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How to force the phone to connect to the internet?
I own Xperia Mini Pro which has Android 2.1-update1. I am facing an issue on Internet Connection. I downloaded the settings for my Edge Connection from my SIM services. Sometimes after downloading the settings it instantly connects to the Internet. But sometimes it doesn't. I can see the APNs on Access Point Names section. Also that APN is selected. But still its not connecting to the Internet. I cannot see Edge connection notification on the Notification Bar.
I want to force the phone to connect to the internet, Is there any way to do that ?

Can you be more specific around when it does have EDGE connection and when it doesn't. Does it depend on where you are or does it appear and disappear even if you stay in one place?

@Dmitry: There is nothing Special about Edge Connection. Its very similar to GPRS.

@Xperia That was not my question. I am asking if you problem occurs when you stay in one place or only when you are on the move (i.e. it works at home, doesn't around the corner from your home)

@Dmitry: Sorry for my wrong understanding. Its happening on both cases.

@XperiaMiniPro Thanks. Have you double checked the APN settings with your carrier (e.g. on their website) to make sure that what got downloaded to the phone is correct? I've seen a few times when downloaded settings were out of date/incorrect

@Dmitry: I am 100% sure that those settings are correct. And they are valid. I was using the same settings for more than 6 months. All of sudden now its giving problem. I have got enough balance.

Finally found a way to connect to internet on my Xperia Mini Pro android mobile.
Go to
     Settings ==> Wireless & network settings ==> Mobile networks ==> Network Mode
Its going to open another window with title as Preferred network mode.
Now try to Select WCDMA only option. Wait for 10 sec. We can see the network is getting reset and try to find the 3G signal.
Now open the same pop up again and select GSM(Edge or 2G) connection. Now again networking related stuff gets reset again.
This is how I force my mobile to connect to internet.


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Samsung S Galaxy II (i9100): Problems with Wifi signal, bad reception, breaking connection
I recently bought an Samsung S Galaxy II (i9100), and I am pretty pleased with it. It is by far the best phone I ever owned.
The only downside I have is that it has a really poor wifi signal. It gets almost half of the bars my old HTC HD2 got. This is not a big problem, I am not always far away from my router anyways.
The really annoying part is that is stops working after a few minutes. I am just browsing, and then suddenly the connection stops. I then need to switch off wifi, and back on the get the connection going again.
The signal is already on 'never sleep', so that is not the problem. And I do not have this problem with the HTC HD2, so it's not my router either, its just the phone.
Anyone know a fix for this, I have been looking on the net, a lot of people have this problem, but I failed in finding a good solution.
Really bad downside for such a great phone.
----- EDIT -------------
I also read an article about it maybe being the router. I downloaded a program called Wifi-Analizer. It said the channel had a poor signal, so I changed the wifi channel to 13. I also changed the settings to use N only, before it was B + G + N.
This helped a little bit at first, it does not break so often anymore, but the signal does break every few hours.

I face a similar problem with samsung galaxy S.
I think after you root the phone, there is a way to replace the modem part of your phone. I will try after my warranty period.

Did you try your phone with another  router?

@balki I just flashed my device with villainROM. It comes rooted, and you can replace the modem part. I flashed everything works great now. Maybe the problem was a bad modem. If you give an answer bellow I can give you the bounty points. As replacing the modem is the only option that worked for me.

Samsung modifed the modem component of android and it is buggy in galaxy S. The solution is to root the phone and replace the modem part of it.

I think I have to give the points to this answer. Can you point me by the way to a good modem for the i9100. I use a good one now, but maybe there is a better one.

this looks like a problem with your phone, because I know many S2 owners who have not had this problem. It is better you get the phone to your dealer and have it repaired or just try a factory reset, you might have installed an app that messed with the system files. All this is assuming your router is fine!

This could be right also. Unfortunately I had already flashed the rom a few times so my warranty is gone. When the problem persist I will use the USB jig to reset the warranty, and send it back to the store. For now all problems are gone with the new ROM and modem. Works faster and uses less battery also.

if you changed your modem too there is no way to pinpoint at the source of the problem. Just for the sake of clarification try your old modem.

I will try that today, do you have any good resource for the stock modem.

http://www.samsunggalaxysforum.com/samsung-galaxy-s-rooting/custom-romskernelsmodemthemes-for-vibrant/ maybe ..

I had the same problem on a home wifi network - I had the router configured to run 802.11b/g/n. The problem disappeared when I reconfigured the router to 802.11b/g only.

I tried everything with the router settings, I had no luck with it. I had the same problem also with other routers at friends.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Possible to install APK from personal website?
How can I allow a user to do web-install of Android APK file from my personal web page? Like to create a personal (private) APK repository where I could put APK files and send a client the link to the APK file. A client would then click on this file and install the Android app to its phone.
Is this possible/allowed on the first place?
Any cool tool a user should use for installing such apps?

It seems that this can be done with Aptoide server and the same Android app for client.
On server side you just copy all APKs and generate the XML file via Aptoide server script. User then installs this app, adds your repository and downloads/installs the APK.

As @askmoo said a good option is to use Aptoide [http://www.aptoide.com/index2.html] with this option your clients will have an application like Market that will allow them to install your applications

Once the user allows Unknown Sources, they should pretty much be able to get APK from anywhere...
Check this StackOverflow question: Hosting an .apk file on over own site

When I use mobile browser to access the APK file located on my server, it downloads it rather than installing it directly. And yes, the Unknown Sources is checked.

Now open a file manager on the device, locate the file and try to open it -- it will launch through the installer.

I know this. This way or via ADB is not complicated for me :). But it is for some of my clients. Is there a way to install it like on the Market - click on install and app is installed?

@askmoo no, that's not possible afaik

@askmoo: Not without having a cooperating app already installed in the phone; and that's a Good Thing - unless you want to revisit the Browser Dark Ages (early 2000s), when just visiting a malicious page would auto-install a boatload of malware to your computer.

Is there a way to install like Apple Enterprise account?

If you want the user to be able to download and install the application just like they can on market, the user must be using the stock browser. Otherwise, they must have specific plug-ins when using other browsers.

When I use mobile browser to access
  the APK file located on my server, it
  downloads it rather than installing it
  directly. And yes, the Unknown Sources
  is checked

Are you using the stock browser?

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


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How is the default screen orientation in android specified?
On android phones, the orientation typically defaults to portrait. When you disable auto-rotation, the screen will always remain in a portrait mode.
On android tablets, the orientation typically defaults to landscape. When you disable auto-rotation, the screen will always remain in a landscape mode.
Apparently tablets were not envisioned for use while lying sideways. When I do this, there is no way to get the tablet to remain in portrait mode - with or without auto-rotation the screen is stuck in landscape.
As it is pretty hard for me to change gravity, I am trying to figure out if I can hack my tablet to default to portrait mode. My question is, where would this be set? As I can't find any applications that can force change the orientation I get the impression this is embedded somewhere deep and inaccessible in the operating system. Is this possibly somewhere in the properties file? Is it embedded deep in the hardware? Where can I start looking?
My specific tablet is a Notion Ink Adam Running BeastyRom 2.2.1 + Clemsyn
edit: also asked here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=14315083#post14315083

It's possible to override the default screen orientation by disabling accelerometer rotation and setting user rotation in the system settings database. The phone/tablet needs to be rooted to do this. The change is applied after the phone/tablet is rebooted.
On the console:
su
sqlite3 /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db
insert into system (name,value) values('accelerometer_rotation',0);
insert into system (name,value) values('user_rotation',1);
.exit

user_rotation 0 -> ROTATION_0
user_rotation 1 -> ROTATION_180
user_rotation 2 -> ROTATION_270
user_rotation 3 -> ROTATION_90

See http://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Settings.System.html#USER_ROTATION for more details

Instead of rooting the phone/tablet, you can just write an app that changes these settings permanently. Add <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_SETTINGS" /> to the manifest to give it the required permission and in the code run Settings.System.putInt(this.contentResolver, Settings.System.ACCELEROMETER_ROTATION, 0); to disable auto rotation and Settings.System.putInt(this.contentResolver, Settings.System.USER_ROTATION, Surface.ROTATION_0); to set the phone's new default screen rotation.

can't find sqlite3 , have an idea ?

@Sam woooow your way is just awesome and it totally worked with me

@MuhammedRefaat, actually I've since discovered a flaw in this approach: enabling and disabling the auto rotation setting via the phone settings UI actually resets the USER_ROTATION value.

@Sam yeah that's right, and really great hint

@Sam cool idea! But what do you mean by permanently? Do you run a service that sets these settings every second or how is this working? Thank you!

@sjkm, I probably just meant that the change to the setting will last even if the app is uninstalled or not running since it's a system setting. Yeah; you could use a ContentObserver to monitor changes to the setting and change it back, but I don't think Android's designed to let you have always-running services.

You could use a custom home launcher like ADW -
Go to ADWSettings > UI Settings > Screen Preferences > Home Orientation this allows you to specify which orientation you want.
Apart from that im not sure its possible
Only other thing could be Custom ROM

that sets the home orientation for the launcher. When I start an app it then goes into landscape mode

The auto-rotate setting is just that, automatic. When it is disabled, the device doesn't always use a single screen orientation, but uses whatever orientation is active when entering an application, until that app is closed. At least, this is trite for phones, i have little experience with tablets, but I expect it would be the same. If it is, just make sure the tablet is in portrait when you launch the app, and you'll be good.

this is not the case for me. If I enable auto-rotate, then orient it so it is in portrait mode, then enter an application, then disable auto-rotate, my tablet goes back to landscape.

what if you disable auto-rotate, hold the tablet horizontally, then launch an application?

then my launcher orients in landscape mode and the application also starts in landscape mode

what happens if you do the same thing, but start vertically, in portrait mode? how to the launcher and application react?

I can't - when I disable auto-rotate my tablet goes into landscape mode. To start apps in portrait mode I have to enable auto-rotate (see my first comment)

gotcha. just double checking. i would have to advocate a new rom then, as people have previously. My brother just flashed Gingerbread to his, and it's got tons of settings for stuff like that.

haha well I just hopskotched from froyo to a honeycomb rom and not only do i not see an option for force locking orientation, I don't even see an option for toggling auto-rotation anymore!

