text:
How do I make my device dial my phone via Bluetooth?
I have a Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0 and a Samsung Chrono. I want to be able to be able to call someone using the Galaxy Player through my phone so that I can have the contacts on my Galaxy Player and not on my phone.
Using SIP/VoIP is not an option; I don't have a data plan on my phone. So I would like to do this via Bluetooth if possible.
In fact, if it means that I'll have to use the phone to talk, that's fine too.

Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0 isn't actually a phone Per se, so it's hard to use it as such (without some help at least):
Any of the following solutions answers your question the way you intended it to be answered, but this is the result of a deep investigation and testing that might help you or help others in the future.
1) Just like a Bluetooth Handset:
With a fair amount of limitations, you can Pair the Galaxy Player to your smartphone just like pairing a Bluetooth headset:

Turn on Bluetooth on both devices, make the Galaxy Player discoverable, and scan with the phone.

Once the devices recognized each other and got paired, the Player shows up connected to the phone.

When a call gets to the smartphone, the Galaxy Player will ring as well.

The screen does look just like the incoming call screen on a smartphone, providing an option to answer or decline the call.
Initiating a call from the smartphone, will automatically activate the Galaxy Player, just like it would with a Bluetooth headset.
If the Galaxy Player and your smartphone are close together, lets say it the same room, the call has a good quality, just like if you were talking on your phone.
The power consumption for this solution is very low, so its a thumbs up as well.
Sadly, the contacts list on the Galaxy Player will do you no good, since it actually can't initialize any calls.

2) Using WiFi:
One tested alternative with a very lost cost can be signing up with a service that directs texts and/or calls to the Galaxy Player.
e.g., Google Voice, see the International calling rates
The only drawback using any service like Google Voice on the Galaxy Player is that you can only receive/send text messages and calls when connected to Wi-Fi, unlike a normal phone.
Google Voice is a feature-rich call forwarding service. You get one phone number that will ring all of your phones (cell or landline).
With it, you can receive voicemails and text messages (no multimedia messages/MMS, though).
Being a part of your Google account, you have access to all of your messages; call logs and more.
Google Voice @ Google Play

3) Using VoIP
Signing up with a service with a VoIP solution, it is possible to make actual calls from the Galaxy Player (or any device with speaker and microphone).
e.g., Line2, see the Plans Comparison
This service doesn't get you stuck to a contract, extra fees or a period of time. So, if a better solution appear in the future, you can stop using it immediately.

So what I was asking won't work then.


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Contacts app on Tablet with ICS
I have a Scroll Extreme tablet running 4.0 ICS. Previously I had a Samsung Galaxy SII which had a great Contacts app integrating contacts from MS Exchange, Gmail, Facebook and LinkedIn. How do I make the Contacts app on my tablet visible so I can add contacts or even just check a phone number or address?

Seems to be the same issue here: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/23735/where-are-my-gmail-contacts

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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android video transfer crash
I'm trying to transfer video files to my phone, HTC Google Nexus One (Android 2.3.6), but with this strange behaviour:

After I copy file to the phone, when I'm opening it with computer it works ok.
After turning off USB mass storage, I open the video file with my phone's video players and it's not opening.
When I mount the phone to computer again and try to open it with the computer video players it again can't open.

I suppose that:

The problem is not with video encoding, since it can be opened the first time, from the PC.
It can be opened from the PC after I transfer it to the phone, so the problem is not with cable or transfer either.

The fact is, that after I unmount phone from my computer, the video crashes and can't be opened either by the phone or the PC!!!!
Can someone help me with this?
I will be very appreciated.

Video format might not be compatible with the phone's player.  But if the PC can't play it either, you may have a corruption due to an incomplete write.  Are you unmounting the phone from the host OS, then disabling mass storage on the phone itself, before pulling the cable?  After a reconnection, using a tool like diff to check the version on the phone against the source version on the PC would be a good test.

This looks like a corrupted file. You most probably pulled the cable before everything was written to disk. Compare original and copied file by calculating both md5sums and see if they match:
Open office' site has a comprehensive guide how to do that on Windows and Linux (same on MacOS).
http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/using_md5sums.html

I solved it by downloading ES File Explorer from the Play Store (it's free), then put the videos that won't copy in a ZIP file - which you copy to your Android device and extract them there.
I successfully played those videos using the VLC beta version.

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


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Google contacts in Google+ that have no profile image
Some Google+ contacts dont have a profile image, but they do have one in "Google Contacts". I think it would make sense if the fallback for those Google+ contacts where their "Google Contacts" profile image.
Is there a way to do this?

I think Google+ profile pictures have to be chosen by the people themselves. Your Google contacts are private to you while their profile picture on their public profile is public.
In their profile information you will see private contact data as well, but it's explicitly mentioned and are additional.
I don't think their is a way to do so because it just isn't meant to be done.


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Override WhatsApp contact image with the chosen Contact Image
I dislike how people use full body pictures for their contact images when it's a small image. When I link the accounts in my Android, I chose a picture that looks good and helps me identify them easily. But in WhatsApp, when these people chose their profile picture, they override my selection.
Is there a way to fix this?

Probably related: How to change someone's profile picture in WhatsApp?

For now there isn't, unless an add-ons for WhatsApp will enable this or they built it in themselves. It's comparable to Facebook, user set their own avatar and this can be seen by friends.
This works unlike your contact list in which you control the content and other users have no say in adjusting the content.

There is a way. You can just download Android SDK and do from the console:
adb push /tmp/newimage.jpg /data/data/com.whatsapp/files/Avatars/XXXXXX@s.whatsapp.net.j
where XXXX is the phone number and /tmp/newimage.jpg is the new image you want to replace it with.

You forgot to mention that directories below /data/data are only writable by their resp. owners. So what you recommend would only work if the device were rooted AND the adbd (ADB daemon) on the device running in "insecure mode" (i.e. with full root privileges).

As Useless said The device should be only rooted you can just use root explorer, copy someone else's picture file and rename it to target number, it works great.. directory: "/data/data/com.whatsapp/files/Avatars/"


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Persistent "Google sign-in" error, even with correct password
I believe this started after I installed the Google+ app, but there is a constant notification that looks like a warning sign, and it displays this:

Entering the correct password does not dispell it (it's the same password every other Google app uses, and only one is complaining). Also, every Google app still works, each one acts as if I'm still signed in. So where is this coming from, and how can I get rid of it?
Update: I have tried both clearing the data for the Google+ app (which helped for about a half hour) and actually resetting my password and using the new one. Neither worked.

Do you have multiple users on your device? I once ran into something similar in which an app was looking for the second user name on my device, rather than the usual one.

I have two accounts, how did you fix the problem then? I tried typing the password for the other account and nothing happened...

I saw this issue on the lock-screen. After attempting the pattern too many times I had to enter email/password. However it was my wife's info that unlocked the phone. It was probably due to having her signed in last (either on Gmail or the Market). Also, I assume the username field is filled in for you? It was not in my case.

Same thing happened to me yesterday..

(1) What version of Android are you running?  (2) If you're on an ICS build do you have Chrome installed?

Cyanogenmod 7.1 (2.3.7) hence, no. no chrome :/

Update to lastest version of Google+ or uninstall it at all.

it happened after updating to the latest version.

I couldn't login with firefox on android, but it worked after clearing my browser history.  Maybe not relevante to  OPs case, but sharing since google led me here.

I had the same problem. My solution was to uninstall and reinstall Google+ and everything worked fine after that.

After trying all of these other methods, I think this is what finally did it. The sign-in error hasn't come back yet, so presently, the correct answer is yours!

Here is the solution: Login into Gmail, locate Account under the sign-out Name. This takes you to My Account where you click on security. Here you find a section for Application-Specific passwords at the end of the webpage. The issue is explained that:  Some applications that work outside a browser aren't yet compatible with 2-step verification and cannot ask for verification codes, for example:
Email programs including Outlook, Apple Mail, or Thunderbird
Older Android smartphones

The root-cause of this problem is that you probably turned on the 2-steps verification without noticing this. So all you have to do is to generate your application specific password and that is it!

This just happened to me as well.  I had to change my account password via the website, and then my device accepted the new password.
It only happened with the account I use for Google+, so I think your guess is correct.

I cleared the data for my G+ app and that seems to have worked for now too, I'll let you know if it holds though.

it came back :/ so I reset my password online, and used that one, and it still refuses to go away :(

@jlehenbauer Hmm. My exact process was: (1) See notification (2) Click it and type in password a bunch of times (3) Open Gmail, get password popup (4) Try password again (5) Leaving popup open, reset password on website via PC (6) enter new password in popup.  At that point I still had the system notification in my tray, but (7) I cleared it and rebooted.  No issues since, I just opened G+ and Gmail with no error and turning sync on and off for the account didn't trigger a notification either.

I think this worked for me: (1) See notification (2) Click it and type in password a bunch of times (3) Change password on Google via PC (4) Try it again in Google+, to no avail (5) Go to Play Store, popup comes up again (6) enter password and it works!

@jlehenbauer Weird, I suppose maybe the Market was caching something in your case?  Let's hope it stays fixed.

it didn't :( I'm gonna try un/re-installing g+ next I guess?

I resolved this by signing out of Google+ and then signing back in. This worked on a stock droid x with Gingerbread.

The problem is due to 2 factor authentication.
Go to your Google account on a PC and generate a new Application Specific Password (ASP) (hold off on clicking the  button).
Enter that into your phone when it asks for a password for Google Sign-in.
If it doesn't work the first time, reboot everything and do it again (remember to hold off on the  button until you have entered the 16 character ASP into your phone).

What do you mean by "hold off"? Do you mean "keep pressing"?

Wow, after trying everything -- I mean everything including re-installing stuff, this worked. Golly. Could they make it any more difficult. Why wasn't 2 factor with the code generator working Google, eh? Anyways, thanks, fixed now :)

I had a similar problem trying to sign in play store was not authenticating my credentials even though they are correct. I turned off the 2-step verification using the web and worked later on .

Same thing happened since yesterday. It started just after updating the new G+ apps. I thought it was due to my fiddling with 2-step authentication setup, but nope, that wasn't it. Tried reset/reinstall everything. Also tried changing new password. Same thing happened again after installing with the new G+.
I just turned off background sync for G+ (and leave other google apps as-is), and it seems did the trick to stop the error popping up. This is not exactly an answer, but simply a temporary workaround until google comes up with update to fix.

