Thanks but actually I resolved the problem already. I had disabled the Samsung Account app. After I enabled it again, the Settings app didn't crash and I was able to authenticate and disable the feature.

@ADTC post this as a solution to the question...


text:
Firefox for Android: blocking images?
I would like to prevent Firefox from loading images, due to 3g data limit.

I was googling for an anwser, but it seems that option is not available, and, to my surprise, I did not find any posts mentioning it does not exist.
There is no option in about:config that looks like the one permissions.default.image in the desktop version of Firefox.
No extension (in particular, the Image Block) seems to be installable in Firefox 16.0 for Android.

Can you suggest a solution, or a browser, which supports this feature?

Possibly related/dupe: Blocking 3rd-party image in Android browser?

The Dolphin browser has an option to turn off images.  I believe most versions of the stock browser have this capability as well.  The 4.0.4 version can disable images via Settings ->Bandwidth management -> Load images, and I'm pretty sure that the Gingerbread browser had this capability as well.

Yes, the gingerbread stock browser has this; I just checked. Under Settings->Load Images.

Opera Mini / Opera Mobile are two recommended options for saving money on data charges:

Opera's mobile browsers are the smart choice for browsing on expensive
  wireless data plans. Using Opera Mini or Opera Mobile to browse the
  web with your mobile phone can save you money on your phone bills, by
  reducing your data usage substantially. Opera Mini uses only a tenth
  of the bandwidth of other browsers, compressing webpages by up to 90%.
  With Opera Mobile, turning on Opera Turbo compresses data by up to
  80%, or leave Opera Turbo off to get full website data, as you would
  on a PC.

Additionaly, of course, they allow to turn off images via settings.
You can download them from

http://www.opera.com/mobile/download/
http://m.opera.com

Thanks. I don't like opera for political reasons (closed-source) though.

OK, I can't fight against that, but I won't delete my answer just in case someone else have the same problem and he/she finds useful this alternative.

It was not meant as offense, sorry for misunderstanding. Your answer is technically very valid and definitely worth keeping here.

Don't worry: I didn't take it as offense :)

At Firefox Android Add-Ons, there is a recent add-on that is just what you want:
Mobile Image Blocker v1.0

Speed up browsing on mobile connections and use less data by blocking all images. Working on images defined in HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

This answer could be a lot more useful if you added a link to the add-on.

Try the add-on uBlock and tick Block media elements larger than...(I set mine to 1KB)

this feature is now available in Firefox Nightly but will be shipped in 45/46: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1170725
Menu->Settings->Advanced->Show Images

If you always want Firefox to block images when using mobile data then you can set it in the menu: Settings → Advanced → Show images → choose Only over Wi-Fi or Blocked. This is however tedious if you often quickly want to turn this option on or off.
As far as I know, there‘s no working add-on for Firefox for Android (Fennec) 67.0 at the moment (the mentioned addon Mobile Image Blocker is not compatible anymore since quite some time).
However, there‘s Firefox Lite as an leightweight browser app for Android (seems like it was called Firefox Rocket formerly). Apparently it‘s currently only available in some asian countries through Google Play, but you can also install it via F-Droid from anywhere in the world (either install F-Droid or manually download an install the Firefox Lite APK file from the F-Droid website).
It has an easily accessible option for enabling and disabling blocking images. In the current state it‘s lacking some features like linking it to Firefox Sync for syncing bookmarks for example. Overall it‘s still a good option to reduce traffic when surfing the web on the go.


text:
Android as HTML5 kiosk/appliance
What's involved in transforming a rooted Android device (in my case, a Nook Touch) into a real HTML5 kiosk?
Meaning: The user never sees any part of the Android OS GUI elements; the screen is always just a full-screen browser window located at an HTML5 app.  When the device has to go to sleep, it doesn't change what's displayed on the screen, and when it's woken up the user is right back in the HTML5 app.

You can do that with the Nook, first thing is to get access to the Nook SDK, (not just android here):
https://nookdeveloper.barnesandnoble.com/
Next, you'll want to disable the home button, Stack Overflow has a good thread on this:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2162182/android-is-it-possible-to-disable-the-click-of-home-button
Lastly when setting up your Nook-esk Kiosk be sure to set it up in a way to keep it plugged in.  Kiosks should always be powered, and a full battery drain will reboot the whole OS.

What about non-Nook?

It should be the same with the Android SDK by itself.


text:
How does Cloud message services reach devices behind NAT / firewall?
Getting push notifications with devices with a local IP works fine. I just wonder how is that it works.
Is it just uPnP? The device starts communication with the cloud messaging service and then IGD kicks in? So the mapping remains
Does the push notification client keeps a constant connection to the cloud server? I would like to think that is not the case.
I am interested specifically in how the push notification knows how to reach the device given it is behind a NAT or firewall. Is there a scenario where Google push notifications would not be able to reach a device?

As you might imagine, Google is pretty quiet with regard to its implementation details. So I'll just describe this in the general case and in a very basic form.
The way push is done is that the client (i.e. the phone) opens a TCP connection to the messaging server (e.g. Google). This connection is meant to remain open for as long as the phone is turned on. Fortunately a TCP connection uses absolutely no bandwidth when it's not transmitting anything, so it doesn't waste a lot of data, the radio transmitter can power down, etc.
The connection can remain open indefinitely, however behind a NAT, the NAT infrastructure keeps a table of open connections that it is handling, and drops connections that have been idle for some time, usually 10-15 minutes. Neither end gets notification of this. So this is handled by sending a TCP keep-alive packet which refreshes the entry in the carrier's NAT connection table. This only costs about 50 bytes or so, and only needs to be done every few minutes.


text:
Nexus S bootloops after trying to apply OTA update
I have a Samsung Nexus S which I bought off my friend. A system update popped up and I hit accept without even thinking about it but the phone said I had to charge it so I did and left it for an hour or two. When I came back and went to turn it on it just went midway through the reboot and turned off again, then without even touching it it would repeat this process over and over. I have absolutely no clue what to do - how can I get it booting again?

