text:
What is an "Emergency Call," and can I  set number for it?
On the default lock screen, whether using pattern or pin, there is a button at the bottom which says "Emergency Call". But if I try to call my home number or anything it tells me "That is not an emergency call." What does it let through? Is it only 911?
Is there any way to tell it to allow a certain set of numbers from the emergency button, like to set a list of emergency numbers such as: 911, Home and Wife? This would seem like it would be very useful, so if someone finds you smooshed on the road, they know these certain people should be called.

As an interesting and mostly on-topic point, you should always keep a spare cell phone charged in your glovebox, even if it isn't attached to a carrier contract.  Every cell phone with a charge (in the US at least) is capable of dialing 911 even without a service contract.  If your main phone dies and you get stuck somewhere you can still dial 911 this way.

What might be a better idea rather than modifying the Emergency Call button (which after all isn't there for you, but is there for someone else to use in a hurry, who may not even speak your language natively, so should be kept as simple as possible) would be to find if any homescreen replacements let you put extra, custom buttons on the screen in addition to the Emergency calls button.

@GAThrawn, I know there are ICE apps in the market... I do kinda get a little worried with 3rd party apps modifying the lock screen though, just for the same security reasons you didn't want apps modifying the GINA dll in Windows. Having anything mess around with the lock screen just doesn't sit comfortably with me. That's why I was curious if there was any in-built way to adjust the numbers allowed from this screen. Thanks for the input on the thread! :)

like everything else in Android, the lock screen is just another app, except with the policy that it cannot be closed involuntarily (e.g. through the Back/Home key). Replacing the home screen is a regular business in Android; it does not even require root. There are many lock screen replacement apps on the Market, some had a few additional features, some allows you to put any widget/shortcut on the lockscreen, others experiments with unusual unlocking methods (or even no lock). Don't fear hacking an Android, (almost) nothing in Android is off limits.

There has to be a way to put another number besides 911 as the emergency number, what if you lost your phone. How will the person know how to contact the original owner or get a contact number to return if only 911 is available!
Simon

Hi Simon; there are alternatives which can provide this, ... and I guess could also serve as ICE info. ... check out this question. Cheers!

Have a look at the Medical ID app http://goo.gl/FKdt6N

The purpose of that feature is so that if there is an emergency you can dial an emergency number (911) without having to unlock the phone.  Its not so that someone else can use it to call your wife/mother/ICE number.  It's not a bad idea since if you were hurt then someone else could inform those people but as I understand its just for emergency numbers (although to be honest I don't know of any other emergency numbers other than 911).
Edit: I just realized that if you lost your phone you wouldn't want others to be able to make calls from the phone (another reason why it only allows emergency numbers). However if, as you suggested, it only allowed certain numbers... that would be cool.

How about 999 in the UK and 112 anywhere in Europe, including the UK, for other emergency numbers ;)

112 support is slightly patchy in Europe, but at least its a standard number now. You can use it in the UK too (Directive 2002/22/EC): http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/112/ms/index_en.htm

In India, its 112. And, dialing it always returns network busy status.. :)

As far as the city of Madras(India) the numbers 999, 911, 112 all are redirected to number 100 (city police control room emergency number).

Yes, it's limited to emergency numbers.  It depends on your region and probably your carrier which ones specifically.
There's no easy way to change it.  While it's probably possible to hack that mode, I would advise against it.  First because it defeats the purpose of having your phone locked (do you really want someone to steal your phone and call your wife?), second because it might screw things up when you really need it (and you can't exactly test whether 911 is working beforehand), and third because you should have ID with you anyways if you're concerned about this.

If you're attempting to hack that mode, then I highly recommend not to. A call with the emergency dialer will put the phone into a special "Emergency Callback Mode" (I'd confirmed this from source code); I don't know what precisely the mode does, but hearsay on the net says it allows emergency dispatcher to call you back, track your GPS location, get a caller ID even when caller ID is disabled, make cell towers prioritizes your call, etc. The exact list of things that this mode enable probably depends on local regulation. Basically, calls made in Emergency dialer is not a regular call.

From what I know its a legal requirement to make emergency calls from all telephony equipment (they're extending this to VoIP now), so hacking it to 'call mom' might get you into quite a lot of trouble, especially if someone needed to call the cops and found they couldn't. And don't think you'd get away with it - they'd have your mom's number after all :)

Well, I was thinking more like if you clicked the "Emergency Call" button, it would pop up a list of allowed numbers (which would have 911 hard-coded, and they could click on one of the numbers.

Some versions of Android make it possible to add additional emergency call numbers.   The functionality for doing so has been removed in the latest versions of Android.   These instructions only work for pre-Jelly-Bean version phones.
The instructions for doing so come from this AndroidCentral forum

Go to your contacts
Select the "Groups" tab
Select "ICE - emergency contacts"
Use the icon to the right of "Find contacts" (a silouette with a plus sign) to add an emergency contact.
Select an existing contact from your contact list, or enter the details of a new contact.
All the contacts in this "ICE" group will be available from the lock screen, so you can call them without unlocking the phone.

While you can add emergency contacts, there is no easy way to remove or alter the default (911 in the USA) emergency contact.
emergency contacts http://img.tapatalk.com/add8089c-98c8-5e08.jpg

[...] there is no easy way to remove.  I can remove them fine but I cannot remove them from the Emergency screen once added with the "+".

Can anyone confirm this works on any phones other than Samsung?  The image provided looks different from the stock Android Contacts app on my  phone, and I don't have an ICE group.

@mklauber Seconded.  From my Contacts (Android 6.0) I don't even have a "Groups" tab, only "Favorites" and "All Contacts"

From what I've read, ICE contacts were removed from the lock screen with the Jelly Bean update.  Any phone with Android Jelly Bean or later does not have the feature.

As of Android 7.x (Nougat), you can now set contacts and other information on the lock screen, using a new feature named 'Emergency Information'. In the event of a personal emergency, a person can tap the Emergency button and have access to emergency medical information (allergies, medications, etc), and contacts designated by you.
A good summary can be found at http://www.droid-life.com/2016/03/09/android-n-lets-you-add-personal-emergency-info-to-your-lock-screen/ . My phone's settings menu does not have a “Users” section as mentioned in the article, but I was able to add information by viewing the "Emergency Information" screen and hitting the "Edit" button in the upper right hand corner.
Here are some images, courtesy of Droid Life.

Do you know off hand... information you put in there, is that device specific? Or if you upgrade to a new phone, will it carry over from device to device? I had tried to google that a while ago, but couldn't find an answer really.

I assume it's device specific and won't be transferred to a new device. But I don't know for certain.

I am not in favour of having to select which number to call - keep it simple as you might not have time to select a second key.
But maybe there would be some point to having two emergency buttons on the screen.
One for the emergency services. One for a friend etc.
One important reason for phoning a friend - they might know who you are, where you are likely to be, and what illness you have - important information missing on a call to the emergency services.
Alternatively with a modern phone, surely it cant be too difficult when presenting caller line identity to also present a friends number (or maybe also send a text "I am X. I have diabetes. I am at home or wherevrer" - preset but changeable).
How often do the services get calls they cannot help or prioritise because this info is missing?
One alternative that may help the original poster - Fixed Dialling Numbers allow (selected?) Numbers in memory to be dialled. No new numbers. But maybe not from a lock screen.

Emergency calls are only possible to predefined numbers when the SIM card is not unlocked.


text:
How do you create a folder on a home screen in Honeycomb 3.0.1 (Xoom)?
I was rather shocked to learn that my Xoom tablet, running Honeycomb (3.0.1) does not support the ability to group home screen shortcuts into folders.  Nor does it seem to provide a stock widget that could be used for organizing shortcuts.
Coming from a Froyo (DroidX) phone and iPad, both of which have long supported folder functionality, this is a huge surprise and my only big disappointment with Honeycomb.
I have found 3rd party apps that can help this (Folder Organizer), but this App is overly complex for the given task.  If anyone can recommend an app that does nothing but simple iOS-like folder organization, that would be great. (I realize there are many alternative launcher/homescreen repplacements that support folders, but would rather not broaden the discussion that far for now).
I find it embarrassing to have to explain to iPad users that Honeycomb does not have anything like folder organization for apps built-in to the OS.  Is this a design "feature" of Android?   Does Google prefer another method for organizing home screen icons?  Is it coming in a future release?

I didn't even realize this was missing (but then again, I didn't use folders on my phone either). The only other folder app I've used before is App Oragnizer https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.code.appsorganizer

You can use Smart Shortcuts (lets you organize applications and bookmarks in folders using tags), of the Astro file manager, which let you add shortcuts to folders of the filesystem.

Smart Shortcuts won't let you put a folder on the desktop. It does the same thing all of these shortcut programs do - it puts links to your apps in a window on the desktop that pops open from an icon. It's not really a folder. I need an actual folder that will support drag and drop of shortcuts on the desktop to specific files, not applications. For example I need to be able to put the shortcuts to dozens of pdf's in a folder on the desktop. Please don't answer with Astro will let you put a link to the folder containing them. The links put there by Astro will not stay to the same folder. The a

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text:
Rooting & AOSP Android - Howto
I'm about to buy a new Android phone, and I'm looking at the LG Optimus One P500. IMHO it's a little better than comparable models from other brands (eg. Samsung Galaxy Fit), but there's only one problem that I have with it: I want a "pure-Google experience" as in AOSP Android as seen in the Nexus S et al. So, before going ahead and buying it, I'd like to ask whether it's possible to root the phone and somehow achieve what I want (and remove the custom LG modifications, esp. the dock).
Also I've heard that the variant used on the Optimus V isn't modified as much - can that be used with the Optimus One?

You can ask the offtopic part in our chatroom or a forum or something, but leave it out of the question.

For rooting, see How do I root my Android device?
You should be able to use another launcher regardless, but you can get a close-to-AOSP experience with CyanogenMOD.  I don't believe that phone is officially supported by CM but someone's porting it: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=946354
The XDA Android Development forum for the Optimus One was only recently broken off from the Optimus V forum, so the ROMs probably can be used interchangeably with minor tweaks.  I suggest asking on XDA though.