Have you tried re-enabling background sync for G+ now? I shut it off, waited a while, then turned it back on, and it seems to have done the trick...

no luck with this either. I'd like it to sync, but turning it off permanently is starting to look like the only solution...

Instead, I opened up the security option of my Gmail account in web. I created a new system-specific password and entered the same. It worked, and I didn't even have to reboot.

Note: This was probably set up with 2-factor authentication. Hence the ability to set up a specific password.

I do not have Google+ installed and I reverified my password via the web and I still could not get logged in to my phone.
I ended up disabling two step verification and I was able to login to my phone after that.
I just remembered when I first enabled two step verification I started getting sign on errors when I used voice search.

I had exactly the same thing happen for the 'Play Store' on an Android phone - it would just not accept the correct password! The method that worked for us was to use a computer, access that Google account and disable 2-step verification altogether.
After logging into Google, navigate to https://www.google.com/settings/ -> Security -> 2-step verification -> Edit -> change that to Off.

I you're using 2-step verification your correct password is incorrect! You need application specific passwords. (this is clearly said so during setup)

Richard, I had setup the Play Store on a HTC phone without using any app specific password. Subsequently, I reset that phone for my wife, who happened to forget her password. Multiple tries let to a situation where entering the CORRECT password did not work. The only solution that did work was what I described.


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web browser / plugin with mouse hover mode
I'm having problems with websites where the only way to access a page is by hovering over a menu. Is there any way of doing that in android? Maybe an app which allows the screen to be used as if a touch pad on a laptop.
Thanks

Smartphones and tablets have an obvious problem with events like mouseover:  When there’s no mouse cursor, there’s no way to mouse over controls.
Some techniques may be applied as a work around, but it's hard to have them working decently.

Testing: with minimal success
Don't know what browser are you using, but with my phone:

Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.3; en-us; U8510 Build/HuaweiU8510)
AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko)
Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1

If I long press the menu that contains a sub-menu presented with mouseover, it opens after about 3 seconds (even though, every two out of three, the click for the main menu gets triggered).
Ps:
The website used to test it was developed by me, so I know for sure that there's no support for mobile phones being used.

I just usually long-press the item until I get the popup menu from the browser, press back to hide the menu and the hover is activated. Not a foolproof method but works most of the time. This way I can be almost sure that the tap doesn't send a click event.
Tested on 3.2, 4.0, 4.0.2 vanilla browsers and Chrome/Chrome beta on ICS.


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What's the safe limit on charger output for a Galaxy Nexus
The charger that came with my Galaxy Nexus phone outputs 5 volts at 1 amp. I have another charger that outputs 5v at 2 amps. Is it safe to use this charger? What's the limit I can use without damaging the phone?

Why not use the USB cable from PC to Nexus instead of the mains charger? as a fallback in-case of uncertainty, USB from PC to Handset is 5v.

@t0mm13b: I believe that AC chargers charge the battery in less time, at least from what I've perceived.

Your phone shouldn't draw more current than it needs.

Yeah I prefer AC chargers than USB charger due to faster charging time

All phone (wall-type) chargers are voltage sources, i.e. the adapter provides a stable voltage output (5V here) and the device decides how much current to draw. Your charger's specification says it provides a maximum of 2Amps. That means it will sustain its 5V output voltage up to a current of 2A.
The phone's internal charging chip may or may not charge the battery in a voltage or current driven means (Li-Ion are typically charged voltage driven and current capped if I'm not mistaken). However this is completely hidden internally and you don't have to worry about it.
If the adapter can't handle your phones current need, it may get hot or the phone may just discharge (instead of charge).
It may even be the case that your device draws less than it would need to charge (if you do navigation for example): What causes battery to drain faster than it can charge?

Great and clear explanation!

I was just informed by Samsung Customer service that the Galaxy Nexus can't handle the 5 volts.  This isn't a problem if you use their charging cable (with any other charger) but if you use a different micro USB cable to charge your phone, you will eventually break your phone!
I would know, I've sent my Nexus in twice now because of this issue.
Why they list the 5 volts in their cable, but not the phone itself is beyond me.

The battery in a smartphone is normally 3.4 volts DC. A 5.0 voltage charger at the rate of charging may vary, in any case output charging at 1.0 to 3.0 A is suitable without damaging your cell phone. There is a safety electronic current limit switch built into all (UL) approved electronic devices to prevent damage of overcharging.
5.0 voltage output speed ratio examples:

1.0 A Rate > 4 to 6 hrs.
2.0 A Rate > 2 to 4 hrs.
3.0 A Rate > .5 to 1.5 hrs.

Another DC voltage comparison; car alternators charge at 14.5 volts dc. The car battery is 12 volt dc.
14.5 voltage output speed ratio examples:

1.0 A Rate > maintains 12 volts DC
2.0 A Rate > 8 to 12 hrs
6.0 A Rate > 4 to 8 hrs
10.0 A Rate > 2 to 4 hrs
50.0 A Rate > instant engine start power.

You should always consult your manufacturer customer technical service rep. For OEM spec's, changing the charge operation changes may void your warranty.

Please don't use ALL-CAPS. It's not good for everybody's eyes.


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Can't move certain apps to my SD card
I recently reset my phone to factory settings, because I didn't have enough space on my internal memory, and I wanted to start off anew.
When I started downloading apps onto my phone that I had before, I didn't have the option to move it to my SD card any longer, I can't move apps like "Viggle" or "Kik Messenger", which are from the App Store.
I run out of space easily on my internal memory, and it drives me nuts. Is there anything I can do to move my apps to my SD card or something? So I can have more space on my phone. I also still have the same SD card that was given to me with the phone which is 2 GB, and I still have a lot of space left over either way.

do you mean that you were able to move them before resetting or you didn't install them before that?

Have you tried App2SD? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.a0soft.gphone.app2sd

How to move apps from internal to external storage?

Phones WITH SD card support, Android 6.0+ will ask you whether you want to use the SD Card as portable or internal storage. If you do not plan on moving the SD Card between devices, you can use it as internal storage. That will essentially increase your storage capacity. Mind you, if you ever remove the SD card after designating as "internal", some applications may stop working on your phone, and the card need to be formatted again to be used on different device.

You can not move all application on SD card. Which operating system you are using. In marsh mellow go to setting / apps. Select your apps. You can find option move app to SD card.

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


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SwiftKey 3 9-key keyboard?
Has anyone been able to find and activate 9-key keyboard for swiftkey 3? The qwerty in portrait mode is killing me it's not possible always to type in landscape mode.

Why downvote? It's a good question. Not everyone has small dingers

Not everyone types with their dingers. :)

No. SwiftKey doesn't have a 9-key mode.

Oh. Any hope for guys like me with big fingers?

If you want to use swiftkey than try setting the key height in advanced or get a bigger phone. If other keyboards are fine than try 'thumb keyboard'.

The phone is Galaxy S2 :). I will try that trick with the height. Will get back to you

you could try ToucPal Keyboard:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cootek.smartinputv5


text:
Connect an Android tablet to ethernet
I use tablet with Android in a professional environment and the it department doesn't accept to install wifi.
My tablet need to synchronise with CSV file on a LAN share.
I'm looking for solutions. Is it possible to connect a tablet on ethernet (possibly with builtin firmware)? If yes, which model?
I looked for solutions and I found some interesting links:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1274656 / a pack to add ethernet support to Asus
http://www.sosandroid.fr/forumAndroid/topic1980.html Iconia Tab a500
http://discuz-android.blogspot.fr/2011/07/step-by-step-to-enable-lan-access-for.html Motorola Xoom

Does someone have experience with this? I prefer avoid root my tablet or use a custom firmware or launch some custom command when connected to the network, but if no Android tablet come with this feature built in, I would be willing to root it.
Alternate solution:  connect the tablet to the PC with USB and access the LAN share located on the computer (it was possible with Windows Mobile) and maybe access the whole network.
I own a Galaxy Tab 8.9 and the best would be to find a solution with that tablet.

What about connecting a laptop to the LAN by ethernet, then hosting a private wireless connection on the laptop that your Android device can use? Once you enable connection sharing in Windows, the connected Android device can access all LAN shares. Just make sure the hosted wireless network is encrypted strongly and secured with a password. You can also host a Bluetooth network on your laptop (a little harder to set up, but shorter range) or simply use USB pass-through.

I'm looking for USB Ethernet for Samsung Note 10.1 2014 edition and this looks possible:
http://www.bobjgear.com/which-tablets-support-ethernet.html

Confirmed! :) After ROOT and lite network configuration we run LAN over USB OTG cable with Edimax EU-4207 adapter.
Samsung SM-P600, Android 4.4.2 Kitkat.

How to make Ethernet work on Android over OTG?

i found that device https://sites.google.com/site/bobjgear/Android-Ethernet-Adapter
I think it is the solution. If you have some specific tablet like Xoom you can use ethernet with that specific adapter

You've mentioned that you own a Samsung Galaxy Tab, and you've provided a link marked in red where it reads: THIS ADAPTER DOES NOT WORK WITH: Samsung Tablets' accessory 30-pin-to-USB adapter is not compatible.. Can you elaborate on how does this answered your question?

The customer can buy the product I specify. (In the beginning of my question : "if yes, which model ?". And the best would be to use Galaxy Tab 8.9 but it wasn't mandatory. Sorry if it wasn't clearly specified.

Your Galaxy tab 8.9 connectivity specifications don't include wired Ethernet:
╔════════════════════════╦══════════════════════╗
║ Connectivity           ║                      ║
╠════════════════════════╬══════════════════════╣
║ WiFi                   ║ WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n  ║
║ USB                    ║ USB 2.0 H/S          ║
║ Bluetooth              ║ Bluetooth 3.0        ║
╚════════════════════════╩══════════════════════╝

To solve your issue a simple USB to Ethernet adapter would suffice, but as pointed out on the first comment on this answer, your device uses a proprietary connector, so an initial adapter is required:
Samsung Galaxy Tab™ USB & SD Connection Kit

Another pertinent issue as mentioned, relating an Android driver and the support for USB to Ethernet adapters, but this Plugable USB 2.0 10/100 Ethernet Adapter (ASIX AX88772 Chipset), as mentioned on their support forum might help you.

