text:
Galaxy Gio doesn't find GPS satellites after minutes of searching
I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy Gio (GT-S5660). When I try to connect to the GPS satellites, 75% of the time the built-in GPS is unable to locate me within a few minutes. I keep seeing the blinking GPS icon. The other 25% of the time I get a GPS signal within 15 seconds.
Is this unusual behavior? If yes, what can I do to find the cause of the problem? Are there any known "death grip" issues related to GPS chips?
I should note that I don't have a data subscription for my phone and I've disabled mobile internet on my device, but I have offline maps (certain areas in Google Maps and my entire country in MapDroid) so the GPS chip should be able to operate without data or WiFi.

I wonder if it's a similar problem to the Galaxy S.  You could try some of the tools from the answer to this, but the rest won't apply.

I discovered an app called GPS Test that assists in finding satellites by showing how many are currently in view. Basically, I just move my phone around until I can pick up enough satellites. Then I hold it still until my position has been locked in. After the lock-in I just use my phone like I normally would.
I look like an idiot when I try to pick up a GPS signal by holding my phone up weirdly, but at least it works now.
For those of you who are interested, you can find a full write-up of my solution here. You can download the app for free on the Google Play Store.
By the way, I'm on Gingerbread now. Samsung has released an official update since I posted my question a few weeks ago. As far as I can tell, the GPS reception didn't improve after updating.

Apparently Samsung has a lot of problems handling the GPS feature.
It is no news that the Galaxy S is really flawed regarding location (see this). Personally, using one, I have felt the pain, as I had the same problems. I don't know if the problem is the same with the Gio, but some of the things I've tried were:

Turn GPS off and then back on;
Reboot the phone;
Bang my head on the wall.

It also appears that the problem tends to be resolved by upgrading the OS. What is yours?
More: there are several ways to reduce the GPS problem on the SGS, check that thread out, I hope you get some ideas for your problem.
Personally, I don't think the "death grip" is a problem, nevertheless you can make some tests to check out if it really makes a difference (I actually don't know where the GPS receiver is located within the phone).
The fact that you have no Internet connection is also not a factor.
Also make note that you can obtain a course location via network triangulation and/or wifi networks.

I'm on 2.2 Froyo, waiting for an official Gingerbread update.

Without a data plan you actually have two big problems with GPS.
Firstly without a dataplan the coarse location via network triangulation or wifi networks won't work properly, as your phone needs to query Google's central database of phone network tower IDs, Wifi point IDs and their location, this is a huge amout of data that's updating constantly, so your phone only ever has a small cache of recent data for the location near where it was last needed. This means that with no dataplan your phone can't quickly get your rough location to help it out (coarse location is accurate to anywhere from about 30m to 2 miles depending on your location, better in more urban areas, and you're missing out on this).
If you have no data then another problem you'll have is that your phone will almost never have the current assisted GPS data. The GPS satellites periodically transmit an almanac of all their current, precise actual locations (which can vary from their predicted locations by quite a long way for various reasons), this data is only transmitted by the satellites on a very slow bandwidth transmission, rebroadcasting a few times an hour. Most phones just connect to a server over the internet to quickly grab this almanac data, yours needs to wait until it's received the entire message from the satellites before it can properly calculate your location.

Is it feasible to cache some of this information beforehand, if only just for a certain radius around a certain lat/long coordinate?

@Pieter The assisted GPS data can be downloaded and cached beforehand over Wifi and this is valid worldwide for a few days (you can use an app  like GPS Status that will tell you how old the data is, and will force a download if necessary https://market.android.com/details?id=com.eclipsim.gpsstatus2) the wifi/cell tower data is only valid for fairly small geographical areas, so I don't know how you'd cache that in advance for travelling.

After downloading the assisted GPS data, I still had trouble connecting to the GPS satellites.

I have Galaxy 3 (GT-I5800) and 7" Galaxy Tab at hand, and I can confirm their GPS performance is abysmal. It also seems to deteriorate over time.. unless I'm imagining things.
The best way to get lock is to be outside, stand still and open the Google Maps. It can still take minutes and sometimes it just doesn't get lock at all, but if you move, or start some random Android app first, you can keep going for half an hour and not get a lock once.
My guess is that Samsung engineers are just plain bad at designing GPS antennas and the software side is not brilliant either.
I don't know how the GPS could get worse over time except some connector coming loose or drivers accumulating crappy data, but that's how it feels in practice. The effect remained the same on the Galaxy 3 after upgrade from Android 2.1 to 2.2. If anything, it went worse.

If your net is enable, The agps module would be active, which can accelerate satellites searching. In my experience, if your apgs is active, you would locate your location in 5s~10s(find day). That only gps locate your location is so slow that any guys can`t bear it. :-). So, try enable your wifi/3G net.
By the way， the gps chip manufacturer provide an agps server, your mobile pad will connect this server by your net while you start gps location. Sometimes, the server can not be accessed， but it`s little possibility.
May good luck!

I found out that I can access GpsTest2 (similar to LbsTestMode) using the access code
*#*#3214789650#*#*

Could this help in trying any possible fixes? My default settings are M-Based, supl.google.com:7276.

I also recently purchased the Galaxy Gio S5660 and was quite disappointed as it seemed the GPS did not work at all.
I had to enable the location assist just to get some form of location that seemed vaguely accurate and even then its best only went to 120m accuracy.
I installed both GPS Test (as mentioned by Pieter above) and GPSFix from the android store and now I get up to 4m accuracy indoors. I have not tested this in real navigation conditions as yet but the change so far is very impressive.
It seems both GPS Test and GPSFix improve the AGPS functionality by updating some information on the phone. GPS Test does this via the menu - Settings - Update AGPS. To check I restarted the phone and then tried GPS Test again. Within 20 seconds I had a fix with 4m accuracy. I was not moving during my tests which can also have an impact as suggested by others.
I also have the Galaxy S2 and found that the S2 detect the satellites from the same location with much better strength. This to me indicate the antenna of the Gio is not that good. I attempted to change the position of the phone, removed the back cover,  and tried some strange looking stances but no real improvement.
My phone configuration:

Samsung Galaxy Gio GT-S5660
Android: 2.2.1
Baseband: S5660XXKB9
Kernel: 2.6.32.9-perfroot@DELL104 #1
Build: FROYO.XXKC4

Typing *#*#3214789650#*#* worked for me
once gpstest2 opens up you can then go to commands->Get position
it gave me lock on some satellites and i was able to get my accurate position in maps without WiFi and gprs
I also found a useful app in android market known as 'gpsFix' which pretty much does the same thing but it had trouble finding satellites when i was indoors.

try installing "gps booster" from the android market (nay, google play).
It runs automatically once you start your gps and enhances the performance of the in-built GPS unit.
To maintain a gps lock you can also consider installing tracker booster. it's easy to use and can be run in the background.
I hope this helps.

There are two GPS Booster apps, this by Snowak and this by octy. Which do you refer to?

I find it hard to believe that an app could improve the GPS performance.

@Flow Likewise. My end goal here is to improve the answer by placing the links, saving future readers the effort of search the apps.

@Zuul This was not meant to be criticism or alike. I can't even rule out that the apps do in fact work. It was just meant as side note.


text:
Uninstall system app failed using 'adb shell pm uninstall'
I attempted to force uninstall in ADB, but failed:
$ adb shell pm uninstall -k org.openintents.filemanager
$ adb shell pm list packages -f | grep -i manager
package:/system/app/FileManager.apk=org.openintents.filemanager

What went wrong here? What can I do?
I used the internal application manager and there isn't an option to delete it.

When manually deleting application from /system remember to delete their corresponding data folder in /data/data/«identifier» There is also a track of the previous apk signature in /data/system/packages.xml that can prevent a reinstall of a rebuilt package with a different key.

Well, since the FileManager.apk package resides in a /system/app/ directory it is a system app. So the general way to remove it is:
adb shell
su
mount -o rw,remount /system
rm -rf /system/app/FileManager.apk
rm -rf /data/data/org.openintents.filemanager
mount -o ro,remount /system
exit
exit

When I run mount -o ro,remount /system, I get an error: Device or resource busy

@IgorG. I was able to resolve that by answering a prompt on the actual device.

@AlexB Actually, no prompt occurs.  This is a custom bootlegged phone, I guess.

Worked for me, Make sure the device has root access.

Edit: when I saw the comment to CommonsWare answer I did not realize it was the same as the asker... anyways, a little explanation may be useful for somebody.
As yourself commented, the easiest way to uninstall a system app is plainly to delete the .apk file. The adb install / adb uninstall commands are useful for regular apps, not system apps. Since this apk is located in /system/app, adb uninstall will not remove it.
You can use the command suggested (rm /system/app/YourApp.apk), but before the /system folder need to have write access. You will need to see how to remount /system in your specific device, try searchig for "android remount +rw /system" and your device).
Alternatively, you may use any app that can do both deletion and remounting and has root access, such as Root Explorer and Astro

thanks aleadam... plot thickens because the rm that i did removed the apk but, maybe, not the cache.. Im unable to install from the market .. that fails .. looks like i either have to clear the dalvik cache or just revert the entire ROM to a backup image... install at cmd line with adb ==> [INSTALL_FAILED_UPDATE_INCOMPATIBLE] ... unable to use market to download install ... get "installation error incompatible update" ... im on a custom rom and have a backup thats 2 weeks old and i may just revert to that.

link  what i should have done is in the 2nd post on this thread

The 'Failure' problem has more to do with the adb shell appending a DOS line ending ^M (on CentOS Linux anyway).  Put the list of applications to uninstall in a file and copy to the android device directly.
root@android:/root # dos2unix list-of-apps-to-uninstall.txt
root@android:/root # for f in `cat list-of-apps-to-uninstall.txt` ; do echo $f; pm uninstall $f; done;

Tapemaster has made a Stack Overflow post which demonstrates the necessary trick.
Do this:
1.  Install adb on your computer.
2.  Root your phone.
3.  Enter these commands into your computer:
adb shell
su
mount -o remount,rw /system
rm /system/app/UnwantedApp*
pm uninstall org.unwantedapp
exit
exit

The third command remounts /system read-write.  The fourth command deletes the app's .apk and/or .odex files.  The fifth command finishes the uninstallation.
In my experience:  If you have already entered the the fourth command, then the fifth command will return Success.  Otherwise, the fifth command will return Failure.
When entering the above commands, you must replace UnwantedApp with the app's real filename (without the extension), and org.unwantedapp with the app's real Java package name.