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

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text:
How can I have android reinstall my installed apps after I do a factory reset?
I have a nexus one and I installed a bunch of apps on it.
After I do a 'factory reset', I go back to 'Android Market' and I see it is trying to download the apps I installed before. However, all of them are stuck in 'Downloading...' - they do not get installed.
I am on WiFi, so it is not an network issue.
Any idea how to re-install those apps?

Sometimes the market gets "hung up" on some of the app downloads. You can long press the item in question that is stuck and then cancel the download.  You'll have to re-start the download yourself, but this will usually fix the problem.

In addition to Bryan's answer, you could try going to Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications and clearing the data for the Market.  That might be easier than manually cancelling every download.

Check out this answer:
https://android.stackexchange.com/a/147872/2960
This I think solves exactly your problem.

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text:
G1/Dream running CM6 - black screen, won't boot, can't reset
I have a T-Mobile G1/HTC Dream, rooted, running CM6.  It froze up at the lock screen, and after trying everything I popped the battery out and rebooted.  However, this didn't solve the problem; I still couldn't get past the lock screen.  After rebooting again (via battery removal, because nothing else worked), I only get a black screen (LCD on but blank).  The problem seems different than other questions here on the site because I don't ever see the T-Mobile splash screen.  I've tried Home+Power, Call+Menu+Power, Camera+Power, and none of those combos have allowed me to boot into recovery or factory reset, I still just see a black screen.  When I plug in USB, the computer does not see the SD card.
Update:  Now the LCD doesn't turn on either.  Perhaps this is a problem with the ribbon after all?  But that doesn't explain the freezing/booting issues.
Update:  Although I only get a black screen, the phone does vibrate when I turn it on (using any of the key combinations mentioned above).

Here are some related sites and questions, but none of them have fixed this.  I am a newbie, so it is very possible I've overlooked something obvious!
http://the-dro.com/technology/g1-stuck-on-t-mobile-bootup-screen/

This is also a related question: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/2289/g1-unable-to-get-past-android-boot-logo/2291#2291

Also related.  It's possible the ribbon for the screen died, but because of the lock screen issues it seems that this might be a software issue. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=462910

Situation is worse for me, as I can't access even the boot menu. My device doesn't even start, let alone access boot menu. I tried everything, from charging getting my phone in the right hands, changing batteries, all that. It's as good as paperweight foe me. I think G1 is quite sensitive, in that, you could destroy it by the slightest touch of the wind. I don't think I'd recommend getting this one to anyone, since it's bound to destroy itself in a year or so, if not a month.

Since you have CM6 flashed already, try booting the phone into the bootloader (fastboot). If you can get in there, you can rescue your phone with fastboot erase cache; If that doesn't work, reflash CM6. This will cost you your data that's not on the SD card.
Opinion: Having had a bunch of G1s (all secondhand), they are not the most reliable phones I've owned. I have had one turn into a brick (permanently!) after leaving it in a hot car (next to my Magic, same chipset, which survived) for 30 minutes.

Ok, newbie question, but I think the info should be here for future reference - how do you get into fastboot?

On the G1, hold camera (all the way in) and press power.

Tried it, won't boot.  I think it's a brick.  Oh well, thanks everybody for the help.

Boo. It happens, unfortunately. If you were seeing the "G1" fastboot is almost guaranteed, but with a blank screen before the logo it was a crapshoot.

One last thought. Hold the trackball in and press power. If you get a blue LED, there's (faint) hope, but otherwise, sell it on the auction sites because the screen is still good.

Do a Dalvik cache wipe. Check the last paragraph of the following blog post http://www.olafusimichael.com/2010/09/how-i-flashed-my-htc-dream-t-mobile-g1.html
Sorry for the short answer, but it should fix the issue.

Thanks for the help.  Only problem is, I can't even boot into recovery mode of anything in order to wipe the cache.  Booting the phone just shows a black screen.

You can erase cache from fastboot as well.

Not much of an answer if all of the salient information is at another site. When that link stops working this answer will be useless.


text:
How can I sync specific Google contact groups?
My HTC Desire A8181 runs 2.2, and uses the People app to manage contacts instead of the vanilla Android contacts app. I'd like to use Google Contacts to manage my contacts and just sync with my phone, but People can't filter by group — so I end up with literally hundreds of extraneous contacts (making it a royal pain to create shortcuts, link contacts) and numerous duplicates (contacts with the same name but different email addresses cannot be distinguished).
HTC have confirmed that it is not possible to change this behaviour. So is there another application that I can use which will sync my contacts only with designated groups in Google Contacts?

Possible options, though not ideal ones:

Flash a custom ROM that uses the vanilla Contacts app
Export your contacts from Google and import them manually (shut off sync)

Aaah... I didn't mention this because it seemed tangential, but #2 is not an option because HTC's People import/export modifies the numbers by adding dashes! Anyway, I'm contemplating #1, I'll wait to see if there are simpler approaches :)

@Mathew How does the vanilla Contacts app sync specific groups ? AFAIK it only syncs "My Contacts" group.

Eventually went with #1. HTC Sense just has too many cons.

@M.Sameer - it's under display options.


text:
Is there a quick way to go to the top or the bottom of a web page when using the standard internet browser
Browsing to a long page in the standard browser on my Galaxy S phone, I just realised how hard it is to go back to the top of the page ( after having scrolled to the end ).
Is there a way ( some gesture or something ) to simulate the 'Home' and 'End' keys one can use when using a PC browser programs ? E.g. to quickly go to the top or the end of the page ?

You could zoom all the way out and zoom back in at the top ... not ideal I know.

No, but this can easily be done using gestures in Dolphin Browser HD.

Have to try the Dolphin browser again than ... did so a couple of months ago when I first got my mobile, but wasn't that impressed with it. Maybe it was because of the lag-problem with my Samsung (at the time - that's much better now I upgraded to Froyo 2.2.1). Can't remember why I uninstalled Dolphin it. But I will give it a try again ... thx

I abandoned it after the first time I tried it too, but after I tried it again and got used to it, I can't browse without it.


text:
Stock Android on Nexus S - "invalid magic code"
I have a Nexus S (2.3.3, GRI54/I9023, bootloader unlocked, clockworkmod recovery installed, rooted) and I'm trying to flash it with a stock system.img that I built myself (no modifications - yet).
To make the stock Android build, I followed the instructions for making a build found at http://source.android.com/source/download.html. The build was successful and the system does work when run on the emulator.
To flash the ROM, I connect the phone, boot with Volume up + Power, connect USB and type
fastboot flash system system.img

The response that is shown on the phone is
Invalid magic code 0x00000003

What does this mean? What's wrong?

https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/126311/fastboot-erase-system-not-working/213489#213489

I believe you need the stock recovery, based on http://2chnull.info/r/smartphone/1292830738/801-900.  You can get back to stock recovery easily, for example follow this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=884093

So with an unlocked bootloader and the stock recovery image I should be able to flash ROMs signed with the default test keys that are included in the public Android repository?

Also, the nandroid backup rom linked in the xda forum is marked GRH78 - could that be a problem for my GRI54? It took me a while to find a custom rom that would work.

Yes, unlocked bootloader + stock recovery should allow you to flash those ROMs.  I would also assume GRI54 would work just as well as GRH78.


text:
Application for automatic synchronization of remote folders?

Possible Duplicate:
Complete dropbox implementation for Android

I'm looking for an application that will synchronize folder automatically from my computer to Android device. Application should run in background.
I've tried Dropbox but it requires to manually download each file.
Any suggestions about such kind of Application on Android Market?
EDIT: For 'Remote' I mean my computer that is on the internet (not in the same network).
EDIT: Another key feature is that I want to synchronize my Folder with multiple Android devices.
EDIT: All suggested applications don't run continuous synchronisation from remote to local. Do you know any Dropbox implementation that will automatically download files from remote on Android device?

How remote are your remote folders? We've had a few previous questions on this sort of thing. Are you trying to sync to a PC on the same network as you?, to your home Pc via the internet, or up to a server on the internet? It seems like the answers on this question are closest to what you're after http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/1120/ but there's also this http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/2172/ or this http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/3774/ or http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/3053/ and http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/5475/

http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/1120/complete-dropbox-implementation-for-android Covers pretty much what you want to do.

I use SugarSync. It does exactly what you are looking for and you get 5 gigs of storage on the free account.

I've used it but it requires manual synchronization. What client do you use?

@Matt: Referral links are not allowed in Stack Exchange.

I use sugarsync's app and it auto-syncs. I'll provide a link when I'm at the computer.

@Al: can you give me a link to some documentation on that? The FAQ seems to suggest under "May I promote products or websites I am affiliated with here?" that it is acceptable as long as its relevant and you're upfront about it.

@Matt: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/75624/ban-dropbox-referral-affiliate-links http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7999/using-affliate-links-in-answer-question http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2716/amazon-affiliate-tags

Thanks Al. The FAQ should be changed to reflect that sentiment.

Use FolderSync (Free lite version is also available with some limitations). It supports FTP, SFTP, FTPS, FTPES, WebDAVs etc. protocols to connect with remote computer. It has many sync options: Two-way sync, One-way sync (up or down).
And yes, it does sync automatically. You can set time intervals for syncing. Instant sync is also an option.


text:
How to access internet on my  HTC Desire from my pc with USB?

Possible Duplicate:
How to set up reverse tethering over USB?

Is there any way for enjoying internet on my android device without having WiFi or any thing else except USB.
Actually I have an internet connection on my PC. I am wondering if there is a way to share it from my PC for my Android phone. It is opposite of the normal "tethering" direction.

Try with:
http://www.junefabrics.com/android/
If you have a rooted device maybe this would be a better option:
http://blog.mycila.com/2010/06/reverse-usb-tethering-with-android-22.html


text:
Suggestions for syncing data to someone besides Google? Funambol?
I've been toying with the idea of getting away from syncing my contacts and calendar with Google. I'd like more control over my data. I've heard that Funambol might be a good solution to this and I'm wondering about other ideas folks might have for syncing and address book and calendar between Anroid and a desktop mail app (Thunderbird, in my case).
I keep the Thunderbird address book on my Ubuntu laptop up to date, so I'd like to be able to synchronize those contacts with my phone and (preferably) have them backed up to a place where I might be able to access them from another location. It would be great to be syncing a calendar as well, though that is less key. Are there ways to do this without backing everything up to Google's hive mind?