Sideways Mode
I've written an app to let you use auto-rotation even when you're lying on your side. You can get it from the Play store here.


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Reset individual app settings
Something happened on my HTC Tattoo (V1.6) that caused lots of apps to crash on start-up. I think it may have been due to their settings getting corrupted somehow, but I don't know what caused that.
I've been able to get some working again by uninstalling them and then installing them again. Obviously, I lost any set-up by doing this.
Is it possible to reset the settings for a given app? I don't even know where they are stored. Is it in an .xxx type file as on Linux? It would be useful to know where they are so I can back them up in future.
Update August 2011: Now it's happening again. Google apps failed first, but then Facebook and last.fm stopped working. Tried clearing data/cache with no improvement. Can't re-install some apps as they are no longer available for 1.6. I do intend to try upgrading when I get time.

As Al says, Settings > Applications > Manage Applications, go to app and press Clear cache seems to do the trick.

This won't reset the app's settings, it will only clear its cache.

To reset an application's settings, go to Settings > Apps and select the desired application.  Then use the buttons on that page to clear the data and the cache.
If the application's settings were synced to a Google account, a Google bug could potentially set them back to the previous settings.  If this happens, just delete the data and cache again.

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


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How to capture video stream from Android phone screen and show it on laptop?

Possible Duplicate:
How do I project the screen of my android phone for a presentation?

How to capture video stream from Android phone screen and show it on laptop? I've got Android 2.2 device.
I need this to show how my application work on the conference in real time. Something like IPhone presentation on Mac World.

Have you considered installing the Android emulator on your laptop and just running the app on there?

I don't think this one is mentioned in the question Al linked to above, but I've used Droid@Screen to demo things at my office with pretty good success. It probably only gets around 10-15 FPS or so if I was going to take a guess at frame rate, but it appears a bit more smooth than the other options I've tried (including Android Screencast and a VNC connection).

I just read a review of Screen Cast & Screen Recorder that's pretty compelling.  It requires root, like any on-device solution I'm aware of, but can record decent quality video at up to 30 FPS.  The review has example captures from various games and the videos are good enough for most anything you'd want, unless you need HD video for some reason.  The review didn't focus as much on the screencasting aspect, but if you need to screencast something at high quality then this app might be a good bet.  The app has a free trial so I definitely recommend trying it out.

One option I know of is Android Screencast. But it only gets about 2-3FPS. This is because of the amount of time it takes to request the framebuffer. I have been working on a tool similar to this, but the most I have been able to get was about 7-9FPS (but its not available, nor is is "ready", for prime-time).
Another option would be using a VNC server on the device and a VNC Viewer on the laptop. But again, you will have very low FPS with this too.


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Pandora pauses randomly?
I find that Pandora often will pause the current song for no apparent reason. Any idea what I might check to see what the cause is?
(HTC Droid Incredible)

Are you listening with headphones?

Not using headphones.

I think it's a bug with their Android client. I have the same problem -- it even happens on my home WiFi!  When I use my desktop or laptop systems (website or AIR app) it's fine.

I've had this happen with every audio app I've tried on Android (not just Pandora, but Music and Listen as well).  I opened a bug for it: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=19167

Make sure you have a full signal. Try running it with nothing else running. The resources might be getting used by another app and makes pandora freak out. I know on my droid x2 i have a problem with it skipping songs on me.

How do you make sure you have a full data signal? It's either on or off with my phone.

I meant go to a location near you that you know you can get full bars. I noticed that when I am around grand central station in NYC that pandora freaks out because of the signal. Just a thought.

I have similar issues and I'm less than a block away from a Verizon store. I'm assuming they have decent coverage at their own store?

@Joe: They don't need to, a store could simply use femtocells to make sure that the signal is very strong in their store and able to handle the load of a concentration of phones (for both display models and customer's phones).  It'd be a pretty underhanded thing for them to do if the area's signal was otherwise poor though.

I was (still am?) having a similar issue. Pandora will load but not play songs. Or sometimes if it does manage to load and play a song, it will skip to the next song prematurely. I 'restarted' the phone and that didn't fix the issue. I should have shut it down completely and then tried again as a test but instead I reseated the SD card securely after shutting down and it seems to have fixed it. So my solution that worked was either shutting down completely or else reseating the card. We'll see how long it lasts.
Update: Today (the next day) my phone is having issues again. Going into Task Manager > Ram > Clear memory seems to have fixed it this time although I don't think it fixed it yesterday. Very peculiar problem.
It seems that my problem might be different than yours but I found that having Twitter installed can cause problems with YouTube, Pandora, etc. I uninstalled and it seems to be helping with my specific issues.

It could be that you are using a battery saver app. I use Juice Defender and I think that's causing the issue. Juice Defender tries to save battery by killing the 3g signal after you turn off the screen for a bit. So you can just deactivate it when you are using pandora.

Not that I am aware of.

I had this same problem on my dinc a while ago. At least for me, I narrowed it down to song buffering. When just about anything happened that changed my data connectivity (received SMS, briefly lost 3G signal) Pandora wouldn't be able to keep up; the song I was listening to would play through as much of it as Pandora had buffered before the network interruption then would stop abruptly and switch to a new song. Very annoying! Even when my data connection was strong, as you mention yours was, Pandora was very picky.
Since that time my listening habits have changed but I've also found Pandora to be more stable over the intervening updates.

I had this same problem.  I just figured out what was causing it on my system.  It turns out that I was using yahoo mail client on my android phone and everytime I got an email, pandora would pause for a second.  It does not appear that there is a way to change the frequency with which the yahoo client checks email from continuous to some lesser frequency (such as every two hours).  This, unfortunately leaves me with the difficult choice between yahoo mail and pandora.  Pandora will win this battle for sure.

While solid coverage is definitely required for solid playback from Pandora, assuming that is the case (and it's not caused by the way Pandora inserts advertisements), the pauses are most likely related to a low memory condition as a result of memory leaks caused by applications that address contexts in a certain manner.  In other words, it's a flaw in the Android OS that even allows this to be an issue, IMO.
While you could remove the offending apps (if you knew which ones they were), another way this can be dealt with is by getting a task killer that automatically closes unused apps.
Then again, you could load another ROM, doing away with the bloated default apps from the telco and solve the remaining problems with scripts or a task-killer of your own.


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ADWLauncher: Go straight to default screen instead of requiring a second "home" tap?
I have CM7 installed, and am using ADWLauncher which comes pre-installed.
I know how to configure a "default" home screen, so that when I'm in ADWLauncher already, pressing "home" brings me to the default screen.  But when I'm in another application, pressing "home" takes me to the most recently viewed screen, and an additional tap of "home" is required to then move to the default screen.  What I want to do is be able to press "home" from ANY application and go STRAIGHT to the default screen, regardless of what my last viewed screen was.  Is this possible?
Thanks!

I don't think there is a setting in ADW that can do that. I use ADW.EX and I looked through all the settings and didn't see any way to achieve what your are asking for.
It is, however, open source, so someone could implement the option for this, or you could request it to anderweb and he might add it to an update.


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Can not answer phone after enabling Google Voice
I Have a Sprint Google Nexus S.  Was working fine.  Enabled Google Voice - set up my account, options, etc.   All incoming calls require pressing "1" to answer.   This worked for a while.  Now, when a call comes in, I am pressing "1", but the call does not answer - it goes to voice mail.   Ideas?
ler

If you have not yet rebooted your device since this problem started, do that first, then try the following if that still doesn't correct the issue.
Log in to the Google Voice site and go to Settings -> Calls and turn off Call Screening.
Now see if a call will go through, you wont have to press "1" because you are no longer screening. If you do want call screening, Try to now turn the call screening back on.


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USB Driver for HTC Dream G1 - 64 bit Windows 7
I have a HTC Dream G1 (T-Mobile) - android version 1.5 and I have 64 bit Windows 7 on my laptop. I am unable to access the memory card in my phone through my laptop. Can someone tell me how to install the USB driver for my phone?
Thanks in advance.

Go and download the Android SDK installer.
When the SDK setup tool runs, you can select the USB Drivers
The drivers will be in <install_directory>extras\google\usb_driver
find the android_winusb.inf and right click it
click install

if right click -> install doesn't work, then try the following

Start Menu -> Right Click Computer -> Click Properties
Click Device Manager (on the left)
Find the device in the hardware list, will probably have a "warning icon"
Right click the item and select Update Driver Software
Select Browse my computer for driver software
Select the usb driver directory noted above
Check Include subfolders
Click next
finished...

your device should now have usable drivers so you can mount the sdcard.
For reference, the android sdk documents also has a page with links to many of the different OEM drivers too.

Thanks for your reply. I tried both the methods you suggested, and they do not work. Can you suggest any other solution?

if you already have drivers installed, uninstall them first.

I installed Android ADB interface, Android Bootloader Interface, and Android Composite ADB Interface - all 3 drivers, but still it doesnt work :(

once you have the drivers installed, open a command line and navigate to the SDK directory. then navigate in to the platform-tools directory, so your command line should look something like: C:\android-sdk\platform-tools. now type: "adb devices", no quotes. does it return anything?

It says list of devices, and the next line is blank. No devices are listed.

your driver is not installed correctly. uninstall all the android devices, then try to reinstall.

Tried again. It did not work. Note that I added the drivers as a legacy device, as direct installation of the drivers did not work

just follow these directions to install the android driver... very easy ! how to install Android driver

Answers that send readers off to other sites are generally not considered useful.


text:
Can the camera options on Samsung Galaxy S be imported to Samsung Galaxy SL?
The Samsung Galaxy S (I9000) and Galaxy SL (I9003) are very similar.. ofcourse, except for a few differences. I use Galaxy SL (I9003). The camera options in Galaxy S seems to have more features than SL. So, can i import those camera options (Shooting mode and Scene mode options) in Galaxy S to my Galaxy SL ?? is something like that possible?