Can you justify the existence of your answer, when the majority of the content as well as the essence is already covered in an existing answer?

@Firelord: 1. When "pm uninstall" reports "Success", it gives users confirmation which reassures them that they've done everything right. Sadly, rm -rf /data/data/org.openintents.filemanager doesn't provide such confirmation. 2. I speculate that pm uninstall might do more than just removing the app's data directory even in current Android versions.  And definitely it might do more in Android versions which will be released a decade from now. Really, pm uninstall is the Right Way to uninstall packages.  I urge you to choose the Right Way instead of trying to kludge things yourself.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Android - Change Google account on Nexus S

Possible Duplicate:
How can I remove the default Google Account on my phone?

I tried different methods of changing the Google account on my Nexus S, all failed. Did someone manage to do this, without a factory reset?

As noted in the dupe (and Ryan's answer below), you normally have to do a factory reset.  EricShaefer's clever answer to the dupe looks like it might work, though, worth a try.

AFAIK, you cannot change the "default" user account. This is the account tied to the market and other things by default. The only way to change it, is doing a factory reset.

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


text:
Can I install CyanogenMod in Samsung Galaxy I5510?
Hello I have a Galaxy I5510 and I''ve reading about ROMS. I'd like to try CyanogenMod but my phone isn't in the list of supported phones, is there anything I can do?
If not (which I assume) which ROM would you recommend? I'm looking to get extra functionality.
If I don't like some ROM I installed I can uninstall it and go back to the default ROM or any other, right?
Also, I'm kind of scared.. If I get to root my phone without troubles, can installing the ROM break it or my only risk is with the rooting?

I'd like to try CyanogenMod but my phone isn't in the list of supported phones, is there anything I can do?

If you'd search more carefully, you'd find this topic (link). There is CyanogenMod for your phone. But this firmware in early alpha stage of porting. Another great link.

If I don't like some ROM I installed I can uninstall it and go back to the default ROM or any other, right?

Yes, you are right. Also I'd note that there isn't dedicated uninstall procedure, but you always can reflash your phone to another ROM version, including original stock ROM.

If I get to root my phone without troubles, can installing the ROM break it or my only risk is with the rooting?

The most risky part is, of course, flashing. Because if something goes wrong, you may get bricked phone. But usually everything is OK. Also Android supports recovery boot mode which can help in case of unsuccesful flashing.

Thanks for the links! I'm kind of scared so I'd prefer to wait to a more stable version. Can you suggest me some ROM more stable than those ones for my phone which adds functionality?

I haven't managed to find any really good custom ROM for this phone. To be honest, I didn't find any custom firmware. I think that reason of it is a little number of owners of this model.

Check this forum. It is dedicated to the development for custom rooted ROMs on GT-I55 series. There are ROMs for I5508, I5500, I5503. Maybe slight modification may port it to I5510. You should ask the dev team for some assistance.


text:
How do I delete a Google Plus Huddle message?
I shared a message in Google Plus Huddle with one of my contact.  I am looking for a way to delete the message but cannot find anything.  I even cleared my Google Plus data from Manage Apps but the message comes back after signing back in.
Does anyone know if it is possible to delete a Google Plus Huddle message?

It does not look like there a way to delete Huddles, only hide them.  Navigate to the message, hit the menu button on the handset, and select "Hide".


text:
Can I tether iPhone 3G to EEE Pad Transformer?
This is somewhat simmilar to Can I Bluetooth tether my Android to iPhone?, but since it is 7 months old and belongs to different Android version, I will ask again.
I want to buy EEE Pad Transformer (which comes with Honeycomb) and I want to tether it with my iPhone 3G, which supports only Bluetooth tethering. Will that be possible? (I will clarify - I want to tether the 3G connection, that I have on iPhone, to EEE Pad)
I know that the question is half about iPhone, but I think it is more about Android, since I know bluetooth tethering works on iPhone 3G end, I just want to know if it will work on recieving end on EEE Pad Transformer.

Tethering an iOS device to an android device will cause a wormhole to open and suck them both in. I don't recommend it.
the non-sarcastic response to bt tethering on honeycomb


text:
Is there a maximum number of files per directory or maximum directory size?
Recently I made a directory with > 20,000 small mp3 files in it. Not all the files successfully copied across from my desktop computer and if I tried to add any more I received an error message similar to - 'Unable to create the file'.  I assumed I had reached some sort of system limit, but I was just guessing.
Samsung galaxy tab.

In any case creating catalog with a lot of files isn't good idea. In such way you make filesystem sloooooow. Make subfolders and sort files into them. Also it simplifies file searching.

This, really, isn't an android question, it relates more to file systems.
The limitation is set by the file system. FAT32 can have 65,536 entries. Each file and
subdirectory takes from two to thirteen entries, depending on the
length of its name.
There is one entry that hold the Short (8.3) name of the file name. If the actual name doesn't fit that entry, then there will be one to twelve more entries, each of which holds 13 bytes of the full name.
The size of the file itself, doesn't have make a difference, unless the file is larger the 4GB, which is the maximum file size for a single file in FAT32.
You can read more on the FAT32 Spec if you wish here.

The size of the file itself, doesn't have make a difference, unless the file is larger the 4GB, which is the maximum file size for a single file in FAT32.
I've often get problems with files bigger than 2GB on FAT32 FS.

FAT32 can have 65,536 entries.
If article in wikipedia [1] is correct, there are some    moments. 1. There are different items in file system: root entry catalog, directory catalogs and entries in these types of catalogs. 2. It looks like that the number of entries is linked with cluster size. 3. All files in subdirectory is described in this subdirectory's catalog.
Also we don't know what type of FS is using OP. Maybe it is FAT32, maybe ext3, or maybe NTFS (I'm really not sure does Android support it).
[1] -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table

@George, I assumed FAT32, as he is copying files to his SDCard, while he could use extX, it is unlikely, as FAT32 is how android formats the sdcard. And AFAIK, android does not have an NTFS filesystem module.

I've checked NTFS support status. Yes, you are right there isn't support for NTFS in stock firmwares. But if you need so, you can add it by hand. Please, look here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=13337600&postcount=6
Also I agree with you that most common FS for memory cards is FAT32.
But in Android devices there is internal storage. And it can be mounted to desktop PC when you connect Android device to PC. And what FS is used there is question. Another good link: http://leemn.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/galaxy-tab-changing-file-system-to-ext4-and-upgrade-to-modaco-rom-beta1/

The only file system that android will recognize for the sdcard is FAT32. if you format it as anything, you would have to do other "tricks" with scripts to get it to mount it. I have a partition on my sdcard formated as ext3 back on my G1 so I could do apps2sd, and android does not see it as part of the sdcard. there were external scripts that were used to mount it.

Where did you find that rachels wrote files on SD but not internal 16GB of Samsung Galaxy Tab? It isn't obvious.

the internal storage on a galaxy tab or galaxy s device is recognized as an sdcard, and is formatted as FAT32.


text:
Where do I start if I want to learn custom modding an android device?
I have some basic knowledge of android phones from a fan's point of view and have had a bit of experience with testing of custom ROMs but I really would like to start with basic development on my own.
I'm no developer, which is why I need some serious advice of where do I start and how do I proceed. What kind of prerequisite knowledge do I require ?
Any kind of tutorial or knowledge database which can help me get started would be very helpful.

What kind of "development" do you mean? Creating custom ROMs could potentially be reasonable for this site (though it's never come up, I don't think), but questions about developing your own applications should go to Stack Overflow. I'm not really clear on what you're looking for, to be honest.

Theming is probably on-topic here, but development of any kind is not. That said, the best way to start is to jump in and start playing with things ... I started learning about computers as a kid, and accidentally deleting Windows once and other mistakes were formative experiences :P

Actually I'm on nothing specific. I like theming but creating custom ROMs or applications are the best part of it which gets me interested into. Anything you think that will be suited for a beginner like me.

XDA is a good resource but not a good starting point. The AOSP is also. But the best idea is always to look how others are creating customs ROMs. For example the CM development for the Kindle Fire:
A good starting point is Jackpoint Calvin's post about how to create a CM update.zip for the Fire from source. It gives a good overview about how the kernel, ASOP, hardware modification and CM play together. And how these are handled with Android's repo script.
Forums are a good information resource, but it's hard to find useful information fast. IRC channels are the first place to get involved. Join a few rooms to get into contact with developers. Maybe you find a beginners task on which you can start working.
Also you need knowledge about Android/Linux kernels, hw drivers, C and some Java.

I second to what @Blundell said.

For Moding,Rooting&Flashing
first try finding a cheap hardware and also checkout the support for Rooting, building cutom kernel, custom system image for your chosen hardware and get going.
There are lots of resources available from

XDA
Modaco
CyanogenMod.

for App developement on Android
follow this below link to start with installation and configuration of sdks....
http://developer.android.com/index.html
there books avaialable on Amazon. for deigning UI, Android Fundamenttals, professional.... try searching some books which gives you the insight of 'what is what' and 'who made who'

Learn Java (the programming language Android is based on)
Recommended book 'Java in Two Semesters' (ignore that it's based over 2 semesters)
http://eclipsetutorial.sourceforge.net/totalbeginner.html
Then use:
http://developer.android.com/index.html
http://www.xda-developers.com/
http://www.modaco.com/


text:
HTC: multiple notifications
I've recently bought HTC Desire and tried to setup all settings etc. But I have two problems:

Twitter notifications are delivered from Twitter app, HTC Twitter widget and something called Peep. Same message appears 2-3 times.
I've installed Skype. Is is possible not to receive notifications on Android if I have Skype turned on on PC? It's very annoying when I'm chatting with someone on Skype on PC and receive Android Skype notification every 20 seconds.