From Amazon:
Plugable USB 2.0 to 10/100 Fast Ethernet LAN Network RJ45 Adapter (ASIX AX88772 chipset)

The Galaxy Tab line doesn't use regular USB type A ports, they have a proprietary connector. The above will not work on that device without some kind of adapter, and even if it could plug in there's really no guarantee that Android would have the drivers to support it (as the links in the OP's question illustrate).

well I understood that I can use an adapter to convert the samsung proprietary port and I understood that I can compile a new driver but it sound like complicated for my need ...

I am also facing the same problem, and here is what I discovered until now. Some tablets do allow an ethernet port (they even have the port itself). Mostly you will have to buy an ethernet adpter (RJ45) to use it through the USB port, and an mini (or micro) USB adapter to connect to the tablet. Be careful to buy the RJ45 adapter that fits to the tablet's chipset. Otherwise, it will not work.
Those are the ones I know:

Ainol Fire dual core (not rooted - only w/ original firmware): out of stock at the manufacturer
Onda V972 (still under manufacture's portfolio)

Hope this helps.


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Galaxy S2 ICS 4.0.3 Wi-Fi connecting but not able to browse
In my new Galaxy GT-I9100 Android version 4.0.3 everything expect WI-Fi is  working fine. When I am connecting my wireless it's getting connected, but not able to browse the internet. I tried changing from DHCP to Static IP Address, restarted mobile/Wi-Fi router, removed the battery and checked, it's working for only a few minutes and again the same issue.

Have you enabled the MAC Filter on your Router?
If you've then you should disable it or enter the MAC Adress of your S2 in the Routerconfig.


text:
Installing USB driver for Micromax A50
I have to install USB driver for Micromax A50 .
I have google USB driver installed through SDK Manager, but need a USB driver specifically for this device. To install this USB driver I think, I need PC suite. From where can I get this ?
My goal is to install USB driver for Micromax A50, so that it gets detected in the Dalvik Debug Monitor.

This link is the official location to download User Manuals, Service Guides, Driver Software, PC Suites for Micromax devices.

Although I couldn't find anything useful there, here's the Micromax pc suite 1.08 link.
This will download the file "installer_micromax_pc_suite.exe", that once you've executed on your windows OS, it will download the PC Suite from the Micromax servers to a folder on your computer (more or less 60Mb).

This is the Micromax phone suite 2.0944.0 link that's more recent than the PC Suite.
It leads to the same file, and the installation folder that gets created on your computer is the same.

After having the folder on your desktop, just run "PhoneSuite.exe", having your phone connected to your computer.
Product Page, direct link to drivers and user manual:

Micromax A50 Superphone Ninja

Micromax A50 Drivers

Micromax A50 usermanual

It's Easy, Download the Drivers from the Site Micromax A50 Superphone Ninja  Drivers A50 UnZip in Safe Location. Connect your Mobile With 'Debugging Enabled' Right Click on  'My Computer' >> Select 'Manage' >> Device Driver >> Find your Mobile as in the below Image

Right Click on your Device >> Update Driver >> Select 'Browse My Computer for Driver Software' >> Point to the Unzipped Location >> Enable 'Include SubFolders' >> Ignore any Warnings, you are Done.
If you are Using 64-Bit you Cannot install Drivers Provided by them Directly, as they are not Signed. You can Google & find How to sign Drivers Manually

*All Device Drivers can be installed the same way if Windows cannot install Automatically.


text:
How to upgrade to Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) for an ASUS Transformer TF300 or TF201?

Possible Duplicate:
When will my device get the Android 4.1 update (Jelly Bean)?

If the Android device is a tablet but not a phone -- such as for ASUS Tranformer TF300 -- then how can the device be upgraded to Android 4.1?

the question deserves a -2 vote?

The same way as the phone would be: you have to wait for your manufacturer (in this case ASUS) releases an OTA update.
Android JellyBean hasn't been released yet - source and updates for Google Nexus devices will be released on July 15th, so update for your tablet probably wont be available for at least a month.
Of course the other option is rooting and installing a 3rd party image, however I strongly advise against it unless you know what you are doing. And even those images wont be available until Google releases the source on July 15th.


text:
Samsung Galaxy Note does not boot after ICS update
I've just installed Android 4.0.3 ICS onto my Samsung Galaxy Note with 2.3.6. The installation was done by wifi via official installer. I did not download anything specifically, just got a popup with something like "Do you want to upgrade to 4.0.3?" After answering 'yes', it downloaded some files over wifi, and restarted the phone.
But the restart didn't go well. I can see the initial Samsung animation, but after that the text "Samsung" keeps flashing in the center of the screen and nothing happens. I left it for a couple of hours - no changes. I tried rebooting and even remove battery - the same thing, it does not boot.
I have never rooted the device or replaced the ROM.
What can I do? How can I enter recovery mode or something? I tried to enter safe mode by tapping menu button while booting - didn't work.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1658440
enter recovery and try to wipe data then restart. what you describe is a bootloop after rom update, wiping your data should work.
hope you made a backup!

were you rooted?

I think if he was rooted the OTA kies wouldn't update

Holding Volume Up + Home + Power buttons while turning the phone on should boot it into recovery mode, where as @svarog suggests you can do a wipe.

@svarog, jlehenbauer, Chahk:
Thanks for your help. I wasn't rooted. Successfully entered recovery mode, then wiped all user data. Then rebooted. Didn't work, the same bootloop occurs.
What should I do next?

I would suggest flashing the stock ICS (or Gingerbread, if you prefer) ROM via Odin.  Full instructions here.

Get the official image from http://www.sammobile.com/firmware/ (search for "N7000" and select the download for the appropriate region.)
Download and install the USB drivers (for 32 bit or 64 bit Windows)
Download the Odin tool.
Extract the contents of the downloaded ROM and place it somewhere on your PC.
Reboot the phone into Download mode (Volume Down+Home+Power buttons.)
Run Odin and connect the phone to the PC via USB.  Odin should recognize the phone by showing a yellow [0:COMX] sign in one of the "ID:COM" boxes.
Select the "PDA" button and browse to the extracted TAR file.
Make sure that only two boxes are checked in odin - Auto Reboot and F.Reset Time.
Click "Start".

This should refresh the phone with a brand new OS and all prerequisites.

With the phone off, press power then let go and press and hold home and menu while it boots up.


text:
Word Suggestions not working after ICS on AT&T Galaxy S 2
I recently updated to ICS on my AT&T Galaxy S 2 but since then the word suggestions has been working intermittently even though it is turned on while using Swype keyboard. Is anyone else facing this problem?

My wife's AT&T-branded SGS2 (running CM9 nightly builds) is having the same issue with Swype's suggestions disappearing from time to time.  She has to go into Swype settings and toggle that setting off and back on again to get it back.  Strange, but I have not had this happen on my Galaxy Nexus (also running CM9 nightly builds.)


text:
How to root the Xperia Mini ST15i
I searched it a while and found some articles regarding Xperia Mini X10 also on XDA but I couldn't understand them easily. So I want help from you geeks who can give me the lighted way with simple steps to root my phone.
I want a step by step guide about to root this model. I'm a not much familiar with this technology so please guide me through some detailed answer.

Please see this - http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/1184/how-do-i-root-my-device/1185#1185

@t0mm13b check out my answer.

Rooting 4.0.4 build version 4.1.B.0.587 & 4.1.B.0.531 ICS ST15i
For this I have tried many threads and finally got the steps for this and its very easy for me and will be for you after following this. I decided to post it as an answer to help out the other who don't familiar with the rooting........here is the procedure to root the Xperia Mini ST15i which has build version 4.1.B.0.587 with ICS.

First of all you have to download the flashtool.
Now download the stock kernel of ST15i.
Download the rootable kernel of ST18i.
Rooting Toolkit.

After downloading these tools and kernels now you have to follow these instruction....
1: First of all go to Phone settings>Developer options>USB debugging and mark it check
2: Now again go to phone settings>Xperia>connectivity settings>MSC mode and set it MSC mode, be sure you have not set the MTP mode.
Optional Phone settings>Display>screen timeout set it to at least 10 min (IMO its worth to set it 10 min).
3: Install the flashtool which will install in the C: drive. After installing it go to the following path

C:\flashtool\firmwares

4: Now delete all existed kernels/files in this folder and copy&paste the kernels which have you downloaded for ST15i & ST18i
5: Now click on flashtool.exe for 32-bit OS and flashtool64.exe for 64-bit OS. Now click on the flash icon for flash the kernel and select the Flashmode and click OK as shown in the screen shot below.

and select the kernel of ST18i which has the name ray in falshtool and click OK.

After clicking OK a guide window will appear and ask you to

Switch off your phone
Connect your phone with USB while hold the volume down key (Guide
  shows the method for other devices while ST15i has to hold the volume
  down key)

If your phone driver installs successful then its good but if not don't worry go to C:\flashtool\drivers and run the exe and select the Flashmode drivers

May be Windows will prompt you to not install these drivers but install them anyway and reconnect the phone while hold the volume down key. After flashing the kernel it will restart phone automatically. The screen will be blank/black don't worry its normal. Now close the flashtool its very important otherwise rootkit will not work properly.
Now extract the rooting toolkit in the C:\ drive, if antivirus prompt you it as virus please turn off it its a false one while my ESET Smart security doesn't give any virus report in this.
Now connect your phone while it would be blank/balck screen don't worry its normal and you can root it though, and run the runme.bat file. It will start the root process, your phone will reboot automatically but it would be still blank/black screen and when it will say All Done! on your command line you are done. Now disconnect your phone and pull off the battery and put it back(as you can't shut down it when your screen is black ;-)).
Now open the flashtool again and flash the stock kernel of ST15i and now enjoy the rooted phone. For check if you have rooted your phone successful there is an app installed superuser on your phone or you can download the Go backup/Titanium Backup to check out its rooted or not.
Following link will help you to root GB and ICS too.
How To Root 4.0.3 & How to root 2.3 ( Gingerbread )


text:
Is there a way I can use a Galaxy Note on Virgin Mobile?
I want to know if it is possible to use a Samsung Galaxy Note on Virgin Mobile's network.  If so how would I go about setting it up?  Virgin doesn't currently offer the Note, so I can't just buy it from them.  So would buying an unlocked version and calling Virgin's customer service to activate the phone on their network work?

What are you asking for? Can you re-edit your question to make it clearer :)

@t0mm13b Are the edits clearer?