If you're rooted, you may try getting the camera apk from the 9000 onto your 9003, but a safer and easier way would be to use alternate apps from the market. What features precisely are you missing out on in the 9003 from the 9000?
You can try using other camera apps like Camera Zoom FX or FxCamera.
Loads more in the Market, have a look-see.

unfortunately, i am not rooted and don't like to root it atleast until i get a good grasp of android OS. As said above, the shooting mode and scene mode in 9000 has some extra options like, action shot, add me, continous, portrait, beach/snow, color of fall, etc.. thought it would be good to have it without installing any apps.. but if the apk replacement won't work, then guess i have no other go! btw, thanks for the apps.. they look cool :) . if no other option works, then i'll go for it.


text:
Android G1 latest installable version?
What is the latest installable version on an original Android G1 phone? Either vanilla or any kind of mod (CyanogenMod, etc).

Cyanogenmod 6, which is 2.2 is reported to work for the T-mobile G1.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVeKboqn6LU

COS-DS is an Android 2.3 based ROM that I have been running for months on my ADP1 (identical to G1). It runs quite well although applications are starting to struggle with the limited RAM.
There are other 2.3 based ROMs but when I first wanted to switch to 2.3 this was the most stable and I have stuck with it since.

CyanogenMod 7.1 has been unofficially ported to the Dream/Sapphire platform. This is an Android 2.3.5 based ROM with some of the heavy weight bits stripped out. It seems to run just fine on my ADP1.

Not only does this ROM seem to run better than anything I've ever put on my HTC_DREAM, it is newer than the CyanogenMod that I can get for my just acquired Nexus-S. Confound it all how is that fair?


text:
Help with Blade mobile network not working
I've been given an Orange San Francisco by my boss to fix for him. At the time he claimed it was bricked but its not as bad as first thought.
His initial problem was that the phone was unable to connect to the mobile network, despite having: a sim inserted, mobile tower in range, APNs configured correctly.
I have got a clean Gen 2 Cyanogen Mod 7.0.3 flashed with no problems. The APN settings are correct according to the Cyanogen APN list but it still doesn't connect to mobile networks.
I myself am a Desire man and so I have little real knowledge of the Blade. If it was a Desire I would try reflashing a radio rom but I'm not sure of the Blade equivalent.
Can anyone suggest what I should do next?

Under Settings -> Wireless & networks -> Mobile networks -> Network operators does it list anything?

No it doesn't list anything. Also in About -> Status it says the signal strength is -113 dBm, Service Status is disconnected

In Dialer app, dial the following: *#*#4636#*#* to bring up the "Testing" screen.  Go into Phone Information and scroll down to "Set preferred network type". What does it say on the drop-down?

It says GSM auto(PRL) . Also has options for WCDMA preferred, GSM only, etc. Not really sure what this means. Btw trying to connect to Orange in the UK

Orange is a GSM-based carrier, if I'm not mistaken.  "GSM auto (PRL)" should work, but try changing it to "WCDMA Preferred" and see if that works.  You can always change it back.


text:
The WiFi connection on my Dell XCD 35 (Froyo) times out
I recently bought the Dell XCD35, one of the biggest issues I'm facing is that it keeps disconnecting from an established (and saved) WiFi network and I need to manually select 'Connect' for it to get on WiFi.
I don't have this problem with my Galaxy 3, which I'm also using. And the problem persists even on other WiFi networks that I've tried connecting to. I've checked the settings (WiFi sleep, etc.) Also downloaded WiFi Manager app but no difference.
There is no trouble while connecting, but the moment the screen times out, the Wifi connection does too! This is very annoying, because it used up precious network. Is there a solution or should I just junk this phone?

So your Wifi sleep policy is set to "Never" but it still disconnects?

That's right...

There is an application in Google Play named Blade WiFi Fix; it will solve your problem.

Can you add the link to the app?

Do you mean this application?  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bladewififix

it happens to my dellxcd too.  i think u cant use both bluetooth and wifi in xcd at same time.


text:
Bluez-A2DP as sink
I want to configure and use Bluez as an audio sink for my Android Based Car Head Unit, so that I can connect a smart phone to the Car Head Unit.
The smart phone must work as a source of audio stream and head unit must work as an audio sink, so that when I stream from my Phone I should be able to listen to songs on the car speakers.
The car head unit is android-2.1 and uses Bluez -  4.47.
Has anybody already achieved this. If yes, please let me know what extra modules/application is required apart from Bluez to achieve the same on the Car Head Unit.

if I can ask, what head unit do you have and where did you get it? I have been looking for a true 2 DIN, head unit, that runs android, and also has the "normal head unit" features, like CD/DVD, AM/FM tuner, RDS, etc

@Ryan : The Head Unit is a development sample and is specific/customized to Nissan car. Still not released in the market.


text:
Is there an easier way to type apostrophes on the Droid X keyboard?
Is there an easier way to type apostrophes on the Droid X keyboard?
Two issues --

I press and hold the period key, which brings up the little pallet of punctuation.  But the apostrophe is inexplicably all the way over on the left.  Can I move this closer to the right, where my thumb is while clicking and holding the period key?  It's the most common character I use from this pallet.
Alternately, can I somehow get an apostrophe on the overhead menu that appears when you type a space?  This is the place where auto-correct goes, but when you type a space, it becomes a comma, exclamation point, question mark, etc.  How can I get an apostrophe in this list?

You can 'cook up' (create) your own keyboard thanks to an awsome android dev. (That way you can have the apostrophe wherever you want :-)
See here: http://www.gimpsta.com/themer/
It has also had a blog review here: create-your-own-custom-keyboard-for-android-devices


text:
Run connectbot as root?
I'd like to do reverse ssh tunneling with my phone. Anyone know how I can run connectbot as root so that it can bind to port 22 ?

You can't run apps that don't request root permissions as root.  This is excluding native apps that you can run from a terminal.

hmm this sounds strange. Put another way, how can I run an app from the shell? I can su in the shell and then run commands as root. I want to do this: http://www.handlewithlinux.com/android-reverse-ssh

@barrymac That guide is pretty old and short on details. It doesn't seem like it requires ConnectBot to have root, though.  To run a regular Android app from the shell I believe you do am start -n full.app.name where full.app.name is something like, for example, com.google.android.apps.maps for Google Maps.

Note that it will run am as root, but the app that is started won't have root unless it requests root.

Yes you're right. I actually got this to work by running quicksshd on a high port and forwarded to that port. So I can finally log on to my phone over ssh from anywhere! Now, why did I want to do this again? :-)

I should also mention that I still used connectbot to log into the remote server and create the tunnel!


text:
How to completely turn off keyboard typing sound?
Android 2.1 - If I open my Gmail e-mails and I want to type then I just can't turn off the keyboard sounds. How can I turn it off? (not the notification, etc. all sounds, just the keyboard sounds.)

From your home screen, press Menu -> Settings -> Language and Input (or Language and Keyboard on older Android devices). From here select the keyboard you are using. In the next page of settings, you should see something like Audio feedback for swype, or  Sound on keypress for flexT9. You can modify Vibrate on keypress there too if you wish.

you may have to search a little once you choose they keyboard you have, for flexT9 it was under Preferences but swype just has that setting on it's first menu.

Go to Settings > Language & keyboard > Android keyboard and make sure "Sound on keypress" is unchecked.

Go to: Settings -> Sound and display -> System Volume
and set that down to 0..... that's it you wont hear another sound while typing

Follow these steps:

Slide down the quick settings menu.
Select Settings (gear icon) then choose User Profile & tap Predefined Profiles.
There you will see keyboard sign, tap on the icon.
A general page will display.
In there you you will get dial-pad, touch, dialog box (uncheck this) & vibrate on touch (uncheck this too).
Tap the "Back" key on the ActionBar (top) or Navigation Bar (bottom) till you see the main screen and you're done.

This is for the the Acer android tablet:
Go to the keyboard and press and hold the key with the microphone icon and the input options menu should pop up, you then have access to android keyboard settings ... uncheck the typing sound box and there you go ... simples.

At least on the Samsung Galaxy S2, this can be done as follows:
Go to Settings → language → keyboard → samsung keypad, click the setting button next to the Samsung keypad → advanced, make sure "key tap" and "vibrate" are BOTH OFF.

This is for the samsung galaxy mega, go to settings then my device then language and input then look for "keyboards and input methods".Just above "swipe tap" is "samsung keyboard and to the right of it is the setting icon press . Press icon then uncheck "keyboard sound"

On the Gigaset QC830, in Settings, choose 'Language and Input'>'Google Keyboard' setting button (to the right)>uncheck 'Sound on Keypress'

If phone is been upgraded... Go to the setting menu from there click on language and inputs then click on android keyboard(AOSP) from here you then click on preference... And you can put off your vibration or sound.

To solve the voice keyboard problem simply open the keyboard and when it is opened, hit your volume key till it gets to the lowest and thats all

Go to Menue › Settings › Language & Input › Android Keyboared (AOSP) › Advanced › Keypress sound volume, change the value to zero then press Ok – problem solved.
When you go there it may also already be at zero, but it may default; so you have to press ok, it is mandatory.
(this is from my Amazon tablet's setting)

Settings - General - Language and Input - Current Keyboard - GBoard

its system volume set to 0 no more typing sound

This is not necessarily the case with all keyboards - or even on any single keyboard that I'm aware of.

for asus fonepad
slide down the top menu, select Settings (gear icon) then choose language and input
 first, android keyboard setting
        > tap its audio icon > uncheck the "sound on keypress "
        > if you want ur fonepad to vibrate every time a key is touch
          tap its corresponding box to add check mark, uncheck if u do
          not a vibration
        > tap "return" key
 second, ASUS and keyboard setting
        > tap its audio icon > uncheck the "sound on keypress "
        > if you want ur fonepad to vibrate every time a key is touch
          tap its corresponding box to add check mark, uncheck if u do
          not a vibration

tap "return" key till you see the main screen and you're done =)  hope this helps  =D

The question was for Android 2.1. The Asus Fonepad runs a much newer version of Android.

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


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How do I upgrade my Dell XCD35 from 2.2 Froyo to 2.3 Gingerbread?

