text:
How can I ensure that I'm logged out of Google Latitude?
When in Google Maps, when I go into the menu, I see "Join Latitude" option next to Latitude icon.
When I am on Google Latitude web site, it tells me "Location sharing is not turned on"
Does that mean that I am 100% logged out of Google Latitude?
The reason I ask is that I was experiencing major battery drain via Google Maps, and many people on forums heavily recommend signing out of Latitude as a solution. However, it seems that my Latitude is already off.

If you see "Join Latitude" then your latitude options are already "off". If you also now see "location sharing is not turned on", then your account is not set up to share the location information and it will not be sharing the information.
If you don't already, turn off wifi & gps when you are not using them, mpas will be less likely to try and get "pin point" information if you do not have these running.

Thanks! Yes, turning off wifi/GPS helps, but it's an awful solution :(   I'll live with it so far as it's the only one, but DAMN Google dropped the ball on this whole thing big time


text:
CyanogenMod, why doesn't Market self-upgrade?
I've bought a used HTC Magic with CyanogenMod 5 on it. It has Google Market. The market version is 1.713 - which is nowhere near the latest IIRC. In-app billing, for one thing, is not supported.
Isn't Google Market supposed to upgrade itself when a new version comes out? Why doesn't mine do so? Probably some kind of CyanogenMod interference. Any good way around that, please?
EDIT: debugged the situation a little bit. I happen to know that market updating happens out of the main Market process - the Market (com.android.vending) downloads the update, then fires a broadcast intent UPDATE_MARKET to a receiver in another app (com.android.vending.updater), which in turn installs the package. Here's what I got in the LogCat:

02-01 02:34:16.155: W/ActivityManager(121): Permission Denial:
  broadcasting Intent { act=com.android.vending.UPDATE_MARKET
  dat=content://downloads/download/31 } from com.android.vending
  (pid=1762, uid=10006) requires
  com.android.vending.permission.UPDATE_MARKET due to receiver
  com.android.vending.updater/com.android.vending.updater.UpdateMarketReceiver

So it looks as if the Market app lacks a permission to invoke the updater. The manifest file of Vending.apk, however, does have a
<uses-permission android:name="com.android.vending.permission.UPDATE_MARKET" />

line. How is it possible for an app to have a <uses-permission>, but receive a permission denial message?
EDIT2: the permission com.android.vending.permission.UPDATE_MARKET is marked as "signature" in the MarketUpdater manifest. Meaning only apps signed by the same certificate as MarketUpdater are granted that permission. That could be the reason Market is not granted the permission - could be signed by a different certificate.
EDIT3: that's exactly the case. The public key is different. The one on Vending.apk seems to match that on various versions of Vending.apk that are floating around the 'Net.

CyanogenMod 5 is also very old. The newest version of the Market may not even run properly on it, so I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't upgrade itself because your Android version is unsupported.

I'm not that worried about getting the very latest; as long as in-app billing works. Officially in-app billing is supported on Android 2.1 (all the way down to 1.6), and I hope Google will detect the running OS version and offer up something relevant. Now about that permission thing...

So the problem was: Market and Market Updater were not signed by the same key, no idea why. As a result, the Market wasn't able to send an intent to a receiver in the Market Updater that was protected by a signature-level permission. Here's what I've done.
I took MarketUpdater.apk from the device. I took it apart with apktool:
apktool d -s MarketUpdater.apk mu

I then opened the AndroidManifest.xml. I changed the package attribute under <manifest> to
package="com.android.vending.updateralt"

That was to avoid a name clash with the vanilla Market Updater app. Changed the <receiver> element's header to this:
<receiver android:name="com.android.vending.updater.UpdateMarketReceiver">

See - no permission attribute. No longer requiring that the intent sender is signed by the same certificate. Spelling out the Java package name in android:name was necessary, since the APK package name no longer matched the Java package name of the class.
I then packaged the APK back:
apktool b mu MarketUpdaterAlt.apk

I signed the APK, using the jarsigner tool, with an arbitrary key that I had from another project:
"C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_02\bin\jarsigner.exe" -verbose -digestalg SHA1 -sigalg MD5withRSA  -keystore c:\Path\MyKeys.ks MarketUpdaterAlt.apk MyKey

Uploaded the APK to /system/app, registered with pm:
adb push MarketUpdaterAlt.apk /system/app
adb shell pm install -r /system/app/MarketUpdaterAlt.apk

And forced a Market self-update. Removed the preferences file:
adb shell rm /data/data/com.android.vending/shared_prefs/*

Then restarted the Market, waited for five minutes, and closed the Market. The update went through like a charm. Now I have Market 2.3.6, in-app billing and all.
Good thing the permission-based coupling between the Market and Market Updater was not two-way...
EDIT: the alternative updater APK is available for all at http://www.jishop.com/temp/MarketUpdaterAlt.apk

It probably has nothing to do with CM; the Market is just really, really bad at updating itself.  Sometimes clearing the data for it will help, but sometimes you'll additionally need to install a newer version manually before it will start updating itself again.
I've installed the 3.4.4 Market from Android Police a few times, if you're looking for a safe file.  Just put it on your SD card or internal storage (make sure it has the .apk extension) and install it via a file manager.  Settings -> Applications -> Unknown sources needs to be checked for this.

The version of the market that you've uploaded requres SDK level 10 (Android 2.3.3). CMv5 is level 7 (2.1).

@SevaAlekseyev I totally missed that it was CM5, my bad.  It can't require 2.3.3 though, since I use it on 2.2 with no issues.  CM6.1 is 2.2 and available for the Magic, I would recommend upgrading.  The permissions issue is intriguing, though.

The solution of creating a new MarketUpdater did not work for me. I'm a newbie at rooted Android devices so maybe there's something that would be evident to someone who has more experience with it. I ran into an INSTALL_PACKAGE permission issue, and yes I did put MarketUpdaterAlt into /system/app/ and it was signed with my key, but that did not do the trick. The whole permission thing seems a bit finicky (see for instance this discussion).
At any rate, I've found an alternate way of getting the upgrade:

Grab a relatively recent version of the Market app. (I used an apk titled Market-3.4.4.apk. It needs to be reasonably new but having the very latest does not matter since it will upgrade itself after a bit anyway. I have 3.10.9 now running.) Verify that the package is signed by Google.
Clear Market data. (That's what I did back then but now I think pm uninstall, without the -k option, will accomplish the same thing.)
adb shell mount -o remount,rw /system
adb shell rm /system/app/Vending.apk
adb shell pm uninstall com.android.vending
adb push [Path to your new apk] /system/app/Vending.apk
adb shell pm install /system/app/Vending.apk
adb shell mount -o remount,ro /system

If you got an older version than the latest, any necessary upgrade will occur after a while. It may take a bit before the web interface to Google Play gets is view synchronized with what the local app says.
That's how I got the latest version of Google Play up and running on an old rooted myTouch 3g running CM 6.1. Someone with more foresight than I have could presumably integrate a newish version among the Google Apps when they do their initial flashing.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
What is the "Duplicate Provider" error?
I have installed Angry birds from the official android market. I tried installing the Angry Birds Seasons free version today, and while installing I got a pop-up message saying "Duplicate provider" and the installation terminated. I am running ICS on Nexus S, if it's relevant.

That means something's wrong with the package setup. For your reference, here are a few links with more detailed information:

android duplicate provider authority - Stack Overflow
Android duplicate provider authority problem - Stack Overflow
Angry Birds Seasons Summer Pignic Now Available | AngryBirdsNest (search for "duplicate provider" on this page, should appear around the middle)
Duplicate provider authority error when installing K-9 mail - Google Groups

Recommendation: Contact developer (for security reasons both developers, in case somebody faked the signature). It's most likely a copy-and-paste error during the packaging process, so the developer might release a fixed update soon.

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


text:
Two phones -- Two separate contact lists (me / wife) want to use same account for calendar
I have a Droid X, which I am about to give to my wife and I am getting a newer Driod.  We have been using the google calendar, with great success, for the past few years.  This will be the first time we have two smart phones and we want to keep the phone contacts (and email in my case) separate from each other such that they don't download each others to the other phone.  Can that be done?

My wife and I have been doing something like this for years.
We each have our own separate Google accounts (separate contacts, Gmail, etc.)
We've also done this with our calendars:

We each have our own default Google Calendar and have shared read-access to the other.
We've also created several shared calendars (Household, Local Events, plus a calendar for each of our children) that we both edit
As needed we create separate calendars that we can choose to share or not. (For instance, she doesn't really need to know when my meetings are at work, just if my work schedule is different.)

(This works just fine on regular old Google accounts.)

The ideal solution would probably be to try setting up a calendar on one account and then sharing it with the other account from the Google Calendar website. I know this works with things like my office's apps accounts because I can see our shared calendars on my phone, but I'm not positive if it will work with a personal Google account (I'd imagine it might, though). You'd also want to make sure that both accounts had permission to modify the calendar, I assume.
Alternatively, Android will let you selectively choose account data to sync with Google's servers, so one way to do this would be:

Set up the existing calendar's account on both phones
Go into Settings->Accounts and Sync and select the account
Uncheck everything except "Sync Calendar" (do this on both devices)
Set up individual accounts for email, contacts, etc on each phone

This should cause the calendar data from the shared account to sync to each phone, but none of the other data (email, contacts, etc). Then the individual accounts can be set to sync the rest of the data, and will exist separately. You could also choose to have your phone sync email, contacts, and calendar data all from the shared account (if appropriate), while your wife's only syncs the calendar data. Then she can have a separate email/contacts account for herself, or vice versa.
One possible downside to this method, however, is that I believe the calendar account will still appear in e.g. the Gmail app, though it won't automatically sync emails and create notifications (in other words, you could choose to manually pull down emails by opening the app).

since you will have separate accounts for email and contacts, you can just share calendars between the 2 accounts too then you still just sync your calendars for your specific account.