If you don't want to use multiple apps ... sign out of or remove all but one.

No idea, not using twitter on my phone (@Matthew read's idea has merit)
Open skype, hit menu, Settings, uncheck notifications you don't want to see.


text:
How can I integrate and manage SMS from many phones?
I'm looking for a way to integrate SMS messages from my two phones and manage them online using a web site.
I mean that I will be able to send and receive SMS by web, and search my SMS by text.

Google Voice.

Indeed. I lurve Google Voice.

Thank you, but I am not able to login. I receive alert: Google Voice is not available in your country. I read that this site is available only the USA.

DeskSMS is another option, recently released by Koush (maker of ROM Manager).  I haven't tried it myself but it's getting great reviews.

Only answering the "search my sms by text" part, but you can quite easily sync the reseived SMS text messages from both phones to the same (or separate) labels in GMail and then easily search both phone's worth of texts in GMail (on the web, or even in the phones' GMail apps) using an app like SMS Backup+.
SMS Backup+ syncs all of the SMS (and optionally MMS) texts received by a phone to GMail, putting them all in a specific GMail label. If you install it on both phones, you can either sync them both to the same label  if you want them all pooled together, or sync to two similar labels to keep them separate and then you can still search both phones worth of texts in one go.
If you sync them all to the same label, just select that label in GMail and search as normal. If you sync them to separate labels then, if your first phone's messages sync to a label called "smsone" and your second to a "smstwo" label, you can search for the word "test" by putting this in the GMail search box:
l:smsone OR l:smstwo test

Try to use smslemon.com. It is very helpful service. You can send, receive, browse and search your sms. Their Android app can be found here.


text:
Recovery boot not working properly - cannot select items
I am working towards installing CM7 on my HTC Incredible and have hit a snag. When using 'Reboot into Recovery' from ROM Manager v4.3.3.0 the phone reboots into Recovery, but the menus do not function properly. I can scroll up and down with volume control, but pushing power to select an option blanks the menu and takes the watermarked Icon for ROM Manager at center of display and makes it solid with nothing else displayed. Action does not happen. If I press power again, it toggles back to showing the menu and I can scroll up and down, but no action can be selected. I have to take battery out to boot again. I thought it might be due to doing this first time with USB connected to computer since install guide states:
Known Issues

Shutting down the phone with USB plugged in will start ClockworkMod
Recovery in an unreliable mode.
Shutting down the phone and then plugging in USB will also start
ClockworkMod Recovery in an unreliable mode.
The HTC Battery charge icon is replaced by ClockworkMod. Charge with
the phone running in standby mode.

But upon retry without USB plugged in same result. I tried 'Flash Alternate Recovery' to "RA_GNM Recovery v2.2.1" in Rom Manager and it gets: "An error occurred while flashing your recovery." I tried 'All ClockworkMod Recoveries' to move back to v3.0.0.7 and then back to v3.0.0.8 and it still fails in same fashion.
Phone appears to be rooted properly, but I cannot do this last step.
Please suggest how to get Recovery to function properly.

Try pressing the trackball instead of the Power button.

Try second way to enter recovery:

Shut down the phone.
Press "-" key and push power button.
In appeared menu select Recovery item with volume control buttons.

Maybe it can help.

There is no '-' key on this phone as far as I can tell.

- = VolDown. Sorry, if it isn't obvious.

Volume is for scrolling up and down, turns out answer is as posted by Matthew.


text:
Wheel behaviour for HTC Desire (setting alarm)
A couple of days ago I was setting my alarm on my HTC Desire (rooted and flashed with InsertCoin) when I realised a really cool behaviour with the wheel whilst selecting the 'minutes'.
Basically, no matter how quickly I flicked it would stop at 00,15,30,45. ie. it would be scrolling fairly fast, but would jolt to a halt and stop at '15'
Now, I didn't really think about it that much, other than "wow this is cool, don't remember this before"
However, now I can't seem to reproduce the same behaviour - when I flick the wheel it just scrolls and eventually slows to a halt at any old number...
Just wondering, did I somehow do something special to trigger the "smart scroll"? Has anyone else seen similar behaviour with the scrolling wheel?

On my Desire with InsertCoin 1.1.0 (CM7 + Sense) the "smart scroll" feature is only active on the scroller for specifying the appointment time in the calendar.

Ah yes, I think you are correct! I must've been adding a new calendar event and not setting my alarm. Thanks for pointing it out :) (though I do wish this "smart scroll" behaviour was everywhere when setting time)


text:
HTTP Progressive Streaming from .mp4 link problem in Android 2.2
http://streaming.sit.kmutt.ac.th/test.mp4
Using above link, I use web browser in android 2.2 open this link, it cannot stream video using video player. But if I use android 2.3.x, it's ok.
Why android 2.2 cannot view mp4 file using video player?


text:
How do I share files on my mobile over WiFi?
I have an Android phone. Can I share files on my smartphone with all devices on the home network? Which app will let me do this?

Are you willing to go through the internet "cloud", or do you want all communication to stay within the home network?

@zdan: I want it to stay within the network

Some phones come with a builtin app like samsung kies over air or allshare... What phone do you have?

File expert app can do this using both HTTP and FTP.

This app can share files over wifi by providing access through a browser WebSharing

Easy and simple way is just download application Wifi file Explorer which is free in android market. It enables you to connect to your phone via WiFi. The app gives you the local ip and port for your phone that you can type into your browser from your computer.
For example:
if ip is 10.0.0.1 and port is 8080, write down "10.0.0.1:8080" in your browser
Then you can view your files over your wireless! And with the paid version, you can download whole folders and send files to your phone :)

The easiest way in 2023 is to use Nearby Share  which all Android phones and tablets have.
Have you used the Nearby Share app on Windows?
I'm able to send a 1.2GB file from my phone to my PC at 60MB/s and I'm about thirty feet and four walls away.

Nearby Share uses the fastest possible connection it can establish with both devices. If it is not possible to establish a stable or secure proprietary Wi-Fi Direct connection, then it may fall back to using Bluetooth only. That will always be a magnitude slower.

Nearby Share uses Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, WebRTC, UWB, and peer-to-peer Wi-Fi to allow users to share files and links between devices. It was first released on August 4, 2020

authors: Ярослав Рахматуллин

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


text:
How can data on an unrooted phone be backed up?
What methods are available to back up data (both system and application) from a phone which is not rooted and is running stock Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread?

It is my understanding that it is impossible to retrieve application data (not stored on the SD card) on an unrooted phone, except where the application itself offers export. Is this accurate?
Of the system settings and built-in applications, which ones have export facilities I can take advantage of? Which ones notably have no export and have significant amounts of data which I might want to manually transcribe out?

I am already using Missing Sync for Android which takes care of the contacts, calendar, photos, call log, and SMS messages. My phone is a Nexus One.

Related: How do I perform a full pre-rooting backup of an Android phone?

@eldarerathis: Missed that one in my search, but yes. I'm asking here about what you can do, including (standard-)application-specific mechanisms, rather than the impossible full backup.

If you are talking about the application data, it is a security design that other apps can not read this data unless the have super user permissions (root). Everything else can be backed up.

@Seth Hikari: There is one exception: In case the app uses the sharedUserId attribute other apps from the same author can access the private files as well...

By using cat trick to copy /data/data... the one snag is this - in a unrooted handset, ls will throw up a opendir permission failure... having said that, you can inspect what apps are installed by using pm, and then deduce the /data/data/.... directories which are - if not all, guaranteed to have databases, shared_prefs, libraries, for example, package my.app.foo, there will be /data/data/my.app.foo...

If a phone is not rooted that means that apps are securely sandboxed. There is no way that one app can access the data held by another app. In the underlying linux filesystem they are actually represented as different users, and do not have permission to access each others' files.
The only things that can backup the files are a) the system itself and b) the app can backup it's own files.
In Froyo (2.2) Google introduced cloud backup, which many app developers have integrated into their apps. This means than some apps will just automatically restore their data as soon as you sign into a new phone with your Google account. However, this will only work for those apps that have implemented this functionality.
You should find that all of the system apps now have full backup, or cloud sync, from Froyo onwards.
From my recent experience upgrading to a Galaxy Nexus - Cloud Sync: GMail, Calendar, Contacts; Cloud Backup: All system settings (I was surprised by some), Email settings. Not backed up: Browser bookmarks (though these are synced in ICS).
There is not default system functionality in Vanilla android that will backup all of your apps, and I'm not aware of any operator/manufacturer customisations which have implemented a system-level backup.
One thing that you can do is to install a new recovery, such as ClockworkMod. This does not require your phone to be 'rooted', however, it does need you to have an unlocked bootloader, which I suspect is what you are trying to avoid, as it is typically reflashing the bootloader where 'bricking' occurs.
You may be able to manually pull all of the files from the /data partition, using adb. You can browse them using 'adb shell', and pull them individually using 'adb pull', but you would need root to be able to restore them. This also requires a certain amount of technical understanding. edit: actually after further testing, even this requires root access.
The suggested MyBackupPro below will not backup all of your apps - only those with exposed contentResolvers (ie SMS, calendar, contacts etc). Those things are automatically backed up in Gingerbread anyway. (I can't comment or vote down)

Excellent answer. Can I get some confirmation from experience that all of the built-in apps (including system settings) actually do backup?

Helium (previously known as Carbon) can backup apps even on non-rooted phones. For this, it requires connecting the phone to a PC via USB and running an adb command which will start some kind of proxy service that will allow Helium to backup your apps. Internally, it seems to run adb backup through that proxy service.

Does this actually work for Android 2.3 as requested?  The Google Play page for Helium says that it requires Android 4.0.

@jamesdlin: Oops, I completely missed that! Now that explains why Helium did not work when I tried on a 2.x device. :)

You can actually use MyBackup Pro -- works wonders on unrooted phones!