I'd suggest you start here:

GUIDE Factory Images (JB-ICS-GB) (XDA developers)

Requirements:
-Android SDK
  -Java JDK
-Platform-Tools
-Unlocked bootloader ("fastboot oem unlock" pay attention, wipes everything, also SD card)
-experience with adb and fastboot
NOTICE: If you never used the sdk, the jdk, fastboot and adb, before installing the factory image YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW this guide in order to get sdk and unlock bootloader.

The part that is relevant to you, assuming your device wasn't running a rooted custom ROM before, is 4B:

If you are coming from another stock rom (official older OTA unrooted), this doen't wipe your data/cache:

adb reboot bootloader
fastboot flash bootloader bootloader-crespo-********.img
fastboot reboot-bootloader
fastboot flash radio radio-crespo-********.img
fastboot reboot-bootloader
fastboot update image-********.zip

if you want relock the bootloader (not necessary, only for warranty)
  do also these two step:

fastboot reboot-bootloader
fastboot oem lock

Tried to include as much as possible for posterity, but the files you need and so on are in the forum thread anyway so this doesn't really apply if the forum thread would go down.
If you have any questions, please comment and I'll update my answer.


text:
Wi-Fi Network can not scanned
I am having problem with my recently bought SONY XPERIA SL. I have CISCO WAP4410N router, and its SSID cannot be scanned or connected (manually) on my phone, while being on AUTO CHANNEL selection mode. Where as I am using the same network previously for my iPhone and even for different laptops.
While when I change the channel manually to no 10, I am able to access the network.
Anybody can resolve this issue for me?

An helpful app to resolve this might be Wifi Analyzer, it shows the available (and perhaps conflicting) wifi channels and their strength.

Is is quite possible that the channel it automatically chooses is too congested, or even not supported by your devices wifi card.

...or that it is in an "invalid range". Not all channels are "legal" in all places. So the router might chose an "invalid" channel, and your XPeria refuses to use it.


text:
Android apps not compatible between roms
I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 with CM10, I was testing SlimRom and notice that some applications that I bought on PlayStore showed the message "This app is not compatible with your device". It's the same device with different rom.
Any ideas about why this happen?
thanks!

I've had that before, I think it has something to do with how the device was named on the build.prop. I had a device that runs on ICS before, I changed rom to another ICS and one of my apps showed incompatible on the Play Store. I installed the app from a backup copy and it ran without problems.

@ShedoSurashu This is the correct answer, why not post it as such?

Your best bet is to back up your apps prior to switching ROMs so you can install the app from your local backup and not rely on the Play Store.  You can also modify your build.prop to fool the Play Store.

Done! @Matt. :)

I've had that before, I think it has something to do with how the device was named on the build.prop. I had a device that runs on ICS before, I changed rom to another ICS and one of my apps showed incompatible on the Play Store. I installed the app from a backup copy and it ran without problems.


text:
How to voice command a music player?
I would like to know if is that possible to voice command music actions, like next track, and even delete track would be very nice.
My sport, rowing, doesn't allow me to interact with smartphone through hands, so, these voice commands would be extremely helpful.
In my tries, I just found listen to, which is not that interesting.
I am using Android 2.3.7 - Cyanogenmod 7.2 for Defy

I don't think this is ever going to be possible because the music is going to interfere with the speech recognition.

The idea is to play music over headphones

I don't think you can do this with your stock player.
After some digging I found a good app for you. It's called Voice Action Music Player
See if this suits for you.


text:
List all free application on google play

Possible Duplicate:
How to get full list of apps in play-store

Is there a way I can get list of all free apps on Google Play.
Normally only 24 apps are displayed on one web page.Something like list view instead of icon view.Also do we have a tag search option?Ex search for device tracking apps

Basically no.
As +RyanConrad said there are far too many free apps, which change constantly, to be listed on a single page.  If there are ~600,000 apps and an html link to an app was around 150 characters, and each character is 8 bits, that's ~85 megs just to get the full listing.  I don't know for sure, but I don't think your web browser will like trying to render that page.


text:
Samsung Galaxy S Plus formatted itself
The past couple of days my Galaxy S Plus started lagging, and today all of sudden it got stuck. When I restarted it the phone was completely wiped, had no apps, no contacts, nothing.  Now when I try installing any app it just says "Downloading" but nothing happens - nothing gets installed. I have no idea what is happening. Could some one tell me what I should do?
It was on stock firmware when is locked up. I tried a soft reset; after clicking "Erase everything" nothing happens, it just shows the factory reset title on top and blank screen below.

I also tried a hard reset without success. I took out the battery then held home volume up and power together while powering it on, but it just shows on screen "Ram Dump mode" and some other stuff. No menu shows up.

Just a thought: have you explored the possibility of getting adb access to the device in recovery mode? You might be able to reflash the device entirely, flashing CWM and so on.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_Plus/GT-I9001
This might help, it might not. do let us know.

Please try to avoid answering with only a link. If the link is broken your answer becomes useless. It is better to include the essential parts of the document you are referring to in your answer directly and provide the link for reference.

It sounds like your phone's internal memory may be physically damaged or suffering from severe corruption (such as many bad blocks).  If that's the case, it may be mounting the system as read only which would prevent you from downloading and installing apps.  If it is still under warranty, you should probably exchange it for a new one.

just bought it a month ago so its still under warranty, but bought it from another country, they did say it had international warranty but lets c, will have to get the bill shipped from there.

I think that you visited malicious web page or your phone received malicious text message containing the factory reset maintenance code which doesn't ask for confirmation. http://www.androidcentral.com/major-security-vulnerability-samsung-phones-could-trigger-factory-reset-web-browser is the first link which I find quickly googling for it.

That wouldn't explain the subsequent problems with app installation, etc.


text:
How to stop shuffle playing audiobooks and other non-music?
.nomedia hides it from the player, but I still want to be able to play it. Just not with the rest of my music.

Continue to use the .nomedia file in your  audio book directory and use a separate audio book player like MortPlayer for listening to non-music audio files like audio books.
Personally I use MortPlayer for audio books, BeyondPod for podcasts and the built in music player for music and things go pretty smoothly.  I don't have audio books messing up my playlists and BeyondPod and MortPlayer have features better suited to listening to audio books and podcasts, respectively.


text:
More internal memory or less memory + SD card
I am thinking about buying Samsung Galaxy S3. The problem is that difference in price between 16Gb and 32Gb is significant, and it is much cheaper to buy SD card and compensate this difference. Is it good idea or not? What are disadvantages?