@RyanConrad: I was actually just thinking that and I realized that I wasn't sure if that works. I know I can see shared calendars on my work account (Google Apps). Does it also work with personal Google accounts?

AFAIK you can, they would have to "show all information" or you would only see "busy" in the specific time slots


text:
My messaging application sometimes closes itself while typing - How can I fix this?
When typing an SMS message, the messaging application will automatically close and the typed text is deleted, causing me to have to retype the text. It seems to happen after two or three messages. I have clear data of Messaging software from Manage Applications->All->Messaging->Clear Data but the problem persists. Is there a way I can fix this?

The Android log will most likely show the cause for the close, which should help you to find a solution.

Does it force close, or just close onto the home screen?

it close on to the home screen.

You can try to investigate this issue more deeply based on system logs. Install some application to grabbing logs from device (for example SendLog). When you application crashes, then grab system log in which should be placed callstack started in your application.
Getting logs should be done asap after crash, because these files rotate.

I would try going in to Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications -> All and select the Messaging app. Then the Clear Data for the application. There may be something in the data that is corrupt and causing an issue.
I know this doesn't necessarily solve the problem, but you can try using another SMS application, like Handcent SMS for example. I personally never liked the Messaging application that comes in TouchWiz (Samsung's additions/changes to Android), which is why I moved to a custom ROM as soon as a stable one was made available. That is not the answer for everyone, but replacing the messaging app with a 3rd party app is "the next best thing".

Don't forget to clear cache, too.

Dear Ryan i have done your solution. but after a week same problem occurred but now time span of its occurrence is reduced. what should i do now?

It is possible, but unlikely, that it is being killed by the android automatic killer to free up ram, but as the Samsung Galaxy S2 has 1 GB of ram this is unlikely.
One other explanation is that you are accidentally pressing the home button while you type, or are pressing something on your keyboard that has the same effect.
If possible, install the drivers for your device, download adb + required dll's, and type into a command prompt:
logcat >> logcat.log

Then make it happen. This will dump all of the logs to the logcat.log file. You could then paste this into pastebin, for us to have a look at.

Just leave the damn app alone, it's black and uninviting anyway, and install a more appealing SMS app, try Go SMS or Handcent SMS.

You should probably try looking at what processes are running, you probably have a game or application with some services maybe even something with an SMS intent grabber to read when you have messages & alert you or whatever.
Avast is good for monitoring applications resources & uninstalling them if you don't like doing it in the settings. It also puts up applications by permissions which make it easy to see if something is grabbing SMS messages off the intent. It's free, you don't need to root, and as long as you don't do the admin mode easy enough to uninstall.

This is old question however answering now since I found solution on my device. It might help for anyone still facing the issue.
There is Android system app "Aries" you need to give all permission to this app.
After that none of the application are now minimizing for me.
My device is running on Andorid 7.

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


text:
Widget for controlling tethering
Are there any widgets on the market that let me control standard Android tethering? I use it quite a lot and it's a pain to have to navigate through all the Settings options just to check a checkbox...

You can simply install the GoLauncherEX and then install the GO Switch Widget. It is awesome and lets you control lot of other functionality other than tethering.

'GO Switch Widget' does not have any option for controlling tethering.

It does have a widget for Wifi AP.

Have a look at Tethering Widget.
Its a free widget with nice look.
It can be used to enable/disable WiFi and USB Tethering as well.
To add, press Home button
Menu | Add | Widget | Tethering (full) / Tethering (small)


text:
Logout from Gmail on my device
It bothers me that my Android Phone is permanently logged into my Gmail account.
I want to logout from the device and somehow make the phone ask for username/password when connecting to my account.
It seems there is no such option. What are my options?
P.S. Please don't suggest to lock my phone when not in use. I already do that.

If you're really concerned about all of this, don't bother with smartphones and use primitive handsets from the dark ages of the late 90s/early 2000's where no one would ever know (sure its a brick with an extendable antennae that you have to pull out to make a phone call, but impossible to brick right?)

See also: How to make Gmail in Android ask for user name and password as in laptop?

Being "logged in" is a misconception. Even when you are "logged in" when you use a browser, this is handled by the storage of a cookie with an authentication token stored in it. On the device is sort of the same, except it is not a "cookie". When you set up your account, an authentication token is requested and stored on the device. A new token can also be exchanged at other times, but you are unaware that it even happens.
When the applications, like gmail, go and check for new mail, they use that token to tell the gmail servers that you are "you". The reason you can't "sign out" is because then you would not be able to check for new mail, get application updates and other things like that that happen in the background. If you were to sign out, then every couple minutes you would have to put in your credentials so your device could check for updates and new mail.
A large set of the services built-in to android use your authentication token. Even when you create, edit, or delete a contact on your device, because it syncs that data to your account on google servers. Calendar appointments, gTalk, Google Voice, the search widget, voice-to-text, push notifications (for just any service that uses C2DM), and any other service that may show up under your google account in Accounts & Sync can and will need this authentication token at any given time.
It is more like you are logged in to your PC (Windows, Linux, OSX) then logged in to any particular google service.

So everyone who has that token can go into my mail account with it?

How would they get your token? But, yes, in theory, if someone got a currently valid token for you, then they could access your data. All of the communications that google uses for your information is over HTTPS so the data is encrypted. Tokens are unique to you, someone else will not get "your token".

A large set of the services built-in to android use your authentication token. What about "any" app? Can some (malicious) installed application get to the token and send it somewhere for someone to use?

Any "normal" application, can use your account to authenticate you, but google still limits the data that could be accessed. Even if it was something like getting contacts, you would see in the applications permissions that it needed access to contacts, and if the app is not something that would need that information, then don't install it.

But your PC can't get stolen/lost that easily. Everything you listed doesn't explain why you can't add the option to 'sign out' - invalidate your token (the same way you do on a browser) - when you want to (e.g., when you turn off your phone), while being aware that while you are 'signed out' some features will not work. This is security 101.

Alright OP, think about this, your handset is within the boundaries of your wifi network right? You've put all the necessary firewalling restrictions in place, of course, including WPA2 at least, then... if you're raising this issue, and your argument countering Ryan Conrad's answer , within the vicinity of your wall of security, how can anyone perform MITM attack, you'd want to have an "attacker" on the outside within your vicinity, what I'm trying to say is, common-sense comes into play here.

None of the services that use the authentication token can be used to steal my identity and reset all my passwords except  Gmail.  You need  to be able to sign out of that.  If I could,  I  wouldn't need a lock password at all.  Lock  passwords are like making you log into Windows every  three minutes.

There's no way to do this. It's been posed on Gmail's support forums in the past and the answer has always been (from the linked discussion above):

... Google's native apps on Android phones are designed to use the phone
  itself to sign in and out. If you're concerned about account security
  on your phone I recommend you add a lock pattern or PIN to your phone
  (visit Settings > Location & security settings to set these up).

If you want to disassociate your account you can perform a factory reset, which will erase all of your personal data and require you to set up the account again. This isn't really practical as a "sign out" method, though, since you'd have to completely re-create the account to access it.
I suppose you could also go to a web browser and change your Gmail password to effectively "log out" your phone and prompt for the new password, but then you'd have to change it after every time you've accessed the Gmail app. Again, not practical.

OR go into recovery and wipe cache/data if feeling extremely paranoid ....

Note: phone stays logged in for ~hour after password is changed.

The primary advantage of Gmail being a native app is that it keeps your emails synchronized and for getting new mail notifications, but if you really don't want to stay logged in and can accept that not being logged on means you won't get synchronizations or notifications, then just don't use the Gmail app. You can check your email through Gmail's mobile webmail instead.


text:
How to display cell info display (CID) on screen?
Does Android OS have an option for showing Cell Info Display (Name of the cell Tower) on home screen ? (Without using external apps)

You will not be able to display this on the Home screen without 3rd party apps.
You can use this app called CellID Info from Google Play Store, you may find other apps that display this info too. The CellID Info doesn't say if it has a widget (i don't think it does) but some of the other ones might.

Thanks but this is not the solution i am looking for. I want the Cell ID info to be displayed on the home screen, not in an app. Like how it is shown on Nokia mobiles.

and you wont be able to do that without using an app. It isn't possible.

Just download OpenSignal from Play Store.

Can you elaborate on that? How/why does this app solve the OP's problem?

Its possible to read the Cell tower info since its one of the BroadCast messages. But it does not come up on screen automatically! It is possible to get this as notifications in SMS, once you enable Cell BroadCast messagess (CB) usually in the native SMS application settings.

Try Cell Info Display app available on Google Play.

Cell info display will be useful to know about the locality information in case of any travel to new location.
Limitations: This application works only if there is an Internet connectivity


text:
How to get back pattern lock with Exchange/ActiveSync account?
I have added an Exchange/ActiveSync email account to my Android phone. This required me to set the email application as a device administrator so that ActiveSync can control certain features of my phone.
One of the controlled features is the way I can unlock my phone (from the lockscreen). Exchange seems to limit me to the "PIN" and "Password" options. But I prefer to use a pattern lock.
Please note that I have administrative access to the domain in which the Exchange server is running and I would like to control this behaviour from the server side. I do NOT want to circumvent restrictions on my device.
I have already created a new ActiveSync profile (which doesn't enforce any password restrictions) for my user account, but it doesn't seem to affect the issue. It seems like ActiveSync in general restricts me to a password/PIN unlock and the profile can just control the complexity rules for those.
I realize this isn't really an Android issue, but I assumed this would be the best place to ask.

Update: Please note that this seems to be a new feature introduced with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). When I was using Android 2.3, I was able to use pattern lock just fine.

I have an exchange account on my device, and I can use pattern lock. If you remove the exchange account, it lets you use pattern lock?

@RyanConrad Yes. This only started happening after I flashed ICS on the device.

The only way to get this to work was for us to do the following in our Exchange server.