While it does work on unrooted phones, it only backs up a limited set of data - those things that are exposed by contentproviders. This includes Contacts, Calendar, Photos, Call log, and SMS messages - the items that the OP states are already dealt with by Missing Sync.

i understand that by loading airdroid onto an unrooted device that you can then connect via its web server from your desktop and backup all the files from the device. Presumably you can reverse the process to restore.

Android doesn't have a web server and you certainly can't back up everything just like that.

@MatthewRead AirDroid includes a web server (which prof is referring to), and it allows you to backup your *.apk files to your PC. As it includes a file browser, you can copy files to the PC as well. Though I wouldn't call that a backup, either -- at best a partly file backup.

ASTRO File Manager is great to backup apps as well as many other features that make it an overall great app itself. I have used to for backup when I have needed to wipe my phone and start again.

Can you explain exactly how it backs up anything of interest, given the file protections, and whether it does more than any other file manager? Stuff on the SD card is obviously copiable and not part of my question.

Astro file manager will not backup application data on an unrooted phone.


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How do I customize the look/feel of my lock screen?
I have a Samsung Droid Charge (running 2.2) and it comes with two lock screen slider styles: Glass and Puzzle. Is there any way to get additional styles? I've done quite a bit of searching but haven't found anything.
Note that I'm not looking for an app. I'm specifically looking for more system styles, if they exist.
Do they exist?

Try WidgetLocker, it's very customizable and my favorite.

You can use WidgetLocker as @onik said, but if you search for "lock screen" at the Android Market you will have a lot of alternatives, like for example WP7Lock


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ADB constantly disconnects, shows device offline
I'm not 100% sure if this should go here or the main Stack Overflow, but I decided to go with this area in hope I might catch someone with more specific experience with a similar problem.
I have a Samsung Captivate (love it minus it's crappy GPS). I do development for it from 2 different computers, one at home, one at work. The machines are both Windows XP, Service Pack 3, 32 bit. I have the same Samsung drivers installed, same versions of Eclipse, etc. The phone is currently rooted running the Serendipity mod, though this issue was exactly the same on the stock firmware.
My home machine (the problem one) is an Athlon 64 2.2 Ghz.
My work machine is a Core 2 Duo, don't recall the model.
At work, I can do anything, mount the sdcard on the phone and copy easily, use adb to push, pull, uninstall, install. I can debug in ddms, install through Eclipse, etc, etc...
At home, if I reboot both the computer and phone and pull up a command prompt without having Eclipse open, I MIGHT be able to see the device by typing adb devices. Usually then, I can clear the logcat or run the logcat fairly stable. If I open Eclispe (my development IDE) and try to run a new build of an app, I'll generally lose the connection. The same thing happens if I try to copy files either via mounting or using pull with adb. Some files will copy, and suddenly the connection will be gone and the device will show offline to adb, or not in the list at all, or listed offline twice. Rebooting the phone sometimes helps, but not always. There are times I close Eclipse and every other app, reboot my phone and still end up having adb completely unable to detect the device. I'll use adb kill-server and adb start-server but this generally doesn't help. I use Avast for my anti-virus at home, but have tried without any anti-virus installed at all and it's the same. I've recently reinstalled Windows due to a hard drive crash and it was the exact same. I've tried every different USB port on my tower.
I hope VERY much someone can tell me what's wrong as I've been dealing with this for a year and a half now and it's about to make me lose my mind.
-Jeremiah

I have a similar problem, but it's just a loose connection on the cable I use at home

When I detach and reattach my usb cable, the problem goes away. Don't know if this is a cable problem or some kind of timeout problem. Any clues ?

This happens to me all the time but, for whatever reason, only when I'm debugging in the car. Weird.

My USB cable that shipped with the device is notorious for this problem when debugging. Charging is fine though. Anyway, I swapped to my old (and incidentally shorter) USB cable and now it's working.

Same issue with Pixel 2 and Macbook Pro 15 inch 2018. My USB C to USB type C cable is the original one from Google

Switching from USB 3.0 port to USB 2.0 solved the problem for me.
Most laptops come with both port types these days.

you saved my day. Old phones keeped disconnecting on usb 3 when installing APK

Same issue for me. It was a newer device too ... However, it constantly disconnected when plugged into a 3.0 port. Moving it to a 2.0 port worked great.

It's amazing, I never think that the problem lies on usb port.

Yep.  Had the same problem as @Climbatize.  Had to swap USB ports around until I found one that the device liked.  Newer devices have no issues on the same port(s), but the older device would disconnect every time Android Studio tried to install an APK.

tried a different usb-port and it works!

Connect your device through a powered USB hub. Some machines, including new apple macbooks, do not have enough power in the USB ports causing ADB to constantly disconnect.
If your device is rooted, you can connect it to adb via wifi. This is very comfortable, much more than wired USB. Of course you don't always have a rooted device.

Interesting.  Anyone else out there have problems with macintosh portables not supplying enough power to connected devices?

You don't need WIFI for tcp ip adb.  only need to have a working usb adb first to make the adb on the phone listen on tcp/ip.
with it connected on usb adb, type adb tcpip 5555 , disconnect usb, type adb connect your.phone.ip.number

I can’t believe I only came across this today. I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) and I’ve had this issue for months and searched all over the internet. My Galaxy S6 would randomly disconnect (often within a fraction of a second, always within about a minute of connecting). I just plugged it in via a powered USB hub and bam! It just works. Thanks, @grebulon.

Not sure if that's related or not, but simply switching from the left USB port to the right USB port on a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, 2012) apparently solved the issue!

This solved the issue for me and I am running a PC with 8 USB devices.  I added the powered hub and everything worked great.

This was annoying me for ages. Logcat would disappear or the phone would need to be reconnected to the USB for ADB to see it properly.
What worked for me was using one of the rear USB ports on my PC. The front ones probably were going through a dodgy hub or perhaps dodgy USB hub software. So if you are using front USB ports, try the ones on the rear.

I'm using an LG G3 marshmallow. I don't know why, but when I go to Developer options > Networking section > Select USB Configuration > MTP fixed it.
Before that, whenever I plug my phone to my PC, the driver installation window always froze at the start, but when I changed to MTP connection, the driver installation window immediately recognized it and the phone icon changed to an LG phone icon and finished installing.

Awesome! I Try all the hell of comments here and nothing fix it. This was just a charm!  I put the option ""Charging" and fix it, must be some weird issue, but for now works! you safe my life Daniel!

To me it sounds you have some bad hardware or drivers at home. Make sure you don't have anything related to Kies running; Kies + Samsung Windows Drivers seem to cause erratic behavior on USB connection that differs between machines...
Try different USB ports and cables first, tho.

I tend to agree here... I feel there basically has to be something up/incompatible with my home computer (board/cpu/usb ports). I've had no trouble with any other usb devices though... I use the same cable in both places... so well... I think I'm just screwed. I've been a hair away from upgrading my home machine with a new mobo... so I think that's going to just have to happen. It sucks though, I honestly don't have a need for a faster machine, the development I isn't particularly intense...

I was having this disconnect-reconnect problem.
I solved my problem in the Windows USB settings :
1- Open device Manager.
2- Human interface Devices.
3- Right click in one of them or double click.
4- go to power management.
5- Uncheck the option of "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" than OK.
Note* try to use step #3-5 on all available option*

(from http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1783536/usb-ports-disconnecting-reconnecting.html)

I used to have the same problems and also my logcat would clear and stop updating in Eclipse, the difference is I was on an official Samsung ROM then. After I switched to Darky's ROM the stability has been much better. Still, every now and then the device disappears, but usually it reappears after reattaching the USB. My PC is a bit different from yours (Atom D525, Win7) so I can confirm it's not restricted to a single device/OS.
I'd suggest reflashing the ROM or updating if possible. Or you could try it with another phone to see if it's an error specific to your phone. On the other hand, ADB isn't the stablest of software, so it could be just annoying hiccups.

I might try a buddies Vibrant... that is a thought... still, I'm not sure about the Rom being an issue since everything has behaved exactly the same on both the stock firmware and Serendipity... though I have been curious to try Firefly... we'll see.

I was having the same issue with my Nexus 4, running Cyogenmod 11 on Windows 8. I was plugging in using a USB splitter and my phone would keep disconnecting within seconds of being recognized by LogCat / DDMS. Switching to a physical port on my machine did the trick. In my case the front USB ports worked fine.

Find the location android-sdk-windows\platform-tools.
Open Command Prompt and then run these commands:

cd c:\android\sdk\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools
adb.exe kill-server
adb.exe start-server

These steps may solve your problem.

dont forget, your android-sdk-windows directory maybe different. so you must change string  by yourself => c:\android\sdk\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools

OP wrote: "I'll use adb kill-server and adb start-server but this generally doesn't help".

This is a workaround, not a solution.

The following two solutions worked for me.
You can try either of the two or both of them.

Restart device.
Free some internal storage space (Works in most of the cases).

Free some internal storage space - surprisingly this worked for me

I found a very easy solution. Same happened to me in Ubuntu 16.04 system. I applied following command.
adb kill-server
sudo adb start-server

When adb is running as admin it will not throw any error.

It might be because of a windows setting that is (rather stupidly) turned ON by default

Click 'Change advanced power setting' on your chosen plan and expand
'USB Settings'. Under 'USB Settings' section, expand 'USB selective
suspend setting' and change it to 'Disabled' for On battery and
Plugged In.

All the glory to thewindowsclub

Holly cow, I was having this issue on my desktop computer just by starting adb server and without devices connected (don't even talk about debugging) and this setting fixed it

Same issue here; I use adb on gnu/linux with no additional drivers.
Workaround Solution: unplug and replug USB
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=17111464#post17111464

Currently, my working method is to (and I still think this sucks) is to build, close Eclipse and plug and unplug till entering adb devices shows the device. If I have more than one showing, adb kill-server, then plug in and adb devices. Extremely tedious.