This is a question that I asked myself and the short answer is to always get as much memory inside the phone as possible, just to be sure.  But saying that, it really depends on how you use your phone.  I've gone for the largest amount of internal storage in my SGS3 as I could get (32Gb) and then a 64Gb external sd card, but I wish that I'd waited out for the 64Gb phone - reasons to follow after the tech bit:
The way that the version of Android you'll get on your SGS3 works is that it stores all application data on the internal storage and doesn't let you move that to the external SD card.  This is probably to keep a good user experience - things will start going very wrong if you moved all your data to the external SD card and then removed that SD card.  To note, older versions of Android did allow you to move apps to the external SD card. So when you download a game like NOVA, which clocks in at around 2GB of storage for the extra data it downloads, you will see that 16Gb or 32Gb internal storage is going to fill up soon.
To make matters worse - there's an extra layer to this:
Android automatically assigns a private folder to each app, located in a protected folder on the internal storage.  If you are non rooted, you won't be able to see this data, but it's what gets cleared when you 'clear data' within an application settings screen.  If you are rooted it's located at '/data/data/'.  This data is kept private so that only that app can look at the data, hence apps can't look at potentially sensitive information belonging to other apps.  This data will always be located on the phone memory for security reasons.  Some apps store a lot of data in these private folders: the newer version of Google music is a prime example - it stores all cached music in this folder (as mentioned in a comment older versions stored the music to the SD card, but this has changed in the newer versions to much annoyance)
So all your apps store all their data to the internal storage and there's not much you can do about it. After using my phone for a few months (installing applications, downloading music etc) my internal storage had 4Gb free (out of 32Gb) and my external SD card still had 60Gb free from my 64Gb.  It seems that unless you root your phone and hack it a little, there's very little which will natively use the external SD card (I think you can relocate where photos are stored but that's about it from the native apps).
Hence I suggest to get as much internal storage space as possible, as that's the space which is going to be used first and fastest.
In regards to the other comments about installing apps to the ext card - I think they must still be using Android 2.x as this hasn't been an option since then, for the reasons explained above.  To re-iterate - you won't be able to install apps on your ext sdcard using your SGS3 on a stock ROM

Google music stores cache in sdcard/data not in data/data.

@AndreyLosev: I have a SGS3, the device the user is referring to, and that has a physical internal storage (it is actually a SD card hard wired within the device, but have corrected answer to say internal storage so as not to confuse).

@RichardBorcsik Older versions used to keep cached music in sdcard/data but newer versions have moved this to data/data.  Answer updated to reflect this.

There are a number of factors that are important in the internal vs external memory debate. I guess two of them are of greater importance to determine what's best for you.
Moving applications
A lot of Android applications allow transfer to external memory like an SD Card but there are also a number of applications that don't. Depending on it's size, the internal memory (also known as primary storage) will fill up with those applications that can't be moved to the external memory.
By having a large internal memory you can avoid the problem of not being able to install more application because of memory shortage.
If you have a rooted phone though you can move these application to an partition on the SD Card. With the use S2E (search in Google Play store) you can move applications to that particalar partition.
If you do something like this, make sure you get a nice fast microSD card though.
Also remember that the Android system itself is installed on the internal memory causing the free space to shrink even more.
Caching
Applications use caches to store data. These caches reside on you internal memory and so it becomes even more crowded. Here, the same statement applies. Bigger internal memory is lesser problems with memory shortage.
Why is more internal memory expensive?
Most of the applications you use on your phone run faster on the internal memory than on the external memory. I guess someone with greater knowledge on this area could provide you with more information on why it's more expensive.

"will fill up with those applications that can't be moved to the external memory" We're talking about 16 Gigabytes. The biggest storage hogs (i.e. games) allow moving. S2E is something completly different: it moves data to an ext partition, it's useful if you have 512MB internal memory, but again we're talking about 16 Gigabytes.

"internal memory is faster in processing data". It isn't since it doesn't process data.

Well noted on your last comment, i actually meant it's speed.

About the 16 gigabytes issue. I said "Depending on it's size,  the internal memory...." And yes, of course 16gb is a lot of storage space.

I think the main factor is speed. External SD cards will be a lot slower than internal memory so I wouldn't install apps on it.

Practically all my apps are installed on my external sdcard and I'm not noticing any speed differences. Then again, I don't play any huge games.

That's wrong. Only the .apk and .so (native code) files are moved. Their contents are mostly loaded when you start the app or a level and kept in memory. So you could experience some slower load times, but nothing serious.

I own SE Experia Mini Pro and currently most of my apps are installed on SD, I have not noticed any problems with speed. You just need class 10 SD card and that's it.


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How can I save photos that I take with my Android's camera in a lossless format?
How can I save the images captured with my Android's camera in RAW or TIFF format?  Are there any apps, ROM/kernel Modifications or other methods that will allow me to accomplish this?
Technically I need to be able to save the RAW data or at least save them as TIFFs however I am also open saving them as PNGs if RAW and TIFF are out of the question.  Converting the natively saved jpegs to TIFF or PNG is not a suitable option for me.
I have seen this question that states that RAW is not possible, however it is over a year old and I'm hoping something may have changed.  I'm also broadening the scope to include other "lossless" options.
I'm currently using a vzw version of the GS3 that is rooted and running a custom ROM.  I regularly use the built in camera, Camera Zoom FX and Camera 360 and none of these seem to be capable of saving lossless images.
UPDATE:  I just found out that PNG does not save EXIF information so it is no longer a suitable option.

I think, that converting JPGs to TIFFs is not an option for anyone! :> Anyway, there is a small (very small and unconfirmed) chance that any real camera with Android (like Samsung Galaxy Camera will have "something around RAW or lossless photos". But, since it is still based on Android, ZnewmaN's answers will probably be valid. Chances, that you're going to get it on GS3 or any other phone with camera on board are even smaller (for below mentioned resons).

Possible duplicate of Taking raw photos using Android devices (the answer on that question is more updated)

The camera api within android is not written to be able to capture RAW. The camera firmware is at the kernel level and would require a custom kernel that is written with RAW in mind. Some of the post processing is being handled on the phone at the camera firmware level making it nearly impossible to find a way to actually capture RAW images.