Create a new Exchange ActiveSync Mailbox Policy in the Client Access Organization Configuration.
Make sure that Require password is disabled for the policy.

Go to the mailbox of the user in question, in the Recipient Configuration and open the Properties for the mailbox. In the Mailbox Features tab, select Exchange ActiveSync and open the Properties.
Select your newly created ActiveSync Mailbox Policy and confirm your selection.

You might need to remove and re-add the the account on your phone to make sure that it no longer asks you to set a password.

My work account limits me from using pattern lock. The way I get around it is by using Swype and a password that is a real word, that way you Swype the pattern of the word to unlock your phone.
Get Swype from beta.Swype.com.


text:
Are there any custom ROMs which let the user somehow filter Share menu lists?
Based on " How can I customize the list of services that pops up when I choose to "share" something in an app? " answer, any app supporting ACTION_SEND intent will be listed in "Share" menu pop-up.
Are there any custom ROMs which let the user somehow filter those Share menu lists to exclude installed apps?

As developer, I thinks its quite difficult. Because you have to disable the broadcast receiver, which is not easy possible without editing the application which provide it.

@Leandros - I'm sorry, I'm not sure why? All it seems to need (from my NON android developer POV) is a patch to whichever code inside Android itself which generates the list, to be able to read some config file which blacklists or whitelists apps for inclusion. What am I missing?

Sounds easy. But isn't that easy.

@Leandros as with other broadcast receivers: as soon as a second registers, the user should be able to chose which becomes the default (see homescreens). My answer shows how this princip can be utilized.

@Izzy If I can find the time I'll implement it into AOKP.

Then send them the patch and let's pray they include it -- I'd like that as well!

That's another XY problem question: you ask how to establish your suggested solution, instead to ask how to solve your real problem, which is your actual concern. For this task, you don't even need any Custom ROM.
Take a look at Andmade Share -- this app lets you customize your share menu on any ROM, not even root is needed:

As you can easily see, this app lets you...

Select (filter) the apps appearing in the list (as your question required)
Change the order in which they appear in the list (e.g. put your most frequently used apps on top)

Actually, I found Andmade Share recently (well after posting this question). While it's a nice idea and I love the app, on my fairly old DroidX, the app usually takes ~2-5 seconds to launch for whatever reason. Built-in share menu usually takes at most a second. There are benefits to not relying on an external app, evidently :)

Sure there might be, if there were any. So this app gives you an existing solution instead of a hypotetical one :)


text:
Android "loses" a game
I installed this game via APK on my Chinese tablet "Infotmic M799CA", created a desktop shortcut for it and noticed that after a (very frequent) device hang with consequent reboot, the game gets lost.
Tapping on the desktop icon says "Application not installed". I have to reinstall it again to make it work.
I found this happening only with this software. Any ideas about how to prevent it?

This most likely a problem with the program itself. Try sending in your issue to the actual developer team. Also most likely you can say force stop on the application instead of deleting and reinstalling.

I didn't delete the app. Ever. It was uninstalled by mistery

Yeah to be honest I think it's probably program issue. Low possibility about if the device has some sort of issue with a software it deletes it automatically, the reason why I can say this is because I am testing an app I built myself and it sometimes fail on phone but never deletes it.

I'll surely have to check if this happens with other programs. The game on an A500 works even because the A500 never hangs to a forced reboot. I was thinking about some kind of file system issue, because AFAIK Android apps are plain apk files in a specific directory, and APKs are no more than plain old JARs

Yup, definitely check it out. apk can only be deleted by the user or a program which deletes it.


text:
Extracting the radio firmware image from an Android phone
How do you pull radio images off an Android device? Is there any way to do this?

This is heavily dependent on the manufacturer and probably the device as well.  You'd be best off making this specific.

But generally, as not even a nandroid backup cares for the radio, this probably has to be done by creating a dump (dd) from the corresponding partition via ADB -- and thus requires the SDK installed.

You should root your phone and then with an app like Link2SD or even Root Explorer you could get the APK of the Radio app. In fact, with this mode you can get ANY APK of the system.
Link2SD is more intuitive. But if you like the hard way go with Root Explorer and navigate to system/data/app and look for your desired APK

The question is about pulling the radio firmware image... not a radio app (apk)...


text:
Where has the option to mount as hard drive gone ...?
I have an HTC Desire HD (on Vodafone UK). I noticed this week that when I now connect it to either pc or mac the option to mount as a hard drive is no longer present. Why? What do I need to do to get it back?

Has anything changed since last time you were able to mount successfully?  E.g. new Android OS version, new apps, new computer, new USB cable?

The only thing I can think of is that I may have d/loaded a couple of apps, but nothing that should mess with core Android features in this way. e.g. Solitaire.

Ok, so I had a look at this thread and, as it suggests, I took the microSD out and put it back in again. Now it works as before. Smells like a bug to me?

The exact same thing happened to me - taking out the SD card resolved it too.


text:
Where are the downloads from the Amazon Appstore stored?

Possible Duplicate:
Amazon App Store - Location of the downloaded APK

I like to grab the free app of the day but space on my phone is too precious to go though with the install. But I can't stop the download when I do purchase. Where is that download stored and how can I get rid of it?

From what I can tell, they are stored in /sdcard/Android/data/com.amazon.venezia/cache
I have a lot of apks in that directory. I downloaded the one from today and I now have a new file in there dated today with the time stamp of when I purchased the application.
The files in there seem to use some "identifier" that amazon uses for the application. Cleaning out this does not affect the amazon app store in any way, but if you want to install an application that you previously purchased, you will have to redownload it, which it does with out any issue. I just cleared my directory out and tested this.


text:
Is there a way to permanently turn off Google Maps until needed?
Google maps seems to have an insane amount of Intents registered for it, as well as other ways of being started.
Since this is a pretty resource hungry app (especially memory wise), I would very much want it permanently not running unless/until I actually need it. However, Android keeps starting it all the time - for example, when the connectivity status changes (which for me happens pretty frequently indoors), or GPS/network location changes.
Is there some way of ensuring that Google Maps doesn't start ANY processes, guaranteed, until I click on an icon to deliberately launch it?
Environment: Droid X, running rooted stock Froyo 2.2; I have Autostarts. and Advanced Task Killer, as well as Pro version of Titanium Backup installed.
I'm fairly open to almost any method as long as

It's reliable.
It lets me use Google Maps with 100% intended functionality once I DO need it, without requiring 5 minutes of work to re-configure.
Ideally, doesn't require me to reboot to use it, but this one is not a deal killer.
I would STRONGLY prefer a generic method which would be applicable to other applications, NOT just Google Maps.
I'm a software developer with a hefty dose of Unix/Linux system administration experience. In other words, solutions which require shell prompt or writing/running shell scripts (or Perl in Android Scripting Environment) are extremely welcome.
Solutions involving writing my own Java Android app are acceptable as long as they are detailed enough than a total Android development newbie can get at least some work done without being 100% lost.

Things I tried:

Killing the processes via Task Killer is NOT working - they come back up, either immediately or in a little while. Probably via Intents but not 100% certain.
Standard methods of getting rid of GMaps issues (log out of Latitude/shut down GPS and network locator). This seems to help a lot BUT I find the need to permanently shut down GPS/locator to be unacceptable - e.g. it won't let me run Locale app or locale-based Tasker things.
Freeze via Titanium Backup Pro. This requires a reboot and generally not very pleasant.

Possible approaches I thought of (but don't know how to do) are:

Somehow FULLY eliminate (turn off) all Intents registered by Google Maps when not needed.
Problems: First, I don't know what ALL the Intents Google Maps uses.
Second, the only practical way of doing that that I know of is Autostarts app which is NOT a workable solution - it takes ~5-10 mins to find and re-enable all the intents I am aware of (Autostarts is really poor at per-app intent management - it's centered on per-intent), never mind possible intents that Autostarts does NOT know about (it's a black box, I don't know which intents are missed if any.
Have a script which will rename the JARs or whatever the executable files on Android are (entire .APK?) from say GoogleMaps.apk to GoogleMaps.disabled.apk and back.
Problem: I don't know if this is possible to do on a rooted Froyo. Also, Google Maps was pre-installed on DroidX, so would renaming somehow ONLY affect the update but not the original app?
Have a script which will go into the APK and rename/move/empty out manifest file to remove any intents for that app.
Problem: Would this require a recompile? It definitely requires a reboot which is a minus

Please note that I'm asking "Is there a way to permanently turn off Google Maps until needed?". I'm not asking "Do I need to permanently stop Google Maps from starting?", or "What are workarounds to keep running GMaps and still keep good battery life".

"Freeze via Titanium Backup Pro. This requires a reboot and generally not very pleasant."  That's interesting.  Does it do it for all apps, or just something more embedded, like Maps?

@Chance - My impression was that it's for all apps.

Have you actually tried it?  I've used Ti-Bu to freeze apps before, and I haven't had to reboot.

@Chance - My apps that I froze didn't stop re-spawning into memory until I rebooted. May be I was doing it wrong - I only started using TBPro recently.

Ah, that very well could be.  I know that I froze "Software Update" and still had to kill it, but I don't think it respawned.  Even then it would be a two-step process that could be a pain if done frequently.

From your mentioning of Titanium Backup I assume your device is rooted. So my absolute recommendation here is AutoRun Manager (and yes, you will need the Pro -- second yes, it's worth it). Having that installed, open the app, use the "advanced mode", look for the app you want to modify (in your case: Google Maps). Expand it. ARM will show you all its listeners -- disable them.
That's it. Nothing is waking it up anymore unless you explicitly start it. BUT: Before you start it, you may need to enable those listeners again, or you may experience strange side effects (I did). On the other side, at least this does not require a reboot.
For technical details, you might want to crosscheck with the question How can I manage intent associations with apps, or directly dive into the Intents section of the AOSP developer manuals.