Makes more sense :) Just realized by looking at Chahk's answer below, is your Galaxy Note CDMA radio based? I would have thought there'd be a CDMA based version of the Note? :o

@t0mm13b I don't have a Galaxy Note.  I was just thinking about getting one.

Not in the USA. Virgin Mobile USA's network is CDMA, while the Galaxy Note is a GSM phone.
Virgin Mobile UK is a GSM network, so Galaxy Note will work on it.  Although depending on whether the phone and the carrier use the same frequencies for 3G, you may only get 2G speeds.

Well that sucks.  The Galaxy Note looks awesome.

Rumors are that because original GNote sold so well, Samsung is readying a Galaxy Note 2 for this fall.  Hopefully they will release it on more carriers this time around.

Yes, I saw the tweet about the Gnote2 coming out later on this autumn... http://www.gsmarena.com/exclusive_galaxy_note_2_to_have_55_screen_remains_narrower_than_original_note-news-4455.php

Yeah, I heard about it as well.  Hopefully they make a CDMA version.


text:
HTC Desire - Problem writing to /system
I have an HTC Desire HD Android device. I rooted it with SuperOneClick. I get a # prompt in terminal. adb remount fails. I'm able to remount /system with
mount -o rw,remount /dev/block/mmcblk0p25 /system

I can now make changes to /system.
The problem is that my changes are erased when I reboot the phone. This is true even if I create a small dummy file, e.g. derf.txt
Also any new apps that I install go in /data/app while the pre-installed apps are in /system/app.
Output of mount is:
mount
rootfs / rootfs ro,relatime 0 0
tmpfs /dev tmpfs rw,relatime,mode=755 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,relatime,mode=600 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,relatime 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw,relatime 0 0
/dev/block/mmcblk0p25 /system ext3 rw,relatime,errors=continue,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/block/mmcblk0p26 /data ext3 rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,errors=continue,data=o
rdered 0 0
/dev/block/mmcblk0p27 /cache ext3 rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,errors=continue,data=
ordered 0 0
/dev/block/mmcblk0p28 /devlog ext3 rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,errors=continue,data
=ordered 0 0
none /acct cgroup rw,relatime,cpuacct 0 0
tmpfs /mnt/asec tmpfs rw,relatime,mode=755,gid=1000 0 0
tmpfs /app-cache tmpfs rw,relatime,size=8192k,mode=755,gid=1000 0 0
none /dev/cpuctl cgroup rw,relatime,cpu 0 0
/data/d /data/d debugfs rw,relatime 0 0
/dev/block/vold/179:33 /mnt/sdcard vfat rw,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,
uid=1000,gid=1015,fmask=0702,dmask=0702,allow_utime=0020,codepage=cp437,iocharse
t=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 0
/dev/block/vold/179:33 /mnt/secure/asec vfat rw,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noexec,rela
time,uid=1000,gid=1015,fmask=0702,dmask=0702,allow_utime=0020,codepage=cp437,ioc
harset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 0
tmpfs /mnt/sdcard/.android_secure tmpfs ro,relatime,size=0k,mode=000 0 0
#

Has anyone seen this? Can you explain why my changes get wiped out when I reboot the phone?
Thank you very much!

Sounds like its temporary rooted for the duration of handset on, and when reboot, changes are lost.

have to agree with @t0mm13b. try flashing a rooted kernel instead

I really want to avoid having to flash a new kernel.

This actually sounds to me like your bootloader is locked. Did you use any kind of S-OFF tool after rooting? I don't think SuperOneClick does that for you.

@user1491924 why? Rooting does not necessarily imply voiding the warranty, rather more so, unlocking the bootloader does. If that's what your suggestively implying as to why you have it temporarily rooted. :)

I think you'll find that manufacturers and carriers will tell you rooting voids your warranty :P.  That said I agree with eldarerathis, it sounds like the bootloader is locked and a kernel won't do anything.  Also any new apps that I install go in /data/app while the pre-installed apps are in /system/app. <-- completely normal.

Thank you. I used gfree to change to S-OFF and now it persists the changes :-)

Instead of
mount -o rw,remount /dev/block/mmcblk0p25 /system

try
mount -o rw,remount /system

This gives an error mount -o rw,remount /system
Usage: mount [-r] [-w] [-o options] [-t type] device directory

is this in adb or a device terminal, out of curiosity?

The problem is (was) that HTC apply a software write protection to mmc partitions, some workaround exist (wp_mod.ko) but being a kernel module isn't handy.
ps: on old HTC 2.3.x the corrent syntax for mount need both the device and the mount point.


text:
Sprint Galaxy Nexus stuck in boot-loop
I have a stock Sprint Galaxy Nexus device. This device is unrooted, I have made no changes to the OS / Rom whatsoever.
Today this device froze, it was showing a completely black screen except for the system bar at the bottom of the screen (with back, home, and the app tabs button) None of these buttons would respond to any input. Nor did the power button have any effect.
It sat in this state for several minutes. Eventually I pulled he battery, upon re-inserting it and turning the device back on it booted up all the way but shortly after the boot was complete it just started rebooting again without warning. This happened several times (enough that I feel it would have gone on forever if I had not intervened)
My question is: how do I recover my Galaxy Nexus device so that it can get out of this boot-loop that it is stuck in. This seems to be the same issue that was faced in this question: Galaxy Nexus Suddenly restarts but there is no real resolution given there.

To fix my device I did the following:

pull the battery to get the device to stay off (if you are quick you
might be able to hold the power button and select shut down before it
reboots)
While the device is off hold both volume buttons and the power button. This will bring up a bootloader menu
Use the volume buttons to change selection to "Recovery Mode" Press Power button to select
Once there is an Android guy with an exclamation on the screen press Volume Up+Power at the same time. I had to try a few times to get it to work. Seems like you have to hit them in just the right way.
This will bring you to another menu that you navigate with volume buttons and select with power. Choose "Factory reset"
Wait several minutes for the reset to complete. Once it is done select reboot.
At this point my device booted back up fine but was still stuck in a boot loop. I panicked slightly
Get the device to the Off state again. Either by pulling the battery or holding power and selecting shut down from the menu quickly while it is actually on. I went with the latter this time, though I did have to be quick about it to not be interrupted by a reboot.
Press the power button to begin turning the device on
When you see the "Google" logo press and hold the volume down button. Continue holding the volume down button until the device is fully up and running. You should see "Safe mode" in the lower left corner.
While in safe mode my device did not reboot itself. I took this opportunity to complete all of the device setup menus
once done setting up the device I turned it off and back on in the normal manner
once it came back up it was no longer stuck in boot-loop.

Note: I factory reseted the device because it isn't the phone I carry and it had nothing I cared about on it. If you are having this issue with your real phone I suggest trying safe mode before resetting as the actual reset didn't seem to fix it.


text:
Galaxy Note and stock Google Calendar app
How can I install stock ICS Google Calendar app to a Galaxy Note with original ICS ROM? I found Calendar.apk and CalendarProvider.apk on the net and tried to install. According to the install these are system apps and I was not able to replace the existing ones that I can't understand because there's no stock calendar on the phone.

Google has released Google Calendar as separate app officially on Google Play.

I've found a slightly modified, adapted version on Google Play that works well:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.concentriclivers.calendar


text:
Problem accessing Internet in 4.0 ICS
For some strange reason, my Android 4.0 ICS tablet is no longer able to access the Internet.
First, via wifi, it could'n connect to two distinct networks.
Then later, I tried to connect it to home router via dhcp.  It could not.
As for wifi, the tablet gets an IP number.
I don't know how this happened, if it is a route problem or a dns problem or other.
Tried to install a terminal to check a route command, but it is not available (at least to me).
So I ask what can I do to solve this issue?  Restore original configuration?  Other?

ICS has issues on some devices with Wireless-N. My Acer A500 works properly, but my 2 Xperia phones kill my router instantly if I use the N-draft protocol.
So, try deactivating N-draft mode in your Android device or your router, then it sohuld work.


text:
Dell Streak 7 stuck on 2.2.2 ("read only" bug?)
I ordered two DS7s.  One came with 3.x and one came with 2.2.2 and is pretty adamant about there not being an update available.  So I decided to do it myself.  I've got Clockwork Mod Recovery 3.0.2.0 (also tried many other versions) and I've tried numerous different ROMs.  I got two to "work".  They went through the motions, said formatting, copying, etc.  Looked like it worked perfectly.  When I reboot, it's still 2.2.2 with all my previous settings.  I've done this multiple times.  It is rooted.  I've also done numerous factory resets before and after flashing the "working" ROMs.
Suggestions?

Strange that this is happening despite you having CWM persist through it.  Does /system/etc/install-recovery.sh exist on your device?


text:
Not seeing any notifications in notifications bar except srange icon
Recently I started seeing this strange icon in my notifications bar (see screenshot). At the same time, I stopped seeing any notification icons in the bar on top. I still get audibly notified, and they're there if I pull the notifications window down. But the notification bar remains as in the screenshot.
Any ideas what this might be?

The little arrow with the - means that you have status bar notifications disabled, which is why you're no longer seeing them. If you pull down the notification shade and then swipe the buttons to the right (I believe it's to the right anyway, check both directions) there should be a toggle to re-enable them:


text:
Can't scroll using hands - Are there other options?
I am physically disabled. Just got a Vizio  tablet this week can do much more than expected using mouth held stylus.
up/down scrolling is a problem. Is there a honeycomb setting or app that will give  me "previous" and "next" buttons or scroll bars?
Other ideas welcome.

Some keyboards like Swiftkey have the option to place arrow keys on the keyboard, which will then allow for scrolling on web pages and such. They also have a free one month trial if you want to try it before you spend money :)

Hacker's Keyboard with its english completion dictionary is also quite useful, it includes arrow keys and is completely free (and open source as well). It is a full featured 5 row keyboard with many features for power users. You might want to give this a try also.