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Stuck at "Verifying Information" when updating to ICS
I've been trying for a few hours to update my Desire S running Android 2.3.5 to the newly released official ICS rom "RUU_SAGA_ICS_35_S_HTC_Europe_14.01.401.2_Radio_20.76.30.0835_3831.19.00.110_release_275068_signed".
Running XP, I've installed the latest HTC Sync from the HTC website (to get the drivers). No matter what I try I always get stuck at the screen "Verifying information on your android phone. Please wait...". I've let it sit there for over an hour without it ever continuing, I'm not getting any kind of error message.
When using the HTC Sync program the phone shows up as connected without any problems. I've tried running the installer both while having the program on and having the phone in "HTC Sync mode", and having the program turned off and having the phone in "Charge only mode". USB debugging is of course turned on. I've also tried turning the AV and firewall off, just in case. I've also tried resetting the phone to factory settings, just for the hell of it. No change.
The phone is not rooted and is S-ON. I've tried restarting both phone and computer a number of times (phone both using fast boot and regular boot) but I just can't seem to get it working.
Any ideas?
Edit: I also found a log file from the RUU, containing the following:
    <LOG>
    <T170112><INFO><VERSION>1.0.6.2012</VERSION></INFO></T170112>
    <T170112><DEBUG><PAGE>====== WelcomeDlg ======</PAGE>
    </DEBUG></T170112>
    <T170117><DEBUG><PAGE>====== VerifyingMobileDlg ======</PAGE>
    </DEBUG></T170117>
    <T170117><DEBUG>strPath = C:\Program\HTC\HTC Sync 3.0\
    </DEBUG></T170117>
    <T170117><DEBUG><CMD>adb devices</CMD>
    </DEBUG></T170117>
    <T170118><DEBUG><OUT>adb <T170118><DEBUG><CMD>fastboot devices</CMD>
    </DEBUG></T170118>
    <T170120><DEBUG><OUT>fastboot

Found a solution myself. The problem was that the adb and fastboot tools in the HTC Sync program didn't work. I solved it by downloading the Android SDK, installing platform-tools, removing HTC Sync from the path variable and adding the platform-tools directory in its place.

yzfr1's answer helped!
When I installed HTC Sync there was only adb.exe but no fastboot.exe, using adb.exe and fastboot.exe from the SDK and putting them in HTC Sync's directory solved the problem.


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Brand new Galaxy Nexus not booting
I know someone who bought a Galaxy Nexus recently, and he finally unboxed it today and straight away inserted the SIM and battery and plugged in to charge. Hours later when we tried to boot it for the first time, nothing happened. Removed and reinserted batteries, changed sockets, attached the USB charger to a PC, etc. but we still have no idea if the phone has charged or charging or if it's a completely defective item.
Please help me troubleshoot it.

Take it back to the store.

@AlEverett I would love to. But there is wee little problem that there's no warranty. Technically there is, but it applies to a neighboring country. I suspect why we were able to buy it cheaply was because the 'other country's dealer' sold in bulk to 'this country', there were no warranty expenses.

If it's a grey market phone, usually the dealer will still take it back if you go back to him quickly. The cost of a phone is usually not worth the bad rep from selling defective items.

when it is plugged in does it give any indication that it is charging? i.e. screen comes on and shows battery image, or indicator LED above the screen comes on? If neither of these is happening I suspect the phone just isn't charging. Perhaps your USB cable or wall adapter is defective?

@Tim This is my first Android phone, and there was no indication as you suggest. I thought this was normal as the quick start guide did not mention anything about that either (unless I need a new pair of glasses). But in any case, your conclusion is correct, but none of the things you suggest were the problems. I've answered myself, please check if interested.

@ChinmayKanchi Thankfully, I didn't need as it was bought a week or so ago, but only unboxed today.

Okay, somehow or the other, I got it to work using tips gleaned from various links from Googling 'brand new Galaxy Nexus not booting'. I haven't figured out the issue, but I had the phone plugged in without the battery and inserting the battery then showed me battery charging image on the phone for the first time, but it quickly died out and I couldn't start the phone. After subtly pressuring the battery randomly, I got the charging screen back and switched it on.
Some of the posts in the aforementioned Googling suggested there might be slight defects in the Chinese-made Galaxy Nexuses (apparently it was made in both Korea and China), and mine is made in China. It might have to do with the battery not getting placed just right. I suggest to anyone facing similar issues to try to see if there's any effect with inserting the battery with the phone plugged in as I did in my case.


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Some apps are gone and others crash after Samsung Galaxy S2 crash
I'm facing a problem with my Galaxy S2. I've been using it for 1 year but a week ago when I used the alarm clock to set an alarm, the phone suddenly hanged and restarted. After the restart it stopped working properly. At first all of my apps crashed even the TwLauncher. So I turned it off and then tried turning it on by removing the memory card and simcard. It didn't work out, so I used my Nokia for a week and left it with battery, simcard and external memory card removed. But this weekend I turned it on and it started working with less app crashes but some of my apps were gone like opera mobile. Also I had to re-enter my Google account because the phone was like factory reset. All data was there, the only thing gone was my Google account.
Now my problem is all my apps are crashing when I enter them and sometimes a text comes to the screen saying "Oooops !! I crashed but a report has been sent to my developer"
How can I fix this? Any ideas? I can provide screenshots if needed. Any help would be helpful.

It sounds like something has corrupted within your phone.
You didn't say if you forced a factory reset - that would be my first suggestion.
Failing that, you're left in a tricky situation.  The only think I can suggest is to root your device and install a new ROM over top, I tend to advise people to install Cyanogenmod.  Luckily there are complete instructions for doing that over at the Cyanogenmod wiki.
Good luck.

No Martyn i didn't make a factory reset,when i switched the phone on it was like factory resetted (only thing gone was settings and google account).I really really don't want to do factory reset,isn't there something esle useful ?


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Try to install Clockworkmod Recovery, always getting stock recovery
I'm trying to install Cyanogenmod on my Samsung Epic 4G.  I've tried a couple of ways to get Clockworkmod Recovery on the phone, but every time I boot it into recovery mode I get the stock recovery program.  I've tried the method listed on the Cyanogenmod wiki here and one using Odin here, but every time it boots, it loads up with stock.
Does anyone have any ideas for how I can get around this?