Possible Duplicate:
How do I update the OS in my device?

I'm not an expert in this, and need help. I have serious issues with the Froyo build and want to upgrade my brand new phone to Gingerbread. How can I do this?
It is not available as a standard upgrade through the manufacturer.

Root it.
Install Clockworkmod Recovery.

Install ROM Manager.
Run it and select your device.
Choose the "Flash Clockwork recovery" (or similar) option.

Install a custom ROM.

Note that doing this voids your warranty and may brick your device.  I highly recommend reading through the XDA forum (the last link above) so you get a good grasp of everything involved here.  In particular, a lot of the ROMs are for "GEN2 devices".  I don't know know if that's a hardware revision or a firmware version, or if there are any relevant differences between the Dell XCD35 and the ZTE Blade that you would need to account for before installing a Blade ROM.  Edit: See http://wiki.modaco.com/index.php/ZTE_Blade#What_different_Blade_versions_are_out_there.3F for some useful info, the rest of that wiki is useful too.

In that case, I'm going to read up and be thorough before I do it. Thanks Matthew!

Full guide to root & upgrate to 2.3 rom found on android.modaco.com


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ZTE Blade/San Francisco memory cards that work
I'm looking out to extend the card memory for my ZTE Blade phone.
Can anybody who has experience with this tell me which SD cards (preferably 16GB and above) certainly work well for the San Francisco/ZTE Blade phone? If you're using this phone with an SD card model that works, please tell me which one.
Note: many people seem to report that some SD cards do not work well with this phone.
Thanks!

I found this discussion at MoDaCo about the issue.  It includes cards that people have tried and found to work.
The generally consensus seems to be that Sandisk 16 GB Class 2 cards work.  Kingston 16 GB Class 4 worked for a couple people, but not for another until they tried deleting everything on it via Windows XP.  I personally wouldn't go lower than a Class 4 card, and I'm partial to Kingston.

What is the difference between Class X cards? The higher the number X, better the quality? Or speed?

@axel22 Write speed in MB/s. I believe higher class cards also have higher read speeds. Quality is largely independent though.


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Backup contacts, photos, apps, remove google account, and replace with dummy account
I want to unlink my main Google account from my phone and use a dummy account instead. I don't really use any of Google's services on my phone like gmail, voice, etc. For security, loss reasons and to prevent google from automagically providing me with "features" and synchronization which end up merging data in ways I don't want, I would rather keep my online Google accounts separate from my mobile phone. I have been reading through a few posts on how to backup or remove your account, but I would like to make a get some feedback to create a bona-fide plan before going forward.
I really just want my contacts, my apps & widgets (or at least their settings and fresh install of apps from market), my calendar, my music and pictures.
If I "remove my account" what will I lose? I currently have it set not to sync with gmail or talk or voice, and I believe that all my contacts are only local and not merged with gmail.
Is there any way I can just go in and copy some magic file that has my contacts, calendar, etc; do a factory reset, and then load back my files and configurations, or download the apps again and overwrite my configurations?
Call logs, old SMS, etc aren't really important to save. Anything else I might be forgetting that I would actually slap myself for later?

If you're open to a factory reset, as it seems you are, we already have questions on backup and restore.

possible duplicate of How to backup an Android device?

@Matthew Prefer not to root, it seems with adb I can copy almost everything off my phone. Does anyone know how the contacts are stored, those would probably be the only non "file" thing - right? I see a lot programs talking about apps, but I want to make sure I get the process down right, i.e. not learn and lose in the process.

The contacts are stored in a local database and their are tied to the account. You can probably export your contacts from the gmail site and just import them. You will also lose any applications that you purchased from the market. You will have to buy them again, period. In order to actually get the "settings", you will need to backup using a tool like Matthew mentioned in the link. And even if you do save them, they could be tied to the original account, so they may be useless.

Here is what I have done so far for each thing to backup (For reference I am on Droid 2 Global CDMA, OS 2.2:

Contacts:

Open "Contacts" i.e. "Contacts A-Z"
Click the menu  button
Click "More"
Import/Export
Selected "Export contacts to:" -> "SD Card"

The file will then be exported to "/sdcard/00001.vcf". Every time you export it will increment. The VCF file is one of the those standard types of files and is human readable, so even if you have problems later you can at least salvage the information. Just connected by phone to PC via USB and copied.

Photos:
I am not sure about third party apps or other versions of android, but it seems all of my photos are stored on the sd card using the dcim folder "/sdcard/dcim" which is easily accessible upon connecting with USB.

Calendar:
It looks like it was using one of my account's Google Calendars, I don't know if they permit a local only option with the default calendar. I plan to just export using my private feed to the next account or dealing with this separately since its not "not on the phone" http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=37111

After backing up the above and some specific apps with dumps, I decided to just go the root route (z4root) and I am now using adb to backup files (http://jonwestfall.com/2009/08/backup-restore-android-apps-using-adb/), I might also try Titanium or make a image once I figure that part out.

I will update others as I go.


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How Do I Stop Double Email Alerts?
On my Android 2.2 phone, I have the Gmail app and the regular Mail icon on the desktop GUI. Unfortunately when I get a message, I get two alerts, usually about 4 to 15 seconds apart from each other. How can I just get one alert that new mail has come in, not two?

I went into the Gmail app and turned off the alerts there under Settings, reached by the Menu key. That way, they both receive the mail, but only one sends the alert. Don't know why I didn't think of this before, thinking it was going to be much harder.

more generally, if you used multiple email clients to access the same email account, then you need to turn off notification for all except one of them.


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Is it possible to override automatic screen orientation?
Very often I use my phone lying in bed (with phone camera facing the ceiling) and the orientation changes drive me crazy. Literally if I turn the phone a few degrees it will go from portait to landscape and vice versa.
I can disable auto-rotation, but it's not desirable in some scenarios, like when i turn on my shoulder and I want the orientation to change.
Basically, is it possible to write your own logic for screen rotation and make it run on system wide scope?
UPD: I do not want to toggle auto-rotation. I want to rewrite that logic that based on current sensor setting changes the screen orientation on system level.

You can, but you'll have to create a custom ROM.

Hmm... Any leads on where to look? Anyway, thanks for the heads up, I completely forgot about custom roms

Android is open-source so you you may be able to create one off of the Android code.  If you're really lucky, you may be able to find the particular file that deals with the sensor, update it and then push it into your system without building a whole new ROM.  Beyond that, I am of no help in this area.

I've never used it so can't say for sure (thus a comment not an answer), but you might be able to do something to this effect using Tasker.

This widget works well... No customer rom or root required. :0)

You could write an app that locks to portrait orientation when whatever conditions you want are met.
So you could make it always be portrait unless the phone is held perfectly vertical in landscape position.
As far as I can tell, you can't force landscape orientation, so you'll have to just enable autorotation unless you want to make your own ROM.
Your app will probably need to be a Service and use SensorManager.
You can search the Android source on Google Code.

In CyanogenMod, and you can set up to have the power widget on the notification bar, the power widget in Cyanogen is enhanced so it can control more settings, one of it is the ability to lock the orientation sensor. Whenever you want to lock, simply pull out the notification bar and tap on the lock orientation button.

The author of the question explicitly said that he does not want to disable the rotation even temporarily; he wants to adjust its sensitivity.


text:
T-mobile/Orange HTC Hero - no 3G on Orange
My HTC Hero uses both T-mobile and Orange in the UK, since February. However when my phone is connected to an Orange mast instead of a T-mobile mast I don't get 3G as it says that I am roaming.
If I switch on the option to allow data roaming, will I get any additional charges?

See the FAQ, particularly the billing section.  You won't get charged for turning on data roaming and connecting to an Orange network, but you need to remember to turn it back off before roaming on any other networks to avoid charges.
Also, the FAQ mentions that it's only for calls and text messages right now, but it's not clear why they would also mention the data roaming setting if that's the case, so YMMV.  Regardless, you'll likely be limited to 2G since 3G is typically on a carrier specific frequency.
And of course, all of this may change if AT&T completes their acquisition.


text:
Samsung galaxy S2 Storage management
I used to have an HTC Desire: there was an internal memory and my micro-SD card. I could navigate easily via file explorer to each.
With S II, I have also a micro-SD inserted however I can only navigate to the so-called USB storage section of the phone.
I am confused, how is storage managed in the S2 and how I can eplore the content of my micro-SD card?

Related (if not duplicate): http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/9509/whats-the-difference-between-sd-card-and-usb-storage

In the Galaxy S your phone storage is the same as any other phone's storage, but there is separate "internal SD" mounted at /sdcard/ that is treated by apps as if it were the external SD card.  The actual external card is mounted at /sdcard/external_sd/.
(Actually, I'm not sure if /sdcard/ is an alias, since you can also see it at /mnt/sdcard/.  There is no entry for the external SD in /mnt/, but you can of course access it via /mnt/sdcard/external_sd/ as well.)


text:
Will installing the Voodoo lagfix clear all my settings?
I want to install the Voodoo lagfix on my SGS with Froyo.  Will this wipe my settings, or can I install it without worrying about it?

No, it shouldn't have any effect on your settings or apps. The FAQ from the Project Voodoo site notes:

Will I lose any settings or App?
None. But some sort of backup is
  recommended of course.

This is correct, I've done it several times with no problems.

I see.  I'm wondering if I should root and backup with titanium before installing Voodoo, or if I should install Voodoo, which roots the phone anyway.

@Nathan: That probably comes down to a matter of preference, really. I'm paranoid enough that I make backups before I do...well, anything, even though 99% of it is completely safe and benign. If you're not completely comfortable with installing without a backup first then there's certainly nothing wrong with making a backup.


text:
Is the Voodoo lagfix compatible with Darky's ROM?
My SGS has awful lag, and I'm considering my steps.
The first step I want to do is install Voodoo, because I'm under the impression that it's relatively easy and will not require my to reinstall everything on my phone (though I asked about that in a related question to make sure).  If that doesn't provide the desired results, I want to flash a custom ROM.  The one I'm looking at is Darky's ROM.
Will I have to uninstall Voodoo before installing Darky's ROM, or can I install Darky's on top of Voodoo?