That's a nice keyboard, useful for faffing around Terminal, but the arrow keys are a bit cumbersome on 7" tablet. In fact, what size it the tablet in question the OP asked...?

you can resize the keys by the way

@ce4 ahhhh..... :) thought it was fixed... meh :P

You haven't mentioned you Vizio Table version, but assuming that it is Vizio 8 (VTAB1008), I've contacted their support team, through the Live Chat:
Conversation log:

Evan: Thank you for contacting VIZIO Live Chat, the home of Entertainment Freedom for All.  This is Evan in South Dakota. Have you ever contacted us before?
Salustiano Silva: Nope!
Evan: To better assist you, I would like to get you registered for technical support so I can log this case. Could I start off by first getting your full address including City, State and zip code (physical address, not PO Box), and then could you give me your serial number, date of purchase, purchase location, and price please?
Salustiano Silva: I don't know if my message was clear, but the VTAB1008 isn't mine, I'm just trying to help out be asking you is such device support any sort of usb keypad devices...
Evan: there is a wireless android based keyboard that Walmart carries
Salustiano Silva: Nice, a light at the end of the tunnel, can you point me in the right direction?
Salustiano Silva: I mean, there's many there... don't know the right one that actually works with the VTAB1008!
Evan: Let me check on this for you.
Salustiano Silva: Thank you very much!
Evan: You are welcome
Evan: Logitech Bluetooth Tablet Keyboard for Android
Model#: 920-003390
Salustiano Silva: Checking it now... As per a more technical issue, using the wireless keyboard, the on-screen keyboard doesn't appear right? Also, ussing arrow keys, we can scroll what's on-screen, am I correct?
Evan: That is correct.
Salustiano Silva: Thank you for your help! I'll go along and pass the message.
Evan: Is there anything else that I can assist you with today?
Salustiano Silva: Believe not! If this works, its all good :) Tks!
Evan: Thank you for contacting VIZIO Chat Support!  If you need our assistance again in the future you can contact us by Chat, Email, and Phone service.  That information is found on  http://www.vizio.com.  Case number is 2293020. Have a great day!
Evan has disconnected.

The product recommended is the Logitech Bluetooth Tablet Keyboard for Android:

Can be found at:

Amazon - Logitech Tablet Keyboard for Android 3.0+ (920-003390)
Walmart - Logitech Bluetooth Tablet Keyboard for Android

Reviews:

Android Central | Bluetooth keyboard review: Logitech keyboard for Android 3.0 tablets
AndroidGuys | Logitech Bluetooth Keyboard for Android 3.0+ - Review

As per the chat I'm told that:

the arrow keys can be used to scroll documents, web pages, etc;
the suggested wireless keyboard replaces the on-screen keyboard, thus allowing you to work with it on all the necessary input actions.

I hope this helps you out!

nice one Sir! :) Glad to see that answered quickly :)

After a large search, I'm really amazed that close to no solutions are found to help physically disabled persons. :( That's when it occurred to me... the Vizio customer support might help...but when the support guy asked for a registration, I was fearing that I wouldn't be able to help out. :)

Yeah, its sort of crappy that they ask, name, age, state, code, zip code, registration number, serial number, what-not numbers... it can be enough to drive you up the walls! :D

but yeah, I am amazed too, I developed a soft keyboard on Android for a mate who is dyslexic, and loved doing that hence my answer below... in fact am putting finishing touches to the source and will be uploading to github for anyone to try :)

Hard to believe, I did think about text to actions thing, similar to what's already there TTS service (its in accessibility in there in the settings)...

My email address is on my profile, send the github link when available! I'm interested and curious :)

Sure, will do that :)

I have a Targus bluetooth keypad that I can connect to my Tablet/Phone and use it as a number pad. It has a Num Lock switch so it can also be used to input up/down/right/left and PageUp/PageDown.
It however depends on your device if your onscreen keyboard vanishes when you connect to a bluetooth device or not (my ICS CyanogenMod9 does hide the onscreen keyboard).
Price is OK, I got that for around 15EURO. Not sure how the availability is at your place. Just search amazon, et al. but be sure you get a bluetooth model and not one with a USB wireless adapter (like most Logitech accessory).
PS: The media keys also work nicely.

What you're looking for is an overlay with buttons to do the job, from what I can find here, is this, over on XDA. Button Key Saviour. (One Caveat Emptor - you need root - but that's XDA for you)
If this does not do the job for you - please do let me know and I can program up an app that will show the page up/page down keys.
So feel free to contact me anytime :)
Edit: I have amended this answer to include the github linky to the source.

Have cobbled together an app to do it, but there's no way of directing/injecting scroll events into a top-most active window that is currently shown due to the way Android was developed. That is a good thing - to prevent a malware-jinxed app from hi-jacking an app outside of it. But I have the source if anyone is interested in trying to work it out :)

If you are using an Android device , you may check my app "Smart Scroll Tools" , which brings the possibility to start scrolling by a simple click (stylus) on a button; the scrolling continues until you touch (stylus) the screen again, and all directions are supported.
Once you install the app , this feature will be available as a system-wide functionality.
Here is the link Smart Scroll Tools


text:
Android apps keep crashing with android.database.sqlite.SQLiteDiskIOException
Starting yesterday, my Galaxy s2 device running Cyanogenmod 9 started to crash with android.database.sqlite.SQLiteDiskIOException exception for every running app. Does it means that my phone is dead or I can fix it?
I was using an old cyanogenmod nightly on the device, and updated to cyanogenmod 9 rc1 after the problem started just in case, and it didn't helped me at all.

Did you try a factory reset?

@MatthewRead I prefer not to do a factory reset as I do have some data on the device. I've formatted the Cache and Dalvik Cache from the recovery, though.

Report it to Cyanogenmod team. :)

Have you checked your free disk space?

I encountered exactly the same problem as yours on my Galaxy S2 with CM9 earlier this week.
I figured out it might be the problem that the internal USB storage had some error on it.
Unfortunately, formate Dalvik Cache and Cache won't fix the problem.
You can try to mount your phone onto your computer and try to fix the error using some disk check utilities, which I tried but phone freezes after mount as USB.
At last I fix the problem by doing a hard reset. So I suggest you start from trying mount your phone to your computer and do some quick backup first.
If you cannot even copy out your files, it is the problem of internal USB storage with some logical errors.

It's probably too late to help the original poster, but I had this exact same problem for the past 24 hours or so on my HTC Incredible with Cyanogenmod 7.1.0. I was consistently getting SQLiteDiskIOException errors every time I tried to start an application, including even the keyboard and crash reporters.
After stopping and uninstalling all sorts of applications, I finally happened to clear the Twitter client data through Manage Applications. It immediately solved the problem. I'm not sure if it's Twitter itself, or if clearing the data managed to tweak something else.
Anyway, something for someone to try if they run across this error. I was one step away from reinstalling the OS from scratch.


text:
Sim contacts on call screen?
Is it possible to see contacts from SIM on the incoming call screen and in SMS messages? I did only find apps for managing them.
I am using Cyanogen 7.2 (that’s Android 2.3.7) if that matters.
NOTE: I am not interested in paid apps.

"SIM Contacts" by "NEEDOM STUDIO" is a free app on the Android market that shows contacts from SIM on the incoming call screen. You have to enable the "incoming calls to remind" option for this.
I didn't find an app that shows them in the SMS or call log. I'd really like that.
Even better would be just an option in a normal contacts manager to include contacts on the SIM without having to copy them to the phone.
I like to keep my contacts on the SIM only so i can just put my SIM in my old phone (with longer battery life) and it shows all the contacts.


text:
What is the purpose of the 3rd on-screen button on a button-less phone?
I haven't used Ice Cream Sandwich yet and as far as I know, some phones (Google Nexus perhaps) don't have capacitive or hard buttons. Now as you can see below, there's 4 buttons (this was an image I found while googling).

As far as I know, the buttons are (starting from the left):

Back button
Home button
???
Menu button

I want to know what the third one is? The one that has overlapping rectangles? My phone has capacitive and I have all the above aside from that one button. I asked this just out of curiosity.

looks like the menu button, don't know about the 3 doted one

The third dotted one IS the menu button. Not the rectangle one

a little bit of dabbling the google revealed to me that this is, actually, the task manager/recent apps button

@svarog oh wow, how did you come across that info? I don't know what search tags to use when searching xD

FYI: what you called "physical soft buttons" are called capacitive buttons.

That's the "Recent Apps" button. It's alternative of long-press physical home button.
If you tap this, a scrollable screen appears containing thumbnails of suspended or closed recent apps. You can tap thumbnails to switch to apps or swipe it to discard.

But why separate that? Does holding down the "virtual" home button no longer show the recent apps? (I need to wait 3 more minutes to accept ur answer. :P)

@Shedo Ask user experience department of Google. Probably, they want to show off multitasking.. or, they want us to get to multitasking without wasting any moment by long-press.

@ShedoSurashu: that is correct, long pressing the home button no longer does anything currently. I think the UI team is discouraging long pressing in the recent versions of Android. Long pressing is horrible from usability point of view since they are not discoverable.


text:
Why does my android phone gain battery when I turn it off and on again?
When I got my new android phone (ZTE N762), I noticed something. If my phone is about halfway on battery, and I turn it off for a few hours, it will gain battery life when I turn it back on, around 5%-10%. I use this trick whenever I'm low on battery.
Does anyone know why this is?

I doubt very much that your battery is actually gaining energy, what with the conservation of energy and all that.  Instead I imagine that the meter is fairly inaccurate, and is inaccurate in a different way just after you turn on the phone, than when the phone has been running a while.


text:
Disable incoming gmail/Talk calls
I occasionally use the gmail on my computer browser to voice chat with friends, however when they call me though their gmail my device picks up the call rather then my computer. more precisely ever since I got my device and synced it to google, the "Talk" application intercepts the call, rings in, and asks to answer/reject.
how can I disable this feature so that the gmail on my computer would catch this call as it used to?


text:
Unable to send a text message
When I try to send a text message why does it go to drafts? And I still cant send the message even from drafts.

Sounds like you actually did type up your message, but hit the back key by accident, or, did not supply the number for the intended person to receive your text, which gets saved in drafts.
When you go into Messaging, you should see "(Draft)" by the message, go into that message and there should be a 'Send' button beside the text entry box where you compose the message, tap that, it should go straight away.
Try it and let us know how that goes for you. :)


text:
Android Engineering Mode
Is there a way to change between User and Eng mode on android devices? More specificity the Motorola Defy (2.2.2) and the Acer Iconia A500 (4.0.3) I need access to tools like dev tools. I dont mind if I have to root the DEFY.

What precise capabilities do you need?

Developers Tools etc

Network analysis as well

Android is designed so that development can be done on a secured device.  Build an apk set to be debuggable and you can use run-as to get a shell running as the apk userid.