Frustratingly, this link goes to a forum, which has a link to another stack exchange site, which links to this thread.

adb on Debian/Ubuntu is currently as 1.0.29 connecting to android 4.2.2+ devices requires 1.0.31 which causes this error
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/android-tools/+bug/1131163
you can either manually install the latest android development kit or wait until the debian folks upgrade teh package

A different issue with the same symptoms when updated to MacOS Sierra.
Here's a workaround script:
#!/bin/bash

cat << EOF
###########################################################
# Workaround adb disconnecting issue on macOS Sierra
#
# More info:
# https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=219085
# credits to: hans...@meetme.com, vs...@google.com
###########################################################

EOF

function monitor_adb () {
  adb start-server
  echo "[$(date)] adb started"

  while [ "$(adb shell echo 1)" ]; do sleep 5; done

  echo "[$(date)] adb is broken, restarting"

  adb kill-server
  adb start-server || adb start-server
  adb reverse tcp:8081 tcp:8081
}

while [ true ]; do time monitor_adb ; done

This doesn't work for me. The kill/start just loops with no luck. MBP Retina 2015 Yosemite with S6 Edge FYI.

This should no longer be needed. Bug is fixed in 24.0.4 or later. As seen here: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=219085

I had same issue but only with Android 6/7 devices and Mac host. Solution was...switch device from  'Charging' to 'File transfer' mode.

Here's my answer with adb pull emulation workaround based on adb and dd. It continuously retries and resumes download when disconnection happens.

This will happen each time you leave adb connection open, need to disconnect after using adb session, to disconnect simply run
adb disconnect <ipaddress>

you replace ipaddress with ip of android device, same as adb connect.


text:
Reusing old Android phone?
I was curious if there is anyway to reuse an old Android phone? I have a Motorola Droid 1 that has been sitting around since I got my HTC Thunderbolt. Is there a way to use the phone as a "PDA" with the cell radio disabled? I got family member that would find it neat.

You could always let your family member friend use it as a phone as well...

You can still use all the functions of the phone (except carrier based calling of course) without a carrier contract.  However, the cell radio will eat up battery hugely!  To turn off the radio, dial *#*#4636#*#*, scroll down and click the "Turn off radio" button.  Bluetooth and WiFi will still function normally.
If your phone is rooted you can actually turn the radio off by setting a script to run that will automatically turn off the radio at boot time:

Create a script as a text file at the root of your SD card containing this text:

    #!/system/bin/sh
    #!/system/bin/radiooptions

    radiooptions 1

Install Script Manager app.
Open Script Manager and then select the script you created.
Check the "Run as root" option and the "Run at boot" checkboxes.
Click the "Save" button, and then click "Run" to test.

I do exactly this with my old og Droid myself and use it as a dashboard cam when I'm driving to record in case I'm in an accident.

very cool, this makes it actually worth reusing the old phone because I can isolate it from the cell network. Thanks.

My Galaxy Fame s6810p didn't have the radiooptions binary by default. Installed it via adb shell. When I manually run the binary with argument 1, the cell radio turns off for a few seconds, as indicated on the status bar, but then gets back on and reconnects to the cell tower. I'm manually running radiooptions via SSH after boot, maybe this is the problem.

I have an original Motorola Droid that no longer has phone service, but it works great as a WiFi device. It does almost everything except make phone calls and texts. Android MArket works, Amazon App Store works. Google Maps has a feature (look under the Labs menu) to pre-cache 10-mile square areas of a map. Then you can see where you are even when you don't have an Internet connection. I've even had it navigate somewhere with me, as long as it has WiFi coverage at the start, and as long as I don't go off course. Browser works. WiFi Analyzer works. It's still a great device even if it's WiFi only.

Yeah, just put it in Airplane mode.  Hold the Power button for a second and choose it from the pop-up menu.

Wifi will still work in airplane mode, but Bluetooth won't.

@Broam: Wifi doesn't work in airplane mode

@Lie On what phone? It works just fine on my SGS (turning on Airplane Mode will shut off WiFi, but it can be turned back on) and everything I've read says it's true for the Droid as well.

@Matthew Read: that's what I said; Wifi doesn't work when airplane mode is active, i.e. Wifi is disabled when airplane mode is active.

@Lie Airplane mode stays on when WiFi is switched back on.  You can shut off the mobile network via Airplane Mode and then turn on WiFi to keep using it while wasting less battery on cell standby; WiFi does work when Airplane Mode is active.

If the SIM card's been taken out, then you should be able to use it as a PDA, an MP3/video player, a pocket gaming device or even a mini web browsing tablet over Wifi without any problems. This is exactly the same as the people who reuse their old iPhones as iPod Touches for family members.

Its a CDMA phone, no SIM card.

If the phone is part of a carrier contract and the contract is still active, you might still be liable to pay the bill until the contract ends or you might have to pay early termination fee.
If you truly owned the device (i.e. the contract has ended or you purchased it without contract), then just contact your carrier and tell them that you're disabling the service (or transferring it to your new phone). Android should still work as a Wifi-only device.
Obviously since the phone will no longer has an always-on internet connection, so you might need to make adjustments to how you use the phone as you find certain applications becomes useless without an always-on internet connection. For example, live train/bus schedule application becomes useless and you would find an alternative that stores their data offline, Google Map might become less attractive, and apps that polls data every 5 minutes becomes just a battery waster since it can't get you the latest data anyway.

Ok so in my case contact Verizon and they can tell me what I need to do?

If you transferred your Verizon number from the Droid to the Thunderbolt, they've already done what they can do.   Follow @Matthew Read's advice and put the phone in Airplane mode, then turn Wifi on.    Mine's been in that setup for almost two months.

With some certain programming and a google voice number, you instantly have a wifi sipphone. Basically free calls anywhere as long as you don't need 911 service on it. All you would need is sipdroid a google voice number and the google voice program on the device. Search around the net and you will find how.

You can use it as anti-theft device for your bike or anti-burglary system for your home.
http://oplasoft.wordpress.com/products-3/

You also mention this shareware software in another question. If you are affiliated with the product please disclose that. Also refer to our FAQ about promotion.


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Notification snoozes alarm?
Found a pretty interesting feature/bug from the combination of K-9 Mail and the stock Alarm app on my Galaxy S (rooted + Darky's Rom 10.2, 2.3.4). This morning, just as the alarm started to ring, I got an email. This caused the alarm to snooze and the short email notification sound I have to play. I'd think that an alarm would have preference over an email notification, and thankfully I had a regular alarm clock as a backup.
Has anybody else run into this problem or is it just me? Suggestions how to avoid in the future?

As long as the alarm in fact snoozed and didn't get turned off I'd think you'd be safe, just maybe a bit later than normal. :) I can't find any other info about how to force alarms to play over notifications or of anyone  else having the issue. If you're worried you could silence your phone at night, then notifications would be silent but the alarm would still go off.


text:
A Subversion client on my tablet Asus Transformer?
I am a developer, but I write some novels and short stories, and I use subversion to backup and synchronize texts files between PC. I want to read and write my text files on my Asus Transformer, but as far as I can see there is no subversion client for Android. I have only found Subdroid, but it is limited to history browsing, I can't get files and commit them.
I know Ubuntu is available for the Transformer, and I already use it on PC. But it's not my first choice for this tablet.

I have just released an open source svn client that uses actual svn protocol... it is called OASVN (Open Android SVN) you can get it on the play market here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.valleytg.oasvn.android
Does svn checkout, update, commit, export, cleanup and revert. More to come soon.
More information and source are here: http://www.valleytg.com
Jira for requests: http://www.valleytg.com/jira

It looks like there's been a little work porting SVNKit to Android (see this), but actual source code isn't sitting around for anyone to use yet.
It's a little bit incredibly gross, but you could try introducing another syncing setup.  Something like Dropbox to store and sync files on your phone, and then commit the changes when you get to a machine with an SVN client.  This is obviously less than ideal.


text:
Editing multi-line text in address book fields
I often have multi-line text in my address book, in fields such as notes or the first line of the address.
Editing this seems near-impossible, as the text entry field only shows one line at a time.
Is there any way to cursor through the multiple lines of text so I can edit it easily?
The phone in question is an HTC Desire S.

Get an on-screen keyboard with arrow keys, such as Hacker's keyboard. I use it as a secondary input method, it's not so suitable to all situations but can quickly be switched from the long-press menu.


text:
Android Browser Brightness Setting
The web browser application on my Samsung Droid Charge has a Brightness Setting that can be accessed from the menu button while the browser is running. There is no setting to have the browser automatically use the same brightness setting as the phone, or use auto brightness. I have no idea why Samsung put in this setting without a way to turn it off! Is there a way to work around this?

There is no way to change this, but other browsers if you would like to install them would not be affected by those settings.

That sounds like the browser is a modified variant to suit Samsung themselves. On the stock AOSP Browser, I do not have that setting nor does it exist.

Samsung with its quest to be different, enriched the stock browser, with its own brightness control, totally separate from the OS.
No root
There's no workaround, you have to set the brightness independently.
Even using an app to control the brightness levels, as soon as you launch the stock browser, its own brightness control overwrites the one from the app.
Root
If you have root on your device, you can replace the browser .apk with the stock one from Android. You get the same browser, and in theory, without that annoying feature placed by Samsung (haven't done this myself).
Alternatives
There are alternative solutions for this, like many other users faced with your problem endup using, the usage of another browser that's not the stock one.


text:
How do I export & import files between Android devices and Windows OS?
How do I export and import binary files between Android devices and Windows OS as well as syncing the files between the two?

You can connect the device to the PC with a USB cable and access it via Explorer in the same way that you would a thumb drive.  In addition, I like using Dropbox to sync files in a wireless fashion.  I find this to be much easier and does not restrict movement of handset.

You mean Desktop Windows, right? If you are using Eclipse, you can pull/push files using the DDMS perspective.
You can also use the command-line tools to accomplish the same. Have a look at Stack Overflow - Moving files to SDcard on Android.