It looks like the key was holding down volume-down, power, and camera buttons until the capacitive buttons (home, search, etc) lit up, which was longer than until the screen flashed (as stated in the CyanogenMod wiki).

First of all, you need to to flash clockwork mod  recovery over your default stock recovery.
Then get into Clockworkmod recovery.
After that you can flash any CynogenMod roms.
Use this guide to work with Odin.

That was not the issue.  Using various guides I did install clockwork mod recovery "over" the stock recovery, unfortunately the guide you linked does not provide further information from the ones I already linked.  Additionally, the problem was how to get into Clockworkmod recovery, which you didn't address. Apparently the Epic 4G (not the Touch) keeps a copy of the stock recovery somewhere which it boots if you don't hold down the noted buttons for long enough.


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How can I display Samsung GT-S5660 current screen desktop to my HDMI TV screen?
I have pictures and videos with effects on my Samsung GT-S5660. How can I display those to my HDMI TV screen? The phone only has mini USB output.

Please try to use relevant tags. Applying 3 different phone tags (none of which was the phone you own) is confusing and defeats the purpose of tagging.

I think you need to buy one of these MHL to HDMI converters - it mentions that it  specifically supports your device.

This is great, you are genius i am happy to get some hope at-least, i will buy and try and let the question be answered with some later follow up. thanks!


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Are there any dependencies for unrevoked3 to run on stock ubuntu?
I cannot get unrevoked 3 to run on either my laptop or desktop which both run 64 bit Ubuntu.
Is there a dependency I need?
I download and extract to ~/Downloads
cd ~/Downloads
gksu ./reflash

...and nothing happens.
Based on this Ubuntu forums thread, it seems to be a conflict between 32/64 bit. Is there a way to get this 32 bit application working on my 64 bit system?

Is this still an issue for you? I see AskUbuntu does have (at least) one question that could be relevant, Running 32-bit app under 64-bit linux, but I'm not sure if the answers there will help you get Unrevoked working, specifically.

unrevoked needs 32bit. That is all.
I ran it on a 32 bit live cd.

I was able to run it under Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit after installing the 32-bit shared libraries:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs


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Stop application after set time - sleep timer
Is there a way to automatically stop playing music/stop other app after a set period of time. For instance while listening to music at night.

Have you looked at Music Off, I'm Sleeping! - seems to do what you're looking for.


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encrypted internet sharing don't work for android phones
i have a snow leopard macbook and a Android cell phone. when i try share internet to my android cell phone from my mac in unsecure mode it works but when i try encrypted wifi then my android always give authentication errors and something like that. can i connect the phone to internet with cable ?


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Call log always shows '13' missed calls
I am using Samsung Galaxy S III. My call log always shows '13' missed calls. I tried with restarting the phone etc., But no change. Is there any way to fix the issue without resetting the phone?

Have you checked out that there is no broken  or un-read message in inbox. Also try a third party message app like GO SMS/Handcent SMS from play store and check if they reolve the problem. Also when have you get started this notification?

Sorry. The question is for my friend. Its not related with message, but call log.

Is there an alternate dialer app installed?  Go Contacts Ex on my wife's Galaxy S II (running Jelly Bean, and previously ICS) is having the same issue.  Opening up the stock Phone app and going to the Call Log tab resets the "stuck" missed calls counter.

Go to Settings > Application Manager > All applications
(in the tabs across the top).
Check in Downloaded, Running and All
Locate and tap the BadgeProvider app.
Tap Clear data to reset the counter.

I had the same problem and this is how I fixed it:
I went to the phone icon and then went to logs, then clicked on "view by miss call" in the top. I deleted all the missed calls by putting a check mark on each on. That fixed my issue and the missed calls on my phone icon got removed.


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How to upgrade Android on the Samsung Galaxy Ace
I have an Samsung Galaxy Ace that came preinstalled with Android v2.3.4 (Gingerbread I believe)
I've searched the internet everywhere and couldn't find a way to do so that gave clear instructions on what to do.
But I would also like to ask, if I was to update to say 4.1 (the latest I believe) would the phone then start to lag as it is not such a powerful phone. (800MHz CPU + 300MB RAM)
Thanks heaps!

Have you seen How do I update the OS on my device?

You certainly can upgrade your OS, although the process isn't without risk.
There's an entire board devoted to the Galaxy Ace at xda  - here's a good post which should get you started.  From the quick skim I've done over a few posts there seems to be a massive warning of not to use ROM Manager (a popular tool in the ROM community) as it'll brick your device.
Once your device is rooted you can then install a ROM - here's a link to a Cyanogenmod 10 based ROM for the ace running Android 4,1, I think.  Be careful to read the instructions and take note of the stuff that doesn't work. If you get stuck - there's lots of help out there
Good luck.

Haha. Wow. It's that tricky? Android is heaps different to iOS! Anyways, I'll give it a try and let you know what happens. Cheers!

Yeah - Samsung phones are a little more difficult that other devices.  Make sure you follow the instructions to the letter and you should be fine.  Don't forget to mark this post as the answer so other users with a similar question can benefit from the help too


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touchwiz launcher bug with logcat inside
My problem is that when you try to delete any home page, it gives me force close here is video of my problem http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX4ZDOA3ygE&feature=g-upl here is fragment of logcat: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=33046163&postcount=15 maybe anyone could comment about this issue and it cause :) thx

It looks like a non-trivial issue, I'm afraid.  The logcat output you provided didn't actually  give the cause of the issue.
May I suggest that in the meantime you use another launcher?  Nova Launcher and Apex Launcher are particularly good replacements for you Note 2, or if you want to get fancy then TSF shell is fun.

thank you vm for your answer, but i prefer touchwizz because of some features. By the way here is full log https://www.dropbox.com/s/9hxhcjfxkblo5q0/2012-10-20-17-51-04.txt after i got fc i stopped recording.Something wrong with  E/AndroidRuntime( 2827) :/