Are you referring to developer tools for Dalvik application, NDK application, or for modifying the OS itself?

there are several network analysis tools on the Play market, such as Shark (based on Wireshark on desktop), they do need root access.

I have root access so thats no problem. I just need monitoring software for the network, I wanted to use the one with ADT but I guess that's not happening. Thanks.

This answer may help you out for determining what's different between the modes: http://stackoverflow.com/a/14767336/198348

No you cannot, that is done at build/compile of the source of the said Android version whatever that may be.
When the source gets compiled via
. build/envsetup.sh

This is setting up the environment, and that reads in the potential devices via BoardConfig.mk within each device/product directory.
Its when lunch gets executed, the menu shows like this
$ lunch

You're building on Linux

Lunch menu... pick a combo:
     1. full-eng
     2. full_x86-eng
     3. simulator
     4. zte_blade-eng
     5. zte_blade-userdebug

Which would you like? [full-eng]

The above is the example of building the ROM for the Zte Blade, notice how userdebug and eng is prefixed!

While this is how it is set, it's not necessarily fully fixed to that setting.  Changing some of the ro. system properties in the built image - or even setting ones that haven't been set yet on a running device - can substantially alter the behavior of the system.  The results may not however be stable.

So there possibly is a way to change this?

Yes, if you can write to arbitrary flash partitions.  But you don't necessarily need to change the "mode" of the system, it may be enough to alter the specific things keyed to that which you want, for example install some tool for obtaining a root shell.


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Object reference not set to an instance of an object. SuperOneClick
Im trying to root my Motorola Defy (not plus) and when going to root it with SuperOneClick (1.9.5) I get Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
What can I do?

You file a bug report.

That is a very old version you have there, latest is v2.3.3, so that's probably fixed by now. Why are you using that specific version?

The site that hosted super one click to download you had to go through billions of adds -sigh- this was one I got from XDA

The problem was a bug that this specific version had, if you are using this specific version I strongly advise you to update.


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Gingerbread,HoneyComb,ICS ROM for Galaxy S

Possible Duplicate:
Where can I find stock or custom ROMs for my Android device?

I  have recently purchased a galaxy S with Froyo to do some tests on my App. I would like to upgrade to use ROM like Gingerbread, Honeycomb,ICS. I have searched the web and I have found many ROMs but i can't tell if they are trusted or not (no bugs, no low performance..). I would appreciate if someone points me to some ROMs that he had used before for these Android version. I know that I can use Nandroid Backup if I disliked one tested ROM. Does some Roms able to turn my phone out of service?

ROM recommendations are off-topic, sorry, the question I've linked is the closest we get.  Check out our [FAQ].

However this is a specific ROM recommendation?

@SmartLemon those are even worse as they're subjective and become obsolete fast.

But isn't a question meant to be specific? And not so broad that the user will be overwhelmed?

First of all, do not install HoneyComb on the galaxy s. HoneyComb is designed for tablets, not phones.
Secondy most of the roms on XDA are good, just check the comments and see whats wrong with them.
Check out this post here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1398223 seems pretty legit, only a couple of bugs that hardly matter (check below)
Bugs:
Lockscreen occasionally does not react to touch
Formatting external sd formats internal
Facebook sync pictures are low res(but at least it works)probably not fixable from our end


text:
FM radio for Xperia arc S with CyanogenMod?
How do I listen to radio on an Xperia arc S?
I use CyanogenMod (version 7.2.0), which does not include an FM radio app.

Which version of CM are you referring to?

You could probably grab the app off the original ROM if it's not tied to other system services, though there is the question of whether it would rely on drivers not present in CM.

@t0mm13b CyanogenMod 7.2.0, but i don't think it is relevant.

@Matthew how do i do it?

The FreeXperia team have added FM radio in their latest CM nightlies, and it seems to work.

Which nightly is this? CM9? I tried cm-7-20131222-FXP-anzu.zip, but this does doesn't include support for the FM radio.

I am using FXP231-cm-10-20130805-UNOFFICIAL-anzu, anything newer should work. Don’t recall any CM7 builds having FM support.

I tried a CM9 build where I got the radio to work, but I would prefer CM7 as it's much less resource hungry. I did find a CM7.2 build for the Xperia Mini (MiniCM) that includes FM radio support, but haven't managed to get it working on my Arc.

@Brent IIRC CM7 was already discontinued by the time they got the FM radio working.

The programming support for the FM radio service that is in place within CyanogenMod 7.2, is probably not compatible with the chipset used in Xperia arc S. Hence the omission of the FM radio, it supports only Broadcom BCM4325, Silicon Industry 4708 and 4709, and lastly Texas Instrument WL1271.
Looking at pdadb.net for the specification of the handset - the chipset is not documented, so it's proprietary in which case CyanogenMod 7.2 has no support for it, hence the omission of the FM radio.
The best bet would be to find the original stock ROM dump of that here on XDA, extract the radio app (could be called FMRadio.apk) from it and push that across to your handset.
Edit: As confirmed by the OP, there are dead links galore on XDA. However, I found another linky that may do it (Post #72). (That's err... ICS ROM dump... it might be worth a try.)
Edit 2: Here's the radio stuff, you need to install it in this fashion.
After unzipping the archive, there are two files, FmRxService.apk, and Radio.apk. Plug in the cable to the handset and enter the commands,
adb install FmRxService.apk
adb install Radio.apk

The radio should now appear in your applications drawer, fingers crossed and good luck. There is no guarantee it will work either...

dead link (6 more to go...)

@kinokijuf Let me check for you :)

the ICS apps obviusly don’t work

Do a bit of google-fu to find the right ROM for your handset, am sure there's mirrors of it lying around :) or repackaged in a glorified variant of stock ROM over on XDA.

actually, am curious, since I have an Xperia Mini 2011 model, would that work on your Arc?... I can pull it off it if you want for you to try out?

trying won’t hurt…

It shows something like this:
pkg: /data/local/tmp/FmRxService.apk
Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_MISSING_SHARED_LIBRARY]

Right, (you are rooted?), if so, try this final attempt... adb push FmRxService.apk /system/app and adb push Radio.apk /system/app, other than that no can do :)

Tried, it didn't work.


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Cleaning the mess in the contacts
I am trying to put some order in my contact list. The situation is as follows: I have first imported my contacts from Gmail and enabled sync, but I have set the phone as the default contact repository (until now), so that new contacts were saved on the phone.
The result is as follows. I have some contacts on phone only, some merged between phone and Gmail, some Gmail only. I would like to have all contacts Gmail only, wihtout duplicates, except for some occasional contacts I want to keep on the phone (say, the plumber).
It is easy, though tedious and error prone, to go through the contacts that live only on the phone, since they do not show the Gmail icon in the address list. I can then manually import them in Gmail and remove the contact on the phone.
My problem is that I don't know how to find out which contacts have some information on the phone and some in Gmail, since they appear as Gmail only in the list. I have to actually open each one to find out. Moreover, once I find out, I would like to be able to copy the information that is on the phone to the Gmail account, so that I can sort the mess in Gmail and remove the contact on the phone.

What is the simplest way to reorganize the contacts so as to move all the information on Gmail?

If it is relevant, I am on Android 2.2

Just FYI, you can rollback (restore) your contacts to any date up to 30 days ago very easily in case there goes something wrong: https://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1069522

I'm working from memory here as I'm now running ICS on my phone so I may be a bit off here. If you go into your phonebook settings, you should be able to stop it showing your gmail contacts.
Now, to get them into gmail contacts just do the following. Go to your phonebook, this will now just be showing you the contacts stored on your phone. You should be able to export this as a VCF file. Copy this file to your computer. Now just log into your gmail account, go to contacts and then import the VCF from there. Then delete all the phone contacts and re-sync your phone to gmail.
You may still have to do a bit of merging if you have part of a contact saved in gmail and saved in the phone memory but this will take most of the hassle out of getting them into gmail.

Unfortunately, this does not preserve the pictures. Still, I think this is the best way for now

Thanks, it actually helped!
HOW TO CLEAN THE MESS IN GINGERBREAD CONTACTS.
THE PROBLEM: some contacts were from google, some from phone only, some from skype and some from facebook. So the main problem was that there were contacts which were on the phone but not on google. More over it merged contacts from different services and sometimes incorrectly.
I just wanted a universal set google contacts and nothing else.
THE FIX:
backup the contacts. In contacts screen > menu> export > sd card.
Unsynk from google and all other services(Skype, facebook): settings> accounts> click account> unsynk contacts only.
delete all contacts: contacts> menu> delete> select all> delete.
turn the sync back on.
Get an error message - sync has problems.
Find this message in the slide down are (how do you name it?) - you grab the top of the screen, slide it down  - there are messages.
Click on the error message.
It says "too many deletes."
Pick to undelete google contacts.
Done.
RESULT: only google contacts are shown.
Also, in settings, somewhere, there is a setting to save all new contacts to your google account (not phone), do that.
Now all contacts are unified and under control.
Also restore the contacts from SD card (contacts>menu> import> pick the file you saved, it has 0001 in it)> this will create duplicates.
(Give the sync few minutes to upload all restored contacts to Gmail)
Go to Gmail, contact> remove duplicates, run it few times until all dups are gone.
Now it is perfect.

Please try to summarize what you are saying and try to be specific a little


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Contacts disappeared after adding new google account
I am using a Google Nexus S I9023 mobile phone (Android 4.0.4). For whatever reason my google account was deactivated. So, I registered a new one and added it to the phone.
Afterwards, 80% of the contacts in my contact list, disappeared.
What happened and how can I restore them?

You lost all your contacts as it was tied to the old one, registered a new one, then when ICS sync'd, nothing there... as it was on a newly registered account.
Question is what happened to attribute you to getting your previous Google account closed?

I have no idea! I did not do anything out of the ordinary. But all this data has to be stored somewhere else right? I can't be only linked with that account!

Wait!!! When you say deactivated did you really mean, unlinked on the handset? Can you sign on the gmail with your old account? If not, as you say, then something is definitely wrong there, you need to raise the issue with Google to find out why your account got de-activated - breach of rules, spamming, what? no idea.

The thing is like this: they deactivated my account a while ago, but I payed no attention to it, because everything was fine. Today, I said to myself that I should look into the issue and thought that it would be easier to make a new account than report the case to google. I had no idea that the data was not stored locally! So, I made a new account, deleted the old account from the settings and afterwards... 80% of the contacts were just gone! It can't be possible that all the contacts are stored only online...