Installing new apps can be done using adb tool from the Android SDK:
platform-tools\adb.exe install abc.apk

Same for downloading files:
platform-tools\adb.exe pull /sdcard/filexyz

Or you use a GUI for ADB like DroidExplorer.
Via WLAN you can use software that shares the Android file system via HTTP or FTP. For example, if you use SwiFTP and change the shared folder from /sdcard to / you can access every file on the phone.
A connection via ADB is also possible in case you have a rooted phone - eg. via ADB wireless.


text:
Sleep Apps and Shared Beds
I've seen on the marketplace now several alarm clock applications that claim to analyze your motion patterns in your sleep, so as to determine the ideal time to wake you up such that you feel refreshed.  I am intrigued by this possibility;  however, I do not sleep alone.  Does anyone know if these apps work well, or even at all, if there are multiple individuals in the bed, each presumably moving on their own sleep cycle?

Can you post a link to the app? It sounds really interesting.

There are several apps of this category;  here's one example https://market.android.com/details?id=com.kyotoap.android.sleepcyclealarmlite&feature=search_result

https://market.android.com/search?q=Sleep+Cycle&so=1&c=apps

Yeah found some now.. too tired to be able to search ;)

No, it would probably not work if you don't sleep alone unless the one you sleep with don't move at all in their sleep.

I'd say it depends on the sleeping arrangements. Tempurpedic, for instance, markets heavily on the idea that your partner can jump up and down on the bed and it won't disturb you.

Yeah, but that would ruin the idea at the same time. If it won't disturb me that my BF is jumping in the bed, next to me, how is the app going to sense when you move in your sleep?

I think, it is worth trying to use this alarm with some kind of arm strap for your smartphone. These straps are ofter used with MP3 flash players. The divice's accelerometer will register your arm movement. But of cource, it wouldn't be able to determine if you moved your arm yourself or someone pushed it.

In short. It doesn't work.
The movements you have when you sleep indicates "muscle paralyzation", which is one of the factors that indicates your REM sleep cycle. However, this is one of the not-so-accurate ones. If you want real accuracy, you will need those that measure ECG with a headband (Zeo, for example).
In addition, most apps in the market does not give an accurate reading of your movements due to interference and sensor sensitivities.


text:
How do I activate voice dial outside the U.S.?
I just bought a Xperia PLAY running Android 2.3.3, and seems like the only way to use voice dial is through the Google Search app, which is capable of voice dialing, voice texting, etc., at least according to the YouTube demo. However, it looks like those services are only available in the U.S., according to the comments.
Poking around the services running in my phone, there's a "Voice Dial" app running (the icon is something like a phone mic), but it doesn't show in my installed apps and I don't know how to activate it... any ideas?
Here's an image of the Voice Dialer app icon.

Your image is 404.

Try long-pressing the Search button.  It should be tied to Voice Search by default.  Then say "dial xxx", where "xxx" is either a phone number (with the area code) or name of a contact from your phonebook.
Here are all the voice actions you can perform with the Voice Search app: http://www.google.com/mobile/voice-actions/
Note:
According to Google's last blog post on the subject, voice actions via this app only work in English language.  You might need to change your phone's locale to "US" or "UK" in order to get this to work.

Great! it shows the voice dialer, but when I say something, instead of dialing it does a google search for the words I said

Are you saying the word "Dial" before the number or "Call" before the person's name?

I just changed the language to US English, and it worked... It was previously in spanish (forgot to add that part in my original post).
So I guess it doesn't support spanish yet?

Yes, according to Google's last blog post on this subject, it only works in English: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/08/just-speak-it-introducing-voice-actions.html

:( I thought that it was a very basic functionality of a phone, as many of my previous phones had this (in spanish)


text:
Voice Dial Aliases?
So I frequently use the voice-activated dial feature, wherein you say aloud "Call Jeff" and it will locate "Jeff" in your contacts and dial him.  However, I have run into an issue which stems from the fact that I, and many of my family/friends, are of a minority origin, and therefore have names which do not really have a great English pronunciation.  My attempts to voice dial these contacts have met with nothing but frustration and failure;  I have no idea what the voice dialer would consider a match to those contacts.  Is there any way to 'alias' a contact, so that instead of saying "Call Apichatpong" (which will do naught but confuse the dialer) I can say "Call Uncle" or "Call Father-In-Law" or something to that effect?  I do NOT want to have to rename the contact;  the person's name is what it is, and I'd prefer to see it that way in the contacts.  I just need an additional way to refer to that contact for voice-dial purposes.  Is there a way to achieve this?

Have you tried using the "Nickname" field? There is also, if you expand the name while editing the contact, places for phonetic spellings of names. That might also help.

What voice dialer are you using, one special to your phone, or Google Voice commands?


text:
Correct text message time after boot up
Every time I have my phone turned off or in flight mode, after I turn it on again, the message sent to me while the phone was down appears to be received at the moment the phone finished booting up.
Is there any setting / work around that could display the time when the text message was sent / supposed to be received?

This might depend on your network, AFAIK the sent time is only available if the network provides it.

Some carriers do attach the sent time with the SMS. I'm not sure if it depends on the sender's or receiver's carrier. And some Android SMS apps let you choose that instead of local phone time. The SMS app in CyanogenMod 7 does for one, but check out HandCent, ChompSMS and Go SMS for alternative messaging apps.

Apparently it's an application issue:

The SMS packet itself that is sent from the SMSC to your phone, has a
  field called SCTS, Service Center Time Stamp, which indicates the time
  that the message was received by the SMSC.
Unfortunately, the SMS application on Android seems to ignore this
  timestamp and instead uses and stores the current system time (in ms
  since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC).


text:
Restore specific items using Titanium Backup without root?
I regularly backup my entire phone using Titanium Backup.
For the next two weeks or so, im going to be using my friends phone. Id like to restore a few things from the backup (contacts, some app data etc.) without rooting it. Is there any way?

You can normally unroot yes, but that's a separate question.

Titanium stores the .apk's in /sdcard/TitaniumBackup/ and the data in the same folder in zip files.  You can click the .apk to install it when viewing in a file manager.
To restore the data, you can extract the zip file on a PC and copy the contents of the data folder (another folder named something like com.domain.appname) to /data/data/ on the device using adb:
adb push com.domain.appname /data/data/

You just see me double-confused: OP asked without rooting -- so how to access /data/data then? And since when is /data/data read-only -- how should apps store their data then? Another point to take care with this method: for system stuff (here: contacts) a simple copy might break things if the ROMs/Android versions of the two devices differ. Not only hear-say, but my own sad experience ;)

@Izzy ADB should have access to /data/data without rooting; that's how Carbon works.  As for the read-only bit I was apparently thinking of the system partition? :P

look at the date -- no Carbon then (and Android 4.0 was released only 10/2011). 2) No, that's not how Carbon works. Carbon does not copy, but is simply a frond-end to adb backup and adb restore (I can give you more details in chat if you want). 3) yes, for r/o you most likely had /system in mind :)

So peeps, I'm also interested in backing up and MOST IMPORTANTLY RESTORING application data, can this carbon/adb do that on a NON-ROOTED device? A new tablet with warranty on 4.2.2. Just a simple answer with a pinch of hint, thank you.

@emm980 It's called Helium now and yes, the entire point is to backup & restore apps and data without root.

What if the backup was done in TitaniumBackup? How can I restore it on an unrooted phone?


text:
What is my phone doing when the boot takes a long time?
I have a Samsung Galaxy S with stock Android 2.3.3 (with carrier modifications, regretfully).
Usually, when I reboot the phone, it shows the boot animation for a few seconds, then goes to the lock screen while it finishes booting.  Every once in a while (though more often lately than it used to), the boot animation screen gets stuck for about 5 minutes before showing me the lock screen.
This happens both on clean boots (i.e. shutting it down from the power button menu and then restarting) as well as when the phone freezes and I restart it, or when it crashes.
What is the phone doing at this time?
Why does it do it sometimes and not at other times?
How can I avoid this?

Download and install the Android SDK.  On your handset's manufacturer website find and download USB drivers for your device, and install them.  On your phone go to Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Development and enable the USB debugging option.  Now when connect the phone to your PC via USB, you should see the "USB debugging connected" ongoing notification.
On your PC (I'm assuming Windows) start command prompt by going to Start -> Run, typing "cmd" and pressing enter.  Navigate to the "platrofm-tools" sub-folder of where you installed the Android SDK (e.g. "C:\AndroidSDK") by typing the following:

cd C:\AndroidSDK\platform-tools

and press enter.  Now issue the following command:

adb devices

and press enter.  If everything was installed correctly, the adb service will start and show your connected handset's serial number:

* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
  * daemon started successfully *
  List of devices attached
  HT035xxxxxxxx    device

You can now issue the adb logcat command to review your handset's logs in real-time.  Reboot while your handset is still plugged into USB (you will need to re-issue the adb logcat command when the phone restarts) and you will be able to see what your phone is doing during those long boot-up sequences.

If I had to guess, I would guess it runs fsck. On Linux and EXT3/FAT filesystems there's no way to check the file system when it's being used, so it's usually checked on boot.
However, it taking 5 minutes on such small disk sounds abnormal. Be sure to have backups of all data you have on your phone, it's possible that the hardware is failing.
If you have a memory card in it, it might make sense to take it out and run some diagnostics for it on a real computer. If the problem is in internal memory of the phone, then, well, apart from rooting the device it's hard to know.

AFAIR Samsung does not use EXT3. It uses a proprietary file system called "RFS".

Ext3FS is not a "de-facto" standard in stock ROMs (including Carrier modified ROMs, ie with carrier's bloatware) and assuming that it exists - see this answer I posted previously on different but similar subject matter. Ext3FS is more commonly seen on full-blown Linux desktops - not smartphones... hence -1 from me :)

t0mm13b: If the phone runs FAT variant, the result is the same. Linux cannot check filesystems when they are mounted, thus root filesystem can only be checked on boot time.

You can use the live boot app by chainfire, it will show you what your phone is doing while it's booting. It needs a rooted phone with SuperSU installed.


text:
How can I circumvent regional restrictions in Google's Play Store?
I'm travelling to country X. I want to install an application which isn't available in my country, but is available in country X; but I prefer to download and install it in advance, while the data connection is still cheap.
Unfortunately, the Play Stores does not allow me to install this app. Is there any way to circumvent this limitation?