The problem is with this line '10-20 17:51:15.815 E/AndroidRuntime( 2827): java.lang.StackOverflowError' which is a fundamental with the code in the touchwiz launcher.  A search shows that other people are having the same issue - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1890276 (although with a different phone). I've asked a question on XDA http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=33070484#post33070484 - may be worth keeping an eye on it


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Are there any Android tablets that have the "negative colours" accessiblity feature like the Samsung Galaxy S III phone has?
Are there any Android tablets that support the "negative colours" accessibility setting like the Samsung Galaxy S III phone does?
There are many people like myself whose vision is light sensitive and as such find it much more comfortable to read off screens that have a black background with light coloured text e.g. white text on a black background. Reading black text on a white background (the usual way round) gives me bad headaches.
The iPhone and iPad have long had an accessibility feature called "white on black" which basically negates all the colours globally - looking something like a photo negative. I was very glad when I saw that the Samsung Galaxy S III supports such a feature - they call it "negative colours" - basically making any app which has a light coloured background much more comfortable to view.
I'm after an Android tablet that can do this, not a phone. However, from what I've read, the Samsung Galaxy tablet doesn't seem to have this feature. I'm wondering if there are any other Android tablets that do.
The inverted colours setting I'm after is a global colour negation, so everything (all apps, home screen, built in OS screens etc.) need to have negative colours. I think on the iPhone, iPad and Samsung Galaxy S3, this is done at the video device driver level to achieve this globally throughout the OS and all Apps.
Are there any Android tablets that provide the "negative colours" accessibility feature?

Yes, the Samsung Tab 3 8.0 and others. The Samsung Galaxy S III phones got this feature quite a while before it was part of the feature set of the Samsung tablets. Other Samsung tablets like the Note also appear to have this feature now, as do later versions of the Galaxy phone. I still haven't come across any other manufacturer who includes this accessibility feature with their Android tablet range.
(for any users who need high contrast to read or have a light sensitivity problem, this feature is a life saver)


text:
Why didn't my Android auto adjust to daylight saving time and how to fix it?
My Galaxy Nexus, Jelly Bean, was set to Automatic Date & Time, Automatic Time Zone, and the correct Time Zone was shown: "GMT -03:00, Brasilia Time". Here in Brazil Daylight Saving Time begins today. Android didn't detect that.
To be fair Microsoft for many years also made the DST start in the wrong week in its Windows products. If I recall correctly, it required a new law from our Government to make the DST more predictable, so in the last few years Windows got it right.
I don't know if Android will make the DST start in the wrong weekend or if it won't work at all. How can I correct it?

Doesn't your clock get auto-adjusted by your carrier?

@AlEverett Apparently no, is there anything I can set to make it happen?

It could be that the Telephony layer does not understand the semantics of NITZ which is transmitted over the cellular network... this is highly dependent on the RIL layer to handle this for you.

You will need to research how to set this on Galaxy Nexus and Jelly Bean, but ..

You are currently using "GMT -03:00, Brasilia Time", and this does not include Daylight Savings by default.
You need to instead use (one of):
 America/Bahia
 America/Sao_Paulo

These all use UTC -2:00 for DST.
See:
Wikipedia: Time in Brazil

the problem is that you're getting your clock updated directly through your router configs.
you should change the clock settings in your router in order to get this fixed, as your time and date configurations come directly from it because Nexus 7 doesn't have a SIM card from which it would obtain local time.
Best wishes.

I haven't mentioned Nexus 7. I said Galaxy Nexus. It has a SIM card.

When I use "Automatic Time Zone, use network-provided time zone" it gives me "GMT -03:00, Brasilia Time".
When I set it manually, there's only one option with Brasilia in its name: "GMT -02:00, Brasilia Time". Using that corrects the issue and gives me the proper time.

It could be a bug in JB, as every country seems to have its own rules for Daylight Saving Time. Brazil changed the rules in 2011.
Not all regions in Brazil observe DST, so you can try a to specify a city/region that does observe DST.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_by_region_and_country#Brazil

Android like most popular mobile OS has 2 options as has been indicated above
 1. Manual time setting.(by not selecting auto Time and Time-zone option)
 2. Automatic time/time-zone setting from connection/network provider.
You would get these under setting(under system tab/category), if you search for time.
Now for 1 as is obvious. You have to set it back/forward during DST/DST over days. For 2 you have to select both automatic Time and Time-zone option from network provider. It does not work if you select just automatic time.
However even with both of them set to auto, some network provider don't have enough towers to handle and distinguish between 2 regions one which has DST and which does not.  The only solution in this case to manually set the time-zone based on your knowledge of what it should be.
This should help.


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How to remove network lock samsung galaxy s advance
Title says it all. I have been scouting the net for the past day and a half and haven't found a way to remove/unlock the network lock on my SGS Advance. It is already rooted. I have tried those SGS unlocking apps, and didnt work.
Does anyone know how to unlock a Samsung galaxy advance without purchasing/paying for unlocking service?
ps i have also tried the instructions from this page thread, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=761045. but when i checked, the nv_data.bin in my phone contained nothing (0 bytes)


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How can I see bootloader stdout debugging messages?
I'm trying to understand the mechanisms of the Android bootloader.
The source code for this is here:
https://code.google.com/p/android-source-browsing/source/browse/recovery.cpp?repo=platform--bootable--recovery
I want to see the messages which are printed by LOGE(stdout, "message").
ADB is not yet active at this time so I can't use logcat or the shell on the device. Is there a way to set up anything on the device so I can write the messages to a logfile or the display of the device? I don't want to install a different bootloader, I would like to see the default bootloader "in action".
I'm using a rooted HTC Desire with S-OFF. Linux and Windows are available, communication to the device is possible via USB and WLAN.
Other suggestions posted in this forum did not help (like this, if I add the suggested lines it just boots up normally. Or this, since I cannot use ADB).
Any help is very appreciated.
Best regards
Brandon


text:
What does this icon mean?

There is no corresponding notification in the pull-down.

I assume it means "Ice cream sandwiches are yummy".

If it only happens when the phone is plugged in, I seem to remember this referring to the fact that Android Debugging was activated, though I also thought this usually showed a pull-down notification as well. If it only happens when you're plugged into a computer, try un-selecting Android Debugging under settings, and see if it goes away.