You should add some criteria here, creating a problem that we can address for you.  (Rather than a "Hey what do you think" question, which is discouraged)

I've got Funambol running (though it looks like I could sync via Ubuntu One, as I'm on Ubuntu).  It's easier to sync contacts between Evolution and Funambol than Thunderbird and Funambol, but it works.
I was able to install a Funambol server on my local machine, no problem. My laptop isn't really a functional server, so I opted to just sign up with http://www.funambol.com to make sure I can actually sync Laptop Calendar/Addressbook <--> Funambol <--> Android Contacts/Calendar. That is working.
I'll let you know if I learn anything in switching from www.Funambol.com to my own instance of Funambol.

Any success setting up your "private cloud"? I'd be interested!

As it turns out, the calendar doesn't work for me (I can't sync to my laptop) so I've been using Chandler Hub (which doesn't sync to Android) and writing things down. Obvs not an ideal solution. At this stage Funambol is just where I backup my phone's address book. It does nothing else for me.

Latest news (five years on ...) I'm using primarily owncloud. And hosting my own instance. Setup was painless.

what happened to funambol? I also used it in the past... but it seems to be long gone now... :(

You might also want to take a look at ownCloud. It comes with its own Android App. Quoting Wikipedia:

ownCloud is a software suite that provides a location-independent storage area for data (cloud storage). The project was launched in January 2010 by KDE developer Frank Karlitschek to create a Free software alternative to commercial cloud providers. In contrast to commercial storage services, ownCloud can be installed on a private server at no additional cost.

Which means: You can run it on your own hardware. But there are also some providers offering this service. Or you could have your ownCloud hosted with a provider of your own choice.
ownCloud is under permanent development -- so listing its features here would not be wise, as things might change. If all three links I provided "go dead", the service will probably as well -- so as long as this is not the case, please refer to those links for closer information.

These days I have my calendar on OwnCloud (and I use Caldav-Sync to sync it to my phone). I haven't tried their contact sync.

@Amanda I'm using it with DAVDroid meanwhile (for calendars and contacts), works great.

If you want total control over your data, the best way would be for you (or someone you trust) to set up your own internet-accessible server to use for this.
Android natively uses the Exchange Active-Sync protocol for most of its sync to GMail sync, the mail client will also use POP/SMTP and IMAP, and CALDAV can be used for calendar sync.
There are a few free, open-source Exchange Active Sync compatible servers that you could install yourself to get all the mail, calendar, contacts sync working, such as Zimbra and Open-Xchange, but be warned this isn't just going to be a simple install and configure.

I had almost given up! I'll do some tinkering. I do indeed want total control.

If you use a different web mail provider than GMail you should be able to sync Thunderbird contacts/calendar to that and then use the mail client on the phone (not GMail) to sync them to the phone.
Still have to use a hive mind, just not Google.

I was hoping to have more control over my data.

What level of control of your phone do you have?  You could use something like Titanium Backup to export the contacts and calendar items and something like RSYNC for Android to push them to a server you run.
There are reformatting issues however for import into Thunderbird (and it's been awhile for me using a desktop email client).
Looks like someone has cobbled a good RSYNC frontend for Android.
http://www.appbrain.com/app/rsync-backup-for-android/eu.kowalczuk.rsync4android


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Does APNdroid eat battery?
Someone suggested that APNdroid will cause your battery to drain because your phone is continually attempting to connect to the disabled APN. Makes sense, but I wonder if there's something I'm missing? Does APNdroid burn battery any faster than having a good APN and using data?

Good question. I would think (but do not know) that using data would consume more battery than searching (and not finding) a network to connect to.

I confirm it will attempt to connect all the time and drain battery in half a day in my case. To solve it you should untick the data in the network settings and check that GPRS/EDGE/HSPDA icon is not visible on top next to the signal strength bars. But at least APNdroid (or manually modify the APN name) will prevent any connection and any extra charge during roaming session.

Thankfully, my new Galaxy S has a "Data Network Mode" setting I can turn off.


text:
Move AOL contacts to Motorola Droid X
How can I move my AOL contacts to either my GOOGLE contacts or my Motorola Droid X?

Once you get them into your Google Contacts they will effortlessly get to your Droid X (assuming you are syncing that account).

Have you had any success moving your contacts over?

Specifically for moving your AOL contacts to your Google account, this page explains how to do that for a number of different E-mail providers.  Unfortunately this is their answer for AOL:

AOL: AOL doesn't have the
  functionality to export your address
  book, so you'll have to create a
  custom CSV file if you use this
  service.

So it looks like you're stuck typing them all out manually if you want to move them to your Google account.  I don't have a Droid X so I can't dig around in the settings, but I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't have any automatic options with that method either.
On the plus side you could use this as an opportunity to pare down your contact list.  I do this every few months anyway, just to keep the people I actually need up to date and quickly available.
Edit: But wait!  I just found this page which explains a clever way around AOL's lack of export functionality.  It's a little weird, and could be considered inconvenient for everyone you want to move over, but at least it would keep you from having to type out all of your friends' and family's E-mail addresses.  It relies on the fact that Gmail will auto-add anyone who you send an E-mail.
Edit 2: And yet another solution!  This page explains a way to create a .csv file containing just E-mail addresses that you can import into Gmail without having to E-mail everyone twice.

Sorry for the crazy long post and the multiple edits, but at least now you've got several options for getting some of your contact data over to Gmail.


text:
SMS messages never delivered if target phone is off-network
I have a Samsung GT-I5500 (Europa) running Android 2.1.
Sending an SMS message to an off-phone will result in a notification saying 'message not sent'
It is never delivered even after the target phone is turned back on.
Message should be stored on network until it expires or is delivered.
I have eliminated network causes by trying the SIM in a non Android phone, which works as it should do.
I also tried a different network SIM in the phone, same problem.
I suspect the SMS 'message validity' field but cannot find a way to access it.
Anyone experienced this? Are there any solutions?

Have you contacted your carrier?  Have you brought your phone in to be replaced under warranty?  This sounds like your device isn't playing nice with the network to me, or vice versa.

FWIW this never happens with Google Voice.

Hmm, could Handcent possibly get around this?

Handcent does not get round it. Also I'd prefer to solve the problem, rather than get round it.

Yeah I contacted Orange. It was a call centre in India or somewhere. They really couldn't give a monkeys. And cut me off when they realised it was a difficult question (after wasting my time and money taking pointless details). I didn't bother calling back.

I was going to go back to the shop, but then I realised what would probably happen... I would attempt to demonstrate the problem.. and it wouldn't happen. This led me to the fix, see below.

After doing a lot of research around this issue, I deleted the relevant contact, and all the conversations, and after adding the contact again, everything worked OK.
I believe it has something to do with having multiple copies of the same number in the messaging system. ie +447891.... 07891..... 447891... etc I might be completely wrong about this. But it definitely works now, on all 3 messaging apps that I have tried.

Be sure to mark yourself as the answer.

Well since I'm not quite sure if its the right answer, wouldnt it be better if I let it just sit there for a while? Could I go back on that action and choose a different answer later? My solution certainly seems to have cured it, but the fact remains that this should never happen in the first place. If there is a remedy for that, that would be the best answer.


text:
How do I get my contact list to display busines name also?
How do I get the names in my contact list to be displayed WITH their organization? b/c I have business contacts who I may never remember by name but may need to contact someone from their place of business.

Not possible with the stock Contacts app. You'll need a third-party app that displays the data differently.

You could put the business name in the "Last Name" field.

Typing out an organization name in the main SEARCH box displays the relevant contacts that have the info in the Organization field.

You'll have to remove the information from the name field.  Then your business or your organization will be displayed in the contact list.
You can put the individual names of people in the company in the note's field.  You are basically saying the company is your contact entry, not the individual.
Of course you can also have other contacts in your list by person's names.  You can fill out Organization/Business info fields in those also.  When searching, you'll see their names in the list.

This might work for Android itself but we sync our contacts with Nextcloud (using DAVx⁵) and Nextcloud Contacts copies the company name to the name field if you leave it empty. So this ends up with the same as writing only the company name into the contact’s name.


text:
How to disable Screen timeout for a particular program only
Is it possible to disable Screen timeout only when a particular program is running?
If so, how do I do that?
My Nexus One has a "Screen timeout" in "Display settings" that lets me choose anywhere between 15 seconds and 30 minutes, but this is across the board. I would like it to disable screen timeout only when one of the programs (that I currently develop) is running. Is this possible?
If this isn't possible, is it possible to disable it for only when a program is waiting for user input (via a dialog box)?
I wouldn't mind so much about the screen timeout itself, but once the screen times out, the device gets locked as well. :(

Closely related:  Is it possible to temporarily disable the screen timeout ?

If this is something you're trying to incorporate into your app it would be better asked at Stack Overflow.

@Al Everett Actually, I was trying to avoid modifying my app to achieve this. I thought that I may be missing a hidden setting somewhere.

Gotcha.

You can user Tasker to control the timeout for individual apps.

Thanks +1. If there isn't a free solution, this will be the accepted answer.

I found this free solution called KeepScreen: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.tni.KeepScreenLite . It seems to be working (the service needs to be started manually).

Celebration was early. The KeepScreen app seems not to work. I guess YGWYPF.

This is a developer answer, but I know that when you're coding an app for Android you have options that allow you to control the screen timeout.  Google recommends that you use the user's preference by default and offer them actual options in the preferences of your app to change how your app affects the screen timeout, but technically you can do whatever you want.  I have a number of apps (games, PowerAmp, etc.) that I allow permission to disable my screen timeout.

This is a very helpful answer. Thanks. If you happen to have pointer to the actual API for controlling the screen timeout that would be great.