For a starter: our google-play-store tag-wiki has some links on regional restrictions and how to circumvent them.

Try the Market Enabler app (download the APK and side-load it.)  It allows you to spoof your region, so that the Market thinks you're in the US.
As an alternative, you may want to see if this app is available via other distribution methods, such as from other reputable markets (e.g. Amazon Appstore, SlideMe.org, GetJar.com, etc.)  Also reaching out to the developer can sometimes help.

That looks useful, though unfortunately my device is not (yet) rooted, which this application requires... maybe it's time to root.

its not working now, is there an updated way?

Try using a VPN and a Google Play store e-mail address set to the region you want to download an app from (I created one specially for this purpose).
I successfully set up a free one day trial VPN using an Android app. Then I fired up the Google Play store and installed the apps that I wanted. Then uninstalled the VPN app (which disabled the VPN). Now I've got the apps that I wanted and am able to use them in my region.
Aside: The content these apps serve up (Dutch video) is available in my region through the web browser. And, when there are restrictions the apps and the web browser respect the geographic restrictions so I really don't get why these @$!$)&^ apps are region restricted.

I've tried this app which in just one click unlocked the market!
Market Unlocker

Looks useful... though it also requires root.

Have they (Google) patched this yet? I have stock ROM with root and s-off on a HTC Desire. I downloaded and manually installed the APK file of MarketEnabler from the pronject's Google Code page. Tried faking T-Mobile US and Verizon. It had no effect. So I registered with DroidVPN, installed the Tun.ko installer, which downloaded the proper Tun.ko module. I was then able to connect with DroidVPN to their US server FREE number 3. I then cleared data and cache for Play Store. I then tried faking it with MarketEnabler again. Didn't work!!

Google Play support says:

You can only change your Play country once per year.

When you change your country, you won’t be able to use your Google Play balance that you have in your old country in your new country.

So, avoid Google Play and use another market app. I suggest either:

APKPure
Aptiode

Both allow auto-updating apps.

I overcame this by creating a new Google account localised to country X. In my case I needed a new phone number too (not associated to my existing Google account), but I already had a local phone number, so this was no issue. No VPN required, though I was already in country X.
After that, I was able to add the new Google account to my phone, switch to this account in the Google Play app, and then I could browse/access apps available in country X.

Install a VPN app from the store and hide your location play store won't recognize your location if you do that and remember to disable GPS

authors: محمود المقطري


text:
How can I change the Locale in the default browser?
I have a Nexus One with Android 2.3.3 and I use the default browser. My phone doesn't have "Swedish" as language setting, so I use English. But now when I use Google, I'm not redirected to the Swedish edition (google.se), probably because the browser doesn't use a Swedish locale. Is there any way I can change the locale for the browser? I have looked in the settings but couldn't find it. Any suggestions?

On the google website homepage itself in your browser, scroll down to were it says:
iGoogle Settings Help
press 'settings'
and turn off 'allow use of device location'
I have then found my browser always goes to google.com (were it was going to google.de)
EDIT
I've just seen you want the opposite. So perhaps turn this option on!

I'm sure for the android browser the locale is done on Googles side. Are you signed into google? I would set the location like I said. If your in sweden and the site is a good one you should get .se :-)


text:
What is Samsung galaxy tab 10.1 usable screen resolution?
The screen is 1280 x 800 pixels but the system bar uses up some of the vertical height.
So what is the screen resolution minus the black system bar at the bottom?
This is needed to configure an RDP client to exact screen dimensions.

My testing indicates a usable resolution of 1280 x 750


text:
Can I use a larger battery in my Galaxy S?
I have standard 1500mah battery in my Samsung Galaxy S phone and it lasts around 24 hours. Can I use a larger (say 1650mAh) battery so I can get a bit more battery life?

What battery is this, exactly? Is it an official Samsung battery for the SGS?

Which battery you want to know, are you asking about 1650Mah battery?

Yeah, the current battery's irrelevant.

A battery such as this extended battery from Mugen Power can be used on the Galaxy S without adding thickness and will usually give you around 30% better battery life. Always be careful when using non-OEM batteries in your phone, there are a lot of cheap ones out there, but a no-name brand battery might leak or short out. Read the reviews and remember, you get what you pay for.


text:
How to get visual email and message notifications on lockscreen?
I am very new to Android. I tried searching in this forum and google in general without finding an answer.
I would like to be able to see notifications on my unlock screen. For example, 3 unread gmail messages, 5 unread exchange messages, 1 new sms, 2 new voicemail. Is this possible?
If this is not possible can I at least do it on my home screen? I have widgets for all these there, but they don't seem to show a little number on the icon with unread.
I feel as though this is a no-brainer feature, but I just can' figure it out.

GOTO Lockscreen is probably what you want! It gives you information about your incoming notifications, allows you to navigate straight to them from the unlock screen, and is fully customizeable.
If you don't find that helpful, WidgetLocker could probably help you out too :)
BONUS: If you add ADW Notifier with either of these, you will get small number icons to alert you to any unattented-to actions graphically.

If you want to see the notifications immediately, you can get them even when the display is "off" with NoLED (if your device is compatible). Note that this was designed for AMOLED displays, so it might eat a lot of battery on other screens.


text:
How to switch sd cards when using a data2whatever (d2w) custom ROM?
I'm currently running MIUI XJ (Gingerbread 2.3.5) with d2w on my HTC Desire with the 4GB sd card it was shipped with, but as I found the joy of the occasional ROM-switch, I found myself running out of storage on the sd card, which was filling up with alternate roms, flashable updates for said roms, nandroid backups of different roms, titanium backups, miui backups and, well, the stuff I'd actually like to use (photos, music).
So my question is: How can I safely replace an sd card with a bigger one, even if the original one is partitioned in a special way to make use of d2w?
I realize I could simply partition the bigger sd card similarly to the original one, but what if I need a bigger sd-ext partition? (Which I, indeed, need for some Gingersense ROMs).
Will the system simply accept the bigger partition or do I have to make a nandroid backup with the original sd card and reflash that backup once the bigger, partitioned sd card is mounted? Would the partitions remain untouched?
Would there be any considerable loss if I boot the system with the partitioned sd card with an empty ext-partition? As you can see, I don't even really know what sort of data is stored there.
EDIT:
So, I did it.
My solution (not optimal, but worked. Keep in mind: With the HTC Desire, you can't switch SD cards while the battery is in, so no "on the fly" way. Also, I have no proper card reader lying around.):

Backup of ALL the things (Nandroid backup, just in case, MIUI/Titanium Backup for apps+system settings (things stored on the sd-ext partition) and a full copy of the previous FAT32 partition)
Put the new SD card in the phone and partition it (I used 4EXTRecovery so I could do it in the phone and increased the sd-ext partition from 256 to 1024mb)
Mount the sd card on a computer, copy the contents of the old FAT32 to the new one (FAT32 partition should now be the same as before and it has your MIUI/TitaniumBackup on it)
Boot the system (may be slow since there is now an empty data partition), when the system is up, you can restore your backups via MIUI Backup and/or Titanium Backup. I used Google to sync contacts and messages etc were synced with MIUI Backup, if you are not running a MIUI then you can use SMS Backup+ for messages.
System is now the same as before, but the partitions are bigger :)

Recommended solution I stumbled upon that seems easier to me:

Mount the sd card on a pc, open in the partitioning tool of your choice (I was told partition wizard would do the trick)
Clone the sd card as a whole
Apply that clone to the new sd card
Increase the partitions as you like
Put the new sd card in your phone. Should work exactly like before.

The only thing I can think of is that the system might rely on the specific size of the partitions, but I'm not sure.

That's what I am afraid of :) I hope there's someone around here who has tried something similar.

AFAIK the different partitions are identified by their ordering on the SD card. Therefore the standard FAT32 partition comes first, followed by the app/data partition (usually ext3 or ext4). Sometimes a swap partition follows as third partition.
If you use the same partition pattern (number of partitions and partition types) on the new sd-card there should be no problem. The partition sizes should not play a role - as long as you don't reduce the size.
Just partition the sd-card, format the partitions and copy your data from your old sd-card over to the new.

Thanks, +1 for helpful info :) So, do you think I should copy the data of the ext-partition as well? (I'm just asking because that would mean that I need to get a linux live cd or something, since I'm running Mac OS X and Windows 7, bot without (native) ext4 support (as far as I know)

I can confirm that the order and type of partitions is the only thing that matters.  And yes, you will need to copy the contents of the Ext partition if you want to retain all apps and settings that reside there.

@Jemus42: If you already have installed a virtualization software like VMWare you can run the Linux system in the VM and only route the SD-Card reader (I assume it's an USB reader) into the VM.

@Cahk: Thanks, I suspected something like that. / Robert: My USB card reader can't cope with the SD/MicroSD-adapter, so I'd need to use the phone. My recovery (4ext recovery, a CWM-derivative) supports usb sd access, so that might even work. Or I'll just get a proper card reader. But thanks for the VMware hint, got that lying around anyways :)


text:
What does the green/amber/red light next to the time remaining in navigation mean?
I think it's something to do with how fast/slow you're going, but some clarification would be nice.

+1 Oh how I want to know the answer to this. My guess was it was showing the traffic-state of the roads left on your journey (green = clear, red = congested).

Google Maps Navigation also provides Live Traffic Information along your route, updated every few minutes. A red/amber/green light in the corner shows if there are any traffic problems anticipated along your route. If there are, you can see where the holdups are and have the option to press to re-route which will find a route avoiding the traffic holdups.

Source: http://mobile.jack-frost.co.uk/google_maps_navigation_review_uk.php
Also: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=4f7b34dd18f74b75&hl=en
(Via: Google Search For "google navigation amber green light")


text:
What is the difference between running/installing cm7 off SD and EMMC for Nook Color?
I'm trying to decide whether I want to run CM7 off a SD card or run it off the EMMC (internal memory) for my Nook Color. I'm just not getting what is happening when I run off an SD card and when I run it off the EMMC. Also, the install instructions are confusing me. Here are two popular ones that people are using, I am wondering if someone care to explain to me what is actually different between the two. Thanks.
SD:
http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/nook-color-technical/13156-how-cm7-bootable-sd.html
EMMC:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1030227
Thanks!