You can see the pull down menu version here - http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/10/49galaxynexusscreenshot-1319000416.png

Thanks for the reply.  Debugging IS enabled, but I'm not plugged in! :-/

interesting... if you turn debugging off does it go away?

Disabling debugging does not remove the icon.  :-/


text:
How can I open files that have Japanese filenames?
I organize my Japanese ebooks and manga using the respective Japanese titles as filenames.  I then access this content from my Anrdoid device by mounting a cifs share with cifsmanager. However I cannot open the media using my Android 4.1 (AOSP) device. The non-ascii characters in my filesystem show up as just question marks, e.g. /mnt/sdcard/manga/??????/.  The error behavior that various apps will give range from File does not exist (File Manager) to nothing at all (PerfectViewer).

I should have identified that this problem only occurs when mounting the media remotely using cifsmanager.  Better late than never, I suppose. The solution is to pass a parameter using the options field: iocharset=utf8.
The parameter tells the cifs module to use utf8 as the character set when it mounts the samba share. This may become unnecessary in the future, as it would make sense to have this set by default in the first place.

You are facing this issue because (as @liamwli said) you lack the required font and also possibly because of lack of sufficient libraries in your present ROM.
Due to this reason, it is unable to display the file name properly and as a ramification of this issue, different apps behave differently based on how the developer handled this situation.

What can be done?
This depends on few factors:
If your phone is rooted, extract DroidSansFallBack.ttf from /system/fonts folder to your computer and examine whether it has the required characters in Japanese. I assume you can read Japanese. This is to ensure the first part of the reason explained in "why" section.
If you do not have Japanese character displayed, please try finding a suitable TrueType Font (TTF) which displays Japanese characters in PC. Copy this file to the above said folder with DroidSansFallBack.ttf, replacing the existing file (after backup). After a reboot you may be able to see characters properly. Then the apps might be able to open the file.
In case if you are still unable to open such files, please revert back the backed up TTF file.

This looks promising, I'll try it out and let you know how it goes!

I do not think that this is a font issue. Applications do not need to be able to display the characters to handle files using those characters. Moreover, Droid Sans do support Japanese characters. In my stock Galaxy Nexus (not a Japanese phone), Japanese file names are handled and displayed fine using OI File Manager and ES File Explorer.
File names in Linux and Unix filesystems (e.g. ext2/ext3/ext4) are just sequence of bytes because the Linux kernel is encoding-transparent, i.e. the kernel does not care about filename encoding. Filename encoding is considered an application-level issue. In contrast, Java File API (and, therefore Android's Java File API) is encoding-aware and will attempt to decode file names according to system default encoding. The system default encoding in Android is utf-8. The situation is different if the files are stored in an SD card that is formatted using Windows filesystems, e.g. VFAT or NTFS. These filesystems specifies a certain on-disk encoding for file names.
Applications that directly handle files coming from another system, such as file transfer programs (FTP, etc) and decompression programs (Tar, Zip, etc) are supposed to translate file names from the remote systems or inside archives to the local system's default encoding. However, this isn't enforced by the kernel, so it is possible for poorly written (native) application to produce files with filename encoding that does not match system's default encoding.
My guess is that you have file names that are not encoded in utf-8, and the Java File API were not able to decode these filenames. Try to rename and reencode the file names or use a file transfer program that knows how to translate the filenames to the system encoding.

You're on the right track. It's not a font issue afterall.  I blundered my original question by leaving out an important detail: I'm mounting my library using cifsmanager. Turns out if the content is copied directly to the device, it works fine.  /faceplant

you will need to install a japanese font onto your device.
To do this, you would have to be rooted.
Another workaround: See if you can change the system language to Japanese.
You may be able to download an app from Google Play that will automatically install the font onto your device.

Other apps cannot install fonts on unrooted devices.

@THelper I didn't say it could. I said you need to be rooted too install a font onto a device.

Ah, my bad. I thought you where mentioning a workaround for when not rooted.

If you are rooted I think the answer of Narayanan said it all; just copy a Japanese font to the system\fonts folder
However, if you are unrooted you can install a file explorer app that includes a Japanese font. I did a quick google search and the following file explorers (say that they) support Japanese:

Astro File Manager
ES File Explorer
AndExplorer

I'm not entirely sure if this solves your problem opening the files. You might need to install viewer programs with Japanese support as well.
BTW, are you sure you have Android 4.1? I remember reading that Jelly Bean has (improved) native Japanese support.

Android had always supported Japanese files. The improvement in 4.1 affects only the display of the characters. Characters that were previously rendered using Chinese glyphs are now rendered using Japanese-specific glyphs when the system locale is set to Japanese. The change does not affect how those characters are handled.

I actually have 6 Android devices, but the specific device I'm using for reading Japanese content is a Kindle Fire with hashcode's Jelly Bean AOSP Rom (10.10 build). CM and AOKP based roms that I've tried also have the same behavior. I'll try these file managers out and let you know what happens.

I had a similar issue, I did have Droid Sans, but the issue was my linux computer I copied them from had encoded the Characters in latin_1/iso_8859 encoding. I had to make sure I resaved the files in UTF-8


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Record video with external bluetooth mic (ie headset)
Can you record a video with the built-in camera while using a bluetooth audio source? Specifically, a standard bluetooth headset.
I know that you can record audio from the bluetooth headset using an app like this. And I just want to use the built-in camera.
I tried an experiment where I started recording audio using the bluetooth recorder app, then attemped to record a video. Unfortunately, the camcorder app refused to start a video recording. And I couldn't flip the order, because once I started recording the video, opening any other app (the bluetooth recorder, for example) caused the video recording to terminate. So it looks like I can't even record the two tracks separately and simultaneously to later splice together on a computer.
Does there exist an app that records video and lets the user choose the audio input? Is this even possible for android, or does the underlying kernel have a hardcoded audio input for video mode? I am a programmer, so if no app exists, I could try my hand at writing an android app if the system is capable.

This article describes a device that can do video recording with Bluetooth audio input. http://appledailyreport.com/2013/01/11/ces-nighthawk-bluetooth-microphone-combo-system-targeted-to-ios-android-devices/

This app worked better for me:
Cinema FV-5
After installing the app, but before recording the video, do the following:

Click Settings
Click Audio Source
Select Bluetooth Mic

Then record your video.