That's the whole idea of Google Sync, the contacts were stored on the old account online Sorry mate, looks like you lost them!

When I restore them, is there a way to save them locally on the phone?

I suggest you re-edit your question to state that you have a backup of the contacts, and want to know how to restore :) It will make life easier for you :)

As for restoring, where was the original backup? Titanium Backup?

I don't have the backup anymore...

Okie, then why did you state When I restore them...? If you don't have the backup, you're pretty much out of luck. Unless someone can come up with a better alternative. Might be best to let this question lurk for a bit until someone has a better answer or idea to help you out... sorry :(

With "restore" I rather meant adding them manually back :(. I found an older csv contacts file and linked it to my new google account, that made thing easier.


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How to make Message app search for phone number, not just email
Even if I have the correct information on a person in the contact app, I am unable to make the "To field" in the message app find me the phone number (the auto-suggest feature). All it does is display the email information. If I click that, the message is converted to an mms-email. For instance; if i start typing out the name of a person, it will only suggest the email for that person even if that person is in the Contact list with a phone number.
So my question is: How can i make the SMS app find me the contacts phone number from my contact list? Or put differently:  Why is not the phonenumber displayed in the suggestion list just the email (even if its the SMS client)?
Background info:

I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 with Ice Cream Sandwich (4.03)
I tried the "Merge Contacts" option in the message app
If i manualy type in the number it will be correctly linked to the ongoing thread with this person.


text:
Strange text messages at five-minute intervals with no sender
So, I've been having this problem recently where I get these extremely strange text messages being sent to my phone. They have no sender associated with them and just look like a bunch of gibberish. Here is a screenshot:

Currently, I am getting the same message multiple times every 5 minutes. At first I just sort of ignored it, and one day I decided I would just go ahead and delete all the messages. As soon as I deleted them, they just kept on coming back at 5-minute intervals.
I am on Sprint on the Nexus S 4G.
My phone has also been doing other weird things lately. Sometimes when I lay it flat on a surface, it will just reboot itself constantly. I'm not sure if this is related to the text messages or not.
Also, the messages only show up in the "Messaging" app which I don't really use. They don't show up in Google Voice at all.
I actually got some of these weird messages about a month ago, however they stopped for a good while. Today, I just decided to delete them, and now they've been coming in every 5 minutes. So far I've received 32 in the span of about an hour. I have not talked to Sprint about this, and I don't believe I have been charged for them. Also, I can't reply back to these messages. If I try to reply and I hit "send", it just tells me that the message was not sent.
Factory reset the phone. The messages are still coming in.

What can I say... talk to Sprint about it and get them to carry out a network trace on that into your number to find out the source of it... nothing more I can really do to help out... :(

But you can bet your ass that the gibberish character is outside of the font's capability to display it, arabic, chinese, who knows...

one other suggestion that I can offer is this - why not post to http://reddit.com/r/Android to see if anyone would know about it, most of the posters in that sub-reddit are US based and have hummm... moaned about US carriers etc. Worth a shot to try :)

Questions for you:

Did you install an app recently?
What app did you last install?
How long was that going on for?
Have you checked with your Sprint provider? You're not getting charged for those incoming messages?

It sounds like mal-ware, but do not wish to raise alarm nor fear in you, BUT by answering my questions above to ascertain it.
Quite possibly, it sounds like a scam, if you were to reply innocently like "Who are you?" you could be charged premium rates for sending it.
As for the gibberish, its likely in a language that is not recognized by your handset hence the font shows the "gibberish" character as a result.
IF all else fails, try a factory reset the handset at last resort.
Edit: Based on your edit, it sounds like its stopped for a good while due to perhaps its hit the threshold limit of how many SMS to be stored, then when you went to delete them, more kept coming in.
The apps do seem legit.. btw :)
Would you not suggest try this, download this app called 'History Eraser' from Google Play, to wipe out the history of the SMS, just that specifically alone, and nothing else. See if that helps. If more are still coming in, then I hate saying this, factory reset the handset to clear out whatever it is that's causing the jam.

I don't remember the last app I installed so I'll just give you a list of everything I have installed. Edit: hit enter by mistake, let me finish the post

http://i.imgur.com/BbgHs.png
http://i.imgur.com/Nd2QE.png
http://i.imgur.com/W5jJZ.png
http://i.imgur.com/FsDVi.png

I have edited the original post with answers to your other questions, above are links to screenshots of apps I have installed.

Just did a factory reset on the phone. Messages still coming in...

wow! Oo thanks for the update! :o Sounds like you're being spammed by something somewhere... am surprised - very!

Try Bob's answer below and mark it correct and up-vote him if that works for you :)

Try this, it's worked for me so far: Go into messaging settings and uncheck automatically retrieve MMS. Now delete the conversation; I haven't had any problems since.

Oo Very good! What was it? MMS message coming in? or a bug with Messaging app itself?

The messages have seemed to stop coming in all of a sudden without trying this fix. I think if they come back, I'm going to go ahead and call Sprint to ask them about it. Bob, are you also a Sprint user?

Yes. Interesting.

Messages are again being sent to my Nexus S today.

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


text:
Dualboot with Boot Manager on Galaxy Nexus
I own a Samsung Galaxy Nexus (GSM/maguro), running AOKP with ROM Manager and ClockworkMod Touch Recovery installed. I want to try MIUI using Init2Winit's Boot Manager application and with the same data and settings as my AOKP install. Since the Galaxy Nexus only has a single internal memory partition, I'm afraid Boot Manager will not work properly because, as the documentation said, it is based on loading another ROM from external memory.
Now I can install MIUI to the 2nd slot in Boot Manager and have the option to wipe System, Data and Cache, but what will be wiped? Is it possible to use Boot Manager on the Galaxy Nexus?

I've used Bootmanager on my Nexus S without issue and I believe that you will be able to wipe the system, data and cache of your second slot without it affecting the original rom.
But this will be easy for you to test:
Make a nandroid backup of your phone.  Always make a nandroid backup!
Once this is done you can go crazy and try installing MIUI but make sure you install gapps too (or the miui equivilent - sorry I'm woefully inexperienced with MIUI but I'd imagine they also didn't distr the google apps with the rom) - (the last time I installed a ROM using rom manager I needed to hunt out a different version of gapps than the ones that come with CM or AOKP - something to do with these version being scripted as opposed to just flat APKs).  You need to install gapps as you'll need to have the market to install bootmanager again in order to change roms.  There is a way of doing this manually through the shell and fastbook, but it's not fun.
If anything messes up then restore your nandroid backup and you are back to where you started.
Have fun :)

Very good insights, thank you. I'll try this (hope soon, but I'm too busy), because my actual AOKP ROM is very unstable, phone is rebooting instantly and I became unhappy. Question about single internal memory partition is still open, I need to test it, if this is really solution. Pls be patient.


text:
backup MMS in android 1.6
I know there are many duplicates, but unfortunately the specifications on every software proposed to do it are very poor about

wether they support VERY OLD android versions
and wether they will backup MMS, not only SMS

I have android 1.6 on an old phone (Xperia X10), it is full of MMS (I already extracted all the SMS with myphoneexplorer), full of story, and if I update it to android 2.0...I will lose all this. I guess with the ADB driver I have access to almost all the phone memory, so can anyone tell me if there is a way to backup all the MMS, with their metadata (who sent them, when), from my old android 1.6?
It's here, somewhere in the phone memory, but how do I access it and backup everything...if possible in a readable format (even by the software, to check by myself that it has indeed copied the desired data!)?
The search is very hard, I thought I had found it with "Message Sync"...until I understood this app is only for android 2.1 or later. Always 2.something!
Thank you very much, it would help me a lot!

SMS Backup + reports to work on Android 1.5 and above and it backs up MMS. It pushes everything to your GMail account under a defined label. I've been using it for a while and it's very good.


text:
Factory reset an LG P500h
I just managed to prevent my LG P500h android phone from booting by uninstalling the home screen. I'm not a very smart man.
Now, my phone can only get to the android logo, and is totally unusable.
How do I reset the phone back to the way it was before? I've tried going into recovery mode, but I don't know how to select any of the options. All the guides that I've found said to use the "camera button", but my device doesn't have one!
Help is much appreciated at this point.

This site and this other confirm this method:

Power off device completely
Hold down the Home and Volume Down buttons
Press and hold the Power button until the device powers on
Follow the on-screen instructions to reset your device

I tried that, but after the "reset", I still don't have a home screen.

but it gets past the boot screen?

Yes.         whitespace filler

I would try installing something like ADW Launcher via the Play Store or adb (if you can get an .apk). That could get you a working launcher for now. I would try to find a stock ROM for your phone and extract the .apk for your phone, if you would like the stock launcher back.

I can't get into the play store. All interaction with my phone has to be done through the recovery screen and over USB.

install it online, via play.google.com, after you sign in with your Gmail. If you want to do it via USB, I'd suggest finding an .apk file for another launcher and installing it via ADB.

The phone is no longer jailbroken. I just "reset" it, but all it did was restore what it could - which didn't include the home screen because I uninstalled that like a damned fool.


text:
Child-proofing an Android phone?
Is there a way (an app, or a special launcher, a set of apps with instructions) that allows turning an Android phone into a child-proof "only call parents" one?
Here are my main requirements (and some possible implementation ideas I was thinking of as bullet points):

The phone's main purpose is to serve as an emergency way to contact parents etc...
Yes, I know there are special child proof phones like LG Milo - I am interested in how to turn an Android phone into that same functionality when not "unlocked".
When "locked down", the only thing a child must be able to do would be to call one of several pre-defined phone #s.

Whitelisting #s in dialer app (requiring password for non-whitelist)
or, having a custom dialer that only has "call Mom" etc... buttons with no way to dial specific phone #s; and tuning off access to Android dialer app (see item #2)

When "locked down", access to ALL non-whitelisted apps is restricted

Password protecting ALL apps not whitelisted (including of course Play Store and browser).
Or, custom Launcher that doesn't have anything but a widget for calling whitelisted #s and apps.
Or, if push comes to shove, I'm OK with ONLY phone functionality being whitelisted if no other apps can be to get this to work.