First, I suggest you stop using your task killers. They are draining your battery more than saving it. The System is restarting the services when they need to run which is causing battery usage.
Second, you are under the assumption that freeing up memory is a good thing. It is not. Freeing up memory is not going to decrease battery usage. What you really need to look for is the apps that use a lot of CPU cycles. This is what will drain your battery.
Android is based on Linux. Linux always wants to use all the memory available because free memory is wasted memory. The android system will take care of releasing memory of applications that are not in use so other applications can use it when needed.
Even if you try and kill applications that are running and taking up memory, the system will either restart these services/apps, which will cause battery drain because they probably have some syncing that happens when starting up, or just the CPU cycles that are used to initialize the application. Killing the applications will also cause the device to appear slow when trying to start applications because something that normally might be running now needs to be started back up before presenting you with the applications user interface.
Some things that will cause battery drain like GPS, wifi, bluetooth, and data usage are going to use your CPU a lot more to process the data that is being transmitted and received. Turning these off when not in use will save on a lot of battery drain. I have a bad battery in my device, it wont even charge past 94%, but I can get 12 or more hours out of my battery if I turn off these services when I don't need them.
I use google maps all the time, and in my battery stats its not even listed as an app using resources. My highest battery user is the Screen @ 31%, and the lowest shown is GMail @ 3%. I can assure you, google maps is not the cause of your battery drain. Using task killers is more likely the cause. As I said I use google maps for directions almost daily, and it isn't even in the top 10 list of apps that are using my battery.
More information on task killers from the Google Android Developers blog.

A common misunderstanding about Android multitasking is the difference between a process and an application. In Android these are not tightly coupled entities: applications may seem present to the user without an actual process currently running the app; multiple applications may share processes, or one application may make use of multiple processes depending on its needs; the process(es) of an application may be kept around by Android even when that application is not actively doing something.
The fact that you can see an application's process "running" does not mean the application is running or doing anything. It may simply be there because Android needed it at some point, and has decided that it would be best to keep it around in case it needs it again. Likewise, you may leave an application for a little bit and return to it from where you left off, and during that time Android may have needed to get rid of the process for other things.
A key to how Android handles applications in this way is that processes don't shut down cleanly. When the user leaves an application, its process is kept around in the background, allowing it to continue working (for example downloading web pages) if needed, and come immediately to the foreground if the user returns to it. If a device never runs out of memory, then Android will keep all of these processes around, truly leaving all applications "running" all of the time.
Of course, there is a limited amount of memory, and to accommodate this Android must decide when to get rid of processes that are not needed. This leads to Android's process lifecycle, the rules it uses to decide how important each process is and thus the next one that should be dropped. These rules are based on both how important a process is for the user's current experience, as well as how long it has been since the process was last needed by the user.
Once Android determines that it needs to remove a process, it does this brutally, simply force-killing it. The kernel can then immediately reclaim all resources needed by the process, without relying on that application being well written and responsive to a polite request to exit. Allowing the kernel to immediately reclaim application resources makes it a lot easier to avoid serious out of memory situations.
If a user later returns to an application that's been killed, Android needs a way to re-launch it in the same state as it was last seen, to preserve the "all applications are running all of the time" experience. This is done by keeping track of the parts of the application the user is aware of (the Activities), and re-starting them with information about the last state they were seen in. This last state is generated each time the user leaves that part of the application, not when it is killed, so that the kernel can later freely kill it without depending on the application to respond correctly at that point.
In some ways, Android's process management can be seen as a form of swap space: application processes represent a certain amount of in-use memory; when memory is low, some processes can be killed (swapped out); when those processes are needed again, they can be re-started from their last saved state (swapped in).

Here is another article talking about how Task killers will drain your battery.

Do not use Automatic Task Killing Software
To make a long story short, using auto-task killers can cause: excessive battery drain (as if the phone doesn’t drain a battery quick enough already),  the phone to overheat often and programs shutting down (crashing) randomly – programs you actually want to use. Stay away from these!

One thing that you could do if you are really set on "stopping maps" until you want to use it is use the Freeze option in titanium backup. This will essentially remove the application from the device and none of the services associated with it will ever start until you un-freeze it.

freeing up memory takes my Droid X from crawling extremely slow with ~30-40 MB free to being reasonably responsive and fast with >70MB free, with no apps hogging the CPU in either case. I'm sorry but that's a nice bit of theory that just DOES NOT APPLY in practice.

Also, when Android memory manager kills my web browser losing ALL my open tabs to make space for Google Maps, that's a big productivity hit.

Sorry I'm downvoting this. It contains a bunch of unrelated info that I alredy know, and zero information pertinent to solving the specific technical problem I posed (stopping a specific app from being started, whatever my reasons for wanting to do that)

As an aside, using a task killer once a day manually (or once every 2-3 hours on schedule) is absolutely NOT going to cause resource drain. I measured.

I am telling you, what you are experiencing is a placebo effect. free memory does not make your device run faster, free CPU does. I have included another reference for you about the topic of task killers (right from google)

Using task killer will cause drain, and I explained why in my answer. On top of that, if you read the entire answer, I give you an exact answer to your problem using titanium by freezing the app.

there's 100% correllation, across 100s of killings for the last 1.5 years of ownership. I'm glad you have a theory for why it shouldn't have any effect, but that doesn't preclude the possibility that there are OTHER causalities than ones you are ruling out. I'm just the guy with the correlation :)

As far as titanium backup - I have already listed it as the 3rd bullet point under "Things I tried". Ditto for shutting down GPSy stuff - that's a second bullet point. As I said, your answer contains zero new useful info - it answers the question I didn't ask. I'm looking for alternatives that wouldn't require me to reboot - ideally related to manipulating the filesystem or underlying OS. I mean, there's a reason why I chose Android and not iBlackBox :)

@RyanConrad, I'm trying to get a better understanding of this stuff.  Could one argue that a Task Killer app does indeed help indirectly by killing applications that use CPU cycles?

@Chance no, because if you kill a process that isn't actually running at the time, the system will eventually have to start that process back up and it will do "all of its initialization" which is going to use the CPU. Just because a process is running, doesn't mean that it is actually doing anything at the time.

@RyanConrad the word you’re looking for is "confirmation bias".  Placebo effect is a real thing that does work.  Because our smartness and our meatness are not isolated from each other.

Have you thought about un-installing and re-installing Maps as a possible solution?

First, get rid of the pre-loaded Maps by deleting the /system/app/Maps.apk file:
su
rm /system/app/Maps.apk

Once a system app is updated, it's useless in the /system/app folder and can be safely deleted.
Then copy the current Maps version to your SD Card:
cp /data/app/com.google.android.apps.maps*.apk /sdcard/

Now uninstall the Maps app:
pm uninstall -k com.google.android.apps.maps

The "-k" switch keeps the settings for when you re-install the app.
Now to get Maps back simply re-install it from backup:
pm install -r /sdcard/com.google.android.apps.maps*.apk

You can automate these steps via GScript, which allows you to create shortcuts to scripts.  So just create one script named "Disable Maps" with the command from step #3, and another one named "Enable Maps" with command from step #4 (check "Needs SU?" for both).
Now you can add 2 GScript shortcuts to your home screen from the scripts you created by using Android's normal "Add Shortcut" method (GScript will be one of the options there.)
The only drawback of this method is that you will most likely lose the Maps shortcut (and/or widget) from your home screen when you uninstall it, requiring you to re-add it after re-installation.  You of course will still be able to launch Maps from the app drawer.

Would this procedure be negatively affected by the fact that Maps was pre-installed on my DroidX? Or that was not in ROM? +1 for excellent idea!

If you don't remove the system version of the APK first, un-install will fail.  Generally, once a system app gets an update from Market, its corresponding APK in /system/app/ folder can safely be deleted.

@Chank - I assume that, it not being Verizon bloatware, I actually have access to remove the system version as long as I got root? :)

As long as your phone is rooted, you should have no troubles removing Maps.apk from /system/app.

Beginning with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, you can simply disable Google Maps in the system settings. This won't help you if you're still stuck on Froyo, but others may get some benefit from it.

Does it disable all the associated services? (GM and Latitude etc...)?

It disables that app completely, including everything it brings in. As far as I can tell, that includes Navigation, Latitude, etc.

I suggest using the Freeze feature of Titanium backup homepage market link. I believe you have to register the app ($6.58) in order to use the feature, but I assure you, it's worth the price if you like to hack your phone. The other main reason to pay for the app (other than to support the developer for writing a fine piece of free software) is to be able to do batch installs (i.e. restoring from backup) of apps and data which you have backed up. Otherwise you have to get through the standard app install dialogs.
From the website about freeze:

App freezer can disable an app (and make it invisible) without un-installing it

Or you can actually do an uninstall and reinstall. You might find there are reasons to do that over freezing, I don't know.

Sorry, but this isn't helpful. In my question, under "Things I tried", bullet point #3: "Freeze via Titanium Backup Pro. This requires a reboot and generally not very pleasant."

If your phone has the option Settings > Applications > Development > Stop app via long-press, you can always close the Google Maps this way, then this process get killed as well until you open the app again.

Root your phone then use the AutoStarts app from Google Play to disable all the events that trigger Maps. It will run fine when manually started but will stay gone when you kill it. Disable anything else you don't need in the After Startup event folder to further reduce memory consumption.

Did you read the question carefully? It explicitly states: Second, the only practical way of doing that that I know of is Autostarts app which is NOT a workable solution - it takes ~5-10 mins to find and re-enable all the intents I am aware of (Autostarts is really poor at per-app intent management - it's centered on per-intent), never mind possible intents that Autostarts does NOT know about (it's a black box, I don't know which intents are missed if any.


text:
Why does installing applications freeze my DroidX running Froyo 2.2?
I noticed recently that installing any applications caused my Droid X (Stock rooted Froyo 2.2) to freeze for a while - I mean completely freeze, can't go to home screen or pull down Notification bar or anything.
It may possibly be correllated time-wise with installing Lookout Security app, but I am not certain if the time matches.
This seems to be 100% unrelated to a specific installer application I use, but I haven't conclusively ruled it out.