@an00b - http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/View.html#setKeepScreenOn%28boolean%29

@an00b: Adobe PDF Reader only turn off the screen, but disabled screen lock unless the user presses the lock button explicitly. In their case, it is preferable to do it that way since users often read for long periods without making any input; but also, they turned off the screen to save battery (sometimes I fell asleep in the middle of reading). If your app is preventing screen timeout, then don't hold it for too long, users might went away thinking the screen will timeout then return half hour later with their battery drained (or they might fall asleep while operating the phone).

Your answer is excellent (+2 for that) but @Matthew's answer is what I was looking for in this forum. @Lie Ryan Thanks +1 for the tip.


text:
Automatic Download of Youtube Channels
I have a couple of Youtube channels I subscribe to. I'm subscribed both on Google Reader and on Youtube itself. Is there an app that checks for new updates to my subscribed channels and downloads them automatically (perhaps once a day)?
My objective is to always have a few videos I can watch while on the road (and offline). I love how Google Listen syncs really well with my Google Reader podcasts and downloads them automatically, but it doesn't work with video podcasts. So is there an app that will do the same with my video podcasts? (either with Google Reader or with Youtube)
Running 2.1-eclair if it matters.

BeyondPod Podcast Manager should do that. There is a "Lite" version with 7 day trial: https://market.android.com/details?id=mobi.beyondpod

YouTube itself doesn't provide any way to download videos for offline viewing; any application that would let you do this would have to scrape the page to download the FLV (Flash Video) file, and then let you play the file on the phone; this might violate the Terms of Service for YouTube.
Basically, there probably isn't a way to do this, at least no legitimate way.


text:
Why do some Android devices (Samsung) show battery charge in steps of 10% whereas others (HTC) show more accurate percentage?
Why is it that Samsung devices (and perhaps others) show the battery charge remaining in multiples of 10% whereas other devices are able to show a more accurate percentage like 96% etc?
Is this a limitation of the hardware or software and can this behaviour be changed to show an accurate (non-multiple of 10) display of the battery remaining?

My Samsung Vibrant shows 1% increments.  What phone specifically do you see this behavior with?

My motorola milestone shows only 10% as well. The exception is when it gets below 20%, then it shows 15% and 5% correctly. I believe it's a hardware thing and can't be changed software. Honestly though... I can't see why I'd need to be more precise. It would be nice, but I don't find it annoying or anything.

As far as I know, it is just a hardware thing. I also have a droid and it does as Bruce says (10% until 20%, then 15%, 10%, 5%, dead)

Spica usually have 5% increment, but using SamdroidMod or CyanogenMod, there are options to have either the regular battery meter or 1% battery meter.

I have a Spica, GT-I5700 running Eclair.

I have a Spica, GT-I5700 running Eclair and it shows me 100/90/80/70 and then a straight jump to 50 / 30 / 10. I use Battery Monitor PRO to show me the status in the notification bar.

I don't believe this is a hardware limitation, but just the way the phone's manufacturer chose to implement the battery reporting code.  My Droid 2 also only showed by 10% increments.  However, on my current setup I'm using the Circle Battery Widget available on the Market and it displays the percentage in 1% increments.

My only counter example is that on my Droid if I flash a new OS (CyanogenMod, for example), it still shows the same battery percentages. It could be possible that Circle Battery  Widget is "approximating" battery percentage for devices that do not report it?

@Bryan - I've actually been wondering the same thing. I know that after an update all the Moto Droid phones started showing 1% increments in Circle Battery Widget, but haven't seen anything from the programmer on how that was accomplished.  I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that it is an approximation.

My Droid 2 (actually, the EU variant Milestone 2) used to show 10% steps with stock -- but displays 1% steps since it's running CM7.2. Same experience with the Circular Battery Indicator on stock, btw. If it's an approximation, it's a fairly good one, to my experience. Note also that several "system monitor" apps (including the internal one at *#*#4636#*#*) seem to report it in 1% steps.

If you visit the Market page for BattStatt, the developer's site for Battery Left Widget, and this Motorola Owners' Forum thread you'll start to notice a theme.
Several Motorola phones do not report their battery levels in increments of 1%.

Most likely it's a battery saving feature.  Polling the battery state too often will drain it quicker, so manufacturers adjust the polling periods to sacrifice accuracy for better battery life.


text:
How do I silence a call with my Samsung Fascinate?
I want to be able to silence the ringer/vibration of a call without hitting the "ignore" button.
The reason is that if someone gets sent to voice mail after one or two rings they will likely know that you chose to ignore the call, however if you just let it ring until it gets to voice mail there's no way to tell if the person ignored you or truly missed the call.  I'm not in the business of ignoring calls but there are times I do so and I don't want the person to know that I didn't want to talk to them.
I never use a ringtone, but when my phone is sitting on the desk the vibration is LOUD!  Every other phone I've ever had allowed me to silence the vibration by hitting the down volume button.  This doesn't work on my Fascinate.  Another oddity is that I get two different screens when people call: 1. a slider option to answer or ignore with an option at the bottom to "ignore with text" 2. or three buttons: Answer, Ignore or Silence (but this one is always grayed out).  There doesn't seem to be any order to which screen I'll be presented.
Any ideas how I can start silencing calls?
I've got a rooted Samsung Fascinate running Froyo on the SuperClean 2.9 ROM with VZW.

Pressing the power button on my EVO silences an incoming call without sending to voicemail or anything. Have you tried that?

have you tried holding the button down?  Comments on my answer to a similar question suggested that worked for the Galaxy S.  PS - "smearing"? :)

@Matt H: Whoops, that was Swype's fault and I thought I deleted it.  Also, no, I haven't tried holding the button down, I'll try it as soon as I get another call.

I'm interested in the answer here, too. This has bugged me on my Galaxy S, never worked out how to silence without rejecting. I'm getting annoyed by Desire-owning friends showing off by just flipping their phone uypside-down!

H: Yes, holding it down worked, thanks.  Make that an answer and I'll accept it.

You can silence the call without rejecting it by pressing and/or holding the physical volume down button.
Note that some phones accept a single momentary press, whilst others require you to hold the button for a moment or two.  It seems Samsungs tend to fall into the latter group.


text:
Why does Dalvik virtual machine need to run in every process?
JVM and DVM both provide virtual environment.
JVM doesn't need to be in every process.
why DVM need to be in every process?
Thanks.

Neither DVM nor JVM runs on every processes. Natively compiled applications (e.g. the ones you see inside Terminal Emulator) are not associated with any DVM or JVM.
And even when you only count Android "apk" applications, the overhead of having JVM/DVM on (nearly) every process' address space is minimal since they are a shared dynamic library so Linux will smartly load them once in a copy-on-write buffer for the whole OS.

Ah, I forgot about native C++ code, I suppose that wouldn't need to go through the JVM then.

I am a little confused. on android developer website: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/fundamentals.html

I am still a little confused.                             on android developer website: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/fundamentals.html                                                              line7: "Each process has its own virtual machine (VM), so an application's code runs in isolation from other applications. "                                              but i think if we use JVM, JVM won't be in each process, but application's code still can be isolated from other applciations.

@librangel: Just as every Java apps need JVM, every Dalvik apps need DVM. That line is implicitly talking about Dalvik processes since most of Android applications are Dalvik applications. Native processes do not need DVM. Memory space isolation (virtual address space) is a feature of the Linux kernel, and each Dalvik application runs in their own process in their own virtual address space, however the kernel can smartly share memory used by shared libraries such as the DVM. So although physically they occupy the same area in RAM, each application conceptually has their own copy of DVM.

Android applications run Dalvik bytecode, so the DVM needs to be running.  Just like how running Java bytecode on a PC requires a JVM to run.

I think java virtual machine doesn't need to run in EVERY process, right? Then why DVM needs to run in EVERY process?

@librangel It does need to run for every process. Something has to translate the byte code (what Java apps are "compiled" into) into machine language (that the processor executes)


text:
If you install another home locker program which one does Android chooses when it locks your phone?
I asked a similar question regarding an alternate email program here My similar question about an email client, and got a logical answer. Thanks.
However, what happens, I now wonder, when you install another home locker program( I presume this is the name for the software that locks your screen , no ) ?
Since the device itself 'locks' your phone, you may not be around to choose the one you want to use.
Or does , installing another one, automatically disables the current ?

Basically, the replacement lockscreen program will have a service running that recognizes when the phone 'locks' and then overrides the default lockscreen with the one you've created through that app.  There is typically a delay of a few seconds, so it's possible to still see the default lockscreen on occasion.  I've been using WidgetLocker for some time now and have been very happy with it.  It's available on the Market.


text:
Why does bluetooth headset auto dial a number when I press the button
After I have paired a bluetooth headset, if I press the call button on the headset it automatically calls one particular number? Why does this happen?
I would have thought it should bring up the dialer for me to select who to call.
I'm running a HTC Magic with 2.3 Gingerbread if that matters.

I don't think this is an Android issue. Unfortunately, there is no bluetooth.stackexchange.com. (It would have been on topic for the late lamented gadgets.stackexchange.com, though.)

It call the last number used in or out, its supposed to be a quick reconnect after a dropped call...
The the BT is supposed to be hands free, so using the phone to select a call is none hands free!
You should be able to double tap the button and get a voice recognition control, with various occasionally funny results

This is probably determined by your particular headset, not your phone.  I have two different headsets and the call button does two completely different things when pressed.


text:
How can I choose which contacts to sync from Facebook to my HTC Desire HD?
In relation to this question, I asked if there is a way to choose which contacts get synced and got a suggestion to post this as a new question.
So here it is. How can I manually choose which Facebook contacts should be synced with my Android ones?

The Facebook app doesn't have an option for it, so basically: You can't.  Facebook also provides no way to easily export contact information, so you'd have to do it manually (or with some crazy script/app that scrapes the info from the website).