The default kernel (Dark Core) is derived from the Voodoo kernels, but the lagfix is disabled by default. For example, the v9.5 description on XDA has the following note:

New Kernel >> Dark Core v1.0 inside! I9000, I9000M, I9000T ONLY (Cappy users choose speedmod or skip kernel)
Customized and built by ficeto [Team Darky Dev Crew]
Based on supercurio’s latest voodoo sound 6, lagfix and color - thanks a ton, Mr. Supercurio

If you install on top of a kernel with Voodoo enabled already then you should be fine (and I don't believe it will disable it, but you can re-enable if it does). There are a handful of threads on the Darky forums that talk about some of the nuances to this, but here are a couple:

The Quick Start Guide - Recurrent Questions (The "Recommendations prior to flashing a ROM" section talks about lagfixes).
activate lagfix in 9.2?
What is a lagfix and how to enable or disable it (This one is kind of goofy but still helpful)

You should always disable/remove Voodoo before installing a new ROM except when the ROM in question includes Voodoo as the default.
Iit appears that Darky's ROM includes a custom kernel that includes Voodoo, meaning you don't have to disable it:

If you have a Dark_Core / Voodoo kernel installed with lagfixes enabled and you are or v10.1 (upgrade through CWM, not Odin) then it is recommended that you don't disable your lagfixes. And you will save a lot of time (Dark_Core and Voodoo kernels are from the same family)


text:
How can I tell which version of Voodoo to install?
I want to install Voodoo lagfix on my phone, and I see that there are a number of kernels for Froyo on the download site:
stock+Voodoo-Froyo-GT-I9000-XWJS3.tar   19-Mar-2011 03:18   5.7M
stock+Voodoo-Froyo-GT-I9000-XWJS5.tar   19-Mar-2011 03:18   5.7M
stock+Voodoo-Froyo-GT-I9000-XWJS8.tar   19-Mar-2011 03:18   5.7M
stock+Voodoo-Froyo-GT-I9000-XXJPM.tar   19-Mar-2011 03:18   5.7M
stock+Voodoo-Froyo-GT-I9000-XXJPO.tar   19-Mar-2011 03:18   5.7M
stock+Voodoo-Froyo-GT-I9000-XXJPU.tar   19-Mar-2011 03:18   5.7M
stock+Voodoo-Froyo-GT-I9000-XXJPX.tar   19-Mar-2011 03:18   5.7M
stock+Voodoo-Froyo-GT-I9000-XXJPY.tar   19-Mar-2011 03:18   5.7M

However, none of these version seems to match my phone.  This is what's shown in Settings -> About (sorry that it's in Hebrew, but it should be in the same order as English phones):

Based on this, what version should I install?

The difference in the filenames reflects the codename for the kernel version.  The phone only shows the version number, making things difficult.
The good news is that you can use any 2.2 kernel with a 2.2 ROM (or 2.3 with 2.3, etc.).  I'd just use the newest (they're alphabetical, so JS8 is the newest).  You can always experiment and see which one gives you the best performance, or hit up the XDA forums where people will certainly have discussed it.

So basically I don't really have to worry about which one I have now, because I'm going to replace it anyway?

@Nathan Exactly.


text:
Navigating Android: How To Go Back To Previous Screen?
I would like to know how to return to previous screen on Android. Not just go back. I usually tap "Back" button on smartphone but often it just exists or takes me back to home when it should have taken me to previous screen.

This is something of an oversimplification, but the simple answer is: you can't.
What makes this an oversimplification? Well, it's because it depends on how a given app is implemented. Android applications are based around the concept of an Activity, which is described in the development documentation as:

An activity is a single, focused thing that the user can do.

When a new Activity is launched it is placed onto a system-wide "Activity stack" at the top of the stack (for anyone unfamiliar, see Stack (data structure)). When the back button is pressed, the current Activity (at the top of the stack) is finished and removed from the stack, causing the previous one (beneath it on the stack) to be brought to the foreground. This pop/bring-to-foreground behavior continues as you keep pressing the back button until you land at HOME, which is the start of the stack. From here, you cannot go "back" any further.
Now, how does this apply to apps? In many applications, an Activity represents one, individual screen. When you advance to a new screen, then, a new Activity is actually created for the screen and pushed onto the stack on top of the one that created it. In apps that use this design, hitting back will, in fact, bring you to the previous screen. The reason should be fairly self-evident: the screen you are currently viewing is on the top of the stack, the previous screen sits below it (since they are each Activities themselves). Thus, hitting back removes the current screen from the stack, finishes it, and then loads the previous one.
This is not a required model, however. You can have an Activity that contains multiple layouts and screens. We have used this in my office to, for example, create a configuration wizard of sorts. The idea is that hitting back should simply exit the wizard, and there are "Back" and "Next" buttons on the screen itself to provide navigation. Thus, even if you are on the third screen of the wizard, you have not created any additional Activities, so hitting the back button (hard button) will take you out of the "Wizard Activity" and back to the "Menu Activity".
Further, the behavior of the back button can be overridden by an application of they so choose. It simply calls a method named onBackPressed(), which performs the default behavior of going backwards on the Activity stack. However, if there is an overridden implementation of onBackPressed() in the current Activity, that will be executed instead.
So to sum up: the idea that the back button goes back to the previous "screen" is not guaranteed at all. The hard back button deals with Activities only, which are often "screens" to the user, but aren't necessarily, and are in no way required to be. There is no concept of "go back one screen" unless the app you are using says there is, but that functionality is still not guaranteed to be provided by the back button itself.
Further reading:

Activity and Task Design
Activity documentation

If an app doesn't take you to the previous screen when you hit Back, there's nothing you or Android can do about it.  You could ask the app's developer to implement it but that's about it.


text:
Custom roms for specific use cases
I've seen this - Where can I find a good comparison of available custom ROMs?
However the release matrix linked to doesn't really do what it could do.
Is there an objective comparison somewhere that details the ROMs available by feature?
I'd like to find a ROM that's good for battery life and speed.
The phone model is a Galaxy S I9000.

No one will run the same apps with the same settings in the same environment as you.  Any "objective" evaluation will be no more useful than reading the XDA forums, for example; you're going to end up with an indication of reliability and speed, nothing more.
There's also a ton of ROMs for the SGS, many of which are only published certain places (XDA, MoDaCo, ROM-specific forums).  You'd be hard pressed to find a complete resource.  Even the "ROM Guide" threads on XDA tend to fail to include many of the ROMs from XDA.
In sum, I'd read the XDA Android Development subforum for the i9000 and shortlist a few ROMs that sound good to you, then test them out and see what works best for you.


text:
How To Make Menu Slide In 3D?
I saw it here:
http://theunlockr.com/2011/04/12/android-101-how-to-scan-use-a-qr-code/
Watch video and you will see. I want to know how to create this effect on Android Gingerbread.
Thanks.

The built-in launcher on the Nexus One does something very similar to that in the apps list.

When i flashed a custom Gingerbread rom, one of the launchers included has this menu style, but again, this includes rooting your phone and doing a data wipe at least once.
Launchers change the app menu style, but i do not know if this one is available without a custom ROM, which will require a root and reflash.

Since my smartphone is under warranty, i will forget about rooting.

rooting is simple to undo, and most providers won't worry about it when doing simple repairs and such. it's against my warranty as well, but i've had mine repaired and replaced several times without conflict. @Ryan's response is appropriate too, i had forgotten that launcher had that app drawer, but i've used it before, and can tell you it's a good choice!

ADW Launcher EX is a replacement Launcher and it has the ability to have the "Application Drawer" in the 3D mode like you described. There is also a free version that may have that option as well, I don't remember if it had it or not.
These can be installed on the device from the android market, and do not require rooting.


text:
Android - Call log/ history : Retrieve a dialed number when there was no network coverage
I dialed a number when I had no network support but it does not appear in the call history of my android phone.
Is there any way to get it ? (system logs or whatever)
THanks a lot in advance,
Jack

A dup: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/14795/any-way-to-retrieve-phone-number-dialed-while-in-airplane-mode

Your phone deals with three types of calls: incoming, outgoing or missed. As you can see from the API documentation.
Technically speaking, you've typed some digits, but since you had no network coverage, you didn't actually place any call. So, there was no reason to log anything, or even a way to classify those digits as a valid outgoing call.
Android has a database to store all the calls made, but they must match one of the above three types, and as you can see here the existent fields on the database don't contemplate the possibility of  rows for every collection of digits typed that doesn't fit the parameters of a call (duration, type, etc..).


text:
automatically choose voip service when dialing?
Is there a way to setup my phone so that when I dial someone who has an account with a voip service (skype, viber etc.) it will use that instead of the regular call? (I need to be registered with the service and the contact is known in the service app's contacts)

This is a feature of gingerbread, if you're using the built in sip client.  In Settings -> Call settings there is a setting called "Use Internet Calling" which you can set to "Only for Internet Calls".  Then if the contact has a sip number, it will call that directly sip->sip instead of going out over the phone connection.

but viber is not sip. i only know one person that has a sip account


text:
Are my contacts encrypted on my Android?
Are my contacts encrypted on my Android and where are they?
How can I access them? Any public APIs? (From PC)

At least honeycomb allows user to encrypt all data (see article on http://www.netbooklive.com/android-honeycomb-can-encrypt-all-your-data-7497/).
You can export all your contacts from the application (tap in contacts app on menu, then import/export and choose export to SD Card)

By access, I mean from PC.

updated my answer.

Sorry, but an additional: if I do not export it to SD, where they originally are? Can I see them from PC?

You can see your contacts saved in google account in Google contacts. Contacts on the phone are stored at /data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts.db


text:
How to transfer contacts in my outlook pst to Samsung Galaxy S II (or - any android phone)?
I am having my contacts backed up in my outlook and now i will be able to export it to .pst and from that is it possible by any means to bring the contacts to my android phone (Samsung Galaxy S II) ??
Please help..
Kindly give me all the possible options

I am slightly inclined to think that these type of questions are really off topic. They are not really android related. Since the answer to these questions are ALWAYS a tool to sync outlook with your GOOGLE account, not the actual device.