Could this plausibly be caused by Lookout? If so I'll try to un-install it to verify
If it's caused by Lookout, are there any suggestions for making this less painful? I was thinking along the lines of loweing "nice" priority for Lookout scanner process somehow if Android allows that, being based on Linux.
If not Lookout, what else could it possibly be and what troubleshooting steps can I take short of flashing back to SBF and trying to install my apps again from backup?

Details:

Rooted Stock Froyo 2.2 on DroidX.
Source of installation is irrelevant (Android Market, or Amazon Market, or GetJar). I didn't test SD/Dropbox APK installs, but fairly certain that they are freezing as well.
I have several installer apps available, but default to stock one. I don't know how to un-default it to test if it's a specific installer.
As noted, I have Lookout Security running, set to scan any installed .apks.
It is possible that the freezing didn't happen or was much quicker before I installed it, but I don't have proof. Also, installing NUMEROUS updates of Lookout didn't affect the freezing.
Freezing is 100% independent on what else is running - I can kill 100% of non-Market apps and the freezing will still happen with almost full memory available
Freeze period seems to be correllated to .apk size, but I don't have a firm proof. Usually lasts between 30 secs and 2 mins.
This seems to be NOT related to having to start other apps (e.g. Amazon Market/GetJar) that are started by "Application Installed"/"Application changed" intents, since the freeze happens for EVERY app installed among several, not just the first one in a row.

I would definitely suspect Lookout.

Agree to Matthew. Lookout possible scan the apk if its malicious.

@Leandros - not possibly - it definitely scans. That's its main advertized functionality (well one I have enabled, at least). What I don't get is why it freezes the system so completely. PC antiviruses are usually able to scan files in background without fully blocking the OS

@DVK: A pc is way faster. :) And if you don't have a dualcore, multithreading is not very good supported.


text:
Is it possible to skip confirmation on app restores?
i'm using Titanium Backup to restore my data and apps,but clicking "install" and "done" is driving me crazy. Is there a setting for that?

"0-click" batch restore (as the Market page describes it) is one of the features of the Pro version. You cannot do it in the free version, but purchasing a key for the Pro version allows you to perform a batch restore unattended.


text:
Installation/uninstallation of apps
I noticed that when I install and uninstall applications slow down the phone and it is necessary to restart to restore normal function of the phone. Is it a case like a computer's, after installation should be restarted, and how Android resolves this case?!

I've never had this problem.

I suspect that you're light on internal storage. What device do you have?

I have Samsung Galaxy Y and I have now 189.90/106.86 free. I am using App 2 SD to free memory much it can. Which is the best application for uninstalling?

I've noticed this issue as well, but normal speed resumes after a couple minutes.

Normaly it shouldn't restarted.
If you uninstall an app, it only deletes the apk from the folder /data/app and the app data from the folder /data/data.
Nothing special or magic.

Do I need something else to delet manually or uninstall application deletes all? Whether the specified folders on the sd card?

Normaly everything should deleted. Expect(!) if there is data outside von /data/data or /data/app (e.g some games).

You did mention Apps2SD, that is where the slowdown is happening, more than likely, the filesystem on the SDCard is getting a bit fragmented (unless its non-FAT32 file-system from the old Windows 95 era). It might be better for you to use the Android's native filesystem (Ext3fs) to accomplish this.
You should not have to be restarting the handset in order to resolve it.
Question for you - what class is the SDCard you are referring to. Perhaps upgrading to Class 6 or better might help. (If you're bombarded by the terminology 'Class', its down to the speed of how fast the SDCard can be read in, generally, the higher it is, the faster it is, but then again that's depending on the SDCard slot if its capable of supporting it.)
You would be quite surprised as well, that maybe reformatting the SDCard can do the trick as well but if you happen to have apps on it.. that's definitely ruled out.


text:
I have a refurbished Samsung Galaxy Tab with no Android Market App
I bought a refurbished Samsung Galaxy Tab running
Android 2.3.5

There is no app for Market on the phone.
When I get to market directly, it only shows my Iconia and I've already downloaded things there that I also want on my Galaxy.
When I'm told to sign in to google account, it says I can't add that account, it's already there. I'm not trying to add it, I'm trying to sign in through the google system.
Skype will not download, either.

Maybe a factory reset could help too, at least with signing into the google account

Have you tried installing the Market?  I've installed the 3.4.4 Market from Android Police a few times, if you're looking for a safe file.  Just put it on your SD card or internal storage (make sure it has the .apk extension) and install it via a file manager.  Settings -> Applications -> Unknown sources needs to be checked for this.


text:
Dropbox files won't open, 'Permanent Failure'
Opening files from the Dropbox app seems to always result in a 'Permanent Failure' message. I see that some of the progress bar fills before the error appears. In the past I used Dropbox to view many file types, including JPG, TXT and PDF.
I am googling the problem but I don't see anything specific in the results. I'm wondering if it is due to having too full of an SD card. I will test that shortly.
Device: HTC Incredible (Android 2.3.4), App version: 2.0.1

Have you done the obvious: cleared cache, cleared data, force stop the app?

I have not tried those. Menu | Settings shows that the cache is 0.

Embarrassingly enough, 1GB of hidden files on the SD card was part of the problem. I had seen low space messages recently, so that's why the SD card was on my mind as a possible cause...

I fixed this by removing data from the SD card. It was nearly full. Freeing up ~1GB of the card solved the problem. It's likely that the application uses some SD card space to open files.

I had the same problem (after the latest update to Dropbox 2.3.8, the other day), however I had 8gb memory left (and some 600mb internal).
I had to uninstall the whole app to make Dropbox work again. With the following steps:

Clear cache and remove data
Uninstall the app
Restart the phone
Reinstall the app
Files can be opened again...

I also tried to locate the "com.dropbox.android"-folder per the information at the following page (http://www.reddit.com/r/Nexus7/comments/19i7bs/dropbox_permanent_failure/), but that was after I had uninstalled the application and I couldn't find the folder (which seems logic).
I am running a HTC Desire Z with Android OS 2.3.3.
Hope this helps!

I resolved this issue by reinstalling the app, but now that I think about it, this might have been caused by the fact that I had changed my password (using the web interface) but never told by phone app the new password.

I had the same problem. It was solved after I unlinked my device from Dropbox (in Dropbox Settings) and then re-linked it.

I had the same message but discovered it was because I was connected to a secure wifi network which didn't like me accessing files from the dropbox app on my HTC one.
Solution:
Disconnected from the wifi and used my 3G on my phone.

I had the same problem and I just cleared the cache and it worked. You can do this in Settings → Apps → Clear cache


text:
Shell utterly borked, toolbox claims "no such tool"
HTC Magic, rooted with CyanogenMod 5. Tried to install busybox using "Busybox Installer" from the Market, ended up with a strangely borked system. Android does not boot, freezes on the splash screen. ADB shell, however, works. On the other hand, almost none of the commands work.
The busybox file is in /system/xbin, it seems. However, whenever I call it, I get "Permission denied". Even after sudo.
Running common commands like ls, cp, ln gives the same error message: "permission denied". Seems like those are symlinks to busybox, which is borked, see above.
/system/bin/toolbox is there, but it refuses to do most useful commands with a uniform message "No such tool". Ls, cp, mount, chmod, chown - "No such tool". Experimentally I found that set, ps, kill, reboot work. Is there a list of toolbox commands out there?
The only message of relevance in logcat is "02-02 01:36:38.280: E/logwrapper(61): executing /system/xbin/busybox failed: Permission denied". I kinda knew that.
I can write to the SD card. Is there a way to reflash the busybox while making it executable?
Is there an executable file anywhere on /data, so that I could push a copy of busybox there?
I can reboot into recovery mode, which is Android's own recovery mode.
Any ideas how to bring the system back to usable state? The phone is a scratch phone, so data loss is not an issue - there's no good data there.
It seems like making busybox executable somehow would bring everything back. I'm utterly lost, however, how to do that. And I'm rather surprised toolbox won't support chmod.
EDIT: funny data point. When I boot into recovery, I still can do ADB shell. And I get a completely different environment - there's command line with ls, busybox (!) and stuff. /system is almost empty. From that environment, can I somehow go back to the regular /system? The mount command is available.

If you can flash a custom recovery, it may have a "fix permissions" option.  CWM does.

Off the top of my head, you could try pushing a busybox binary to /data/local and then using it to chmod the one that's in /system/xbin.

@eldarerathis: when I push busybox to /data/local, it won't become executable. And I have no chmod at my disposal.

Oh right, it won't have executable permissions after being pushed. Custom recovery might be a good bet then, as @MatthewRead mentioned.

@eldarerathis It does, but RM requires a booted device ;).  Seva, can you su while adb-ing in recovery?  That might make everything visible.  On my Vibrant the "environment" is exactly the same as normal when in recovery, so I would hope it's not actually different for you either.

Per your last edit: you should be able to mount the device's /system partition from recovery. mount /system by itself works for me, but I don't know if that varies by device/recovery/etc. This is on an HTC EVO.

@eldarerathis: figured that one out. Funny, looks like recovery is a spare Linux instance.

Yay, the phone boots again.
Here's the magic recipe.
Boot into recovery.
adb shell
mkdir /data/s
mount -o rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /data/s
chmod 755 /data/s/xbin/busybox
Reboot the phone.

My shell is back. There's a weird quirk now - ls (from the busybox, one assumes) thinks ADB is an ANSI terminal and tries to emit ANSI escape sequences. Still, yay.