Less importantly, it's a nice-to-have if the phone can be "unlocked", perhaps via "parent" password, to allow full Android functionality without having to re-flush/reinstall etc...
This does NOT need to be genius-child-proof. E.g. if the way to unlock it is to reboot and launch Recovery mode, that's safe enough for me. The goal of locking down is mostly to cut down on accidental bad usage; and on temptation to do stuff that the phone isn't designated for in school (IOW, emergency contact method); if a child is smart enough to bypass lockdown, it's not the end of the world.

As far as what it takes to do this, I'm extremely comfortable with rooting, somewhat comfortable with flashing as a process (but less comfortable with flashing a random ROM of questionably stability, for obvious reasons); very comfortable with generic Unix commmand line; shell, Perl and C programming; but not Java or Android development. Basically, the sky's the limit technically as long as I don't have to actually write a genuine Android program

To anticipate 2 possible questions: (1) Android version and phone model don't matter - if the advice is only applicable to specific version/model I am willing to get that one as long as Verizon carries it

(2) Child's age shouldn't matter much, but assume it's someone with computer skills of an average 8-10 year old or a very bright and computer literate and hacker-minded 6 year old.

If the main purpose is to call the parents, don't you think a smartphone is overkill? I can imagine situations where you would like the child to have a computer on the go but since you are OK with having only phone functionality, a dumbphone might be more appropriate.  Also,  they're more reliable due to their longer battery life.

Also,  I don't like the idea of getting a child used to general-purpose computers being technically restricted from the start.

I can see this taking the form of a custom lock screen perhaps?

@Erik - given the cost of smartphones these days, AND the fact that Verizon just raised the line cost of a dumb phone from $10 to $30 (vs $40 for a smartphone), getting a dumb phone seems... dare I pun it... dumb :)

Plus, in classic phones, you can't lock games etc.

Activate Fixed Dialing Numbers feature from Call Settings (and, add numbers there to allow). You may need to contact your carrier. This is supported by even classic Nokia phones, so all ROMs should support it.
Kiosk lockdown the device and allow only Phone/Dialer app in Kiosk Mode. For Kiosk Mode, try searching "Kiosk" in Play Store. SureLock Kiosk Lockdown app looks great to me.

Don't forget to allow kid apps other than phone in Kiosk Mode. Happy Parenting!

"Don't forget to allow kid apps other than phone in Kiosk Mode." - as the mode is for use in school in case of emergency (and to the best of my knowledge, you aren't supposed to play apps in school  - though rules May Vary), other apps might not be advisable. I will research it though

@DVK You can exclude that sentence from the answer.. I hope, you aren't assuming it as mandatory thing of the solution.. :-)

Thanks Sachin for recommending our software. I'd like to add that you can even control the "Kiosk" settings in SureLock remotely by hosting a setting file.

@PC Can you please provide premium version to individuals? As you can see in this question, the problem isn't only limited to enterprises.

a new version for consumers/individuals will be available soon. It will allow multiple users like parents and kids to share the same tablet or phone but with different permissions and allowed set of apps

Google has Family Link which allow for some restrictions on the child's device.

Approve/disallow apps
Screen time limits
Location - find child's device

The full list of features is here: https://support.google.com/families/answer/7158477
A few limits:

Child account at 13 years can choose to leave Family Link
Website filtering is limited to Google's SafeSearch & related filtering tools.
Will still see ads

Google Family Link FAQ
Parents should review Google Family Link FAQ and see what data collection is acceptable.


text:
Find out ROM version
I just got a Galaxy Nexus and I want to revert it back to it's original condition for starters ( I'm talking about the software ). I noticed I have ClockworkMod installed, does that mean I have a custom ROM installed?

Is it Nexus S or Nexus 4G?

ClockworkMod is a custom recovery software. If you want to revert to the original ROM, then you can download the official ICS ROM for nexus and flash (install) it if you donot have a backup taken previously of the phone. And AFAIK, you can still root your phone again on ICS and then the phone will again be at your command (you can even install custom APKs). Also you can try a file manager like, Astro File Manager which I personally haven't used it but you can get it from marketplace and use it to install non-market apks by simply transferring the apk over usb to sd card and tap on the apk.

no I don't, the main reason I'm looking to do this is because atm I'm on Jelly Bean and apps crash pretty often. Also, if I go back to the stock ROM I won't be able to install custom .apks, right?

I am very sorry...clockworkmod is not a ROM, I got confused with cyanogen mod...I am editing my answer accordingly

Ok, I am still a bit confused, thank you for the help nevertheless.

It is possible to have CWM installed while running stock ROM. The simplest way for me to identify is to check your kernel version.

Generally, but not all the time, the presence of CWM which is a custom recovery, suggestively implies a custom ROM is present. But, having a custom recovery as CWM far outweighs the normal recovery that is found in the majority of handsets, some are limited, some are crippled.
You can easily flash another ROM such as ICS, or CM9 which is available to download. Hence I would highly suggest to leave CWM in there for a simple reason - to enable backup/restore of the ROM.
Judging by your previous comments in other answers above, it sounds like a unstable Jelly Bean ROM made its way into your handset.
Go to CyanogenMod site and get the download for either one of Nexus (crespo) or a Nexus 4G (crespo 4g) (crespo is a codeword given as the name of the handset). Whichever one is it you have, make sure you have the right version.
After downloading it, push that across to the SD-card, and use CWM to flash it for you. Be sure to wipe cache/data before hand. Yes, you will lose everything you have on that unstable Jelly Bean ROM. And then you should be back into the stability of the CM9 ROM.


text:
Lost Native Dialer and Contacts App after upgrading to 4.0.3
I have a Samsung Galaxy Note GTN7000 Android Phone with Vodafone Connection in Mumbai.
I upgraded to 4.0.3 last Saturday after which the Phone and Contacts Icon at the Bottom disappeared.
I can't add it from App Menu either as it seems the application itself has been removed somehow.
I don't see them in the list of Application installed in ALL Tab.
Please help me restore it.
Any help is appreciated.


text:
Why does the Nexus 7 have a notification bar?
In some of the reviews I have read of the new Nexus 7 tablet, it seems to have a notification bar. For example:

Why is that? I was under the impression that Android 3.0+ on tablets ditches the bar for a tray in the lower-right corner, next to the software buttons:

So why is this? Did they ditch the tray in 4.1? Is it because the units currently reviewed are not final, and the ones that will be sold will have the tray? Is it because it's too small at 7"? (although, the galaxy tab shown above is 7" as well, but maybe they changed the size limit in 4.1?)

Apparently, in the SDK the 7" form factor has the phone layout and tablet apps. The 10" form factor will still be tablet layout and tablet apps. I also heard that in 4.1 they expanded the functionality of the notification area so that notifications can do more (e.g. Reply to sms from notification area). I don't know how true that is though.

The expanded functionality of the notification bar was announced in Google I/O a several days ago. You might want to watch the opening keynote for some demos of Jelly Bean.

I didn't actually watch the IO (meant to but still haven't gotten around to it), I was reading up on it though and seen that. Must see what it's like because it sounds pretty good.

@ConnDarcy See the notifications UI on the JellyBean platform highlights here http://developer.android.com/about/versions/jelly-bean.html#ui (though that's on a phone form factor), note the call-back and message-back buttons below the  missed call, the preview text from the 3 unread text messages, and the transport controls on the playing music.


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Unoffical roms 4.0 or 4.1 for Galaxy Note?

Possible Duplicate:
Where can I find stock or custom ROMs for my Android device?

I've been over to XDA forums and am overwhelmed by the amount of information available. I am interested in getting 4.0 or 4.1 on to a Galaxy Note but don't really know where to start with the whole process. Currently the device is rooted and runs 2.3, but that's about it.
What options are there right now? The few I've found cautioned users strongly against using them at the risk of bricking a device. Obviously this is always a concern, but it seems to be mentioned far more on the Galaxy Note.
Any advice or links to unofficial roms or guides on how to get this going?

Pay attention to the infamous brick-bug (it's basically a faulty emmc chip if I got that right. You need to have a kernel that doesn't issue partition table formatting commands if you reflash (+ the rom you reflash must also not do this). Check IF you have a FAULTY nand chip first. http://www.xda-developers.com/tag/samsung-galaxy-note-gt-n7000/ Here's some more infor how to check if your device is affected: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1693704

Sorry you're having trouble, but we don't do ROM recommendations.  Check out the [FAQ] and feel free to ask any other questions you might have that would be a better fit here :)

You should look at CyanogenMod 9. It's an ICS rom. I've tried a few roms on a few phones and I still think CyanogenMod is the best. I doubt there would be any decent JB roms yet, at least none that were in any way usable or stable.

Now I just need to find a simple step by step guide and I'll be set. :)

There is a thread on XDA developers about CM9 on the Galaxy Note. There is a quick guide on how to install it. If you've installed custom roms before you should be fine with that. If not, it probably looks very daunting as there isn't too much information. If I find a better guide I'll post it up here. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1627854

Cyanogenmod has very comprehensive howto's, here's the Galaxy Note one: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_Note:_Full_Update_Guide TeamHacksung is responsible for the Galaxy series support for CM9, check their wiki, they also have guides: http://teamhacksung.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page (the note is 'N7000').


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Google Calendar Erroneously Deleting Events
Over the last couple of weeks, Google calendar has repeatedly deleted the events I entered. It occurs approximately 12-24 hours after I create the event.
EDIT: In response to question below, it's deleting events created both on the phone, as well as at calendar.google.com.
Is anyone else experiencing this issue? If so, has anyone had luck fixing it?
Finally, does anyone know how I can contact Google directly about this issue? Their "help" page is a labyrinth.
Devices: Sprint HTC EVO 4G, Android v. 2.3.5
Macbook OSX 10.6.8

is it deleting events created on your phone or via calendar.google.com?

@jlehenbauer, it's deleting both.

the only thing I can think of is validation? Try changing your Gmail password and logging back into the apps on your computer an phone.

Thanks @jlehenbauer, what should that accomplish?

Eliminating the ability of anything that's potentially accessing your account and erasing those entries, like apps or services. Really it's just a precautionary initial measure.

@jlehenbauer - got it. that makes a lot of sense. is there a way to check which apps have access to my calendar?

let us continue this discussion in chat

Did you solve the issue -- and if so, how? Feel free to answer your own question, as it might help others encountering a similar problem.

I used Spanning, which was perfect. Took care of the whole thing. Why google doesn't have this functionality is beyond me.