Since the SD Cards are slower than internal NAND memory, by running a ROM off the SD  you will be sacrificing on the speed.  Things like booting up and launching apps will be noticeably slower.  The class rating of your SD Card will play a large role in how much slower your NC will feel when running in such configuration.  It's generally recommended to buy at least a Class 6 card for this purpose.
By running custom ROMs from the SD Card you will be able to easily keep the original manufacturer installed firmware intact.  In Nook Color the SD Card is set as a primary boot device, so if it contains a bootable ROM image, it will be used instead of whatever is installed on EMMC.  By just inserting such a card into the microSD slot and turning the NC on, you will be running a custom ROM.  Boot up without this card - and you're back on the EMMC ROM, be it stock or a different custom one.  This can be quite beneficial for quickly testing out new experimental ROMs (e.g. Honeycomb builds) without blowing away your main one.
Although it's possible to multi-boot off EMMC without utilizing the SD Card at all, it's a lot more complicated to set up and maintain.  This involves re-partitioning the internal memory, using a custom boot image, and modifying the start-up scripts for each ROM you'd like to have installed side-by-side.  Needless to say, this type of installation is not for a novice.

Thanks for you help. I have a class 10 micro sd card, which should be fine. I've considered installing it via emmc but after reading so many tutorials, it seems like a hassle to upgrade and things like that.

Class 10 should give you a very good performance.  Overall, NCs are notoriously hard to brick.  Even if you manage to mess up all the partitions, you can always burn a bootable SD Card with an image of ClockworkMod recovery, stick it in and turn it on.  Once in Recovery, you will have ADB access and can restore it to a working condition.


text:
I cancelled SIM unlock and now I cannot unlock the device
When I inserted SIM card into my phone I tapped the "cancel" button, assuming that it would be possible to unlock it later. But I fear that my assumption was wrong.
The device is a Sony Ericsson XPERIA X8.
Sadly I cannot find anything in "Settings" to unlock the SIM.
I have tried removing and inserting the SIM card several times, but it doesn't help. Somehow the devices remembers that I selected cancel. I'm not seeing any prompts related to unlocking the device.

I can see that the APNs page is empty. There is no Add button on it.
Settings -> Wireless & network settings -> Mobile network settings -> Access Point Names

Mobile network state
Disconnected

Firmware version
2.1-update1

Build number
2.0.1.A.0.47

Model number
E15i

Is it hidden in another app or is there something I have overlooked?

Finally solved it.. I have found this ansewer by yy502 on cyanogenmod
1) you've missed the PIN prompt when phone starts up. no phone calls.
2) go to "location & security settings"
3) go to "set up SIM card lock"
4) un-tick "Lock SIM card"
5) enter your PIN as required
6) your phone will now connect to the mobile network. full bars!!
7) re-tick "set up SIM card lock" if you still want to protect your phone using SIM card PIN
8) enter your PIN as required


text:
Where does Adidas Micoach loads music files?
I have a lot of music on my android phone that I want to listen when im running and using Adidas Micoach apk to trainning that I cant listen because Micoach doesn't list the music files on his player. I take a look and didn't find any option to load music from specific path on SD on micoach. Does someone knows where Adidas Micoach loads it's list of music?

According to this review, you may need to create playlists in the Android's stock Music player app, and miCoach will pull those playlists in.


text:
Are there any Android phones that allow Bluetooth PAN off the shelf?
I'm specifically looking for an off-the-shelf solution.
Without going into too much technical detail, I need to connect a phone via Bluetooth to a device and receive IP traffic from the device. Bluetooth PAN provides that functionality, but it seems to be disabled by default in most commercial Android phones. Short of recompiling the OS, are there phones available (specific models, or buying directly from the manufacturer etc) that allow Bluetooth PAN?
edit: I'm actually looking for any solution that would allow me to establish a network connection from the phone to the device. The device's onboard NIC doesn't allow it to be configured as a WAP.

This earned me a Tumbleweed... can anyone help?

Android 4.0 devices (or already 3.0?) allow this.
Both client and host PAN roles are supported (I guess this was deliberately introduced by Google for UMTS-less tablets).
On the PAN host: Enable bluetooth tethering in the settings
On each device: Pair with the host and enable "Internet access" in the bluetooth device's tab:


text:
How the f*&% to stop voice-to-text from censoring profanity?
The voice-to-text feature is very useful, but every once in a while when sending an SMS or email message to a friend, I want to really let loose.
However, Google, in their defense of my virginal eyes, replaces such words with hashes (####) if it recognizes the word at all.
How do I turn off this ####### "feature"?

Here's my trouble: it worked on my previous droid razr maxx, but after I got it replaced with another when it got broken, even when I uncheck "block offensive language" or whatever under the voice-text input, it STILL does it.

There is a checkable/uncheckable option called Block offensive words under Settings → Voice input & output → Voice recognizer settings.
In Android 8.1, that setting is in Settings → System → Languages & input → Virtual keyboard → Google voice typing → Block offensive words
For Samsung phones, the settings are named slightly differently: from the Settings app, try Language & input → Voice search settings → Block offensive words. This of course only works with the integrated Google voice recognition.
You also have to go to the gboard where the virtual keyboard is and also turn off that block for offensive words
For Android 4.3 (and possibly earlier versions):
Settings → Language & input → Google voice typing (settings) → Block offensive words
For Samsung S8+: Settings → General management → Language and input → On screen keyboard → Google voice typing → Block offensive words

I have a Moto E on Boost Mobile. It's a little different. Settings > Language & Input > Google Keyboard > Text Correction (There is also a setting called Current Keyboard. Make sure to go into Google Keyboard instead.) "Block Offensive Words" switch off, and you can curse like a sailor!
Edit-  That didn't change the censored output, but they're right! There's another one. Settings, Lang. & Input, Google Voice Typing, Block Offensive Words switch. This one made the output change. Wonder what the other one is for?


text:
Dialog boxes only work when tablet is tipped! DDouble letterss?
One of my Samsung Galaxy Tabs v10.1 will not accept certain dialog input unless the tablet is some other direction than right-side up (left portrait, right portrait or upside down all work fine). For example hold the power button to turn it off, it asks "are you sure you want to shutdown?" It ignores all touches including "Ok" or "Cancel".
Also when you use the keyboard it often inserts two letters on one key push.
Thinking that this HAS to be a software issue I rooted and installed clockwork Mod ROM manager and restored an image from another working tablet. No change. This is the weirdest issue to date with my tablet adventures. Any idea what is going on?
UPDATE: Samsung repair said the screen was bad. They didn't elaborate but at least I have a working tablet now!

That sounds like a screen problem, and gravity is affecting whether or not a connection is being properly made.  I would guess a loose ribbon cable or something like that.

no because the tablet works fine other than the two issues i mentioned above and you can lay it flat on a table and depending on the image orientation it will either work (upside down image) or won't work (right side up image) with the tablet in the same position

Ah, I misunderstood.  That's really weird!

further testing reveals the double letter issue only happens when tablet is right side up as well.

@Michael: Since the solution was a Samsung repair, please leave that as an answer and "accept" it.

Samsung replaced the screen (it was under warranty)

I'd suggest a full wipe, maybe it's a glitch. Otherwise it sounds like a hardware problem. By the way, I have understood that it's a bad idea to use a Nandroid backup from another device since some device-specific information could be moved as well.

I had already done a wipe...nothing seemed to change it so I sent it back to Samsung. Also, I've had no issues restoring from other identical devices. If some device specific data is moved I haven't encountered any issues as of yet.

At least older Samsung phones had a /efs partition which contains the IMEI and MAC addressses for WiFi/BT. This is not supposed to be copied, messes up networks if two devices with the same details are active. Don't know if this is present on tab10, haven't rooted mine.


text:
How can I hang up on only one party when using call waiting?
I have an HTC Thunderbolt. When I use call waiting, I can't hang up on one line without the phone hanging up both calls. How can I hang up on just one party?

Switch to the call you want to end, hit end. A few seconds later the other caller will "call you back", which is actually just the other call resuming. It's weird, but that's how cdma signaling works. "it's not a bug, it's a feature"


text:
Safe mode on LG Optimus 2X
I accidentally added a task to Tasker which reboots the phone on startup.
How do I boot into safe mode on LG Optimus 2X to disable it?

Have you tried holding the menu button while it boots up?  Do you have any reason to believe it has safe mode?

If your G2x is rooted, the easiest work-around would be deleting the Tasker's data from recovery.  Download and install Android SDK and LG's drivers for the G2x.  Reboot the G2x into recovery mode (preferably ClockworkMod), connect to PC, and in command prompt issue the following commands:

cd C:\AndroidSDK\platform-tools\
  adb shell
  su
  rm -rf /data/data/net.dinglisch.android.taskerm
  reboot

This should remove all Tasker profiles, including the "bad" one.


text:
Force all emails to display only the text/plain part
HTML mail is a pain to read on a phone. The screen is too narrow and the images take too long to download. Typically without the images the mail is just useless.
HTML mail is only slightly less of a pain on my desktop, but there I can use Mutt and just read the text/plain part if it exists. Is there a way to make my mail client default to reading the plain text part of the mail rather than the HTML part? My mail is on an IMAP server, so I use the default Android mail client. I looked at K9 Mail too but it doesn't seem to have a way to do this either. I don't use Gmail and for a variety of reasons I have no interest in using it even if it solves this problem. Any other suggestions welcome, thanks!

K9 can open an email without displaying the images. There's a Show Pictures button in case you want to see the images. What problems are you having?

On my device (Samsung Galaxy S3 with Jelly Bean 4.1) I could change this by setting the "Size to retrieve emails" to the minimum (2kb here) on the account settings in the email app.