That was my guess - that the permissions were not set to allow busybox to actually execute by the normal user.


text:
Where are binaries installed?
I just recently rooted my phone so I could install SL4A. I want to execute some commands via a Python script, specifically turn Google voice off for all calls, make the call and then turn it back on. I'm just guessing that I need access to whatever the binary is, but there doesn't seem to be a /bin/ folder, so where are my apps installed to? (p.s. Searching from my mobile browser doesn't work on SE so if this a duplicate, please link me and I'll go ahead and delete the question.)

Why don't you just have GV prompt you if you want to use it when you make a call?

I don't want it to be on for a certain call. And since I can set the script to launch with one click from the desktop that would be less clicks than I currently have to make.

Android apps aren't binaries.  They're .apk's, similar to Java .jar files, and .dex or .odex files when in bytecode form.  They're run in the Dalvik virtual machine, again very similar to a Java VM.
You can launch an app from a shell as follows:
am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n <package name>/<activity name>

For example, Angry Birds:
am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n com.rovio.angrybirds/com.rovio.ka3d.app

The name of the activity is found in the AndroidManifest.xml file inside the .apk under //manifest/application/activity/@name.  For Google Voice there are quite a few activities, and you may need to use other intents.  I don't have SL4A.
You can also disable apps temporarily with this:
pm disable <package name>

And re-enable:
pm enable <package name>

Is there a way to launch them from the command line, or more particularly, sl4a?

@WayneWerner See my update.

Thanks, that looks like enough information to get me started!


text:
How to sync only Facebook contacts that already exists in phone for Android 2.2
Device: Samsung Galaxy Fit
Android: 2.2 Froyo
How can I sync only the Facebook contacts which already exists in my phone memory? I don't want to sync the contacts that are not on my phone memory.

You could choose to only show contacts that have phone numbers. If I remember correctly, this is in Contacts -> Menu -> Display options -> Only contacts with phones.
Another possible solution is to go to Settings -> Accounts & sync and remove the Facebook sync, Add account -> Facebook and in this process select Sync existing contacts only.
I'm not 100% sure about the menu item names, but they should be somewhat similar. It's been a while since I've used Froyo.

Whether Facebook shows up under Accounts & Sync will depend on your ROM and what apps it comes with or you have installed.


text:
How do disable VPN gateway when connected?
I am connecting to my VPN from android device (4.0.3) using PPTP.
Everything works except I would like it not to use default gateway from VPN.
Same thing as you would do in windows when setting up VPN connection.
So how do I do that in android?


text:
How to get Power Control Widget (Status bar widget) on stock rom
Can I have the Power Control Widget (Status bar widget) from CM7 on the Stock ROM?

This is the is the only feature I missed from CM7 when I switched back to Stock ROM.
It gives the quick access to power widgets when when I pull down my notification bar
I've tried ExtendedControls but its buggy and not as flexible as Power Control Widget.
Is there any way to have the Power Control Widget on Stock ROM?

On what stock ROM? Which device?

Stock ROMs for some handsets from some manufacturers actually include such a widget.  For example, Samsung's TouchWiz overlay provides a similar looking functionality, although not as configurable or flexible as the one from CyanogenMod ROM.
For other stock ROMs that don't have this feature built-in, 3rd-party apps (like the one you already tried) are the only options.  Even if your device is rooted, porting this widget from CM is not an easy task, since it heavily relies on changes to Android framework and other core services that are specific to CM.  In other words, by the time you're done porting all the prerequisites, you'd end up running CM anyways.

I have a rooted mobile. There should be some way to get this widget ported on stock. Can you tell me which file in the ROM has the statusbar ui ? Can i replace this file with the CM7 version of the file to get this work ?

It's not as easy as replacing a few files.  Widget requires changes to Notification pull-down code and Settings, that in turn require code changes to the core framework, etc., possibly all the way down to kernel.  Again, by the time you're done porting everything over, you will end up running CM.

You can do this via simple apps (like the previous app TogglePanel) however for anything Pre-ICS, it has to be part of system directly, so if your stock rom doesn't have one, you'll need a custom rom that does.  Again this is if you specifically want it in the notification pulldown.

You can try https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.seifsoft.togglepanel
It's pretty and quite customizable.
You can always flash another ROM, but TogglePanel is a viable (in my opinion) alternative.


text:
How do I set reminders using Voice Actions in ICS 4 - Galaxy Nexus?
Willing to pay for an app.
Thanks

Try My Voice Reminder. Its a free app. Don't know if it supports ICS.

Looks like this just allows you to record voice with a reminder, not set one just with your voice


text:
Is there a free android app which can launch apps on a successful wifi connection?
Is there a free android aplication which can launch other pre-selected apps when it detects a successful wifi connection?
Bonus, if it can kill the apps when the wifi connection is gone.
I know plug in launcher pro version claims that it has this feature (but it ain't free)
More background:
I'm using wifi powermanager to startup wifi whenever a power source is connected. Once wifi, is connected, I wish to start applications like airdroid, wifi fixer.

Try AutomateIt.  This app allows you to set up various triggers (WiFi enabled/disabled included) and then assign actions like launching apps or toggling other settings.

You can take a look at the following link for a detailed user guide of AutomateIt: http://muzikant-android.blogspot.com/2011/02/automateit-automate-your-android.html

The free Llama app allows you to combine rules (when connected to certain wlan) with action (then launch this app).


text:
Why are some applications on the Market not on AppBrain as well?
Take this game; why is present on the Android Market but not on AppBrain?

Interesting.  Perhaps a question better asked of AppBrain themselves?  Another game by same developer is on AppBrain: http://www.appbrain.com/browse/dev/Top+Free+Apps+and+Games

The reason can be find in AppBrain FAQ:

4.I cannot find some apps, what's going on?
  It always says "The requested item could not be found". AppBrain lists applications that
  are available in the US that are available for Android version 1.6 and
  up for devices with a normal screen size. Developers can restrict
  availability of apps by country, Android version and screen size. This
  means that if you're not in the USA, have a device with a small screen
  size (for instance the HTC Wildfire or Tattoo), or when you're not on
  the latest version of Android, you may often get the "not found"
  message from the Android market.

So, to give you an example, I am a developer and published an app on Android Market, that is restricted to France and Germany, so users from those country will find it on Android Market, but not on AppBrain, who lists only US applications.

This is not what @michelemarcon is asking.  AppBrain's FAQ entry you quoted is talking about the case where you see an app on AppBrain, but Android Market gives a "could not be found" error.  In this case the opposite is happening.  You CAN find the app on Android Market, but it's missing from AppBrain.

The faq entry clearly explains situations where the game is available on the market but not on appbrain and that is what the OP is asking

@Chahk Please read it more carefully; it's exactly THAT case that is referred in the AppBrain FAQ.

I don't see how you may often get the "not found" message from the Android market can be interpreted as apps missing on AppBrain.

@Chahk Well, I agree that last row it's not perfect wording, though the rest of the answer is quite clear that it's talking about apps missing on AppBrain(it's their FAQ, anyway, not Android Market's). And even for the "not found" message from the Android market, AppBrain it's the one receiving it for you, when it's searching for that app in a filtred selection(country=US)of Android Market apps list.

@Adinia: I'm still not convinced, so I reached out to AppBrain for clarification :) As a note, the app in question IS available in the US, while another one from the same developer is not, and also can't be found on AppBrain. However, the interesting parts about "Road Warrior" game are its listed OS and Size requirements: "Varies with device".  Could be the reason AppBrain cannot display it.

@Chahk Well, then please keep us posted if you receive any reply from AppBrain. :)


text:
Is there a way to add Kindle Fire as a device on the Android Market

Possible Duplicate:
How can I download an APK file from the Android Market?

I want to download APKs from the Android Market and sideload them to my Kindle Fire. I'm able to run APKs using ES File Explorer but not able to download them :(

@Saiboogu - no, it is not. I didn't ask to "get Android Market app set up on this thing", I specifically want to sideload APKs to Kindle.

I think it should be covered by the marked dupe if not by the one Sauboogu/eldarerathis linked, though I see you've accepted the latter's answer :)

The title of your question and it's body are really not very related to one another, but I think the title is actually something that's worth covering since I haven't really seen it come up here before (in a general sense).
Per the title of your question: You can't register a device on the Market from the web interface alone. Devices appear once the Market application has been configured on the device itself, at which point you can install applications via the web interface or from the device directly. The Market's website basically uses C2DM ("push") to install the app to the device over the air, it does not download the .apk to your computer.
So, per the body of your question: You cannot download .apk files from the Market website to sideload them - even with a registered device - so ES File Explorer is not going to help you with that. This has also been previously asked here: How can I download an APK file from the Play Store?
Your Kindle Fire will appear in your account (it most certainly does on mine, anyway) if you install the Market on it and log into your account from the device. There is a question regarding how to do this already: How can I get the Android Market installed on my Kindle Fire? Note that you must be rooted to do this.

The title would be related to the body if I knew that I can't download even with a registered device. I asked how to register the Kindle because when I click to install it says that I don't have a device, implying that it would be possible if I had, that is, I thought it would be offered a way to download or direct install. Anyway, thank you.

The only way to add an Android device to Android Market is to install Google's core applications on it (including Market.)  Unfortunately, Kindle Fire does not ship with "Google experience" apps, and there is no "official" way to install them.  You must root the Kindle Fire first (voids your warranty,) and then install the Market's APK with supporting apps.
See this thread on XDA-Developers forum for an easy script.  It's dated 1/9/2012, so be aware that it could be outdated if there has been an OS Upgrade for Kindle Fire recently.  Browse other threads on the Kindle Fire Development section for other alternatives.


text:
How do I clear out some information recorded in Google accounts?
I have a phone that is running Android. I have several Gmail accounts setup on the phone, many of which belong to my family members who are computer illiterate while a couple of the accounts are my own.
The only reason I have those accounts on my phone is to teach my family how to use email on their phones, which I am going to get them shortly.
Today I noticed for the first time that every one of those Gmail accounts record my mobile device under the "Android device" section of the dashboard. Every Gmail account has the rest of the accounts recorded. The market info too is common to all. Furthermore, they all show the same IMEI. That is plain wrong.
I tried removing all the accounts except my own from my phone but the information recorded still persists. Is it going to be updated after some time when the server cache is cleared? If not, how can I correct this?