While this link may answer the question,
it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here
and provide the link for reference.
Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes
Also, what is your affiliation with that app?

I have no affiliation with the app. It just worked for me.

This answer was better than Luca's. IGCamera had different microphone sources but none of them worked per the OG's specification. Also the different microphone sources were too many for the lay user to decipher. Cinema FV-5 was clear, concise and most importantly just worked. In addition, I have a stock At&t S5 Samsung. I walked away with my bluetooth headset and so long as I had good Line of Sight (LOS) to my phone it recorded my voice beautifully as I walked away from my phone. Great App!

Just now downloaded paid version cinemafv5. It works. Uploaded to Facebook to prove the point.
Free version did not work for me. Used Bluetooth Plantronics Explorer 50 Series.

@dwaynemac Cinema FV-5 is the best app. Only issue is you cannot record video with front camera in this app. Is it true, because I don't seem to find any option for that.?


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How to Diagnose Wireless that won't turn on?
I just bought a new d2 Tablet, and it seems to be functioning normally, except that the Wi-Fi will not turn on.  I navigated to the settings screen and selected Wi-Fi, and dragged the Off button to On.  It stayed at On  and displayed the text "Turning Wi-Fi on..." for five seconds, after which it turned the button back to Off.  It has done this repeatedly.  I know I have good wireless signal b/c I'm using it to submit this question from my laptop.
Is there some additional diagnostic I can do, or do I need to see about returning it as defective?

This is what i would do myself, and in that order :

Modify the way you authenticate to the Wifi access point. Removing temporarily any kind of encryption. If this fix your problem ---> Your phone most likely doesn't handle some advanced kind of WPA2 or something like that.
Look for an issue in the configuration of the access point itself. Look for MAC address filtering for example.
Finally as a last resort, use command line tools like "adb debug on your phone to read what's happening to your wireless driver on the phone.

thanks for the answer, but I already returned it.  I doubt any of these would help since the wireless wouldn't even turn on/enable, but these tips may be useful in the future!

After getting no response from the vendor I returned the device to the store.  The replacement did not exhibit this behavior and seems to be working correctly.


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Filling in the blanks in a Kindle book
I'm considering buying a Kindle version of a workbook which requires a lot of blanks to be filled. I'm aware of "Note" feature in Kindle app for Android but texts that are entered this way do not show on book pages (in blanks) as they would in a paper version of the workbook  (there are only icons indicating notes) and this limits their usefulness.
Any ideas how to work around this and make Kindle workbooks as usable as the paperback ones?


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phone won't record or play back video
I have a Samsung Vibrant.  Today I tried to use the "HD Camcorder" app that came with the phone.  The live video preview shows up, but when I press the record button it pops up a "Warning" box that says "Recording failed" with an OK button below.  I tap OK and the live camera preview comes back and updates as usual but the record button and other UI elements are gone now -- can't seem to do anything except quit the app.
The Camera app works fine, I just tried it.
I haven't tried to record video in a while, but if I go to "quick view" in the camcorder app it shows me the what looks like the first frame of a video I remember shooting a year or two ago, however if I tap Play it switches to a thing with playback controls and shows a progress dohickey for a second and then tells me "Sorry, this video cannot be played." in a box over a black background.
What are some things I could try at this point?  I tried checking to see if the storage was full, but both the internal storage and the SD card have plenty of free space.  I tried looking to see if I could find some other free video recording app in the Market, to see if that might still work, but no luck there either.  What could be wrong here?
The phone says it's running 2.1-update1, build number ECLAIR.UVKA2.

Powered it off and on again, the camcorder app works again now.  I feel silly for not having thought to try that earlier....


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SD card not recognized if I create second partition
I need to create a second partition on my SD card to use Link2SD to store apps on it, but every time I make a second partition the phone says there is no SD card at all. I've tried it a few times with FAT32, ext4 and none but the phone always says "no SD card". When I delete the second partition it works fine and I can access all the data I had saved to my SD card.

I believe the order of the partitions is significant, because Android will only try to mount the first one. Are you putting the ext4 partition second or first?

Second, and the FAT32 is set as primary.

Make sure you're making the second partition primary. Both partitions need to be primary, just because it's the second one it still is primary.

I did that on a Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro 2017 (SM-J730GM) and it still won't detect the SD card. I partitioned the card on a PC using GParted and made sure to create the second one as primary.


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Some apps not available on play store after lcd_density change in build.prop
I changed the ro.sf.lcd_density in the build.prop on my Galaxy SII from the default 240 to 190. It made everything smaller, creating more space and increasing the quality of use for me personaly.
Everything seemed okay at first, applications were behaving normal, but I have a problem with installing some apps from the Play Store. I can search for an app, go into its details, only to find a message on the top saying that my device isn't compatible.
I have found a workaround but it takes too much time since I have to reboot my device twice for it. My current workaround is this:

Change my ro.sf.lcd_density back to 240
Reboot
Search for and install the app
Change the ro.sf.lcd_density back to 190
Reboot

After that the app still works, so no issues there. But the process just takes too much time. Is there another thing I can do to install these apps without my mentioned workaround?

Keep in mind some apps don't work in changed DPI Settings(apart from normal). You might be interested in ParanaoidAndroid which let's you change DPI on per-app basis.

Hey @wayback thanks for the tip. Installing it as my dualboot ROM right now!

There is a modified version of the Play Store that removes device restrictions.
See this xda thread for more info and the download link to your version of android.
It also disables self-updating of the Play Store so your modified version wont be replaced by a newer official one.
Cheers

Thanks! Installed and confirmed that I can now install apps that were previously restricted.

I've not used it but a quick search on the play store suggests this:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.birdapi.android.dpipro
It specifies that :

This is the only LCD Density app that can fix the "This device is not supported" error message in the Android market when using an unsupported dpi!

Note: I'm not affiliated with this product

Yea, found that one too. But since I can change LCD Density without using an app, I want to fix this without an app too. That app is able to fix this issue, so there must be a way to fix this by setting the right paramaters somewhere myself.

This one allows you to try to set the density without rebooting https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=lv.n3o.lcddensity - it may not work, but worth a try?