To give the OP the benefit of the doubt, it's usually unclear to a new Android user that their devices sync to Google services.

I agree, which is why I didn't actually vote to close it or anything...

The process is pretty straight-forward.

In Outlook, export your Contacts into a coma-delimited text file (.CSV).  Depending on the version of MS Outlook you are running, the location of this feature may be under a different menu item.
Open up a browser, go to Gmail and login with the same Google account you use on your Android phone.
Click on the "Contacts" link, then click on the "More actions" button and select the "Import" option.
Now navigate to wherever you have saved the CSV file from step 1 and select it.
After the import process completed, your Gmail account should now have all of your Outlook contacts.
On your Android phone ensure that your Google account is set to synchronize the contacts by going to Menu -> Settings -> Accounts & sync, selecting your Google account and ensuring that there is a checkmark next to "Contacts".
Also make sure you are allowing background data and auto-sync on the Previous screen.
Again tap on your Google account and un-check/re-check the box next to "Contacts" to force an immediate sync.
Wait several minutes and check the Contacts app - all of your exported contacts from Outlook should now be on your phone.

Keep in mind that this is a one-time, one-way sync.  If you want to have any changes you make in Outlook to automatically sync to your Android phone, you will need a 3rd-party application on your Windows machine that will auto-upload your changes to your Google account.

Under tools there should be a MessageSave command that will allow you to export your contacts to a .vcf file, which you can put on your sd card and import from the contacts application on your phone.
This is a link to doing the same thing with the goal of exporting for Mac devices, but should work the same, and this is a detailed step by step to bulk export to a single vcard. Both should do the same thing, and both should get your contacts to your Android phone!

GO Contact Sync will sync your contacts between your outlook and your Google account. your android device will then sync with your Google account and everything will be in sync.
You can probably find tools to sync your calendar as well, if you wanted to.


text:
Why do we need a rooted phone to capture screenshots on older versions of Android?
I realize in order to capture screenshots of my phone, all screenshot applications require I have a rooted phone. Why is this so? Why can't we have a simple screenshot application for Android, just like we have for Windows?

I have always found it interesting that the iPhone implements this feature out of the box while it is a major affair to enable on Android.

Note that since approximately Android 4.0, it is possible to take a screenshot by holding Volume Down+Power buttons; this is out-of-the-box functionality, no apps required (noted here for posterity and search engines)

The answer is rather simple, it's a permissions issue.
Android uses what is called a framebuffer for the video display. The framebuffer is located at /dev/graphics/fb0. this "file", which is basically a stream that the device writes to when changes in the user interface occur, contains ~2 frames of the screen display.
The permissions on the framebuffer file is rw- rw- ---. Note that the last "group" has 3 "-"'s. That basically means that if you are not the owner (which is root) you do not have permission to even read from that file.
If there was a system installed application, that could take screenshots, it would have permission to read from the framebuffer. Which, I believe, is how the Motorola Xoom is able to take screenshots. It has an application installed on the device, as a system app.
Reading the framebuffer, for a developer, is actually simple, if they have access to read it.

Sounds like Google should update the permissions into r--. This may create a security risk if any app can spy on your screen, but wouldn't it just be one of the permissions (This app can monitor your screen) you have to accept before installing? Either that or Google should add a built in screen capture in the menu fly-out, then no one else gets access to it. The latter my very well be the case, I mean they just now are adding print-preview to Chrome.

I think mod of o+r would be a security concern if just any market app could read the screen.

I think it depends. Windows OS does not prevent applications from taking its screen shoot. So far, have we heard any security issues caused by screen shoot?

Don't need to take screenshots in windows, there are far easier ways to get data off a windows machine. Mobile, i think, is a bigger concern. Just think about apps like Square, that processes credit cards. If I wrote a service that listened for when the card was swiped, I could possible do a screen grab and pull information like credit card number, name, etc.

Due to Android's security focus on separating all apps from each others' data, to prevent malicious apps from stealing or altering data in apps that you trust, they can't allow an app to take screenshots of other apps.
Think about how many of your apps are able to do things like OCR to translate pictures into text, I can think of at least four apps on my phone that can do this, prime example is Google Goggles OCRing book titles, and also OCRing and then translating blocks of text in foreign languages. Now think about how many of your apps put text on screen that you wouldn't want an untrustworthy app to see, I have a password database app on my phone with an encrypted database of my passwords for various systems, a malicious screensaver app could wait until that password app's running, take a picture of the screen with the login details on it, then OCR them and send them off. It could also do the same for everything in your Contacts list, even if you don't give the app permission to your Contacts database, or your browser history, or chat logs and so on. This is only one way that it could abuse access to your screen.
This is why for screenshotting to be universal it needs to be in the OS (which you already trust with all your data). This is why on phones that do have the screen shot function built-in it's been added as part of the system, not as a separate app.
If you root your phone and allow an app to take screenshots, then you are effectively saying that you implicitly trust that app to be able to do everything that the system can do, including accessing and interfering with other apps and their data, and that you totally trust it not to abuse that access. That's not something that Android's ever going to allow anything except the System/OS to do.

Short answer: Because 1) computers are Complicated and 2) the screenshot functionality is actually not very simple (for the programmer, not for the user).
In other words, taking a screenshot requires the screenshotting process to hook pretty deep into the OS internals, mess with them for a bit, and unhook again. Since Android tries to have a built-in security model (as opposed to the "bolted-on afterthought" seen in Windows), taking a screenshot trips on several security barriers. Those can be bypassed, but the only currently practical way (short of creating holes - and potential vulnerabilities - in the kernel) is to use the all-powerful root account, which is not subject to the limitations.

I don't know much about computer hardware works, but I assume the GPU sends an "image" to the screen. Couldn't that image be intercepted and saved?

@John Isaacks, that is basically what happens with the framebuffer. see my answer as to why it still requires root.


text:
How do I hard/factory/whatever reset a 1.6 tablet that will not boot?
I have one of those cheap 7" China jobs which I use as an eBook reader and not much more.
Suddenly it won't start, by which I mean that I see the "BIOS screen" with the green Android robot and the OS version, kernel version and SDK version, then it shows a black screen with the word "Android" forever.
There is no software installed apart from the eBook reader, so I don't mind doing a "hard reset".
How can I bring the tablet back to life?

Contact eBay seller from whom you purchased the tablet.

Did any manuals or documentation come with this thing? Is there a manufacturer's website for tech support? Look for ways to get into "Recovery Mode" which should have options for doing a "factory reset".

+1 Sorry, no, it was a real cheap China-made, bought on eBay for $99 a years or so ago and has neither a handbook nor any indication of the manufacturer on either the device or the box.

Are there any hardware buttons besides the Power button?  Like Volume up/down?  Often the recovery mode is accessed with a combination of buttons held down while powering up. Try turning the reader off, and then while holding down Volume Up press Power to boot up.  If that does nothing, turn it off and try again while holding Volume Down this time.


text:
What is Onetimeinitializer.apk Android application?
Anyone know purpose or any document about Onetimeinitializer.apk? It is a built-in application.
I searched for a while but did not find any information about it.
Does anyone have documentation for it? Thanks.

According to this it runs the first time you boot up (Cyanogenmod?) and prompts you for what Google Apps to install.


text:
Is there a stopwatch app that also records time of day timestamp?
I've looked all over Google for a stopwatch app that records laps (which they all do) but also records a time of day timestamp. If it can't do the example below, at least record the initial start time of day (and I can figure out the rest).
i.e.

Start (10:09:00 am - I want to know I started at this time)
Lap 1 - 00:01:02 (10:10:02 am)
Lap 2 - 00:12:12 (10:22:14 am)

UltraChron StopWatch Lite. It doesn't time stamp each lap but does the start time.


text:
RSS Reader that supports secure feeds?
Does there exist an RSS reader that supports secure (NTLM + HTTPS) feeds?
I've tried RSS Demon, with no luck.

Rss bandit is a windows rss reader, not android. If you are looking for android, what exactly do you mean by secure? https, or feeds that require a username and password?

my bad, that should have said demon ;)  fixed!
it requires a username and password

Have you tried using the http:// user:pass@www.example.com/ syntax?

@B Mitch:  unfortunately that won't work either as the feed requires SSL

https:// user:pass@www.example.com would give you ssl support and allow you to pass the username/password. If this doesn't work, then what exactly type of authentication is used?

I also looked at Rss Demon, and according to its features, both the lite and paid versions support authentication. - "HTTP-Auth/Password: for protected feed, user now can enter a http auth and password"

it uses windows authentication

@Ryan:  RSS Demon does let me put in a user name and password, i've verified they are correct, but it doesn't seem to actually be sending them to the server.

try the user/pass in the url, if that doesnt work, then it may be some issue with the app, and you should contact the app developer.

no dice :(  it seems it only to do basic http authentication, which the server doesn't support.

so it turns out android as an operating system doesn't support anything other the basic http authentication!  so there won't be any readers out there that can support this :(

The browser does not support NTLM currently. I have read, but do not know 100%, that NTLM is supported in android 3.1

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=4962

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=4962#c247 as I said, 3.1 adds support for it in the browser. NTLM would have to be implemented by the developer, until there is built-in support in the SDK (3.1).

sadly my device isn't 3.1, it's 2.2


text:
Access PC using tablet
I have a tablet and a normal PC. I have a lot of files on my normal pc that i would like to copy to my tablet. Both the systems are connected to the same WiFi network. Is there any way to use this WiFi network to transfer files from the normal PC to the tablet?

WiFi File Explorer is perfect for this! i'm using it right now, in fact! The newest version allows for uploading as well as downloading from PC to device, over wifi. I've been using this app for a while now, and i can honestly say it works perfectly, and there are good devs behind it that are updating with useful functions consistently.

Do you think.... if there is a free app that does the same thing?

there is a free version (here) but it does not support uploading to your device, only downloading and streaming. SwiFTP claims to do similar actions, but i don't find it as easy to use as WiFiFE. You'll have to be familiar with using ftp servers for SwiFTP.

i also recently have used File Expert which allows you to access your computer over wifi fairly easily

I share a folder from my desktop and then use AndSMB on my Xoom to connect and copy files as needed. I have been satisfied with it so far.