Just to verify you have removed the accounts from your phone right?  The only way I know to get rid of persona information collected by Google is to delete the account.  This would be true for Apple's iCloud service and Microsoft's Hotmail service.

Yes, I have removed all the accounts from my phone. What you say is extreme and not acceptable at all. Why do these companies make it so hard. Bollocks.

Unfortunately there's no way to delete this info. I have accounts that were added and deleted from my device more than 2 years ago but the controll panel still lists my device.


text:
How can I root my LG Optimus M?
How can I root my LG Optimus M MS690 on Metro PCS? I've tried Gingerbreak, Superoneclick, and z4root without luck.

Your question is kind of confusing, to be honest. Are you saying your device is an "LG Optimus SH"? I've never seen that device, and Google doesn't turn up any results. Do you have a link to any information about it (the typical one for MetroPCS is the Optimus M, I thought)? Also, Gingerbread is 2.3 or higher, 2.2.2 would be Froyo. Is 2.2.2 what you have running on the device?

Ok I wanna thank you for helping me OK here it is. It is a optimus LG-MS690 Android version is 2.2.2 which is froyo the base band version is MS690ZV6_00.6050 THE Kernel version is 2.6.32.9 build#2 Jun 17 2011 build number frg83g and the S.W.version MS690zv6 and metro pcs is the carrier

I am not 100% that this is for your device, I can't find anything on the LG Optimus SH, these instructions are for the LG Optimus S (LS670)
Requirements

Download and install the .net Framework. Part of this utility software is needed by the rooting application. Get the .net Framework here.
The rooting application will also need the Visual C++ 2008 Redistribute Package. You can get this here.
This process will need a Windows PC which runs either Windows Vista or Windows 7.
It is also best to have a fully charged battery before you perform this process.

Instructions

Download the rooting application from here.
Unzip the downloaded file to have access to the main rooting application.
Download and install the USB driver for the device from here. If you have successfully connected the device to your PC before, you don’t need to do this.
Enable USB debugging in the Optimus S. To do this, just follow this path Settings > Applications > Development and check the box for USB Debugging.
Connect the device to your PC via USB cable.
Open the notifications window on the device and make sure “USB debugging connected” is listed under “Ongoing”.
Go to the folder where you unzipped the rooting files. Right click on “Gingersnap.exe” and then choose “Run as administrator”.
Click on the Root button to complete the rooting process. And, if you just came back here to Unroot the Optimus S, then feel free to click the Unroot button.


text:
Where are the downloads from the Browser stored and how to I get to downloads from the browser?
Using a Galaxy Nexus I download an apk and it showed up in the notifications bar when it was done downloading. I went to install but I didn't set option to allow external apps so I did that and I went back to the browser to install the apk and couldn't find it. It wasn't in the notifications anymore and there didn't seem to be a "downloads" option anywhere in the browser. I ended up having to download it again just so it would be in the notifications so I could then get to the apk to install it. And I downloaded it AGAIN to show a friend the issue. Now I'd like to delete all three and know where to go next time.

There should be a "Downloads" app in your app drawer. Open it to view your downloads. Previous versions of Android (up to Gingerbread, AFAIK, possibly Honeycomb) had a "Downloads" option in the Browser itself under Menu->More->Downloads, but it's possible this no longer exists on ICS.
Alternatively, if you have a file manager they should be in /sdcard/download, I believe (on ICS this actually appears to have changed to /sdcard/Download with a capital 'D'). It can vary by device a bit, but generally it should be /<whatever_your_"sdcard"_path_is>/download.

On my stock Galaxy Nexus, my downloaded files are in /sdcard/Download

@Malachi: Hm, weird that they decided to change the casing like that, but good to know!


text:
Is it possible to extend/upgrade media decoders?
As I am very happy with the internal player for music I would like to keep it. Unfortunately it does not support a certain codec: flac. Is it possible to upgrade the player so it can decode flac?, or do I have to switch to another player?

Core Media Formats table from Official Android Developer site states that FLAC Decoder is integrated and available by default in Android 3.1 and newer versions.
So if you want FLAC decoder for your stock media player, you either need to get your device upgraded to ICS(4.0) OR you can switch to another media player (such as andLess or Winamp) that has its own playback libraries to support multiple codec formats including FLAC.


text:
Asus Transformer - Show Virtual Keyboard When Docked
Asus Transformer tablet provides a dock with a hardware keyboard. I can not find information on showing the virtual (on-screen) keyboard while being docked. Is it possible?
It is Android 3.2.1.

Out of curiosity, what's your use case for this? It seems like it wouldn't really provide any benefit (irrespective of whether or not it's even possible).

Believe it or not, but Connectbot ssh client does not provide a way to press '@' or '$' from the physical keyboard! At the same time, the virtual keyboard does not provide arrows. Both arrows and dollars are needed for a lot of console work.

Interesting. It seems rather odd for those characters to be unavailable with the hardware keyboard.

They are, but Connectbot treats shift strangely.

Actually, regarding your second comment about the virtual keyboard lacking arrows: have you tried Hacker's Keyboard? It's not an answer to this question, but it could be a reasonable stopgap for you perhaps (don't know how it interacts with Connectbot specifically, though).

There is a modified version of connectbot that fixes the shift-number problem and some others:  https://github.com/lorantkurthy/connectbot

It's simple: when the hardware keyboard is attached, the tray (lower right of screen) has a keyboard icon. Click it and the top option is use hardware keyboard on/off.


text:
How can I return from power-saving mode in Android 2.3?
I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S II Epic (with Android version 2.3.6 installed), and whenever my phone reaches 10% battery life it prompts me to turn on power-saving mode (and I do).
However, once my phone is fully charged, I'd like to turn off the settings that power-saving mode comprises (lowered screen brightness, shorter display timeout, etc.)
I see no way to do this in Android except by manually going through the settings and resetting them to the non-power-saving-mode levels. Is there a better way?

Total guess here: press and hold the power button. Is there a Power Saving option in the popup menu?

Try a swipe down on the top status bar, don't you see a toolbar with a button to turn it off ?
If you don't see that probably you can customize the buttons on them and add what you wanted to it.
Hope it helps.


text:
How do I know which applications slows down the phone?
How do I know which applications slows down the phone, so that I could get rid of them?

Although you can't find out what apps are 'slowing down' your phone, you can find out which apps are using your battery the most. Generally if apps are using a lot of battery power, they're probably slowing down your phone too.
You can find the list of apps vs battery usage in Settings > Battery.

My battery use is 57% screen, 25% voice calls 13% camera... If this is the only solution, I might as well throw the phone away. :'(

The Watchdog Task Manager app is really great for these kinds of problems.

There is yet another aspect, Constantly running background (daemon) services that are usually associated with network updates, mails, facebook, sugarsync, dropbox etc.. can get the juice out of your phone very quickly, you need to keep track of  such 'zombie' apps that keep these background services running.
Look at them once and make sure you keep what you need. Be careful it can have lot of side effects.
Settings -> applications -> manage applications -> running (tab)
Hope it helps you.

Hmm.....Try "advance task killer" which force stop all apps except for selected. or manually by going to application select force stop on each application.

I tryed but it didn't help, but watchdog did!


text:
Is there a podcast app that can download podcasts so that they're available to the stock music player
I'm looking for a podcast app that will just run in the background, download new episodes when necessary and make these episodes available to the default music player.
I like to access my music and my podcasts in the same place and don't really like the idea of using separate apps to listen to podcasts and the rest of my music.

The BeyondPod podcast player will download new podcasts directly to your device, on a schedule. For example, I have it run every morning to look for new podcasts.  And, it can be configured to "Share Podcasts" with the default Android Music Player.
I have never used the share-with-default-player feature, so I can't really comment on how well that works in practice.  But the basic podcast management and download features have all worked nicely for me.

Are you willing to consider changing your default music player? If so, DoubleTwist is a great iTunes-like desktop/Android app that allows you to sync and play everything all in one place. Best part is that it's free (everything but their wireless AirSync).


text:
Is a google account mandatory to use the market?
Is a google account mandatory to use the android market?

Yes, it is mandatory to use Google Account to use Google's Android Market; however it is not mandatory to use Google's Android Market to install Android applications. There are many third party app markets and you can sideload an .apk file you have downloaded to the device (except on some devices from brain-damaged carriers where this option is disabled). Some alternative markets do not require registration.

Yes.  You need one to sign in, even for free apps.  Paid apps are paid for via Google Checkout.


text:
How can I perform Optical Character Recognition and have it read with Text-To-Speech?
I know about the (Danish) app SkanRead, but apparently it is discontinued, so I'm looking for alternatives.
The only function I need is that it should allow using the camera to take a photo of some text, and then (some kind of) text-to-speech is used to read the text.

There are at least two apps which correspond with your wishes: Scanthing OCR explicitly announces your request (OCR with TTS)1, and also Google Goggles2 seems to support it:

While the former wants to be paid (~EUR 4) but fully supports what you want, the latter is free -- but I'm not sure whether it reads text via TTS.


text:
If I set an Android 4.0 to use face recognition, after which I shave my head, will face recognition still work?
I was reading about the new face recognition unlock of Android 4.0 and was just wondering that , if I should shave my head afterwards, the face recognition still would work ?

I would guess yes. Your hair is not part of your face (excepting the obvious facial hair like beards and so forth).

You can "recalibrate" face unlock by switching to another type of lock screen and back, as this causes a new reference image to be taken. Meanwhile you can unlock the device with secondary measures (either PIN or pattern unlock).

Yes, of course, obviously you can always take another reference photo. I know that. That was, of course, not the intended answer. (not that it matters so much, of course, I was just wandering about this).