Download Facebook Contact Sync. I had this same problem and found this tool. Its not foolproof as the name in your contacts has to pretty much exactly match what they have in FB as their name. So people using weird names so they can't be found will not allow them to sync. Otherwise it works well.


text:
How do you copy a contact from the SIM card to the phone in order to assign a picture to it
Searching the site here has let me to believe that you cannot assign a picture to a contact which resides on the SIM card ( I am using a Samsung Galaxy S, and that indeed seems to be the case - at least I haven't found a way to do it ).
So I have to copy these numbers to my phone, I presume.
How do I copy/duplicate one contact at a time from SIM to phone memory ?
I especially ask 'one contact at a time' because I , some months ago, seem to remember having read that you can copy all contacts at once, but that is not the action I would like to take ( although, to be honest, I haven't even found that option, yet ).

There's lots of things you can't do with contacts on SIM cards, it's a very old, very limited storage format.

@GAThrawn: True , but that shouldn't prevent other software of extending it ( keeping a picture internally , linking it to the SIM card ). AFAIK, now, you have to duplicate all entries. If you than change the entry (phone number or such) on the phone, you don't have it on your SIM card any more.

Although I still hope that someone else gives me a easier and quicker solution, I have found the following procedure to be a fairly quick method to accomplish what I wanted ( someone else will certainly have another idea regarding this , I'm sure ) :
I send the contact information using the Send via Gmail to my own Gmail account, press Download in the received email and choose Contacts and Phone). Since all information is present in the .vcf file attached to the mail, I can now easily create/duplicate a new contact without having to enter the name and phone number again.

This app looks like it claims to do so; whether it works is a different question.  You might want to buy it and try it quickly, and if it doesn't work then refund it before the 15 minute trial time is over.  https://market.android.com/details?id=com.happydroid.c2spro

For the part of your question where you say you haven't yet found how to copy all contacts from SIM to memory: on my Galaxy S, if I go into Contacts, press Menu, select Import/Export I get the option Import from SIM card. It sounds like that's what you're after?

That copies all contacts though, does it not?

True, looks like I didn't quite read the question properly, sorry about that. Having gone back now and actually fully read it, i'll say that I was answering the "I haven't even found that option, yet" bit.

aha , I thought the import/export was an external dump (not between SIM and memory).


text:
List all activities of an app
I have an Android phone which is not rooted.
Is there any way I can obtain/export a list of all installed packages with their available activities?
ADWLauncher has an activity picker in its custom shortcut feature.
It lists things like:
Calculator
  Calculator(.Calculator)
Camera
  Camera(.Camera)
  Camcorder(.VideoCamera)
  Camera(.Camera_dual)
  Camera(.VideoCamera_dual) ...

I have apps which generate a list of installed packages, but how can I get something like this showing all the activities?

I'm curious what you want to accomplish with this. How does it help you to know what the activity names are in each package?

It's partly curiousity and trying to better understand my phone and the apps. But my larger goal is to use some of these in Tasker programming.

You can use ROM Toolbox -> App Manager -> long click on app -> advanced freeze -> it will show you all registered activities, services, broadcast receivers for that app.

You can have a look at all Activities of an app by using QuickShortcutMaker app. It's quite a funny app which can make a shortcut to specified activity of any program, so you can even launch those hidden ones.

Install Apex Launcher from the Play Store. Open the Widgets and you can find a widget named Activities (with blue Apex Launcher icon). Place the widget in your home screen and open it. You will see the list of all app's activities listed.

Screenshot - Click to enlarge image


text:
How much disk space does Android 2.3.3 and its default apps use?
Different phones advertise different total disk space.  When you get a brand new phone with Android 2.3.3 and its default apps, how much disk space do those take?

It's going to depend on the device. Each carrier/manufacturer likes to add their own apps and widgets. Some even pre-load multimedia files for you. So, this question really can't be answered. (Most definitive answer would be to just get the file sizes of the stock Android ROMs.)

Is there like a ball park answer? like less than 500 MB or 1 GB?

@Thierry I've heard anywhere from 80 MB to 400 MB, and wouldn't be surprised if there are bigger ones.  It's quite a range.

@Matthew Great, that's what I was looking for.  I will assume less than 1GB.

Great answer to a question I was going to flag as "impossible to answer".


text:
Problem with updating CyanogenMod - Phone will no finish booting up
TL;DR Updated CyanogenMOD with ROM Manager and when it rebooted it is stuck on this screen:

I have an EVO with cyanogen 7. The ROM Manager app notified me of of an update. I clicked through everything to proceed with the update and everything seemed to be going fine; it shutdown, started back up, then showed a screen with a lot of text and an Installation Progress bar. Once that finished, it rebooted, showing the initial white EVO 4G screen. It then goes the screen above where it has been stuck for more then half hour (the blue arrow is still circling in the circle).
Does anyone have any suggestions on what went wrong and what I can do to fix it?

Presumably you've tried rebooting again?

Yeah, I pulled the battery and it did the same thing. I tried to hold the power button down to get to the bootscreen(?) so I could try recovery mode, but nothing changed.

You probably have to hold Power + one of the volume keys for a few seconds.  If you can get into recovery, try a factory reset.

Ok so I found the solution. It was stuck in a bootloop. Instructions can be found here.
Bootloop problem

Pull your battery ( If you're already in your recovery skip to step 3)
Use your hardware buttons to boot your phone into amon-ra or clockwork recovery (google to find out how if you're unsure)
Use your hardware buttons to boot your phone into amon-ra or clockwork recovery (google to find out how if you're unsure)
Download your rom (update-XX.zip) onto your pc - this will probably still be on your SD card
Place the rom (update-XX.zip) on the root of your SD card. This can be done through your recovery by selecting "mounts and storage" from the "home" menu of the recovery. Then selecting "mount USB storage"
From recovery select "install zip from SD card" Select it by pressing your trackball/ action button
Select "Choose zip from SD card" (this may vary depending on the recovery used)
Select it by pressing the trackball/action button
Locate the rom (update-XX.zip) you placed on the root of your SD. Select it by pressing the trackball/action button, confirm your selection.
After the install is completed successfully, hit the back button to the "home" menu of your recovery
Choose "Wipe data/factory reset" Select it with the trackball/action button, confirm your selection.
Once the wipe is complete. Use the menu to reboot your device.

YOU WILL NEED TO REINSTALL THE GOOGLE APPS SUITE (MARKET ECT)

Any way to distill the information here into your answer? If that link ever goes away your answer is absolutely useless.

Yes, good point.


text:
How to use a Droid 2 without Verizon service activation
I purchased an old Droid 2 with a clean ESN today, rooted it, installed Droid2Bootstrap, loaded Monster_D2_2.3.2_4.5.153 onto the sdcard, cleaned the cache, wiped the data, rebooted into recovery, loaded the new images, rebooted. Came back up just fine.
Now, here is a problem you may not have experienced before. I am not a Verizon customer. Just wanted the phone to develops Apps and play with.
How can I get past the phone number activation requirement?

Since you're rooted, you might be able to bypass activation permanently by killing the Phone dialer app. This involves removing (or renaming) Phone.apk. I can at least confirm that this works on a Droid 1. Definitely make sure you have a backup made prior to editing your system this way.
You can rename Phone.apk with an app like Root Explorer, or with the terminal app by mounting the system partition as rewritable. This also works if you've set up SSH:
su
mount -o rw,remount /system
cd /system/app
mv Phone.apk Phone.apk.old
pm uninstall Phone.apk

That disables the CDMA adapter and gets rid of the activation screen that always comes up on boot. It should also save you a little battery life too, since it's one less app, and one less adapter turned on. You might get an error when you rename the file, but after rebooting (forcefully, if necessary) everything should be fine.

from Droid Forums To bypass activation:

Reboot the phone, when the green android shows
Tap top left
Tap top right
Tap bottom right
Tap bottom left

Must be done every time you power on the phone

That's bizarre.

Tell me about it!  Although, funny enough the GPS NAV override on my Toyota Highlander is similar enough to make me think the programmer moved on to the droid

If you flash CyanogenMod it should bypass this. Or at least on my g1 it prevents the SIM card requiement, but I would figure it would be the same for CDMA phones on CM

err never mind last comment, I re read saw that it is a droid 2

Any idea how to do this is the right 1/2 inch of the screen doesn't respond to input?

Nevermind. For those that have this problem (I replaced my phone because of it), this also works in landscape mode, and the unresponsive screen area is most of the notification bar.

incidentally, for anyone with a Droid Pro, this also works on that device.

Is there an app for that? [According to that saying, there is, but really, there should be an app for that if there isn't.] I bought a Droid off of eBay and it's requesting for me to activate with Verizon... I don't want to do this every time. Update: Found another way. Look at my answer.

Found another way to do this besides Noah's answer:

simply touch the android, and select skip activation.

~ Android Central Forums (Brought to you by Google and Chrome Browser)

I haven't tested this out yet, so let me know if it doesn't work so I can take this down and it isn't a nuisance.


text:
Can Google Voice Search be configured to confirm name before calling?
When making a call using Google Voice Search, I would like my phone to ask for name confirmation.  So, if I say, "call Gina...", I want it to ask me if I meant "call Tina" before dialing.  (suddenly, I feel like I'm in an old Sprint commercial...)
I would like it to confirm ONLY when using voice dialing and would strongly prefer audio prompt.

Mine already does this. If I say "call Joe" I'm presented with the three or four Joes in my contacts to confirm which one I mean. Are you looking for something different?

@Al -- I don't recall having ever been prompted like this, except for "Call Joe Mobile or Home?", but then I don't have 4 Joes.   @BCooksey -- I asked a similar question.

@TomG - thanks.  By the time it's mis-dialed, It's too late for me.  I don't want to risk causing a ring on the other end.

same here.  When I'm voice dialing, I'm usually driving, and having to grab the phone, unlock the screen and hit the hangup button is a major distraction.  I don't see how it's OK to not have a chance to reject the call before it's made.   I have resorted to removing people from my contacts because they are often enough confused with people I regularly call.

@TomG - removing contacts... good point.  That would probably have some value for me, even if not the solution I'm looking for.  Not the ultimate solution, but my contact list could use some spring cleaning.

Have you tried 3rd-party solutions?  Call Confirm app on the Market seems to do exactly what you need.  I just installed it and can confirm that it works in conjunction with other apps (Voice Search, Google Voice, etc.)