The easiest way is probably via a shared folder.  See Is there a way to mount a Windows shared drive so I can access those files on my phone? for details on that.
You could also run an FTP server on your PC and use an FTP client on your tablet.

I am using ubuntu. I tried using Bluetooth. But it quite unreliable. So idecided to  use WiFi instead... since both  systems  are on the  same  wifi   network.

@Jay FTP should be pretty simple on Ubuntu.

Thanks for the answers. But I managed to solve it using some commands I found on the Ubuntu forums at canonical. Apparently, it is possible to connect the transformer via USB. But since it shows up as an mtp device instead of a normal storage device...Ubuntu was unable to recognize it. Once I installed the necessary drivers, it was possible to mount it like a normal storage device. Of course, the only inconvenience is that I would have to type the mount and dismount commands every time I plug and unplug the Asus transformer.
I chose to do a direct USB transfer instead of wifi, cos I simply found the wifi transfers too unreliable.
None the less, thanks  to all the other answers as well. If anything I learned something  new :-)


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How To T-mobile Web Day Pass on Non T-Mobile Device?
I have a Pay As You Go SIM card on my Nexus One which works great for voice calls but I don't really know how to use it for T-mobile's $1.49 Web Day Pass.
I called T-Mobile's customer support but they were clueless... All they could say was "press the web2go button".
I don't have a web2go button on my Nexus One.
I know it is possible to use T-mobile's $1.49 Web Day Pass on a Nexus One, but I don't know how.
Any help would be appreciated.
UPDATE: Thanks to the link posted by @uTubeFan I was able to find http://m.web2go.com/myaccount/summary.do which seems to give some home but for now all I am receiving is:
Error 500--Internet Server Error
From RFC 2068 Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1:
10.5.1 500 Internal Server Error
The server encountered an unexpected condition which
prevented it from fulfilling the request.

You may want to read this blog post. You might get a way with simply trying to access any web site and waiting for the Buy Web DayPass prompt.
Otherwise you might need to do the trick mentioned in the blog, which is trying the above on a non-Android phone and then swapping the the DayPass enabled SIM.

Thanks + 1. I tried to just access any web site and wait for the Buy Web DayPass prompt. I could see the EDGE connected and even EDGE in use status icons at the top of my screen, but I never received any prompt from T-Mobile. After very long wait all I received was an "Unable to connect to server" dialog.

Interestingly, I could even see GPRS connected for a few seconds but then it was replaced by EDGE in use and never came back.

It finally worked! No need to swap SIM cards between phones, all I had to do is access http://m.web2go.com in a location where the phone displays full 4 bars.


text:
How to force load desktop version of website?
Mobile optimised websites are nice but it happens too often that they omit some crucial functionality.
Is there a way how to cheat the browser detection or force-load the desktop version of any website?

Closely related: How can I change the user agent for the stock browser?

Open the web browser
navigate to about:debug (make sure you press the "go" button, not search)
nothing will seem to happen, but it did...
press the menu key and select "More"
Now select Settings.
Scroll down and you should see an option for "UAString" or "Change User Agent".

I think that option appears normally,without the about:debug trick. It does on both my phone and honeycomb tablet?

@Oatman It depends on which device you have, see How can I change the user agent for the stock browser?

This setting change doesn't seem to stick. If the application closes completely, it reverts back on the next load. Any way to avoid that?

Dolphin Browser Mini has a setting in the tools menu that is an easy way to switch between user-agents. It includes viewers for:

Android (default)
Desktop
iPhone
iPad

plus, it works much faster than the stock browser!

The recent version of Opera Mobile (11.1) also includes the User Agent option (mobile / desktop)
see: Settings/Advanced/User Agent

Type about:useragent in the address bar then simply choose Desktop.  Couldn't be easier!
Note that this doesn't work for all devices, see How can I change the user agent for the stock browser?

You can select the user-agent on both android tablets and android phones, it's in the settings menu :-)

Where? I can't find it on my Galaxy S2 / Android 2.33

you cant find it, see my post, it should make it "visible"


text:
XPS viewer similar to Adobe PDF viewer
Is there a way to open Microsoft XPS documents on Android, similar to the way Adobe PDF documents have "Adobe Reader for Android"? I took a look in the Market but I didn't find anything.

I'm looking for an XPS reader too.  Two points.  First, Google Docs Viewer supports .XPS files (Getting to know the Google Docs Viewer) but Google Docs Mobile Viewer does not, per my experience and this support page (Viewing files from within Google Docs).  I spent time trying because this cached page's article title is

Google Docs Mobile Viewer for Android, iPhone, iPad has Been Released

and has this list of tags that made me think I'd found a solution.

Article Tags:xps Android, xps viewer android, android xps,
  xps viewer for android, android xps viewer, android xps reader,
  XPS reader android

Second, perhaps if enough people show interest there will be an XPS Viewer available from the Android Market.  I added to the Android Market XPS Viewer Feature Request thread.

this is no longer true, see the other answers

I use Documento - office viewer to open XPS files.

There's an app called EBookDroid

Worth noting: this is open-source (always nice to be able to see what the apps you are installing are doing on your device)

No longer an open source app!

Docs Viewer is a free app on the Play Store that you can use to view XPS files and other documents in a big number of formats on your Android devices.

mupdf supports viewing XPS and is free / opensource:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.artifex.mupdf.viewer.app


text:
No Market on Honeycomb for NOOKcolor
I put Honeycomb on my NOOKcolor and the app market is not on it. Does anyone know how to fix it?

The nook devs site provides links and goes over downloading Google apps to your Nook color running honeycomb. Thissite lists the available Google app downloads from Cyanogenmod, explaining that they cannot come pre-installed due to licensing restrictions. The links at the very bottom of the page (and the first link) should help you find the appropriate applications.

Sometimes custom ROMs come without the Google apps (Gmail, Market, Maps, etc.) pre-loaded, in those cases it's a separate package that you need to flash over the ROM.  You should check with the ROM developer where you should get the gapps from.


text:
T-Mobile Sidekick 4G Keyboard - Tilde and Backtick
I still have a G1. I love it for its keyboard. Nobody, has made a phone with a better keyboard. It has 5 rows and allows me to type the full ASCII range and then some. The keys are spaced apart and not easily fat-fingered like the Verizon Droid line of phones. I have been holding out on getting a new phone, waiting for one with a keyboard as good or even better. I had hope in the Sidekick, but upon closer inspection of the keyboard, it does not appear to have a back-tick ` or tilde ~ key. Where the back-tick should be, I see a smiley face.
On Sidekick 4G keyboard, what is the fastest way for me to type a tilde and a back-tick? The person with the least amount of actions to accomplish this goal gets my vote.

After much torment and due to an unfortunate accident, I went ahead and purchased one. The answer is:
Tilde

Close screen
Tap the input area
long press a
click tilde

Backtick (grave)

Close screen
Tap the input area
long press apostrophe
realize that you were pressing the voice search button since the apostrophe button is so small and cramped, so cancel the voice search
repeat 3 until success
click backtick

This is a major pain. I may just make an alternate soft keyboard for myself that just has those two buttons.

I honestly don' think they characters can be typed with the sidekick hardware keyboard. As for the software keyboard, it would depend on the one you are using, but most likely would be close to this:

Switch to numbers / symbols
press the alt key
press the  `  or  ~  key

It does not have to be reliant on the hardware keyboard. I just want to know the fastest way to do so.

no dice. and by dice, I mean alt key. Samsung and their stupid wipe keyboard has decided to invent new nomenclature and call this the sym button, and it still does not seem useful, i.e. no `.

I use the stock keyboard. well, not even the stock samsung keyboard, i use the real "stock keyboard". There is a pretty good keyboard called hackers keyboard that has every key you can think of on it.


text:
Swype installed but does nothing
I downloaded and installed swype on my HTC Droid incredible 2. I went to settings > keyboard > text settings and checked swype. Now when I use my keyboard I draw across the letters and nothing happens.
Am I missing a step?

Did you remember to switch to Swype from the default keyboard?
Press and hold inside any text box (like Google Search, for example).  A pop-up should come up with one or more options.  Select the "Input method" option and then select "Swype".


text:
Rootless CLI Utilities
Do I have to root my android device to install command line utilities? I would really like to run Vim, among other programs on my phone. I have no reason not to root my phone, I just want to know if this is possible.
The Android Scripting seems to possibly have done this. Do I have to write my own Terminal app to be able to do this?

You don't need root.  You also don't need a terminal, for an app to use its own private utilities.  But if you want vim, Terminal IDE provides that, a number of other utilities (git, ssh, tmux), the ability to use bash or Java as a 'scripting language' at the terminal, and the ability to create and install Android apps on-device.  I use Terminal IDE and vim quite a bit, (but with Better Terminal Emulator Pro's terminal, actually.)

What's the correct way to run Terminal IDE's bash from "adb shell"? Running it manually "su; /data/data/com.spartacusrex.spartacuside/files/system/bin/bash" leaves a slightly broken env.

Rooting your phone gives you root access (duh!), but that doesn't mean accessing a shell requires you to root your phone.  You can use ADB to connect to your device and gain shell access.
You can also use ConnectBot to access your device's shell on the device itself.
This will give you normal access to your device and you will not be able to run su to gain root access.  You can, however, modify and play with files to which you have access.
vim is available without root access, so, so far you still have no reason to root your phone.


text:
Block all sounds going out through speaker when headphone connected
I'm kind of new in Android and I realized that all the sounds are going out through the speaker regardless if the headphones are connected. If they are the sound also goes out through the headphones, but I'd also like to avoid the speaker when headphones connected.
Is that possible?
Few more information that may help:

My phone is a Samsung Galaxy i5510
Its Android 2.2 Froyo
I've installed Tasker, maybe there is some way to make a profile to achieve what I want.