Yes it should work, Since the Face recognition technology in Android ICS is designed to match the face with the help of points of recognition as shown bellow.

Majority points will be applied on the facial parts. So it should recognize your face.


text:
How do I boot my Samsung Nexus S into safe mode?
I have a Samsung Nexus S with Android 2.3.
I somehow managed to set the Zoodles application to start up with laucher. As a result, whenever I boot my phone, I see the Zoodles app and cannot close it or access any other applications.
I searched and understood that if I can boot the device in safe mode, I can remove the Zoodles app. How do I boot into safe mode?

Try booting the phone while holding down the power button during boot. I have also read people saying that holding the menu button during boot works.
Once you are in safe mode, you will see "Safe Mode" at the bottom left of the screen.


text:
How do I prevent applications from restoring after a factory reset?
I have a lot of apps I don't really use, and my phone has been misbehaving as of late.  I'm thinking about just doing a factory reset, but the last time I did one, it restored all my applications, I believe based on my Google/Android Market account.
Is there a way to prevent this so I have to 'opt-in' to all my stupid apps?  Or at the very least be able to remove the apps from the web interface versus going to the app on the phone...hitting uninstall...waiting...repeat a few dozen times?

I think you get the option to enable or disable Google's auto-backup/restore when you configure the first account on the phone, but I guess that would also apply to other settings (I think it stores wifi network settings and things of that nature, too). Also don't know any way to turn it off after the initial config.

Before doing the factory reset, you can turn off backup by unchecking Settings -> Privacy -> Back up my data.  The Market will remember your paid apps.  If you're not going to root and use something like Titanium Backup for the other apps you do want to keep, you could do something like ls /data/app > /sdcard/apps.txt to record what apps you have and then refer to it afterwards, or use something like App List Backup.

Thanks for recommending App List Backup. That's pretty nifty.


text:
How can I read my epub books in Google Books for Android?
Has anyone been able to take and place an epub book inside the Google Books app or know how to do it?

There's a hint that the situation might change soon: The known issues page for Google Play Books NO LONGER lists "Unable to add non-Google eBooks to My Library" as "Working as intended".

As of March 2013, Google Play Books supports third-party ePub or PDF files. You can upload books to your account by visiting https://play.google.com/books/uploads in your web browser (when logged in to your Google account, of course). You are permitted to store up to 1,000 uploaded files on your account at a time, and each file must be no larger than 50 MB in size.
There are also many alternative book reader apps that support ePub files if you would prefer that. Aldiko seems to be very well liked, but I have not used it myself.

Aldiko is a front-runner. Great little reader app.

Another decent epub reader is Overdrive Media Console. I haven't compared it to others, but it works for me, and it's what my public library uses for some of it's e-book lending.

FBReader is a favorite of mine for epubs.

You can import/upload them:
Uploading the PDF/ePub file(s) to your Library

Go to My Books
Click on 'Upload File' in the top right corner.
Choose the file(s) you wish to upload.

Getting the PDF/ePub files in your App

Go into your Google Play Books App.
Click on the button on the top left ('Read Now' or 'My Library').
Select 'My Library'.
Click on the button just underneath it ('All books').
Click on 'Uploads'.
Click the Android Menu button.
Click on 'Refresh'
When you try to open the file, you may be prompted to download it.

Put the epub on your device. Use a file manager such as Files to open it (with [Google] Play Books). It'll import it then.
This was tested on Android 10 with the Files file manager (version 1.0.347928958) on a Vastking KingPad SA10 with an epub created with Calibre (3.21.0+dfsg-1build1) for Xubuntu 18.04.5 LTS, 64-bit, soon before I answered this question.


text:
How can I restore IMEI code after factory reset?
The phone is a Hero H2000 dual sim with Android v2.2.1, MTK Platform
I get an Invalid IMEI error after a factory reset.  How can I fix this?

There are several possibilities. The first starts with checking the "Related" section to the right of this page, which gives you some good candidates which already contain answers/solutions, e.g.:

How to fix “Invalid IMEI ” after Factory reset?

Next, there are some video tutorials on Youtube on this topic, e.g.:

How to Change or Repair Your IMEI Number On Android Cell Phone
HOW TO SOLVED Invalid IMEI

My short Google Search also found some forum threads providing hints and solutions, e.g.:

Invalid IMEI after Reset to Factory Defaults

I couldn't verify any of the mentioned solutions myself (luckily, I've never been affected by this problem) -- but I hope at least one of them will prove helpful to you.

I lost my IMEI today. Searched Google and android.stackexchange.com for solutions, but could not find any. I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 I9505. Could you help me? Thanks!

@SuperThomasLab I have no Samsung device, so I'm the wrong person to guide you step-by-step. I only know with Sammies it has to do with the /efs partition usually.

I already restored the /efs partition, but it didn't work for me.

No more ideas then from my end. Maybe you open a new question (include a reference to this one to avoid someone counting it as "duplicate") with details what you've already tried, to attract those who might be able to assist?

I posted a question here: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/113667/how-to-restore-the-imei-number-on-the-samsung-galaxy-s4-i9505


text:
How to mount SMB/CIFS Network Shares on android device?
I have a rooted android device running on gingerbread. I was wondering if there is a way to mount my windows CIFS(Common Internet File System) Shares on my android device over WiFi.
Is it required to have a kernel that supports CIFS protocol for mounting ?

You have to be rooted and you have to have the kernel module for cifs support. if you have froyo, you also will need slow-work.ko kernel module as well.
Once you have those, you can use (shameless plug) Mount Manager, it can handle loading the modules for you automatically and lots of features available for auto mounting when connecting to wifi, and other stuff. It is a lot like Cifs Manager, but has a more robust system for loading the modules, and supports multiple modules and has support for being a plugin for locale/tasker (paid version).

I have android 2.3  and cifs.ko module is working on my device. Thanks. BTW, what is slow-work.ko?

slow-work is for froyo kernels. it contains some things that are missing in the kernel to allow cifs support. I am not 100% sure what, but I know if you have a froyo (2.2) device then you need that module along with cifs.ko

with its last update from 2011 does this even support android 4 or 5?

Mount Manager isn't available anymore

Any alternative to Mount Manager or CIFSManager currently available?

download es file manager. add shared folder to it by scanning ur network.. video player built in even can put shortcut on desktop. I understand the advantages of what you are doing. it gets the job done without compiling and installing mods.: edit: only works with streaming file formats. copies file over otherwise

ES can't mount the network shares, but this is a good alternative.


text:
Reset ringtone picker preferences
My Samsung Galaxy S2 on Gingerbread was set to use Handcent as the default ringtone picker, and I accidentally changed this back to the built-in ringtone picker. How do I get it to use Handcent again? I went to Handcent, cleared the checkbox and marked it back again, but it didn't help.

You can use Handcent app as the default ringtone picker. To set Handcent as default ringtone picker, go to

Settings | Applications | Manage Applications | All | Android System
  (Sound picker for SE phones)

Click 'Clear Defaults' button.

After this, When you are choosing a ringtone, You will be presented with a dialog box asking you to select one of the application as ringtone picker. Enable the 'Use by default for this action' Check-box and select Handcent. This will set Handcent as your default ringtone picker.

I couldn't find the sound picker, but I did this for Android System, and it worked. Thanks!

in android 4.1/4.2 etc etc its called "media storage" (the one you clear the defaults of)
ya i did just actually go through the whole list and pick it out of ALL of them .. and OMFG IT WORKED ..
hey, sorry im late, but, people seem to be clicking these defaults and not knowing how to clear them (like me) then they go and search for it and nobody knows ..
im actually kind of thankful that it wasnt something more difficult to find, so .. there you go . . "media storage" on samsung galaxy s2 android 4.1

For those that have Samsung 8 the place to reset the default apps is
Settings|Apps|App Manager|
Go to the Three dots on top right and from the pull-down select Reset app preferences

One workaround would be to temporarily install another app that has a ringtone picker in order to show the ringtone picker selection screen, select Handcent, and remove the temporary app. For example, you can try Zedge.

Reinstalling Handcent is another option.


text:
Is there any way to make Android Market "global"?

Possible Duplicate:
How can I circumvent regional restrictions in the Android Market?

What I mean is, is there any way to make the recommendations offered by Android Market be the same as the ones shown on the Android Market website. The app version currently shows localised rankings, which is very annoying because there's a ton of low quality apps and regional stuff which I couldn't care less about.
Y'know, kinda like the option that you get on Youtube.

There is no way to make the market global, but you can change your region with MarketEnabler. Simply set it to US and you will see the same, as on the website.
Notice: You need root access!


text:
Samsung Galaxy Tab P-1000 no longer recognised by the computer
I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab P-1000. I tried to add a language to it using some software, but it stopped working and now my computer can not recognize it. Signs of computer and mobile appear in the black screen only. What shall I do?

Try starting your Galaxy Tab in Download mode.  This is done by completely shutting it off, and then holding both Power and Volume Down buttons together until a big yellow sign with a droid holding a shovel appears, with "Downloading, do not turn off target" message underneath.  If so, you can try flashing the stock ROM via Odin or Heimdal utilities.
You can find the detailed instructions on the Development section of XDA-Developers forum.


text:
What does "SNS" mean on Android?

Possible Duplicate:
What is SNS App?

Everything I try to do (Text, Video, Email, Call out, Apps, Games) I get an "SNS not working" message and have to force close.  I am having a lot of trouble with this phone.  Its a Cricket LG Droid.
Now a lot of my friends & family cannot receive my texts or calls.  It seems that all calls from my phone go directly to their voicemail without it even ringing.  No really, I stood right there with friends calling their phones and they never rang.  What can I do?

SNS stands for social networking service.  I think your device is having problem in connecting to your sns accounts. To solve this problem, try this general solution- Delete all your SNS accounts and recreate them.