Just tried it.  It does work with Google Voice and carrier dial.  It is a bit slow, but works.  However, it intercepts EVERY call, whether or not dialed with Google Voice.  Good find!

It's only slow if you enable the contact name and picture on the prompt.  If you disable it - the prompt is instantaneous, but it only shows the number, which is a bit less helpful.

For some reason, it only worked the first time I tried it.  Then it started continuously re-prompting for the same call, preventing me from actually making the call.  Uninstalled.

Yes - for well-known numbers, that works, but I don't always have the recipient's number memorized.

In Google Voice app go to Menu -> More -> Settings -> Making calls -> Ask every time I make a call.  Now you will be presented with a pop-up asking to choose whether or not to use Google Voice for this call.  It doesn't show the name or number you're dialing, but at least it will give you a buffer zone, a chance to cancel a call.

Clever, but If it doesn't show the name or number, I how will I know it's going to dial the wrong one - and whether or not I want to cancel?.  ;-)

You're right.  Too bad the prompt covers the name and number.  There might be a way to "skin" that pop-up and make it semi-transparent.  Since the GV app isn't open source, it could be more difficult, but with a help of an app like Ninjamorph it could be possible.  I suggest asking on xda-developers forums for professional help.


text:
Can I disable the hardware 'Search' button?
I'm teaching my 85 year old mother to use her first phone. Her first ever bit of computing. The first use is texting and I've removed all the apps from the main screens except for the messaging app, and after a few days of casual instruction she's now texting and replying to texts very well.
I've only taught her two other buttons so far:
Home (she insists on calling it the 'Hut' button so if I call it the 'Hut' button she knows what I mean).
Back/Undo button
If she gets into something that she doesn't understand her instructions are to hit 'Hut' or 'Undo' and that will cure most things.
However she still gets caught out pressing the search button which brings up 'the internet' and that's currently really confusing, too much for her to handle :-)
This is a Samsung I5503T so has a physical 'Search' button on the lower right. It's right beside the undo/back button so gets hit by mistake (a lot). Is there any way to disable the physical 'Search' button or reassign it so it does nothing.
I'll eventually add more apps but starting slowly (since I live in a different town so most support is by landline phone :-(

It is very late to answer this now but just to remove it from the "Unanswered Questions Section"
You can use these light weight apps:

Remap buttons and gestures
Button Mapper: Remap your keys

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


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Restore only part of nandroid image
In attempt to install 2.2  I've deleted all my contacts(contacts were saved on phone, not as google contacts)
I've done full nandroid backup while phone still had those contacts; however when I try restoring image; I get bootloop.
Nandroid backup contains system.img, data.img, cache.img and boot.img;
I'm wondering if I can restore only data.img to get contacts back.
I have thought of 2 other solutions:
a) make a new nandroid image of current status; verify that it's ok by doing restart; then open copy database with contacts from one backup to another.
b) open database with contacts from data.img; and manually retype 200 phone records.
Is there any smarter (quicker, easier) way??

Clockworkmod recovery has an 'Advanced Restore' option that allows you to pick just one of the following partitions:
boot
system
data
cache
sd-ext
If you don't already have it, download ROM Manager from the market and this will help you install the clockworkmod recover.
(I've no idea whether this will solve your problem, but yes you can restore the data partition! ;) )

Mount the image in your computer (Linux) or phone, extract the contacts database, and copy it over the contacts database in the phone.  You do this using a loopback device, e.g. mount -o loop /sdcard/myimage.img myimage. "myimage" is where you can view the contents afterward.  The database should be data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts.db.
You can restore the data for a single app by copying the relevant folder in /data/data/.

You can use unyaffs to decompress a backup image, and then access the data directly.  Here's a guide on how to do so.

I didn't think of unyaffs here, good call.  I added a good guide I found for it.

I couldn't mount data.img via mount -o loop :(
Also restoring old data.img resulted in Android phone being stuck at Cyanogen logo screen and not loading Android OS fully :(
I managed to extract contacts from old backup by doing this:

Install the Android SDK
Boot into recovery mode
Make full backup of your current system via Nandroid backup
Restore /data partion of your old backup
Boot into recovery mode
Start adb server:

for Fedora

   $ su -
   # cd ~/android-sdk/tools
   # ./adb kill-server ./adb start-server

OR for Ubuntu

   $ sudo su
   # cd ~/android-sdk/tools
   # ./adb kill-server ./adb start-server

Connect to your Android phone via adb SDK command
./adb shell
Mount /data and /sdcard partition via Recovery menu on your phone
Copy contacts from your old /data partition to your /sdcard partition

   # cp /data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts2.db /sdcard/contacts2.db.old

Unmount /data partition
Format /data partition
Restore your current /data partition from backup image
Backup your current contacts database

    # cp /data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts2.db /sdcard/contacts2.db.current

Copy your old contacts over your current one

    # cp /sdcard/contacts2.db.old /data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts2.db

There are also several apps available helping with a partial Nandroid restore:

Nandroid Manager
Nandroid Browser
AppExtractor
Titanium Backup
and more

They all give you the opportunity to extract parts of your Nandroid backup: Apps and their data, SMS, etc., and make the procedure a little easier.

None of these exist anymore?  :(

@endolith Wow. Then I'm seeing a ghost. Titanium Backup is still there (though not updated for a while).

Yes but Titanium Backup can't see Nandroid backups anymore

Ah! Didn't know that. Long ago that I tried… I meanwhile checked, and couldn't find any newer tool either, sorry.


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Nexus One can boot only with USB fastboot
After making some changes to my Nexus One, I can't boot it normally, but I can boot it with USB fastboot, like this:
$ cd 1.0-GRI40-nexusone-superboot
$ ./fastboot-linux boot boot.superboot.img

How do I make it work so that it can boot up by default, without an USB cable connected and the fastboot command issued on my PC?

This solution worked:
$ cd 1.0-GRI40-nexusone-superboot
$ ./fastboot-linux flash:raw boot boot.superboot.img

I've found the necessary info on http://www.gotontheinter.net/content/fastboot-cheat-sheet


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Does Nexus S Wifi and GPS have issues?
So there I was, happily reading reviews about Google's/Samsumg Nexus S building my judgement whether to buy it or not after my Nexus 1 got stolen. Happily enough there were very few posts on issues with the phone and most reviews would state quite triumph for Samsumg for it's gorgeous screen and for finally getting rid of it's dreaded GPS bummer.
Decision made and finally got my own brand new NS. In general terms, the phone is pretty smooth, very responsive - haven't seem an android phone this smooth in a while. I'm pretty happy with it. However, there are two issues which are bugging a lot: the WiFi and the GPS. Since I've read these reviews I mention in the beginning I'm not too sure whether they design flaws or just I got (un)lucky with this one.
My GPS is definitely crap. I have that "GPS test app" and even when it has like 7 satellites in sight it still wont manage to get a lock as quick (if any) as other phones I've been comparing it. E.g. And old HTC Magic sitting next to my NS got a lock in like, 5 seconds while mine took almost 20 - then lost it. Also, after acquiring the lock, it has an average of 20-30 meters error while the HTCs and Nokias are like pin-point 5m<.
As for the WiFi, I'm not sure if is just a display issue or if the reception is really bad, but being in the same room as the router, about 4 meters away, the phone shows two strength bars only. I figure that the reception could be just fine and the display could be just bad parametrized so I've got the "WiFi Analyser" app it says my signal is at -78dBm (which with a little googling apparently means pretty weak).
What do you guys say? Are those known issues? Are there Fixes? Should I send it back?
I just reaaaaly don't want to root it get custom Roms and try and try.. This thing is brand new, should work as it is.

Yeah I am having the same issue. The GPS is crap and has errors as you said.

If nobody else is having the issue, I'd send it back for a replacement.  You probably just got unlucky.  Though you might also want to compare the WiFi signal strength with your other phone, and try some speed tests to see if it's actually an issue or if the number of bars is just misleading.

This link:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Mobile/thread?tid=72cde4a29b9021c3&hl=en
on the Google forums would indicate that there are some connectivity issues with the Nexus S


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Wil my HTC Desire auto-adjust for daylight savings?
Daylight savings is about to end, I was just wondering - will my HTC Desire auto-adjust for this?
Thanks!
(Need to set my alarm tomorrow morning and want that extra hour of sleep!)

Go to Settings -> Date and Time and ensure your time zone is properly set.  This should be enough, but you can also check Automatic or Use network time or similar to ensure it picks up the proper time.

If you've got your time zone settings set correctly then yes, it should be fine. If you are in any doubt you can set it to automatically pick up the time from your network.


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rom manager needs to reflash after every reboot
phone : htc hero.
I've started using rom manager for clockwork mod.
However; it seems that every time I want to reboot into clockwork recovery; I need to reflash it.
Rom manager shows that current recovery is clockwork; but if try rebooting into recovery without reflashing; i get stock recovery (which ofc does not support nandroid backup :D)
Any idea why is this happening and how to prevent it?

"Fake flash"

When you boot into recovery via vol-down at power up, you get stock
When you boot into recovery using RM you get update.zip

You need to flash permanently eg via alpha rev, unrevoked or via adb. I have a desire so what I used may not work for you.


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Unwanted folders showing up in Gallery. Can they be removed?
I'm enjoying Bejeweled 2, but don't want the 'backdrops', 'fonts', and multiple 'images*' folders in the Gallery. They're a pain to wade through when I'm trying to see my own pics.  Is there any way to remove them?
I've Googled a bit, but have only found other people complaining about the issue--no real solutions.

Yes you can! In directories that you do not want scanned by the media scanner put a blank file called .nomedia
Don't forget the "."
Windows may not let you create this file because of the name.
Some file explorer apps have an option for creating this file.
The app developers should have created this file for you but some forget.

Before you follow this answer please be aware that there are many cases of this method deleting the media in the folder where the ".nomedia" file was placed. BACKUP YOUR DATA FIRST.