Thanks, Diego
Update
As it wasn't to clear I'll clarify for each sound (if i forget any please let me know):

Phone calls: Speaker and headphones.
Notifications: Speaker and headphones.
Games and almost every app: Only headphones. (I wrote "almost every app" because, for example, Skype or Camera sounds in both speaker and headphones).
Keyboard and "touch clicks": Headphones.

Summarizing the problem are: phone calls, notifications and some "random" apps.

What sounds are still going through the speaker? Music, ring tones, notifications, keyboard click, games, something else?

I've updated my question.

That's weird. When my headphones are in nothing comes out through the loudspeaker.

Currently you can't disable notifications via speakers while still having them via headphones. There's an open issue for that.
You also can use Llama or Tasker to switch profiles when you plug your headphones.

I'm using Tasker and PhoneWeaver. But still, would like to hear notifications through speakers, instead of silence the phone.

I saw you had another question about Cyanogenmod, and thought I'd point out that it has the option "Always play on speaker" for notifications, ringtones and alarms (in Settings -> CyanogenMod Settings -> Sound). So as soon as it's stable (if it's developed further) it can solve most of your problems.

Nice, so if one disabled this options, the whole alarm stream will only be audible within the headphones if they are connected?

@Flow Yep, exactly.

@onik, thanks for the answer. I'll keep this in mind if sometime I install CyanogenMod, but right now there is no official release for my phone and I'm a little afraid of the issues of the unofficial version.

I am afraid, but this doesn't seem possible. There once was an method called setRouting() in the AudioManager API, but it is nowadays a deprecated method which simply does nothing. I am even not sure if the method would be capable of routing all audio streams only to the (wired) headset.

I recommend Lesser AudioSwitch (Google Play). It allows a user to force all audio through the speakers, headphones (3.5mm jack), or Bluetooth. It is updated for Android Oreo.
I quote from the description:

(Lesser AudioSwitch)
Switching to headphones will mute all audio to the speakers (Android
  Oreo and below), including alarms and notifications. This can be
  disabled in the options.
Includes an Auto-Switch option to automatically switch when headset is
  connected or disconnected. Also works for Bluetooth.
Bluetooth and switching to headset microphone can be enabled in the
  settings.

I use Lesser AudioSwitch to force an alarm to sound through my Bluetooth speakers alone and it works beautifully.


text:
Facebook app requires repeated sign-in
Recently, the Facebook app on my Droid 1 (Android 2.2.2) started prompting me to sign-in throughout the day. I get a pop up that says:
Facebook Sign-in
Please re-enter your Facebook password
It shows my username and asks for my password.
It seems that if I don't use the phone for a few hours, when I pick it up, this sign-in is waiting for me.
Any ideas why? or what changed?

Update - not sure, but http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=13331773 says

It seems like the mobile app doesn't
  play nice with HTTPS (secure browsing)
  if you have it enabled on the Facebook
  website. After disabling HTTPS on the
  full Facebook website under Account
  Settings, I was able to log in and
  stay logged in without an issue.

I don't want to give up secure browsing, but perhaps there was a bug in a recent udpate to the app?

do you have any apps that are killing processes and clearing app data to free up space?

Are you using the very latest Facebook app from the Market? Have you tried clearing the cache and/or data?

I can't check from here, but could there be a security setting at facebook.com related to remote/mobile access that you recently changed?

I have no apps running that automatically kill processes. (i have Advanced Task Killer free installed, but AutoKill is disabled.  Yes, Facebook is up to date from the Market.

I don't see any facebook settings on the web site that are related to mobile apps. the Account Settings-Mobile is mostly about SMS messages and cell phone numbers, not iPhone or Andoid apps.

Hmmm...I have my Facebook settings to "always use HTTPS" and I'm not seeing this behavior. Let me look in my settings again.

Have you tried a complete uninstall and reinstall?

Is the Facebook app installed on the SD card?

It might have been. I haven't had this problem in months. They've made so many updates since then and I even have a new phone. Was SD card install a problem?

I had issues with the last Facebook update, the one that came out the past 2 weeks.  I uninstalled it and reinstalled it and now it works correctly.  My issue wasn't quite the same as yours, it kept redirecting to the mobile website (although I do suspect some http vs. https issue), but I would give it a try.  I know the advice seems weird because the update is like a new install, but it worked for me.


text:
How can I "right click" with a USB mouse on Android 3.1?
I've got a Logitech USB mouse and keyboard plugged into my Xoom, which is running Tiamat 1.4.4 kernel on top of Android 3.1. Both are recognized and provide input correctly, but I noticed that the right mouse button is treated just as a left mouse button click. I had hoped that this would instead act like a long press since that's something of an analogue to the right click concept, but I can't find a way to do so. This is particularly annoying because I'm trying out Splashtop and it makes a lot of things really awkward or downright impossible.
Is there any setting (or other method) to make the right click button actually perform a "right click" type of action, such as a long press?

Can't you just long press with the mouse button?

@raybritton: Sure, but I still feel like I have a wasted mouse button, and it's of course slower than a legitimate right click. This also seems to cause some weirdness with certain functions. Plus, Splashtop likes to plug games as a feature, and I'd hate to play e.g. Half Life 2 without a true alt-fire mouse button (it's comfortable and already ingrained into my head, though I could remap to left shift or something).

I do agree, it would be useful, and I can't see a technical reason it couldn't be implemented.

Presumably the kernel handles this (correct me if I'm wrong) so you could make or request a kernel mod to do this.

Unfortunately there is currently no way to get the right mouse button working as a right mouse button. Long press is the only way to do it. Sorry.

Any links to docs or source?

middle mouse button does it for me!


text:
Android lock screen password not being recognized
I flashed the latest Cyanogenmod ROM for my device (Samsung Captivate) last night and after doing so I set a numeric lock screen password.  I then customized my phone and spent a goodly amount of time working on it and locked and unlocked it successfully multiple times.  This morning when I woke up and went to unlock it, my password did not work.  I have tried the password (and combinations thereof) over 100 times and it never unlocks.  I also never get the "Lost Password" button on the lock screen to use my Gmail account to unlock the device.  Does anyone know if there is a way to connect to the device using an ADB shell and reset the password? I am able to get to a shell and can run commands.  Any help is appreciated.

Yes, you can delete the PIN data from the settings database. In the below instructions, anything that follows a # or sqlite> is a command you should enter (from an adb shell):
# cd /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases
# sqlite3 settings.db
sqlite> delete from secure where name='lockscreen.password_type';
sqlite> delete from secure where name='lockscreen.password_salt';
sqlite> .exit
# reboot

When the phone reboots the PIN lock should be disabled. If this doesn't work then try executing the following from within sqlite (second might not be needed):
sqlite> select * from secure;
sqlite> select * from system;

These two commands will simply list all entries in the secure and system tables, respectively. That will help you find the proper rows that need to be deleted in the case that they are named differently (though I don't think they will be as I just tested this on my own CyanogenMod 7 install).

I ended up re-flashing and restoring from a Titanium backup I had.  However, out of sheer curiosity, I am testing what you have posted and even after deleting the two entries from the database file and rebooting the lock is still on the screen and I can find no way around it.  I did confirm that both lockscree.password_type and _salt are no longer in the database file.  Any other suggestions?  Like I said this is not critical at this point, it is now an experiment in Android security.

@t11m: Hm, I'm not aware of any other relevant entries offhand, but maybe I'll mess around with it a little bit. Just deleting those two definitely works for me if I set up a PIN lock...

Here is how a Samsung GT-S5300 was unlocked which according to the user would not recognise its screen lock PIN anymore.
No data was lost during the process. The device was not rooted, nor did it had anything fancy installed. An internet connection ---WiFi or G2/3/4--- is required though.

Unplug the charger from your device.
Install the free version of Screen Lock Bypass Reset. Ignore any warnings about purchasing the Pro version.
Once installed, a bypass can be activated by plugging in the charger.
The black Screen Lock Bypass Reset screen appears. Hit the return key ⏎ on your device to show the temporarily unlocked device desktop.
This offers a window of opportunity to approve the Lock & Erase application which can be sent from any internet the Google Android Device Manager website.
After approval, it may take anything up to half an hour to become visible on the Google Android Device Manager website.
Once visible on the website, click on Lock to enter a new PIN.
The device can now be unlocked with the new PIN.


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Can I override the HTC Sense "slide down to answer / slide up to decline" screen locker?
I can't be the only one who has this problem: my touchscreen reacts to the cotton of my jeans. I carry my DHD upside down in my pocket, and on an incoming call, when I drag it out of my pocket, it interacts with the jeans tissue and slides the bar up, thus declining the call.
I tried such apps as "Easy answer button," "Advanced telephone," "Full screen caller ID," but they simply overlap what's already on the screen, and while they do work (i.e., I press instead of swiping), either the result is very ugly, or the caller ID is partially invisible — not to mention I would like to swipe left/right (as in vanilla Android), rather than just press, as this is also not jeans-proof.

Custom roms will be the only way to do this. WidgetLocker changes the lock screen, but i don't think it handles incoming calls. This Gingerbread rom changes the lock screen as well as how it answers calls, changing it to the Android swipe across system, but like all roms, it requires a root and a wipe. It is a great rom though, and will do exactly what you need.


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How can i switch to next field in web form using Android browser?
How can i switch to next field in web form using Android browser? There is no tab button, which Im using on my PC.

I use the default Android keyboard and it has a Tab key that pops up beside the space key.  It looks like this: –>|

This depends on the page as well, since some pages don't supply information about the order of the fields (tabindex), therefore no "next field button". Occasionally it's annoingly sporadic.

@onik True. I assume there are other keyboards with a dedicated tab; I wonder how the browser handles it.

If the "next" button isn't available, you can use the back button to close the keyboard, then tap on the field you want to go to to reopen the keyboard.

My Samsung Ace inserts tab to input and doesn't go to next field

Depends on the phone as well. If you have a phone with a central trackball, e.g. HTC Desire, the trackball can be used to navigate through links and form fields while browsing.

Depending on the phone you use (mine has an arrow-pad), you can use physical navigation to switch between fields. You can also often press "Next" when typing using the virtual keyboard with fields if your phone offers that feature.