Many cases? Have you got any links? (it seems a fairly innocuous thing to do; I'm just wondering what it is that does the deleting)

Issue 3692 should of been fixed, but beware on some HTC devices https://review.source.android.com/#change,14161

@Seth Thanks for the update - can you point out where it says this since I couldn't find it.  Had I seen that I wouldn't have said anything.

That worked great--thanks!  I was able to create that file at a command prompt ("notepad .nomedia").

@Daniel
"Fixing media scanner inappropriate removal of media files.
This commit fixes the inappropriate removal of media files
after adding a .nomedia file into a folder that has been
previously scanned."
Though people are still reporting this problem on HTC devices sometimes, and devices without 2.1 would not have this fix it looks like

Thanks @Seth can you provide a link to that for myself and others?

I've created an empty .nomedia file in the directory I want to hide, and while there were no deletions, the dir is also still visible in the gallery (Android 2.3.2). What can be wrong?

Will that work in a parent directory? (e.g. the one that holds all the music albums)

.nomedia doesn't solve the problem at all! Putting that file in folder where you store music (to get rid of all covers to be listed in gallery) also excludes all the music in the media player (PlayerPro in my case).
I would suggest using a BETTER gallery, like QuickPic, where you can set which folder to INCLUDE instead of needing to exclude folders. I Still don't get it why this option isn't available in stock gallery!
Another solution would be to use a separate app to HIDE certain folders, if your issue is that you have some 'secret' folders you don't want your friends or gf/bf to see ;) Hideit Pro is an excellent app of that kind.

just an update: still not available in Android 4.4.4 ;)

If you really want .nomedia to do its job, follow these 3 steps :
•  add a .nomedia to whichever folders you choose
•  flush your photo gallery app's cache/data using your device's app mgr
•  download/install a free media scanner app from the market (there are several) and invoke it … this last step will rebuild the photo gallery's cache/data… CORRECTLY this time !
Plus, you don't even need a rooted device for this : first step you can use any file mgr, even the dinky one that comes stock with Android devices, second step you can use your device's own app mgr as stated, and third step there are media scanner apps both for and without root, diff is only in some extra options, but invoking the Android media scan service itself is just one single line of code, no root needed.

I just tested out Seth's answer and it worked fine on my HTC EVO. I created the .nomedia file using Notepad++ and the default Notepad on Windows, so both of those should create a .nomedia file just fine.  Even though this worked for me, I still suggest you make a backup of your files before trying this (I did when I tested), since from what I read this in an unreliable method for users to apply. Again from what I read it works fine if the media files are placed in the folder after the .nomedia file is placed in it, but if the files are there before the .nomedia file then it may delete the files. If Seth's answer does not work for you, you may want to try creating an empty folder (with the same name as the one you want to put the .nomedia file in), place the .nomedia file in the folder and then add the photos (or whatever media you want), and see if that fixes the issue. I was going to try this if the first method failed, but it hasn't deleted my media yet, so we'll see what happens. If either of these methods are not helpful, there are a few apps in the market that claim to hide your media. Again, BACK UP YOUR DATA FIRST, since I did read a comment that one user's photos were deleted.
Hope this helps.
Edit: As Matt H pointed out, I should have provided links. See the comments below for relevant links.

As per my other comment, where did you read that the .nomedia method is unreliable and may cause files to be deleted?

@Matt H Good point. I should have provided links. AOSP Issue 3692

@Matt H Check out some of the comments here: http://androinica.com/2009/08/how-to-hide-non-music-audio-files-from-appearing-in-android-media-players/

Wow, quite a bug, thanks for the links. The comments on the AOSP issue you posted above say that a fix has been submitted, but it doesn't seem to have made into all versions of Froyo. I have an HTC Desire HD on the latest official firmware (Android 2.2.1), and can't reproduce the problem.

For it to work, after creating the. nomedia file, you must move the media file out, then back into the folder.
I used ES file explorer to create the .nomedia file. Once you create one, just use copy/paste to spread it around.
Also in order to avoid the stress in future, it's better to place the .nomedia file in newly created folders so that all future media file that end up in it won't show up in Gallery.
I found the nomedia file in Evernote folder which means they too foresaw this problem :-)
Edit: I came across another solution.
After creating the ".nomedia" file, instead of manually moving the media files to and fro, you could remove and reinsert the SD card in order to force the gallery to rescan folders.

You could also mount the device to your PC and unmount it, or manually trigger the MediaScanner using an app like SDrescan :)


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HTC Thunderbolt: Why do I have serious text messaging and battery problems?
I just bought a Verizon HTC Thunderbolt Android phone. My battery lasts just 3 or 4 hours... the phone has to basically be plugged all the time. Any suggestions on how to improve this situation?
Also, I have problems receiving text messages... i only receive the first few words of each message. Have you experienced similar problems?
Thanks

For battery life, see: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/476/what-can-i-do-to-increase-battery-life-on-my-android-phone.  I suggest editing your question to be only one question (the SMS issues).

Regarding the battery, there's an LTE toggle on the market which might help. You can find a blog post about it here. This is a major culprit, and from what I've seen there's no native way to disable LTE as you can WiMAX on Sprint's phones (I don't own an Thunderbolt, I've just been reading about them so I'm not sure how accurate this is). That being said, battery life has been a pretty common complaint with the Thunderbolt thus far.
For text messages you could try a new SMS client and see if it helps. Handcent seems to be the popular choice (I'm a fan of it), but there's also some others like ChompSMS or Go SMS. It may be an issue you'd need to bring up with Verizon, though, if the problem persists across SMS clients.

To fix the SMS problems, rip out the battery for a few seconds, and put it back in. That should (usually) solve the problem. My Thunderbolt had some really weird issues with SMS when I first brought it home.
The Thunderbolt includes a toggle widget to turn automatic data sync on or off, which is very handy if you don't really need every single application checking constantly - that includes a bunch of HTC widgets that you can't remove, and is the primary reason the battery dies so quickly.
I ended up switching my phone to 3G mode most of the time, using an app called Phone Info, which does the same thing as the LTE toggle app. That really helps with battery life - and Verizon's 3G network is pretty fast, so when I'm on the go I don't really notice the difference.


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How to remove MotoBLUR from Motorola Charm MB502 phone?
I have a T-Mobile branded Motorola Charm (MB502) phone that I bought for my wife.  It's a capable little device, but it's being slowed down to a crawl by MotoBLUR.  I'd like to know if there is a way to remove all BLUR software, preferably by overwriting the firmware with a de-blurred version.
It's been updated to the latest firmware and rooted via SuperOneClick.  Here are the relevant details from the phone's "About" screen:

System Version: Blur_Version_2.3.9007.MB502.T-Mobile.en.US
  Model number: MB502
  Baseband version: EPU93_U_03.3B.02
  Build number: BASIL_U3_03.90.7

I know of at least one de-blurred version that can be flashed with RDSlite, from and-developers.com. Unfortunately this version "BASEM_U3_01.12.4" doesn't work on T-Mobile Charm and (almost) bricks it after flashing, requiring a re-flash to the base T-Mobile sbf. Also, on xda-developers thread a dev managed to build a working version of Clockwork Recovery for the Charm. However, there are no ROMs available for it yet.
So my question is this: For the lack of any 3rd-party ROMs, is there a way to safely remove all BLUR apps and references from Charm?

What if you just used a different homescreen launcher? Like ADW.Launcher or Launcher Pro?

I'm afraid it's well beyond the launcher app.  I already use LauncherPro Plus, but the phone is still incredibly slow because of all the useless crap Motorola puts on it. BLUR spreads its roots throughout the system. The useless social apps (Happenings, MySpace, etc.) are woven into Motorola's own system apps like Dialer, Contacts, Calendar, etc. and are impossible to remove or replace with Android's stock apps.

There are alternatives - Dialer One as an alternate dialer / contact manager. GoContacts has also emerged as an alternative.

This might help: https://supportforums.motorola.com/message/157915

It looks like someone has finally managed to get CyanogenMod 7 (Android 2.3.7 Gingerbread) ported to CHARM and Flipout phones (they are very similar in hardware.)  This thread over at XDA has all the details:

First of all your device should be rooted with SuperOneClick or any other method (if you don't know how to do it search on google)
Download Flipout System Recovery from the market.
Download CM7 ROM here. https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0B_9PV...xport=download
Download Google Apps here https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0B_9PV...xport=download
Put both the CM7 ROM and the Google Apps on the root of the sdcard.
Open FlipOut Recovery and select Install Recovery System. Grant it superuser permission. After that select Recovery Boot
Wipe data, cache and open Advanced and wipe Dalvik cache
Select "install zip from sdcard" - "choose zip from sdcard" - select the CM7 ROM and go to - yes - and wait until finish
  installation, then use the same procedure to install the Google Apps.
Repeat step 7 again.
Reboot and enjoy CM7.

I am happy to report that this tutorial works, and completely replaces the MotoBLUR firmware of Motorola CHARM with CyanogenMod 7.  It's not perfect (rotation is "sticky", there is no way to disable the back-track, etc.) but it functions well enough to be considered "working".

While I don't know how to kill MotoBlur, if you are rooted you can use Titanium Backup to remove the crappy system apps that run all the time.  Just open Titanium, click the offending app, and click Uninstall.  Only remove apps that aren't needed for the system to run, of course.

I am aware of how to remove the apps via adb. The problem is that many system apps on the Charm are heavily integrated into BLUR, and will cause instability if they are removed.  For example, after removing Happenings.apk I could no longer edit contacts. The contacts app would FC. The same is true for other parts of the system - removing a useless app from /system/app/ causes some seemingly unrelated process to become unstable. I guess what I need is a list of system apps that are truly "safe" to remove.

That's really unfortunate.  It sounds to me that you're not going to have much luck without a custom ROM.


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Can I use Android Emulator to get the Free apps from Amazon's app store?
It is said that we can test drive using Android apps even using an Web based android emulator for Amazon, but I don't see it on Amazon's Angry Birds webpage?
Can we download the Android SDK and use the emulator to use any free apps offered on the Amazon app store?

The test drive feature you mentioned is only available on certain apps.

You can certainly install the Amazon App Store app on the emulator.  First go to the settings and allow installation of apps from unknown sources, then open the browser and download this app.  This will download the app store .apk, which you can then install.
However, if you are planning to download and run Angry Birds (or other games), on the emulator, you will probably find it is too slow unless you have a very fast PC.  It might work OK for less demanding apps.
Also, beware that at the moment Amazon only permits US users to download apps (see How can I get apps from the Amazon app store from an unsupported region?).

Yes, the emulator runs rather slow on even the best dev machines. And running the Honeycomb emulator is extremely slow

@Bryan There seems to be a trend of the emulator getting slower with each version (presumably it has more work to do as the platform becomes more complex).  The 1.5 emulator is quite speedy, 1.6 is noticeably slower, 2.2 is slower still and 2.3 crawls on my less-than-recent machine.  Haven't tried Honeycomb yet.

I imagine the user wants to take advantage of Amazon's free paid app every day. He or she likely didn't have an Android device at the time, and Amazon requires a registed linked device to take advantage of the free app of the day.


text:
How do I fix pwd (print working directory) on Cyanogenmod 7?
I want to use WinSCP to transfer data to my phone over wireless. I've enabled dropbear on my phone.  WinSCP connects, but crashes after trying pwd.  Logging in with PuTTy, I can see that pwd is returning a blank line:
/data/dropbear # pwd

/data/dropbear # which pwd
/system/xbin/pwd
/data/dropbear # busybox pwd
/data/dropbear
/data/dropbear # ls -l /system/xbin/pwd
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root             7 Apr  1 23:30 pwd -> busybox

Coming from an OpenWrt background, that dropbear setup seems normal to me.  Why is this shell printing blank lines?  My device is a Motorola Droid running Cyanogenmod 7 RC4.

What do you get if you just run busybox without any parameters? It looks like that's what's happening on your first line, since as you say, pwd is just a link to busybox.

Can you replace the pwd symbolic link with a script that just runs 'busybox pwd'?
Or would an alias work?

The behavior is different because dropbear uses a different shell than the terminal app.  A workaround would be to just use the same shell as the terminal app:
echo "/system/bin/sh" > /data/dropbear/.profile

Be advised that this contradicts the Cyanogenmod wiki, which instructs you to use the busybox shell: /system/xbin/busybox sh


text:
What should I backup before installing a new ROM?
What do I need to backup (using Titanium Backup) if I want to have the 'same system' after applying new version of a ROM?
Is it better to set up everything from scratch or restore my data from the backup?
I have a HTC Desire and I'm upgrading from CM rc2 to CM rc4

possible duplicate of What are things to do before reformatting phone or setting back to factory state?

Jumping between ROMs in the same development series is usually safe without backing up or wiping the data partition (although the cache and Dalvik cache should always be wiped), unless the installation instructions specifically tell you to wipe the data partition (which seems unlikely in this case; if such a drastic change were needed, it shouldn't be a release candidate any more).  I would nevertheless back everything up just in case, both application backup like Titanium Backup and Nandroid backup from the recovery partition, but then I'm paranoid like that.
Jumping to a different series (say, CM6 to CM7, or CM to aosp) you should always back up everything and wipe everything.

and what do I need to restore? anything will be reset/overwritten by installing new ROM?

In a case like this where you don't need to wipe /data, everything should still be there after you flash the new ROM.

Remember not to back up and restore system apps, restoring those cause lots of problems

If you are going from a 2.1 to 2.2 ROM, or the like, you can not restore from nandroid as it will not backup your kernel

In order to avoid any possibility of data loss if something goes really wrong (never happened to me, but...) you should backup:

Installed applications, if you don't
want to install all of the installed
applications in case of failure.
Sent and received SMS, MMS
Photos and Videos if you stored it
in the main memory (not common)
Contacts (only if not synchronized
with a Gmail account).
Emails (only if not synchronized with
a Gmail account).
Calendar (only if not synchronized
with a Gmail account).

Basically if you want to be sure that nothing can go wrong, you need to backup all your data and configuration.
There are apps to do this, like Titanium backup

what about system setting?


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Device recognition on Android SDK
I've got a Chinese aPad running Android 1.5, how do I get it to be recongnised by Android SDK? I want to do adb hacks as recommended by this answer. Pointers to using adb also welcome.

You forgot to link to the answer mentioned in your question.

Is the aPad "Google approved"?  I thought it didn't pass Google's Comaptibility Test Sheet.

@Daniel, my bad.

@Matthew, no idea.

Assuming that the PC you've got the SDK installed on is running Windows, the first step to getting your device recognized by the SDK/ADB is having the right Windows USB drivers for your device installed.
See this previous question for more on getting hold of the right ADB drivers for your device: Substitute Win7 USB drivers for ADB mode


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Why do I see a Smiley instead of Next button?
My relatively newly acquired Samsung Galaxy GT-I9000 running Android 2.1 should have a next button around the bottom right of the keypad as per manual/online information. However, I can only see a Smiley button which doesn't have newline as one of the options.
Is there a user configurable option to switch between Smiley and Next? If yes, how to invoke?

Do you know which keyboard you're using? The Galaxy S comes with a number of different keyboards by default, you may be using a different one than the instruction assume that you're using: go into Settings -> Locale and Text, Select Input Method and see which is selected (you should have at least Samsung Keyboard and Swype as options).

As below - I use Swype. Samsung keyboard gives Next button. I should imagine next is a must whereas smiley is nice to have - regardless of input method (just an opinion)

Can it be that you only have a next button when there is more than one field on screen ?
Please add what program you are using when you see this .

Agreed, using the Swype keyboard on my Galaxy S, the button on the bottom-right changes functions depending what app I'm in and what I'm doing, sometimes it's an Enter key, sometimes it's a Next field button, sometimes it's a Go button. I assume the same sort of thing happens on other keyboards.

Thirded, this is the same on my SGS Vibrant with the stock Android keyboard.

Hi. Thanks what I've noted since is that I don't have the issue on Samsung keyboard but Swype keyboard.

Also - to answer your question, I'm using it for regular SMS

This is quite normal on the default keyboard. The smiley should only shows if you're typing in a single-line textbox (i.e. it have been configured so you cannot add newline), and there is only a single textbox in the page, and the app did not bind custom functionality to it.

Is there a user configurable option to switch between Smiley and Next?

Not as far as I know. The developer of the app you're currently using gets to decide the "type" of keyboard that is shown by default, and they can customize the action button.

If yes, how to invoke?

Try opening the browser, while on the browser, the smiley should turn into newline button (e.g. on multiline form input), or Go button (on the address bar), or sometimes Next button (on pages that have multiple single-line input).

I have Jelly Bean 4.2.2 on a HTC One S and Swype 1.4 installed. I was ready to go on a shooting spree when I thought I couldn't hit a return button to start a new line!
I opened a SMS thread, tapped Menu > Settings and scrolled all the way down. There is an option at the bottom called Soft keyboard type. Open that and you get --
<> Smiley key
<> Send
<> Enter for a new line
Select the bottom one and you're golden!
This setting will change it for both the stock Android keyboard and Swype.
Cheers

Just to be clear for other visitors: this will change the behaviour for any keyboard, but only in the SMS app. As others have described, it's up to the app to choose whether an Enter key or some other action key is displayed.


text:
how can I change defaults in Android?

Possible Duplicate:
How do I change the default Complete Action With?

I've accumulated a number of programs that do the same thing (browsers, mp3 players, video players etc), and some of are set as defaults.
How can I change the defaults?  For instance, let's say I'm tired of Opera and want to to switch back to the stock browser, but I want to leave Opera installed, how can I do that?
I have a Samsung Galaxy S with Froyo.

Find the application which currently handles the action by default in your application list (Menu > Settings > Applications > Manage Applications).  Once you've found the app in question (note that the 'Manage Applications' list is almost, but not quite, in alphabetical order), tap it, and then tap the 'Clear defaults' button.
Then, next time you start an action that would previously have been handled by the app, you'll get the 'Which app should I use' popup.


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New messages do not show up immediately - HTC Desire Z
Has anybody else encountered this problem? I go into my message inbox and at that point I see I have unread text messages that were received many hours before without notification.
I have got the notifications configured appropriately to alert me to new text messages in the status bar. This is an intermittent problem.
Any help much appreciated.

In case anybody else is having the issue still, my phone recently picked up the Gingerbread release. This appears to have resolved the problem.

Other folks here have suggested that the issue may be with your SIM card:

Recipients complain they receive Text Message from me with a half hour delay

I was having a similar problem which was resolved when I reset my phone to factory settings (for other reasons). It might be worth asking your carrier for a new SIM, though.
PS. This user asked about sms receipt delays -- a different but related question.

Could you link to the other answer(s) where a SIM card issue was suggested?

I did link to the one, but I made that more explicit. I can't find others (though I did discover a lot of tag synonyms ...)


text:
I need a Handbrake preset for a Samsung GT-i5500 Europa please?
I need a Handbrake preset for a Samsung GT-i5500 Europa please?
This is to convert video clips and movies etc into a format that can be viewed on my phone.
Many thanks

You can view Android's supported Media formats here: http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/media-formats.html
I would recommend H.264 video and AACv2 audio, for the best quality.  The dimensions depend on the dimensions of your phone -- in your case, 320x240.  It's not the most powerful phone so you may want to experiment with the quality to get it playable but also looking good.

Additionally the container for the video should be 3gp which Handbrake does not handle. I am going to do the conversion in "Super" instead. These settings worked however once I had converted the mp4 output of Handbrake to 3gp

Hmm, OK.  The developer guide says mp4 should have been OK.

It's possible that different settings may have worked within an mp4 container. I used low quality settings within mp4. It wouldn't play. Same settings with 3GP container, worked fine.

I finally found a setting in Handbrake that works fine for mp4 files as follows: Container=mp4 file Picture size width=320 height=240 Video Codec=mpeg-4 (ff mpeg). Framerate=12 2 pass encoding=checked. Avg bitrate=56 Audio source=automatic codec=aac (faac) mixdown=mono sample rate=44.1 bitrate=32